Thread about evaluating Indian Literature as Postcolonial. I would disagree,a bit strongly, with d premise that "Desi" literature can be best analyzed critically as PoCo. Its a critical lens that took birth in a certain metropolitan academy and has been shackled by it. 1/n
It may be true, somewhat, of Indian English fiction for it to manifest 'postcolonial' concerns. However, a reminder, Amitav Ghosh @GhoshAmitav had once pulled his novel out of the reckoning for the Commonwealth Fiction Prize saying he didn't believe in these categories. 2/n
The entire circus of Postcolonial Literature started with Empire Writes Back ed by Bill Ashcroft et al. It sounded good that 'the colonies were writing back to the Centre'. I'm not sure if telling Europe that Africa was advanced was exactly Achebe's purpose in writing 3/n
his novel, Things Fall Apart. Wouldn't that be too simplistic a view of Achebe? More importantly, PoCo was originally a marker of time, of post 1947 (for us), a matter of pedagogical convenience. Our authors got the visibility internationally in critical discourse. 4/n
However, more importantly, what the overarching critical discourse of PoCo does is to subsume all Indian Literature into it or worse to engender such literature in questionable critical discourse. In a sweep, Salman Rushdie and Rohinton Mistry are postcolonial. Are they? 5/n
In the same critical sweep, Nissim Ezekiel, A. K. Ramanujan, Dom Moraes, Keki N. Daruwalla, Agha Shahid Ali, Jayanta Mahapatra, Sridala Swami @sridala, Ranjit Hoskote @ranjithoskote, Arundhati Subramanian and a host of other poets would be called 'postcolonial'. 6/n
I'm sorry but this is the chicanery of the critic; this is akin to pseudoscience. And it is eminently harmful to the author. So, as I have seen for over two decades, it is convenient to teach Raja Rao's Kanthapura as a novel of Indian ethos, while the fact remains 7/n
Raja Rao was in France when the novel was written. Why is Kanthapura not taught as a novel of 'exile, diaspora' as Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey? Why is Mistry's novel not taught as Parsi community novel? What is postcolonial then about it? 8/n
Interestingly, in the entire oeuvre of Rohinton Mistry's works, there does not seem to be a phrase of Canadian English used, nor there seems to be a Canadian character in it? So, what 'postcolonial angst /characteristics' does he display? Just because he's in Canada... 9/n
Look at Rohinton Mistry's brother, Cyrus Mistry's novel, Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer. Look at the treatment of a marginal community of corpse bearers in Parsis, the dark humour and the name of the character, Phiroze Elchidana. Nothing Postcolonial there at all. 10/n
In fact, I have not known any Parsi surname as 'Elchidana' -- a single ilaichi/cardamom seed! I think it is Cyrus Mistry's way of having fun as an author. Look at the cuss words in that novel. And see how they are used. At times, it's just how they talk. 11/n
I have seen poems Keki N Daruwalla has written as 'reply' to C. P. Cavafy and in his collection of poems on the Persians and the Greeks, he has more instances. He was at my University for a Meet the Author a couple of years ago. I asked him about his Cavafy influences.. 12/n
Keki N Daruwalla clearly said that there was no such specific influence as I stated it. I had made the classic mistake of extrapolating couple of poems dedicated to Cavafy as an influence... Ok, you could say, Daruwalla didn't want to answer me. Then, what about 13/n
his collection of poems, Crossing of Rivers. Or, Keeper of the Dead. What is so postcolonial about these collections of his poems?
All right, even if we assume that most Indian English authors are postcolonial, then literature in our languages certainly isn't. 14/n
All right, even if we assume that most Indian English authors are postcolonial, then literature in our languages certainly isn't. 14/n
Look at a collection of Tamil Sangam poems that AK Ramanujan translated in 1967. This was Poems of Love and War, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Yes, he used the modern English poetic form to translate the poems. However, look at the world encapsulated in them. 15/n
There's nothing postcolonial at all about those poems. One such poem (Ramanujan translation-- Of Red Earth and Pouring Rain) even made it to the London Underground. Nothing postcolonial there, even though this is 1967 and published in US. 16/n
Indian literature in our languages is multilayered at times and it would be sheer travesty to call it 'postcolonial'. For instance, the autobiography of (dalit poet, Namdeo Dhasal's wife) Malika Amar Sheikh translated by Jerry Pinto. 17/n
Or look at UR Ananthamurthy's novel, Samskara, translated by AK Ramanujan. Ramanujan does a splendid translation. However, there's nothing vaguely Western/ Euro-American about the novel and the themes it deals with. Even it's world and worldview. 18/n
Look at the Malayalam novel, Legends of Khasak by OV Vijayan. If Vijayan had translated it when he wrote it, the world would have known him as the torchbearer of 'magic realism'. Marquez might have got some less credit. Nothing postcolonial about Vijayan's novel as well. 19/n
In fact, there's a pre World War II novel. Twilight in Delhi by Ahmed Ali. You can't call it postcolonial and can't just ignore it by saying, it's precolonial. Twilight in Delhi is an absolutely amazing novel. It's a rare tour de force. 20/n
What Chinua Achebe does with the English language in Things Fall Apart, something similar Ahmed Ali does in Twilight in Delhi. He imbues the English language with Urdu and Hindustani. Reading the novel, it seems like it's written in another language. 21/n
I think we are being unfair to the rich variety of Indian literatures if we just look at them as 'postcolonial' in nature. I could go on with a lot more examples but I would like to end this thread here. 22/22. End
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