Does Indian literature owe its global success to the Raj?
As close to 50,000 people prepare to celebrate India’s bulging roster of nationally and internationally renowned authors and poets at the seventh annual Jaipur Literary Festival, a public spat between its British organiser and an Indian magazine over allegations of perpetuating “a Raj that still lingers” threatens to ignite a decades-old debate over the role of colonial English in the country’s literary success.
As Delhi-based William Dalrymple and his fellow organiser stress the festival’s intent to showcase works from India’s array of states and dialects to thousands of book lovers, an article in India’s Open magazine this month claimed the festival matters “because of the writers from Britain it attracts”.
India’s literary elite has long wrestled with its complicated post-colonial legacy, sharpened by the huge international success of Indian writers such as Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth and Kiran Desai, who have put the former British colony on the literary map, but live, sell more books and win more awards in the UK or the U.S.
In the past five years, two Indians — Desai and Chennai-born Aravind Adiga — have won the prestigious Man Booker Prize. While the prize has been attacked by some for its arguably colonial legacy of rewarding writers in English from the British Commonwealth, Desai and Adiga saw their international profile soar, replicating the global success of former winners Rushdie and Arundhati Roy.
The article, titled “The Literary Raj” argues that the festival reaffirms the inferiority complex among Indian writers who crave international and specifically British recognition, suggesting that through his western-centric festival, Dalrymple has become “the pompous arbiter of literary merit in India”.
“The festival then works not because it is a literary enterprise, but because it ties us to the British literary establishment,” wrote Hartosh Singh Bal, an Indian novelist himself, in the January edition of the magazine.
Are there too many sacred topics in India?
Protests and television debates on the apex court’s decision to OK the publication of a book on Maratha ruler Shivaji, banned in 2004 by the Maharashtra government, has put India back in the spotlight on the question of freedom of expression.
India is secular and a democracy but a country with a billon-plus population — consisting of hundreds of tribes, clans and castes following myriad beliefs — can be pretty fickle when it comes to defining ‘sensitive’ topics and easily susceptible to parochial politics.
The list of subjects considered “sacred” in the country include the extended Gandhi family, Ambedkar, Periyar, Subhash Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, Veer Savarkar and maybe a few thousand more people, said an editorial in the ‘Mint’ daily.
“Shivaji – The Hindu King in Muslim India” by American James Laine was banned after a little known rightwing group ransacked the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune, which Laine had mentioned in his acknowledgement. The group alleged the book was derogatory to the Maratha leader.
India has always been accommodative of interest groups with political parties quick in trying to score political points over sensitive topics. Any literary or artistic work on religious, political and historical figures has always endured intense public scrutiny.
Reams of newsprint and television debates have focused on the clash between censoring works deemed objectionable by some and the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and expression.
from FaithWorld:
Ex-nun urges Indian Catholic Church reform in tell-all book
A Roman Catholic nun who left her convent in India after 33 years of service has penned an unflattering picture of life within the cloistered walls in a book that may further embarrass the Church.
In "Amen: The Autobiography of a Nun", published in India in English this month, Sister Jesme tells of sexual relations between some priests and nuns, homosexuality in the convent and discrimination and corruption in Catholic institutions...
"Amen" grabbed media headlines in February, when it was first published in Malayalam -- the regional language of Kerala. With the new English edition and offers of a film based on the book, Sister Jesme's plea for a reformation of the Church is now set to reach a wider audience.
My initial impression of Bal’s first piece was that Hartosh Singh Bal has a major chip on his shoulder and/or is a publicity-seeker.
My opinion, after his rebuttal, did not change.
As has been pointed pointed out by numerous commenters and Dalrymple himself, the nature of audiences, sessions and speakers at JLF destroys Bal’s claims. Pre-JLF, Indians complained that no-one was taking notice. Now, Bal has found a new grouse.
In terms of approval, I think there is a larger phenomenon at work here. When it comes to politics and diplomacy, successive Indian Governments always sought the approval of the US in the post-Cold War 1990s period. Registering complaints against what they perceived as ‘transgressions’ by Pakistan occurred regularly. This probably happened because the US was seen as the world superpower at the time.
Similarly, Indians have traditionally grown up on a diet of British literature, reading about well-established British literary awards. It is natural to think of Britain as a leading literary power.
Apropos ‘celebrity’ writers getting more attention than ‘great writers [from Europe]‘, doesn’t the celebrity culture pervade all aspects of public life? Who does Bal think would get more media attention during red carpet movie award/music events?
As for any ongoing need for British approval, more and more Indians in the middle-class see the US as their choice for higher education, etc. American television and cultural influences, American slang, trends are all more prevalent in India today. Gone are the days of domination of English public-school and Oxbridge-educated grandees in the Indian political and diplomatic circles. It therefore baffles me how Bal finds this particular kind of cultural cringe to be very strong in India….. And his tone in his first piece is shockingly offensive (as with most such offensive pieces, a result of his ignorance).
To me, Bal’s pieces suggest his refusal/inability to accept Dalrymple as an Indian writer. And refusal to accept that a British-born writer could head a major Indian literary festival without it having imperial-colonial implications.