| I
first
read
Naipaul
in
the
mid-90s:
India:
A
Million
Mutinies,
The
Enigma
of
Arrival,
and
A
Way
in
the
World.
They
resonated
with
me
well
enough.
But
in
the
ensuing
years,
living
in
California
and
W.
Europe,
I
read
far
more
about
Naipaul
than by
him
(an
excerpt
from
Beyond
Belief;
his
essays
in
the
NY
Review
of
Books).
Somehow,
over
time,
my
view
of
Naipaul
began
to
sour.
This
happened
against
the
backdrop
of
another
development.
Post-colonial
scholars
on
Western
campuses
had
been
asserting
themselves
for
years,
battling
centuries
of
biases
and prejudices.
This
wrought
a
whole
lot
of
good
but
its
flip
side
was
a
knee-jerk
multiculturalism;
many
post-colonial
writers
took
on
defensive
postures, hostile
to
negative
criticisms
of
"their"
culture,
which
they
saw
as
a
continuing
exercise
in
power
and
colonial
instincts.
Outsider
critiques
became
suspect,
unless
the
author
adhered
to
certain
dogmas
and
symbols
of
political
correctness.
This
trend
wasn't
going
to
be
kind—and
it
wasn't—to
a
writer
like
Naipaul,
who
has called (academic)
multiculturalism
a
racket.
Naipaul was derided by the likes of Said,
Achebe, and Walcott, as well as by Indian and British authors like
Rushdie, Dalrymple, Hariharan, and Ghosh. Nandy has called him "ethnocidal".
His worldview distinctly contrasts with Sen's and Tharoor's (Mishra remained
a fan, making Naipaul something of a model in his writing). Nor did it
help that Naipaul, as a senior citizen, increasingly became crotchety,
flouting basic norms of courtesy, making wild pronouncements in
interviews, losing patience and railing at people. I too came to believe
that Naipaul was unduly harsh and ungenerous, that he went about exposing
illiberal aspects of the third-world while offering few critiques of the
West, that, with several equally likely explanations for an event, he
rarely missed the opportunity to pick out the least charitable.
During my recent two-year sojourn in India, I
picked up the first two of Naipaul's travelogues on India. I began with
some trepidation-they were said to be the most vitriolic, scathing, and
unsympathetic (unlike his third book, A Million Mutinies Now).
Widely rejected in India when first published, even the titles—An
Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization—irked, and
still irk many Indians. Back then, Naipaul, with characteristic hauteur,
ascribed this to Indians being poor readers and writers, lacking
self-awareness, unable to handle the truth. Perhaps in vindication of his
words—as Indians have gained in cultural confidence in the last two
decades—his books have gained in popularity and are widely available in
Indian bookstores.
I
must
confess
that
after
reading
them,
my
opinion
of
Naipaul
has
improved
sharply.
I
think
he
saw
India
more
clearly
than
just
about every
other
post-Independence
writer.
It
was
a
thrill
to
read
him
again,
doubly
amazing
given
that
the
earlier
of
these, An
Area
of
Darkness,
was
written
in
1962-64,
when
he
was
just
over
30.
In
hindsight,
I
think
my
souring
on
Naipaul
owes
a
lot
to
my
own cultural
insecurities
and
defensiveness.
Like
his
post-colonial
critics,
I
too
had
begun
to
cite
his
random
excesses
to
drown
his
more
profound
and
pain-causing
truths, and
to
prefer
instead
a
rather
bloodless,
politically
correct
idea
of
India
suitable
for
the
needs
of
a
liberal,
cosmopolitan
diaspora.
This
second time,
I
found
Naipaul
liberating
to
read.
§
Naipaul's family "abounded with pundits" but
he was "born an unbeliever [and] took no pleasure in religious ceremonies.
They were too long, and the food only came at the end". He didn't
understand the language "and no one explained the prayer or the ritual.
One ceremony was like another." As a youth, Naipaul "remained almost
totally ignorant of Hinduism" but from it he perhaps "received a certain
supporting philosophy." This helps explain Naipaul's eye for the
unthinking religiosity he saw in India, and the scorn he heaps upon Indian
"spiritualism". He also grew up with "the brahmin's horror of the
unclean", which got fueled by the (then even more) common sight of Indians
defecating in public places. India's poverty laid him low. He recoiled
from what, in pockets of India, still shakes the sensitive tourist:
the beggars, the gutters, the starved bodies,
the weeping swollen-bellied child black with flies in the filth and cow
dung and human excrement of a bazaar lane, the dogs, ribby, mangy, cowed
and cowardly, reserving the anger, like the human beings around them, for
others of their kind. Caste,
he
wrote
around
'62,
was
once
a
useful
division
of
labor
in
a
rural
society,
[but]
it
has
now
divorced
function
from
social
obligation,
position
from
duties.
It
is
inefficient
and
destructive;
it
has
created
a
psychology
which
will
frustrate
all
improving
plans.
It
has
led
to
the
Indian
passion
for
speech-making,
for
gestures
and for
symbolic
action
...
Symbolic
dress,
symbolic
food,
symbolic
worship:
India
deals
in
symbols,
inaction.
Inaction
arising
out
of
proclaimed
function,
function
out
of
caste ...
It
is
the
system
that
has
to
be
regenerated,
the
psychology
of
caste
that
has
to
be
destroyed.
In
An
Area
of
Darkness,
a
book
he
much
later
attributed
to
"shock
and
concern",
I
found
his
response
to
India
touchingly
honest.
He
saw
a
civilization
in
an
advanced
state
of
decay,
lacking
creativity
and
drive,
obsessed
by
symbols,
caste
and
class,
and
short
on
historical
self-awareness.
The
worldview
of
Indians
invited
plunder,
he
wrote,
and
the
arbitration
of
a
foreigner.
He remarked
on
the
widespread
apathy
and
fatalism
that
made
people
ignore
even
their
immediate
environment.
He
noted
their
utter
loss
of
aesthetic
sensibilities
of centuries
ago.
His
analysis
of
Gandhi,
from
his
callow
youth
to
the
man
he
became—full
of
cranky
ideas
but
confronting
power
and
injustice
in
the way
he
did—is
brilliant.
What
made
Gandhi,
he
wrote,
was
his
stint
abroad,
in
England
and
S.
Africa.
He
loudly
ridiculed the
lip service
to
Gandhi
by
Indian
politicians,
who
do
not
understand
him
at
all.
His
ripping
apart
of
a
charlatan
like
Vinoba
Bhave
is
memorable.
It's
not
an
infatuation
with
the
West
that
defines
Naipaul.
After
a
few
years
in
London,
he
realized
that
it
was
not
the
center
of
my
world.
I
had
been
misled;
but
there
was
nowhere
else
to
go
...
Here
I
became
no
more
than an
inhabitant
of
a
big
city,
robbed
of
loyalties
[except
to
persons],
time
passing,
taking
me
away
from
what
I
was,
thrown
more and
more
into
myself,
fighting
to
keep
my
balance
and
to
keep
alive
the
thought
of
the
clear
world
beyond
the
brick
and
asphalt
and
the
chaos
of
railway
lines.
All
mythical
lands
faded,
and
in
the
big
city
I
was
confined
to
a
smaller
world
than
I
had ever
known.
I became
my
flat,
my
desk,
my
name
...
it
had
convinced
me
that
every
man
was
an
island
...
In
both
books,
Naipaul
is
also
harsh
on
the
British
in
India.
He
considers
their
legacy
a
very
mixed
one:
plunder
and
rejuvenation.
"India
was
not
conquered,
the
British
realist
said,
for
the
benefit
of
Indians."
It's
true
that
in
his
oeuvre,
he
hasn't
focused
his
gaze
on
the
West.
That's
not
what
interests
him,
and
this
is
his
prerogative
as
a
writer.
To
know
his
place
in
the
world,
he
has
said,
required
him
to
understand
the
roots
of
his
society
and
his people
in
Trinidad,
tracing
them
back
to
black
Africa,
India,
and
the
Muslim
world.
And
in
his
travels
and
writing,
he
has
relentlessly
followed
this arc
of
curiosity
and
wonder.
Critics
allege
that
Naipaul
"supports"
Hindutva,
the
right-wing
Hindu
nationalism
that
arose
in
India
in
the
late
80s.
But
I've
not
read
anything
to
substantiate
this
claim.
Hindus,
he
believes, are
awakening
to
their
past
and
a
sense
of
history
perhaps
for
the
first
time
ever—it
is
obvious
that
they
will
find in
it
a
fair
bit
of
pain,
the
tectonic
force
of
which
is
bound
to
result
in
incidents
like
the
demolition
of
the
Babri
Masjid.
He
calls
this
a
"creative
force",
a
precursor
and
mid-wife
to
a
broader
awakening.
One
can
debate
this
idea
but
calling
Hindutva inevitable
and
understandable
is
very
different
from
lending
support
to
it.
I
doubt
that
he
considers
the
BJP
enlightened
or
progressive.
Invited
by
the BJP
leadership,
he
met
them
as
a
curious
man/writer;
if
Congress
had
invited
him,
he
wrote,
he
would
have
met
them
too.
The
BJP drafted
him
as
a
"supporter"
unilaterally,
and
Naipaul
didn't
care
enough
about
what
Rushdie
and
Dalrymple
wrote
about
his
"sympathies"
for
the
BJP.
Having
said
that,
I
think
Naipaul
attributes
too
much
of
India's
malaise
to
Islam
(the
wound of
the
"wounded
civilization").
Long
before
Islam
established
itself
in
India,
the
civilizational
decay
that
Naipaul
speaks
of,
had
risen
organically
within
Hinduism.
More
than
Islam,
it was
the
grassroots
devotional
Hinduism
(Bhakti,
c.
800
CE+)—with
its
aversion
to
the
material
world—that
had
brought
it
on,
sealing
Buddhism's
fate
in
India
en
route.
This
is
something
of
a
blind
spot
in
Naipaul—blaming
Hinduism's
decay
largely
on
the
depredations
of
Islam,
and
not
acknowledging
the
mixed
legacy
of
Islam
in
India.
I
found
both
travelogues
brimming
with
curiosity,
insight,
and
humanity
(barring
a
few
outbursts
of
sudden
irritation,
like
"the
rat-faced
Anglo-Indian
manager";
a
rat-faced
person,
Sir
Vidya?).
Perhaps
he
found
too
little
to
praise,
but
much
of
what
he
wrote
has
a
ring
of
truth.
Both
are
expressions
of
a
deep
involvement
with
India.
If
there
is
loathing,
there
is
also
love,
even
if
it's
not
the
most
recognizable
kind, one that
accentuates,
often
unreasonably,
the
finer
side
of
the
object
of
our
love.
One
such
though,
I
was
able
to
spot
in
An
Area
of
Darkness:
Afternoon
now,
and
the
train's
shadow
racing
behind
us.
Sunset,
evening,
night;
station
after
dimly-lit
station.
It
was
an
Indian
railway
journey,
but
everything that
had
before
seemed
pointless
was
now
threatened
[by
the
advancing
Chinese
in
the
'62
Sino-Indian
war]
and
seemed
worth
cherishing;
and
as in
the
mild
sunshine
of
a
winter
morning
we
drew
near
to
green
Bengal,
which
I
had
longed
to
see,
my
mood
towards
India
and
her
people
became
soft.
I
had
taken
so
much
for
granted.
There,
among
the
Bengali
passengers
who
had
come
on,
was
a
man
who
wore
a
long
woolen
scarf
and
a
brown
tweed
jacket
above
his
Bengali
dhoti.
The
casual
elegance
of
his
dress
was
matched
by
his
fine
features
and
relaxed
posture.
Out
of
all
the
squalor
and
human
decay,
its
eruptions
of
butchery,
India
produced
so
many
people
of
grace
and
beauty,
ruled
by
elaborate
courtesy.
Producing
too
much
life,
it
denied
the
value
of
life;
yet
it
permitted
a
unique
human
development
to
so
many.
Nowhere
were
people
so
heightened
and
rounded
and
individualistic;
nowhere
did
they
offer
themselves
so
fully
and
with
such
assurance.
To
know
Indians was
to
take delight
in
people
as
people;
every
encounter
was
an
adventure.
I
did
not
want
India
to
sink;
the
mere
thought
was
painful.
Further
reading:
Articles
in
Outlook
Magazine;
A
Home
for
Mr.
Naipaul;
Naipaul
talks
to
Farrukh
Dhondy;
Our
Universal
Civilization;
More
interviews
with
Naipaul |
