The Politics of Literary Postcoloniality (Aijaz Ahmad)

 Introduction:

In “The Politics of Literary Postcoloniality” Aijaz Ahmad states the ‘postcoloniality’ is the off-shoot of postmodernism and the word does not have any historical sense of postcolonialism. As the terms ‘postcolonial’ and ‘postcolonialism’ resurfaced during the 1980s, in literary and cultural theories in deconstructive forms of history-writing, these terms have been used along with ‘postcoloniality’. He criticizes the theories or theoretical terms used by Gayatri Spivak, Homi K. Bhabha, Edward Said, Ranajit Guha and Veena Das to explain his notion of postcoloniality. To arrive to the meaning of ‘postcoloniality’ he traces the political, social, cultural, economic and religious histories of not only the nations which were once colonized but also the western nations like UK, USA, Canada and Australia.

 Discussion:

Aijaz accepts that the discussion on postcolonialism in the domain of literary theory produce a degree of fatigue. In fact, in the political theory, the term ‘postcolonialism’ has much debate since 1970s while it refers to the countries in Asia and Africa after the postwar decolonizations. But in the present period ‘postcoloniality’ has a different notion. It is postmodernism’s wedge to colonise literatures outside Europe and its North American offshoots, which is otherwise known as “Third World Literature” . But in the contemporary period, Third World Literature is termed as “Postcolonial Literature” when the governing theoretical framework shifts from Third World nationalism to postmodernism.

 Aijaz says that ‘postcoloniality’ is the late-coming twin of that earlier term ‘colonial discourse’ which is in English language. He says that the colonial residue is the English language which is used as official language by many nations such as India and Africa after their freedom from the colonizers. English is the language of many Islamic state which were not colonized by the British. Then why Rushdie’s “Satanic Verse” was banned in India while India posits itself a secular state. Then why the Islamic nation banned Rushdie’s work saying “postcolonial writers compose under the shadow of death.” But Aijaz claims that this statement is a preposterous.

 Aijaz, then criticizes Gayatri Spivak’s “Outside in the Teaching Machine” for the terms, “marginality’ and “culture studies” used by her. Here Aijaz compares Said’s essay, “Third World Intellectuals and metropolitan culture” to Spivak’s idea on postcoloniality. According to Said, colonial intellectual was the one who spoke from positions imbibed from metropolitan culture; while the postcolonial intellectual spoke from outside the positions. But Spivak says that postcoloniality itself equals the ‘heritage of imperialism’ which the postcolonial critic inhabits deconstrucively – or as Bhabha would say ambivalently.

 Spivak says ‘the legacy of imperialism in the rest of the globe’ instead of directly saying ‘postcoloniality’ to mean the people of India and Africa who were once colonized by the British. Aijaz is against to Spivak’s view because he believes that in UK, USA, France, Australia, the postcolonial intellectuals actually live and do their theorizing. Moreover ‘legacy of imperialism’ consists almost entirely of political concepts and practices such as nationhood, constitutionality, citizenship, democracy, and socialism for which not no historical referent is used by Spivak. Hence, Aijaz from the ‘postcolonial space’ explains the political historiography of postcoloniality.

 In fact, Britain bestowed nationhood on India and so India’s nationhood is certainly ‘legacy of imperialism’ according to Spivak. But Aijaz questions that how could Indian democracy can be said as the legacy of imperialism since India became secular, democratic, republic state immediately after independence. It has adult franchise invariably to all who is above 18 irrespective of their caste, class and gender which is still absent in Europe and America. The same can be applied to citizenship also. In India those who born in India are given Indian citizenship but it is not so in UK and USA. Like this in the social domain also we do not bequeath the legacy of imperialism. The secular condition of India including the converted Christians and Muslims and Marxism which originated in Europe has been existing in India even before the colonization. Hence, according to Aijaz, Spivak’s “legacy of imperialism’ has no connection with the ‘postcoloniality’.

 Postcolonialism took place not during the past few years but some years earlier and that not in cultural theory but in political theory with the question on ‘postcolonial state’. The terms precoloanial, colonial and postcolonial refer only for periodization. Because in India, it is very difficult to treat social and cultural consequences of colonialism as discrete, in histories of gender and caste and class, all the three, postcolonial, colonial and postcolonial are intertwined. The countries like Turkey, Iran and Egypt which were not colonized, which now contribute to the world’s capitalist system have social and cultural configuration like India.  Hence we should not talk so much about colonialism and postcolonialism but of capitalist modernity which takes the colonial form in particular places and at particular time, because even United States and Canada were once colonized.

 Aijaz criticizes French Poststructuralist, Robert Young who suddenly emerged and called himself postcolonial critic, in “White Mythologies” devoted the last three chapters to Said, Bhabha and Spivak who have already punctured the term ‘postcoloniality’. Like this,  Gyan Prakash who called Spivak, a subalternist and Bhabha called Jameson a postcolonial critic surprise Aijaz. But within the field of literature along with postcolonial criticism, we have postcolonial writings of non-white minorities living in Britain and North America. But efforts have now been taken to include literatures produced by writers belonging to India and Africa as ‘postcolonial literature’. But the metropolitan criticism terms this as ‘minority literature. This is evident as some British universities term this as ‘new literatures’, ‘emergent literatures’, and ‘postcolonial literatures’. Hence in some ways, this specific sense of ‘postcolonial literature’ converges partly with the category of ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘minority literature’ or even “Third World Literature”. Hence ‘postcolonial’ is simply a polite way of saying non-white or  not-Europe but-inside-Europe which gives way to “Europe and its Others”.

 If one considers the book, “The Empire Writes Back”, it can be stated that the terms ‘colonial’ and ‘postcolonial’ are applied not just to what is generally called the ‘Third World’ but also to the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia itself, because these were the countries once colonized. But the working of ‘postcoloniality’ is different in these countries. Hence ‘colonialism’ becomes a transhistorical thing, and always gets shattered and recreated at different parts of the world in different period.

 Though ‘postcolonial’ condition is prevailing in the former colonies such as India, yet the same term is made available in global condition of relation between the West and Rest. The critics who not only believe that colonialism has ended but also subscribe to the idea of end of Marxism , nationalism, collective historical subjects and revolutionary possibility of true postcolonial are true postcolonialists and other who do not believe in anti-Marxism are not postcolonialists at all. Postcoloniality is the condition as practised by critics like Homi K Bhabha.

 One should understand that we all live in the postcolonial period. Hence in a postcolonial world neither all intellectuals nor all discourses of this period and world are postcolonial because, in order to be a properly ‘postcolonial discourse’ the discourse must be postmodern, mainly of the deconstructive kind. Hence only those who can be truly postcolonial are also postmodern. In this situation three important themes such as (i) the theme of hybridity, ambivalence and contingency; (ii) the theme of collapse of the nation-state as a horizon of politics and (iii) the theme of globalized, postmodern electronic culture are more important to understand the existence of postcolonialism in postmodernism. Aijaz deals with the theme of decline of nation-state and globalization of electronic media to explain postcoloniality and postmodernism as one as same.

 The nation-state is shattered in many of the European state with the surrender of nations to exercise financial power by its national banks. Except USA and Japan the other countries especially the countries in Asia and Africa have witnessed the decline of nation-state due to the mechanism for regulating markets and revenues through national bourgeoisies in local and regional wars. Imperialism has penetrated far more deeply into national economies than was the case in earlier decades. The national bourgeoisies have achieved a far greater level of capital accumulation baiting the interest of nation-state. In other words, the new national bourgeoises, like imperialist capitalist itself want to weak nation-state in relation to capital and in relation to labour. It is in this framework nation-state remains globally the horizon for any form of politics that adopts the life processes of the working classes as its point of departure, and which seeks to address the issue of the exploitation of poorer women , the destruction of the natural environment by national as well as transnational capitalists or the rightward drift of ideological superstructures.

 Above all the penetration of available global space makes a contradictory effects on culture and ideology of nations. The Arab and Irani mullah chase petrodollars across the globe, the saffron yuppies opened the Bombay Stock Exchange and computer industry in Bangaluru for foreign capital, organize their own lives around in the name of Ialamism and Hinduism  bating nationalism . The transnational capital also gave way for cultural hybridity. It is the claim of IBM, CNN, etc., that they are indeed the harbingers of a culture of global productivities. Knowledges, and  pleasures. But globally dispersed households by uniform structures of imperialists ideology was broken and that now have the technological means to bypass the national education and informational grids, so that the national and metropolitan sections of capital can be integrated ideologically via CNN as much as they are integrated economically.

 In the postcolonial condition, the nations are talking about ‘cultural hybridity’ which is the result of two conditions. Cultural hybridity is said to be (i) specific to the migrants, more pointedly the migrant intellectual, living and working in western metropolis; and at the same time (ii) a generalized condition of postmodernity into which all contemporary cultures are no irretrievably ushered – so that the figure of the postcolonial intellectual residing in the metropolis signify universal condition of hybridity and is sadi to the Subject of a Truth which the individuals living in the nation do not possess. Edward Said term these Truth-Subject as “Cultural amphibians”. Sulman Rushdie states that these subjects have superior understanding of both cultures than what more sedentary individuals might understand of their own cultures.

 Homi K. Bhabha also celebrate this cultural hybridity. In Bhabha’s writing, the postcolonial who has access to such monumental and global pleasures is remarkably free of gender, class and identifiable political location. But Gramsci, yet another philosophical critic discussed on “national culture” or “Organic intellectual” which is endangered by cultural hybridity. But Bhabha opines that migrant intellectual which is posited as the negation of the ‘organic intellectual’ is conjoined with a philosophical hybridity. Hence Bhabha says that ‘contemporary postcolonial discourses are rooted in specific histories of cultural displacement.’ The elaboration of hybrid, displaced, contingent (counter-hegemonic strategies) forms of politics is accomplished with the aid of a great many writers including Ranajit  Guha and Vena Das.

 Bhabha welcomes Das’s analysis of the historicity of subalternity in India. What she denies radically is that caste mentalities may indeed have historical depth and enduring features prior to their eruption in the form of a particular conflict. What she tries to say is that case is a structural and not merely a contingent feature in the distribution of powers and privileges in Indian society. When the theories of Bhabha and Das or any other deny the structural endurance of histories and calls upon us to think only of the contingent moment, we in effect being called upon to overlook the position of class and caste privileges. Hence Aijaz thinks that organized groups of the exploited castes fighting for their rights against upper caste people calls upon communicative rationality as well as the possibility of rational actions which are formed not in flux and displacement but in given historical location.

 Aijaz says that postcoloniality is like most things , a matter of class since many migrants who are intellectuals enjoy the privileges in the host counties but many others experience torment. Hence he says, “Imperialist capital” involves both (i) more profound penentration of all available global spaces and (ii) greater proliferation of the nation-state form, with contradictory effects in the fields of culture and ideology. This results in rapid realignment of political hegemony on the global scale are producing among the professional intelligentsia a characteristic loss of historical depth and perspective.  The tendency in cultural criticism is to waver constantly between the opposing polarities of cultural differentialism and cultural hybridity. Hence cultural hybridity replaces all historicity with mere contingency and also to lose all sense of specificity in favour of the hyper-reality or an eternal and globalized present. It is also true that the contemporary phase of capital involves unprecedented scales of movement to only of capital and commodities but also personnel.

 It is the case, that the entire logic of the kind of cultural ‘hybridity’ that Bhabha celebrates presumes the intermingling of Europe and non-Europe in a context already determined by advanced capital, in the aftermath of colonialism. It is felt that all cultures are encountered  in commodification forms  and it is possible to claim that none commands more power than any other or that the consumer alone is the sovereign of all hybridization. Cultural commodification does not produce a universal equality fo all cultures ut the unified culture of a Late Imperial marketplace that subordinates cultures, consumers and critics alike to form of untethering and moral loneliness that wallows in the depthlessness and whimsicality of postmodernism.

 Conclusion:

 Cross-fertilization of cultures has been endemic to all movements of people and all such movements in history have involved the travel, contact, transmutation, hybridization of ideas, values and behavioural norms. Thus it is not only Hinduism but also Islam has led myriad different cultural lives, at different times and locations. One is free to invent oneself and one’s community, over and over again is usually an illusion induced by availability of surpluses of money-capital or cultural capital or both. The constant refashioning of the ‘Self” through which one merely consumes onerself under the illusion of consuming the world, is a specific mode of postmodern alienation which Bhabha mistakenly calls ‘hybridity’ ‘contingency’, ‘postcolonilaity’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

India: From Midnight to Millennium (Shashi Tharoor)

 India: From Midnight to Millennium (1997) is a book or non-fictional work published Shashi Tharoor who is one of important writers and political leaders of India. The book is not only a survey of modern Indian history, it also touches upon many of the principle events that took place in the last five decades in India. The book makes a survey of Indian politics and economy since its independence. The books is chapterised into ten different headings and each of these has its own importance in making a well balanced, informative and highly readable book presenting the current scenario of India. These ten chapters are designed in such a way:

1.      A Myth and an Idea

2.      Two Assassination and a Funeral

3.      Deaths and a Dynasty

4.      Unity, Diversity and Other Contradictions

5.     From the Milk Miracle to the Malayali Miracle

6.     Scheduled Castes, Unscheduled Change

7.      Of Indians and Other Minorities

8.     NRIs: Never Relinquished India or Not Really Indian?

9.     The Hindu Rate of Growth and Other Agonstic Legacies

10   Better Fed Than Free?

1 1. The Emergency and Other Urgencies

12 India at Forty Nine: Notes Toward an Impression of Indian

13 Society and Culture Today

14 A Future without Shock.

Above all, the text is interspersed with lively and humorous anecdotes of Tharoor’s own childhood and youth that adds a charming touch to the book. Superbly written and analyzed, this book offers an excellent insight into a huge country and its diverse people

Discussion:

Under the above headings the books highlights various topics like caste, Indian democracy, the legacy of Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the partition of India and India’s transition from a socialist economy to a free market. Shashi Tharoor’s main interest has been political events, including the emergency years, Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s election debacle, rise of the right-wing Hindutva brigade and the economic reforms. With a lucid style, Tharoor discusses India’s transition from a socialist economy to a free market and expresses satisfaction at the Indian leadership’s realization that economic interdependence is not incompatible with political independence.

Shashi Tharoor shows compelling that India stands as the intersection of the most significant questions facing the world today: 1.  If democracy leads to inefficient political infighting, should it be sacrificed in the interest of economic well-being? 2. Does religious fundamentalism provide a way for countries in the developing world to assert their identity in the face of the western hegemony, for there is a case of pluralism and diversity amid cultural and religious traditions? 3. Does the entry of Western consumer goods threaten a country’s economic self-sufficiency, and is protectionism the only guarantee of independence?

India, the second most populous county in the world after China, has a history stretching back to thousands of years, with enormous diversity in culture, language and ethnicity. India that boasts an excellent Info-Tech industry also houses the largest slum in the world. The basic reason for this kind of diversity is due the political and economic conditions prevailing in India. Hence Tharoor deeply concerns on about the Indian political system in its pre-independent, independent and post-independent periods and the economic reforms of post-independent period in this book.

Tharoor makes a commendable and personalized examination of the contemporary India juxtaposing the pre-independent India with the post-independent India. He evaluates the past fifty years and also the challenges that India needs to face in future. Tharoor makes a comprehensive survey of the prime ministers of India in this book: he tracks down the inheritance of Nehru/Gandhi dynasty,  being in the driving seat of the Congress Party.

Indian Politics:

The long awaited independence, which was achieved by nonviolence, ended up in the blood bath and partition of the country. It is clear that the British rule brought the political unity in India, but on the contrary, when they left, they caused political disunity. Tharoor thinks that the most significant aspect of the first years of independence is the absence of Mahatma Gandhi who was killed in the capital by a Hindu fanatic, Nathuram Godse, just after the five months of independence. Tharoor calls Gandhi: “idealistic, quirky, quixotic and determined, a man who answered to the beat of no other drummer, but got everyone else to march to his tune” (India: From Midnight 16). Mahatma Gandhi’s two great weapons such as “ahimsa and satyagraha” did not allow the alien rule to withstand in India. But the untimely death of Gandhi shocked the entire nation. In the present perspective, the problems of terrorism failed Gandhism not only in India but in the whole world.

Then, Tharoor tracks down the inheritance of Nehru/ Gandhi dynasty, being in the driving seat of the Congress party. In the very beginning, Tharoor comments upon this continuing appeal of Nehru/ Gandhi dynasty. Under the influence of this appeal, the Congress party men unanimously voted Sonia Gandhi, Italian wife of the late Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.  In fact, right from Nehru till Rajiv Gandhi, the legacy of Congress Party is establish and has contributed as well as devastated Indian political and social lives and economy  according to Tharoor.  Nehru carefully nurtured democracy and secularism for 17 years and the policies that he adapted in India reflect his vision and principles. Yet Nehru was deeply shocked by the China war and dies subsequently.

After Nehru’s death, Lal Bahadur Shastri assumed the position of Prime Minister of India. But after his death the Congress party was in deep dilemma. During this period, the young daughter of Nehru, Indira Gandhi was nominated by the party to contest in election. Thus Indira took the reins of the country in her hands; Indira, Nehr’s daughter, was also his official hostess and political aide.  Indira became the president of the Congress party in 1959; her chief political advantage was her family background. In the beginning, Indira was addressed as “dumb doll” and accordingly the party lost the in the election in 1967. Then Indira made a split in the party in 1969. Tharoor says: “ … Having established a populist image and expelled the old bosses, she led her wing of the Congress to a resounding victory in 1971, campaigning on the slogan ‘Garibi Hatoa: Remove Poverty’” (Millennium 31-32). After that India defeated Pakistan and Bangladesh war. Yet Indira did not prove herself in removing poverty from India. She passed Emergency in 1975 when her 1971 victory was testified through court. Thinking that the Emergency would earn her victory, she daringly announced election in 1977. But she lost in this election. The Janata (people’s) front government came into power with Moraji Desai as the Prime Minister of  India, but this coalition government could not run the country for a long time. In January 1980, after splitting the Congress once again, Mrs. Indira was back to fight the elections with a Congress Party named after her (as Congress-Indira or Congress-I).  Mrs. Gandhi, akin to her father, thought herself as an embodiment of popular will; in this passion, she took her decision on her own, without discussing with her cabinet, party or senior leaders. Cabinet was reduced just to a rubber stamp, approving her decisions; during the emergency period, Mrs. Gandhi governed through advisors who were accountable  only to her.

Rajiv had scarcely started to learn his role when Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated by her own two Sikh security guards on 30 Oct. 1984 and brought an end to the tumultuous era of Indira Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi got the sympathy of Indians and gained a great parliamentary majority then any other Prime Minister had ever received. Now a wave of change started in India in the field of education, economic development, cultural affinities and technology. People thought that he would solve the perennial problems of India; he talked about liberatio and elimination of corruption. People saw him as a reformer and a technocratic politician, but all hell broke loose when he faced the charge of corruption in the Bofors gun deal. The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by Sri Lankan Tamil during the election campaign seemed an end to the dynasty.

In this book, Tharoor is very much concerned about his views on India, Hinduism and his Keralite origin. He is disturbed with the Rama Janmabhumi agitation, leading to the demolition of Babri Masjid and consequent Hindu-Muslim riots sullying the secular image of India. The unity between the two communities namely Hindu-Muslim unity was shattered forever. The contribution made by the Muslims before and after the independence was forgotten, subsequently the whole community is forced to face the fury of wrath.  Tharoor is very much upset about the ways the Muslims are treated in India. At the same time, he praises the “Hinduism” as a religion which has many holy books; originally the word “Hindu” basically implied for the people who lived beyond the river Sindhu or Indus. As a Hindu, Tharoor reiterates the generous attitude of Hinduism. He says that Hinduism has always taught to respect all other religions; it is a religion full of diversity, candidness and religious freedom. Tharoor is very much disturbed to think that how such a good religion can give birth to fundamentalism. Tharoor attributes his secularism through his Kerala roots. Describing Kerala, Tharoor observes: “More important, Kerala is microcosm of every religion known to the country; its population is divided into almost equal fourths of Christians, Muslims, Caste Hindus and Scheduled Castes, each of whim is economically and politically powerful” (Millennium 69).

Then, Tharoor deeply analyses about the caste system of India which originated from ‘Varnashram”. He feels sorry about the present caste politics that the politicians of present time and comments on the ancient system of Hinduism by saying that the ancient Hinduism can be briefed in the credo ‘Sarva Dharma Sambhava’ which means that all religions are equally worth to respect. It is right time to admit that Hinduism and Islam are entwined in India: no religion can claim its supremacy on this land. After discussing the problems of caste, religion and communal politics, Tharoor draws out attention towards NRIs (Non-residential Indians) who are sources of great importance in the development of the country. The NRIs have got name, fame and wealth in the foreign lands; they are financially very strong now and can help their motherland to overcome the financial crisis.

Tharoor discuss the economic policies of India. He strongly believes that the economic policies were not  matters of concern of common man; they are matters to be discussed by some economists, a few businessmen, share market holders , who are going to get benefit from the country’s economic policies. He finds the root-cause of economic crisis of the year 1954 when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the Congress Party decided to work towards a ‘socialist pattern of society.’ According to his, the public sectors were considered as ‘new temples of modern India’; these units employed a large number of Indians and kept the country free from profit-oriented capitalists; in this way, performance was never considered as criteria and turmoil was overlooked; the inefficiency was remunerated with incentives and subsidies. In 1992-93, out of the 273 public sector units, 104 were in loss of about 40 billion rupees. This was the result of Nehru’s likes for socialist pattern and dislikes for capitalism.

The Janata government which replaced Indira witnessed the departure of multinational companies like IBM, Coca-Cola from India which gave negative signals across the world for business entrepreneurs. Rajiv Gandhi, the young and technocrat Prime Minister of India introduced new economic policy in 1985, but he also could do nothing new. Then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao brought a radical change by appointing a non-political figure, renowned economist Manmohan Singh as his Finance Minister. As a result, Indian government took a good decision of permitting foreign investment in 34 major areas rejecting  the old phobia regarding external capital.

 Tharoor also makes an assessment of Indian bureaucracy, which plays an important role in the implantation of the developmental polices; the infrastructure which India received from British administrative government was of a tendency to rule rather than serve the demands of the public. To correct the bureaucracy from a ruling attitude to a serving attitude was a very difficult task; when bureaucracy reacted positively to popular political currents it was condemned for becoming more ‘politicized’ placing politicians above the dictates of policy or regulations and becoming more corrupt and inconsistent.

Tharoor also thinks that Indian politics and politicians are responsible for the poor performance of India in the field of education. Education for women would have changed the entire social scenario in our country; it would have helped the society by controlling the population of India. In spite of all this, Tharoor says that middle class women in India have excelled in profession which were traditionally considered reserved for men in other societies. But he says that still the reality is otherwise; a majority of women in India are passing their lives as housewives.

Conclusion:

After analysing all the pros and cons of India in its political, social and economic lives , Tharoor advises that Indians must change from within to meet their ambitions and lift themselves to the essential criterions. He says that India’s future depends on our capability to educate our children; it is also essential to use the potential of women. In a truly liberal and secular attitude India should provide opportunities to the underprivileged sections and avoid the age-old abuse of human rights. He hopes that the fate of the country is in the hands of its people.