A Capitalist-Colonial Analysis from Post-independence to the Twenty-first Century Literature
Abstract:
This paper is an attempt to trace the evolution of the Indian Protagonist from the perspective of their self –identity established as a consequence of deep-rooted colonialism and the dilemma between their post-colonial self. Related aspects of contemporary culture as well as contemporary literary identity are studied in light of consumerism and globalization both of which are a domineering presence in Indian socio-political environments. Tracing the sense of disillusionment in modern identities can be considered as omnipresent in many narratives. The process of writing this paper has given an access into the minds of protagonists, their suffering, their identity crisis, dislocation and thereby a resultant self-modification of these variant characters as found in a modern hybrid culture. The paper is significant because it provides a stark contrast between the post-colonial and the ever evolving twenty first century Indian. The protagonists can even be perceived as a reflection of our own selves as we identify an unconscious association to the capitalist -colonial world which has profoundly impacted the radicalization of western supremacy in local culture.
Keywords: post-colonialism, ideological control, Indian protagonist, identity crises, consumerism.
Cultural consumerism coupled with post-colonial undercurrents in India, has long been the intellectual temperament of the country. For almost seven decades, we, as nationals, have witnessed an unfaltering psychological imbalance between our forces of practical freedom rendered by the independence in 1947 and the deep-rooted slave mentality which in turn creates the mental commotion of – ‘who to identify with?’ This paper hence is a humble attempt to study this state of dilemma begot in the mind of the now individualistic, socio-literary citizen of India who though free in substance is still making efforts to completely get rid of the mental clutches of psychological colonialist tendencies and capitalist colonialism.
Colonialism in the literary sense brings to the mind the ideological tortures propagated upon the simplistic colonized victims of the ruling countries. India once being a British colony has seen the implications of such colonization within its culture. With the advent of the Charter Act of 1813, the intellectual hegemony of British superstructures on Indian natives led to the eradication of the use of native languages and dialects in India. Languages such as Arabic and Sanskrit gradually narrowed down to a significant little with no funding given to native educational institutions. English became a crucial medium of communication between the British and the natives. Moreover, an English education led to the accessibility of civil posts and good professional opportunities in government bodies. The history of Dalit conversion and ensuing dominion of British supremacy over India may also be associated with the deep-rooted post-colonial attitude of protagonists found in literature where local culture is negated. The hegemonic effects of the British hence can be easily seen in the cultural aspects of India such as the obsession of the common Indian man with fair skin; or the association of the English Language with a sense of ‘superiority’. The association of British supremacy over native Indians may find vent in the pathos of narratives like Nectar in a Sieve, Karrukku, Untouchable among many more who observe the plight of natives occurring as a consequence of feudal and communal exploitation. It is therefore obvious for the natives, especially Dalit subalterns and the socio-economically marginalized to relate and also work in favour of imperial rule which does not segregate them on the basis of caste and class but rather oppresses them in wholesomeness with their race. In the same sense, such complexes may be connected with the advent of the generations coming across culture shock and other related issues that drastically happened with the popularization of Diasporic Literature. Writers like Naipaul, Rushdie and Lahiri talked about the association of emotions of longing for home along with the protagonists’ assimilation to a new culture of the outer world. The arrival of globalization further advanced the level of hybridity among such identities which have to deal with cosmopolitan affectations during the dawn of the new millennium.
As Jacques Lacan puts it in his essay, "The line and light', Of the Gaze, it compels us into observing the mental and socio-cultural effects that mimicry might lead to. The scholar states that mimicry and adaptation might be paralleled together and function spontaneously.
“The effect of mimicry is camouflage[...] It is not a question of harmonizing with the background, but against a mottled background, of becoming mottled - exactly like the technique of camouflage practiced in human warfare.”(Bhabha, 85)
By comparing the settlement of crustaceons among briozoaires, Lacan states that falsehood, intimidation and camouflage are the three major aspects of mimicry. The excerpt is later citied by Bhabha in his famous essay Of Mimicry and Man, in 1994 which treats the existence of mimicry in cultures in a similar way. He declares how “every colony of the British Empire [is] a mimic representation of the British Constitution” (85) and likewise how the natives, just like minor crustaceons among briozoaires attempt to camouflage themselves among the intimidating imperial powers.
When in the '80s, intellectuals like Bhabha and Spivak indicated the existence of mimic men, and the muted subaltern position of women in cultural spheres, one realized the importance and dominion of hegemonic structures in a society. “…practiced in human warfare… colonial mimicry is the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite.” (Bhabha, 92)
Bhabha very correctly points out how every Indian man of the post independent period wanted to become a ‘saheb’ in order to be concealed within the protective boundaries of the system and also to gain social credibility. The same may be applied to the modern Indian literary protagonist who gives into pressures of identifying with a glamorous master living a luxurious lifestyle, filled with consumer products and services around him that are mostly originating from America. The native’s inability to mimic the master further increases his trouble and encourages his frustration and low self-esteem. This is when we witness murderers and psychopaths like Balram and Ganesh who skillfully justify the logic of their violence. These psychopaths may be compared to the naïve and innocent protagonists of the post-independence period like Mulk Raj Anand’s Bakha or Raja Rao’s Javni who believe that endurance is their only fate and way of life.
Bhabha’s essay, ‘Sly Civility’ talks of the psychological implications on the ruler when the suppressed subaltern subverts against the colonial discourse by simply ignoring it. Many post-independence books and characters created by authors like R.K. Narayan, M.R. Anand and Kamala Markandya advocate the same colonial resistance and recuperation of Indian heritage or originality. One hardly sees any prominent British characters in the works of these writers. Rather, the colonizers are viewed as a collective group of oppressors who dominate their identities by imperial authority. The natives, like the characters of Markandya’s Nectar in a Sieve or any of Anand’s characters like Bakha and Munoo live in their own world of distress and casteism. They seem to suffer so much from the poverty of basic needs that colonial suppression seems to be just another one of the various oppressive forces in front of them. Before the suppression of imperial powers these characters are suppressed and reduced to subalterns by their own people.
In contemporary literature however, there appears a hold of white supremacy occurring through American capitalism, change of attitudes and cultural behavior wherein tradition merges with modernization leading to multiple postmodernist complexities and disillusionment. The modern Indian literary citizen does not seem to suffer from the once ‘extreme’ inferiority complex that the British imbibed within him. Rather, he is subject to pressures of colonial supremacy, individualistic pressures rooted in American capitalism or issues related with marginalization, dislocation, and disillusionment. We also notice how the modern Indian subject is a hybridized identity who is notified of the pressures of being individually acknowledged wherein he simply focuses on himself not thinking about issues like heritage, personal relationships, socio-cultural and socio-psychological environments among others all of which can be collectively associated with American capitalism.
“The result is that globalization often works in one direction...negating the opportunity for equal exchange between peoples. The fallout of this uneven relationship permeates all aspects of society and the world. The increase of hybrid identities, diasporic populations, and migratory labor which result from globalization...” (Hartweiger 09)
The new trend undertaken in Indian English Literature hence, is that of the deep-rooted association of the identity of the post-colonial Indian with consumerism and globalization. The modern Indian is largely exposed to international consumer products and media which help him to connect as well as relate on a global platform. This means that the once ignorant post-colonial has now undergone an eccentric intellectual modification in literature. Many modern Indian authors try to portray intelligent protagonists of the post liberalization India who are rational citizens and can’t be deluded in any sense. However, a sense of disillusionment always prevails within these characters that seem to suffer an identity crisis rising out of their difficulties with culture, tradition, dislocation, and marginalization. Examples of such protagonists can be taken in form of disillusioned criminals born out of repression like Ganesh Gaitonde of Sacred Games and Balram Halwai of The White Tiger or diasporic identities like the unnamed narrator of The Shadow Lines, or Subhash and Gauri of The Lowland. Deeper disillusionments on basis of gender and caste can be explored among characters in novels like The God of Small Things; A Fine Balance and Cry, the Peacock among others. These in contrast can be compared to the ignorant and simplistic, protagonists of Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan who, primarily because of their lack of education, suffered a great compromise and inferiority complex. To understand the dynamism of the Indian identity one needs to recognize its change of perception, representation and modification which shall only pass if it is compared with the identities of the past.
Ideas of interpellation stated by Louis Althusser (1970) regarding the repressive and ideological state apparatuses in fixing the problems of a rebellious country, is much applicable in the 200-year-old rule of the British over India. The history of political and ideological control of India lies much in the extremely debated Parliamentary speech of Lord Macaulay that at least needs to be reproduced, if not acknowledged:
“I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic. — But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. . . .
. . . It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of literature in which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met with any Orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But, when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable.”(Macaulay,1935)
The control of language over culture is evident across history. The easiest example to suggest so is the role of Greek and Latin in the English Renaissance. The ideological control of the British over Indians hence began with the replacement of native languages by English.
The approval of Lord William Bentinck over the Charter Act of 1813 led Macaulay to inject Western Education throughout the subcontinent. His sheer disapproval of almost everything Indian and keen observation of how the natives can be exploited to the advantage of the government led the imperial state to strengthen its hold over India. Ruling the minds of the people, as Althusser believes, promotes, and elongates the control of the ruler over his colony. It also helps us into garnering thoughts on historical materialism and reminds us of scholars like Cohen who advocate that the history of a country simply relies on its socio-materialistic elements. Moving with time, the history of socio-political control today has gradually shifted its form. When during the post-colonial time period, colonization implied the salve mentality as it is described in details above; the contemporary period showcases its control in an altogether different form. Colonization today, may be given a distinct definition in the words of Baudrillard who in his famous work The Consumer Society says that,
“We are at the point where consumption is laying hold of the whole of life, where all activities are sequenced in the same combinatorial mode, where the course of satisfaction is outlined in advance, hour by hour, where the 'environment' is total - fully air-conditioned, organized, culturalized. In the phenomenology of consumption, this general 'air-conditioning' of life, goods, objects, services, behaviour and social relations represents the perfected, 'consummated' [consomme] stage of an evolution which runs from affluence pure and simple, through interconnected networks of objects, to the total conditioning of action and time, and finally to the systematic atmospherics built into those cities of the future that are our drugstores, Parly 2s and modern airports” (Baudrillard 29)
Colonization therefore seems to have taken a new, mental form where the minds of the people are controlled by the market. Moreover, this control is further manipulated as superpowers of the West continue to dominate the market all over the globe. As a consequence, everything Western is glamorized by the market and sold to the customers in ‘canned atmospheres’ as Baudrillard puts it. A similar idea is projected in Graham Huggan’s The Postcolonial Exotic, which discusses the same commodification of cultural differences found in postcolonial-developing nations that are famously judged to be “exotic” in popular culture today. This attitude can of course be testified in the evidence that most diasporic writers of the East along with those writers who repetitively speak of the charms of the East are gaining the limelight. It is the same postcolonial, exotic charm and the transnationality found in books like Shantaram; A Suitable Boy; The God of Small Things; Eat,Pray, Love, Midnight Children, etc. that makes these books an open window which gives its readers a glimpse of the lesser explored third world. It is due to the mysterious image that the oriental world carries that these books have now become bestsellers. In a similar way, one must understand the growing international popularity of oriental writers like Rumi, Hafiz, Iqbal or writers of other races such as Haruki Murakami, Kazuo Ishiguro, J.M. Coetzee, among others. Such pressures of contemporary culture may be experienced in contemporary literary characters who often juggle with multiple identities, multilingualism, transnationalism, and cultural pluralism due to pressures rising from consumerism. One stance of this dilemma amongst protagonists is in Gulzar’s Seema, the story of a modern-day woman torn between her rooted self and the want to explore the unknown. Her husband, Sudhir when discovers his wife’s relationship with his friend T.K, disowns them in a fit of fury, while for Seema, it seemed irrationally right to follow her wants. Seema, now owned a car to herself, as T.K says, “From today you have your own car and I have mine!” Further when T.K takes her as his lawful wife, he “surprises” her with a ‘bungalow by the sea’ as her wedding gift. The whole idea of lawfulness in matrimony is voiced by Sudhir when he passively scorns T.K saying, “Look there is no such thing as a lawful husband or a lawful wife. These legal stamps are clamped on relationships unnecessarily. You can get ration cards made with such stamps but they are quite useless in forging relationships.” The idea of Indian matrimony here is in stark contrast to the Western matrimony which though passively, but is being fully imbibed in the protagonist, Seema, who chooses to walk away from Sudhir in her haunting search for the absent present strains of consumerism.
In most of the major books of the '30s till the early '60s, British interference hence is either not much comprehended or is completely ignored by the characters in the story. We never see the protagonists of Narayan’s Malgudi Days or ‘Railway Raju’ of Guide or Bakha of Untouchable to be very affected by the tortures of the British. Instead, they’re seen as being impressed and influenced by the English culture. Indian conventionality and tradition on the other hand, is neither displayed elaborately nor celebrated in these stories. The characters are either suffering too much or they; in their guileless ignorance; do not seem to take their tradition as a matter of pride. In fact, how can they? Especially, when people like Anand’s Munoo and Bakha; Rao’s Javni and the Dalits of Ananthamurthy's Samskara, are forced to undergo discrimination and humiliation from the upper castes of their own community. Like the passive existence of imperial rule, Indian heritage,and tradition too, hence, remains dormant in the literature produced during these years.
The later decades infuse an identity crisis among the now more aware and educated Indian national. The crisis can also be connected with the novels of diasporic literature of the '70s and '80s which provide readers with characters like Ila of The Shadow Lines, Gogol of The Namesake, Gauri of The Lowland and Jasmine of Jasmine who spend their life searching for their foundations and origin. It is only the characters like Namesake’s Ashoke and Ashima, who seem to be having a sense of pride for their nationality and origin, do not undergo such a crisis. Post coloniality of other writers such as Rushdie may be challenged as he uses his imagination to retrieve lost histories and adds a postmodern touch of hyperreality and magic realism to his narratives. The psychological turmoil of identity crisis was further aggravated as the undercurrents of post colonialism vanished and globalization took its place. This in turn left traces of what we casually call “Westernization” or “Canned Culture” which came to be dominated by American capitalism in India. It is this ‘Canned Culture’ that leaves Namesake’s Gogol in a complex dilemma of his own desires. We never come to know what he wishes for himself and neither does he until he realizes his Indian roots in the end.
Contrary to the deep-rooted inferiority complex regarding Indian heritage in the past, we now encounter a change in literary trends as many writers acknowledge their identities as Indians. "India shaped my mind, anchored my identity, influenced my beliefs, and made me who I am. India matters to me and I would like to matter to India.” as Shashi Tharoor (2016) says. Its common appeal and realization bring to notice the existence of many such identities in authors of Indian English and their variable characters. Fewer characters in modern Indian English Literature experience a crisis akin to those of the diasporic literature. Such change in the behaviour of protagonists and their makers is the resultant effect of the development of India as a cosmopolitan nation. With the advent of cultural consumerism and globalization in the world, we see the reduction of a huge cultural space between countries. The establishment of multinationals and the commonality of various consumer products found in most countries of the world have led to the construction of a ‘Glocal’ village as Roland Robertson calls it.
Such cosmopolitan effects on Indian English have led to the birth of novels like Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies, Tharoor’s Riot and Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness who produce a genuine mix of men and women coming together from different regions. Indian English Literature hence has taken an internalized tone where the worlds of narrators and protagonists have narrowed down and become personal. Modernity in Indian English is perceived as a mix of cultural consumerism and traditional Indian heritage. Some books, especially those in popular culture write about characters and stories which do not ignore ‘Indianness’ and rather, celebrate it. Popular culture novels are also being published which cherish the Indian myth, culture, convention, and tradition. The Amish Tripathi trilogy along with relevant literary books like Ashwin Sanghi’s Chanakya’s Chant and The Krishna Key, seem to be an addition to the attempts of redemption against this previous act of literary ignorance of Indian heritage. Mythological experts like Devdutt Pattanaik have many criticisms to share and add into the mytho-literary criticism in Indian English literature. His works, especially those on female characters like Jaya and Sita along with elaborations on interestingly controversial issues like The Pregnant King unravel the yet to be discovered religious and epic myths of India while also focusing on modern issues of gender and LGBT oppression. Many novels of Shashi Tharoor like The Great Indian Novel along with the Premchand-like works of Gulzar further strengthen the argument.
A.K. Ramanujan in his essay, Is There an Indian Way of Thinking, talks of context-free situations in India akin to the post-modernist concepts of Barthes and Derrida. He also talks of a subjective India whose base lies not on facts like the west but on inferences. He says that the diversities of India lead to the existence of a ‘Great Tradition’ and ‘Little Tradition’ the coupling of which results into a thinking that has no particular style and no particular singularity. Indian English literature is the exact portrayal of such a thinking which advocates the existence of a complex Indian personality which is a product of the post-liberalization Indian culture and the Great Indian Tradition as Ramanujan talks about. Literary characters like Ashok Banjara of Show Business or Maya of Starry Nights are of no parallel when compared to Siva and Sati of Immortals of Meluha or Chanakya of Chanakya’s Chant. Similarly, there are other characters produced in the Indian literary scene who are miserably suppressed but intelligent wretches like Maya of Cry of the Peacock, and the females of The Thousand Faces of Night.
The last decades of the 20th century effectively saw Feminism’s influence on Indian English Literature. We repetitively saw women protagonists and the abuses they mightily face from the chauvinistic society. Alongside, we saw many headstrong but ‘immoral’ female characters like Shobha De’s Maya and Shashi Tharoor’s Kavita who don’t mind being termed wanton if it gives them their freedom. These influences lead to the release and purgation of India as a modern cosmopolitan society that has just begun acknowledging the importance of women.
All these characters mentioned above have an air of self-involvement, cosmopolitanism, and negligence for environments that influence them unconsciously. No one is too cautious of the ‘superiority’ of the West that is talked about in the beginning of the essay. Rather, they are too involved in their own complexities and suffer from an identity crisis that questions their socio-political and socio-cultural belongingness to understand how they are trapped in the web of western influence and cosmopolitanism.
The literariness of modern Indian texts both answers and repulses the question of identification within them. However, we definitely encounter a different kind of calmness and better stability in character construction as compared to the previous century. The modern Indian characters may be alienated, exploited, and suffering but they are definitely not slaves anymore. The inferiority complex talked about in the '40s and '60s is nowhere existent in the current decades. The question of identity however still perplexes the modern thinker for the uniquely complex and diversified nation leads to the reproduction of identities that have multiple aspects. “No one identity can ever triumph in India; both the country’s chronic plurality and the logic of the electoral marketplace make this impossible. India is never truer to itself than while celebrating its own diversity.” (Tharoor, 2016) Dormant patriotism as often found in the works of Tharoor like The Great Indian Novel is also commonly visible in ordinary Indian popular culture. Some non-literary texts too, like The Argumentative Indian discuss the long history and political chauvinism found in India who, because of its huge diversity, is segregated within itself. These texts however never insult India as a nation and rather, only critically analyse their flaws that may lead to the betterment of the country. Unlike the post-independence period we now have local patriotic intellectuals who are not only proud of their country but also are aware of its flaws. Shashi Tharoor in his robust defence of Hinduism in Why I Am A Hindu, says, “If identity can relate principally to citizenship rather than faith, to a land rather than a doctrine, and if that identity is one that can live in harmony with other identities, then we might still escape the worst horrors that the doomsayers like Samuel Huntington, who decades ago foretold a ‘clash of civilizations’ can conceive. He points out how a “domestic clash of civilizations" would destroy India, which has survived and thrived as a civilizational medley.”
Postcolonialism also finds its way in recent works like Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, which still makes the reader believe in the existence of its dominance. No conclusion hence can be reached regarding the specificities of the complex Indian identity of modern India. It can simply be concluded that the Indian identity today is a complex cultural mix of indo-chic elements that create a cosmopolitan effect on the traditionality of the Indian character. The crisis of most Indian literary protagonists seems to complicate itself in the postmodern, globalized world of India where there is a lack in uniformity of development. Problems like migration, regional dislocation and diaspora, marginalization, caste and class divide, cultural pluralism, etc. come to surface thereby creating a new sense of identity crisis and disillusionment among characters. Our modern literary cannons hence shall help in the acknowledgement of such diverse identities which provide a unique, multi-cultural stability to the country which is likewise acknowledged in literature.
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