10 - Chapter 3 PDF
10 - Chapter 3 PDF
10 - Chapter 3 PDF
CHAPTER III
Naipauls visit to India will be another way of re-writing the nation for himself.
Through his journeys to various corners of the country he will have to see exactly
where and how his world view strikes a relationship with his experience in India.2
From this comment, it could be seen that the history of India is rewritten by
Naipaul based on the experiences that suit his world view of India. The people of
India would not even know about such a different re creation of the countrys
present.
India is a different place for Naipaul. This is the reason why he is able to
mentally/physically distance himself with the people and look at them subjectively.
Naipauls point of view could be seen further commented by Mel Gussow thus:
In several cases, including that of his new book, Mr. Naipaul's work
has been categorized as travel writing, a label that he accepts as "a
portmanteau word." But in no sense is it a book for travellers: it is a
book by a traveller. "One is not looking at the sights," he explained.
"One is exploring the people. I love landscape, but a place is its
people."3
Naipaul does wish to hold on to the racial identity that he had preserved in
Trinidad, but it did not have any importance in the Indian context as he felt that
Indians did not consider themselves as a single race as they felt the country was
divided into smaller kingdoms. The negative identity assigned by the writer to
India throughout his travel narratives leads to the conclusion that his expected
readers are not Indians, but Westerners. He comments in India: A Wounded
Civilization thus: So India even absorbs the new into its old self, using new tools
in old ways, purging itself of unnecessary mind, maintaining its equilibrium. The
poverty of the land is reflected in the poverty of the mind: it would be calamitous if
it were otherwise.5 This comment that Naipaul made brands Indians as
intellectually poor. This brings in a negative identity for the people even though
critics like Bruce King agrees with Naipauls observation and remarks in Modern
Novelists: V. S. Naipaul thus: The world has always consisted of change: it is
necessary for people and cultures to adapt. This must, however be done creatively,
making use of local resources, and with planning and hard work rather than by
mimicry of the formal colonial powers.6 From this comment it could be inferred
that cultural development does not occur through unconscious mimicry of the
other, but it is a conscious and gradual process of self development.
Culture is one of the major themes that Naipaul focused through his
Indian narratives. He comments in India: A Wounded Civilization: No civilization
was so little equipped to cope with the outside world: no country was so easily
raided and plundered, and learned so little from its disasters.7 Naipauls vision of
India is neither that of a native Indian nor that of a Trinidadian visiting a new/
foreign place. He is a part of India and also was separate from the country. Hence
his vision of India is peculiar.
This idea brought by Manjit Inder Singh shows that India need not be
blamed for borrowing foreign culture. This comment is in contrast with Naipauls
idea of having a homogeneous Indian identity derived from its past. He can be
observed as quite unsure of the idea of a monolithic culture as seen from a later
interview that was published in V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism:
Even though Naipaul claims that European ideologies should not be used as
yardsticks for assessing India, he consciously or unconsciously does so. Bruce
103
King comments about Naipauls views of India that were mixed up with his
Western ideologies. He explains in Modern Novelists: V. S. Naipaul thus: V. S.
Naipaul is a rationalist, secular, a strong believer in Western individualism and
skepticism, although emotionally attracted towards Indian fatalism, passivity and
philosophical notions of the world as illusion. Both world views are together,
competing in his writings.13 This comment highlights that Naipauls passivity to
India and attraction towards the West are due to the competing world views that he
had. He is able to give a comparative portrayal of the culture of the two
civilizations. The vision of India by foreigners is presented by Naipaul, in India: A
Wounded Civilization, through the words of middle-class lady in Delhi. She said:
We are like a zoo. Perhaps we should charge.14 The gaze of the foreigners on
the Indians is peculiar due to the difference in culture. The rebuke against
foreigners by an Indian makes the traveller/writer comment in India: A Wounded
Civilization thus: I was a visitor. She intended a rebuke, possibly an insult, but it
was easy to let it pass. India was like a zoo because India was poor and cruel and
had lost its way.15 The reason for the gaze of the foreigners is explained by
presenting the land and the people as poor, cruel, and lost its way. Indian
civilization has become a show piece in the eyes of the foreigners. The zoo
imagery used by the writer in his narrative makes the Indian condition worse and
pathetic as that of animals.
Cultural chaos was the major backdrop that Naipaul used, to portray the
decay of Indian civilization. It could be considered as a carefully constructed
platform on which he could lay his narrative firmly. India is presented by the writer
as a strange land without cultural homogeneity to fit to the backdrop of his
narration. Naipaul comments about the feeling that he had about India in India: A
Wounded Civilization:
India, which I visited for the first time in 1962, turned out to be a
strange land. A hundred years had been enough to wash me clean of
my Indian religious attitudes, and without these attitudes the distress
of India was-and is-almost insupportable. It has taken me much time
to come to terms with the strangeness of India, to define what
separates me from the country: and to understand how far the
Indian attitudes of someone like myself, a member of a small and
104
The strangeness that the writer felt with India was mainly due to his
Trinidadian identity. Naipauls travel narratives could be seen as presenting the
writer as distanced from his homeland. His Indian travel narratives are hence an
outcome of a purely objective vision of India by the writer without much enquiry
into the past of the country. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, in V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of
Recent Criticism, talks about Naipauls vision of India:
Pratap Bhanu Mehta focuses on the purely objective vision that Naipaul
had in his travel narrative. Naipaul does not see any significance in the past glory
of India. Naipauls unawareness of the real glory of India could be seen in India: A
Wounded Civilization from the comment: There are University students in
Bangalore, two hundred miles away, who havent even heard of it. It isnt only
because it was so completely wiped out, but also because it contributed so little: it
was itself a reassertion of the past.18 The ravaged monuments are presented by
the writer as a reassertion of the past that contributed so little to the progress of
Indian civilization. These comments were made by Naipaul due to the total neglect
of the cultural history of India. Even though he campaigns through his travel
narrative against the unawareness of the past glory of India by the indigenous
people, he himself appears to neglect the past grandeur that India had. This
negligence does construct a new identity for India. Indian identity itself can be
seen as questioned by Naipaul in his narrative India: A Million Mutinies Now:
105
The Indian identity as seen from this comment was not that of knowing
each other, but the peoples identity according to Naipaul, was that of being a
social group divided based on caste, region and family. This is one of the major
reasons for Indias cultural decay. Even though he tries to see India from the view
point of an Indian, he could not place himself in the position of being an Indian.
Manjit Inder Singhs comments, in V. S. Naipaul, on the vision of India in
Naipauls narrative: This cyclic pattern of un belonging to the Carribbean, India
or the West has been voiced as the undoing of Naipaul as a writer by many fellow
West Indian writers who see Naipauls inability to nourish a positive response as a
sign of his inner falsity and deliberated evasion of sordid reality.20 This comment
throws light on the psyche of the writer while narrating India. His Trinidadian life
style made him disagree with the Indian communal identity.
The Indian concept of family, caste and clan are indigestible to the writer as
he was unaccustomed to all these. Naipaul had been assessing Indias progress
during various time periods when the country underwent social and political
changes. His travels were the attempts to understand more about his ancestry and
about the culture to which he belongs. This observation could be asserted from the
comments of Peter Hulme, in The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing:
Subsequently, in no fewer than three travel books, of increasing complexity,
Naipaul has written about India, a country he returns to at least in part for complex
reasons of personal heritage.21 Personal reasons also provided inspiration for
Naipauls travel to India. India, according to him, remained as a symbol of a
shattered culture to the external world, even though the country had gained new
freedom. This comment shows the subjective position that Naipaul had taken in
narrating about India. The speciality of these travel narratives is that he is able to
106
shift his position as an Indian and Trinidadian while voicing out his opinion about
the country.
Naipaul was able to make a detailed analysis of the culture and tradition of
Indian society through his travels. The knowledge that he gained of such an inquiry
could be seen as entirely contradictory from the glory of which India could boast
off. He remarks in the interview published in V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of
Recent Criticism: The essence of literature, inquiry and philosophy is a constant
examination of oneself and ones world and ones own culture. One hopes to leave
the world with different ideas than those given to one when one enters the
world.22 This comment emphasizes that India had an entirely different picture
when Naipaul was about to leave the country. This picture of India was different
from the already existing notions that he had when he entered the country. Kate
Teltscher, comments, in The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, about
Naipauls response to India:
emphasizes that Naipaul has the right to narrate about India as he has clearer
understanding about the two cultural domains to which he belongs. Attitude of
the writer, while documenting his experiences, hence has an important role in the
vision of India. It stresses the idea that ones personal opinions of a particular
place/people that he/she visits need not be the view point of the indigenous people
in the country. Hence, attitude of the traveller/writer about the people and place,
has an important role in the analysis of the travel narratives.
The strangeness, that the writer felt, in India, had its impact on his travel
narratives. This has made the writer portray India as a strange land. Manjit Inder
Singh criticises in V. S. Naipaul, on the strangeness that is reflected in Naipauls
narratives: The claustrophobia, the exhaustion of the exile-traveller dangling
amidst alien surroundings marks another turning-point in Naipauls fiction.26 This
comment shows the unsatisfaction that Naipaul felt in India. The unsatisfaction
that the writer felt in India was self inflicted by him due to the strangeness that he
felt with the people and the places. This type of presentation of Indian culture is
critiqued by Manjit Inder Singh when he comments on the style employed by the
writer/traveller in his narrative. He remarks in V. S. Naipaul: Naipaul has been
trying to locate the colonial/imperial enclosures, and discuss the questions of
transplanted culture and forced inspirations, of stunted growth and distorted
histories, and present the great divide in the world one is trapped in works.27
Naipauls narrative is giving clear picture of the conditions of India as seen from
the comments of Manjit Inder Singh. Inspite of the dislocation or exhaustion that
Naipaul felt in India, he was able to give a distinct picture of the Indian culture.
108
A note worthy point at this juncture is that for all the disillusionment that
Naipaul had presented in his travel narratives, India stands as a platform that the
writer had already set. This is a narrative strategy employed by the writer to
present social and cultural decay of India through his travel narratives. The visions
of Naipaul can be seen as purely Westernized and unsentimental towards the
people whom he is presenting. This observation can be substantiated with the
comment of Kate Teltscher, travel critic, in The Cambridge Companion to Travel
Writing: The turn towards oral history in A Million Mutinies Now is
uncharacteristic both of Naipauls oeuvre and, more generally, of contemporary
travel writing. With the writers subjectivity centre stage, India usually serves as a
backdrop - be it charming, exotic, infuriating, or comic-to the narrators travels.28
From this comment, it could be inferred that India served as the best backdrop to
present all the disillusionment that the writer could have. Through the protagonist
Jagan, in R. K. Narayans The Vendor of Sweets, Naipaul makes the character
voice out the opinion that he had about India as an Indian who experienced the
country. Jagan, the character speaks in India: A Wounded Civilization: Why do
you blame the country for everything? It has been good enough for four hundred
millions, remembering the heritage of Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita and all the
trials and sufferings he had undergone to win Independence.29 This comment by
Jagan, the third person in the narrative, Naipaul is emphasising that India should
not be blamed for everything that happened in the present. The use of the narrative
voice of Jagan does fictionalize the travel narratives. Naipauls narrative ends with
an optimistic note for the development of India. He explains in India: A Wounded
Civilization: The past can now be possessed only by inquiry and scholarship, by
intellectual rather than spiritual discipline. Past has to be seen to be dead: or the
past will kill.30 From this comment it could be seen that Naipauls vision of India
is more consolidated and focussed on the countrys future, predicting the changes
that may occur in the civilization in due course, leaving a positive note for the
people. But at the same place he is commenting against spiritual discipline and
highlights on the need for intellectual scholarship. This is a negative remark on
Indian ideologies. Mel Gussow, remarked: The tone of his book signifies a certain
mellowing on his part, but it is clear that he is still a man of the most passionate
convictions."31 This comment shows that Naipaul had written the Indian travel
narratives by keeping a clear intention/motive of what need to be highlighted
109
through his narrative. His travel narratives are especially meant for appealing to the
Western readers.
Critics like Bruce King were also able to find hidden motives in Naipauls
narrative. He remarks in Modern Novelists: V. S. Naipaul thus: Eventually he
found an additional source of income in travelling to and reporting on the social
and cultural problems of other parts of the world, especially the newly independent
nations.32 From this comment Bruce King aims to say that the motive of
Naipauls narrative could not only be seen as a mode to revive the past history of
India but also has a hidden, personal intention. It also had brought him fame and
became a source of income. But these aspects are of less significance considering
the real value that the narratives have for the readers in the academic circles as they
talk about the culture of a foreign place/people. The personal gains that Naipaul
achieved through his travels is mentioned in Modern Novelists: V. S. Naipaul, by
Bruce King thus: Such travel corresponded with Naipauls own need to find new
subject matter beyond his memories of Trinidad and provided him with a more
interesting life than the solitary existence of a novelist: it contributed to his
awareness of the wider world.33 Thus, travel narratives do provide personal gains
for the narrator and readers. It provides a general awareness about a foreign
land/people. The culture of the people could also be studied through such accounts.
The physical and mental distancing that Naipaul had kept in his mind
during his narration of India was to make his views on India unbiased. The
psychological unfamiliarity that the writer felt with India cannot be fully discarded
in this context. Bruce King, comments, in Modern Novelists: V. S. Naipaul, on the
unfamiliarity that Naipaul felt when he visited India: Although he claims that
writing does not come easily to him, except during a few very brief periods he has
had no other employment. For his first twenty years in England he never felt at
home and is still aware of himself as an outsider.35 This comment shows that there
existed a clash between the two cultural identities that the writer had. This has led
him to live a discontent life in India as well as in Trinidad. This is the reason why
Naipaul could be seen as disillusioned. Manjit Inder Singh, comments about the
dislocation that Naipaul felt during his journey in V. S. Naipaul. He comments:
Another note worthy aspect of the study of the encounter of Indian culture
by Naipaul is that he assessed India in relation with Trinidad. This inturn created a
culture shock in the writer. This is the major reason for his discontent in India as
evident in India: A Wounded Civilization. He remarks: But the question of
comparison did not arise. The world outside India was to be judged by its own
standards-India was not to be judged. India was only to be experienced in the
Indian way.38 Thus, India is represented by Naipaul based on his individual
experiences in the country.
Naipauls India series of travel narratives could be seen as shifting its focus
from the descriptions of the Indian religion, beliefs etc., to the mannerisms of the
people and showing that culture promotes subjugation of humanity in the form of
customs and traditions that the people follow. This is explained in the description
of the Rajasthani woman. Indian women were presented by the writer as slowly
retrieving into their house hold chores as part of their culture. The voices of the
women were muted according to the writer when he had visited Rajasthan. He
comments in India: A Wounded Civilization: The women had withdrawn-so many
of them, below their red or orange Rajasthani veil, only girls, children, but already
with children of their own.39 Naipauls attention does focus only in a smaller
canvas to the women who voluntarily have chosen to live for the welfare of their
family. He does not point at the women who came out of their houses for fighting
for Indias Independence. This shows that he is selective in his description of the
people to show only the subjugation and decay that the people suffered from. It
should also be noted that Naipauls travel narratives on India as such do not give
sufficient space for women representations.
had lost the key to a whole world of belief and feelings, and was cut
off from his past. 42
This comment shows that, Naipaul as a traveller/writer does not help India
to get rid of its inadequacy. Other imageries that he employed in his narrative to
114
show the decay of India were the ancient monuments whose true value, according
to him, was not known to Indians. He comments in India: A Wounded Civilization:
Just as the fantasy of past splendor is accommodated within an acceptance of
present squalor. That once glorious avenue-not a national monument still permitted
to live is a slum.46 Excavating and preserving the destroyed monuments in India is
seen as mere fantasy by Naipaul. He does not go deeper into the analysis of the
past grandeur that India had which was conquered and destroyed by the Europeans.
He is brooding on the graveyard of the country without contemplating on the once
living glory. This makes the readers think whether Naipaul is sensitive towards
India? Is the writer digging the grave yard of his own cultural ancestry through his
travel narratives? Is he going for a self congratulation of Trinidadian background
showing the moral decay of India? Is he constructing a new India which is
unknown to the Indians who live in the country? These are the questions to which I
tried to find answer through the analysis of Naipauls travel narratives.
India does stand as a mark of the disillusionment that Naipaul felt with the
country during his travels. Manjit Inder Singh, in V. S. Naipaul, comments on the
representation of the destroyed monuments in Naipauls travel narratives:
goes on, the past continues. After conquest and destruction, the past simply
reasserts itself.48 The casualness with which Naipaul describes the cultural history
of India does not do justice to the real condition of the civilization.
After the presentation of the physical depletion that India suffered from the
Europeans, Naipaul is focussing on the intellectual depletion of Indians. This was
presented by him as a major reason for the decay of the civilization. He mentions
in India: A Wounded Civilization: the crisis of India is not only political or
economic. The larger crisis is of a wounded old civilization that has at last become
aware of its inadequacies and is without the intellectual mean to move ahead.49
This is another mode of branding the Indians as intellectually poor and
constructing a new negative identity for Indians. This comment provides a negative
identity for Indians in the minds of the readers who have not been to India even
once.
Fragmented notions that Naipaul had about Indias colonial past and the
misinterpretation of the mutinies that Indians had suffered were the major
drawback in his narratives. He is presenting an entirely different picture of non
violence in the present Indian context as nondoing, noninterference and social
indifference. Karma or the moral obligation of the people is also misrepresented
116
in the narrative as the Hindu Killer. The real value of ahimsa is casually forgotten
by the writer while viewing it in the context of cultural decay.
What India lacked was the broader identity and the racial sense
according to Naipaul. What the Indians lost was a sense of togetherness. He
comments in India: A Wounded Civilization thus:
117
As it has been amply evidenced from this comment, it could be seen that
Indian culture lacked collective consciousness or the feeling of belonging to one
race. Indians are so obsessed with their caste and religious system that the feeling
of being a single race was slowly wiped away from their culture. A common
shared set of ideology is what the country lacked. Naipaul is trying through his
narrative to make the people aware of their lacking in India. While considering his
intention in a positive sense, the readers expected for reading his narratives are
Indians so that India could progress in future. He narrates considering that his
readers are Indians. The reformation that the writer aims in the society could be
seen in V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism, when he remarks:
You had two battles: one to clense the country of foreign rule and
the other to clense oneself. One looked outward: the other inward. I
see no reason why the two cannot be combined. If this is not done
then ten years later people will say: Why did not you tell us? Look
at the mess we are in now? 54
The overall view that Naipaul presented through his travel narrative about
India, in India: A Wounded Civilization, was as follows:
All that remained was what the visitor could see: small, poor fields,
ragged men, huts, monsoon mud. But in that very abjectness lay
security where the world had shrunk, and ideas of human possibility
had become extinct, the world could be seen as complete. Men had
retreated to their last, impregnable defenses: their knowledge of
who they were, their caste, their karma, their unshakable place in
the scheme of things, and this knowledge was like their knowledge
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of the seasons. Ritual marked the passage of each day, ritual marked
every stage of a mans life. Life itself had been turned to ritual: and
everything beyond this complete and sanctified world-where
fulfillment came so easily to a man or to a woman- was vain and
phantasmal.55
This remark of Naipaul presents the clear picture of the decay and retreat of
Indian civilization. This had created a negative identity on the civilization and had
created much envy by his admirers. Purabi Panwars comment on the hostility and
criticism that Naipaul had to face after publishing his Indian travel narratives in V.
S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism thus:
Before, during and after his many journeys Naipaul has made both
overt and covert observations on nations, cultures, communities and
races, which have forced world-wide attention. His book of course
testify to his powers as a shrewd delineator of people, situations and
settings, and reflect his unusual talent for the telling detail and the
penetrating observation based on it. But they also carry these
notations of experiences and encounters, inextricably mixed up with
his innate predilections and prejudices. Naipaul has, as a result,
roused not only much controversy and provocation but bitter
hostility and resentment too. All along his writing career till date, he
has drawn a formidable envy of admirers and detractors, of those
who hugely eulogize him and those who treat him as a contraband
item.56
Naipaul does not look into the prosperity that India had before it was
conquered and subjugated. Nation building becomes a difficult task in this context
of cultural decay according to him. He is employing the opinions of the second
person narrator to describe India. The cultural decay that India suffered from is
better explained in India: A Wounded Civilization, through the second person
narrative of the Indian prince who narrates:
119
Colonization could be seen to a larger extent as one of the reasons for the
cultural decay that affected India. The opinions of the citizens of India are
highlighted by Naipaul contradicting what he himself is depicting about the
countrys cultural and intellectual decay. Bruce King, comments in Modern
Novelists: V. S. Naipaul thus:
The political crisis of India need not necessarily make the people animal
as seen from the second person narrative voice. Naipauls opinions on India are
reasserted through this comment. Caste system had its worst impact in the country
as documented by Naipaul. This has contributed to the decay of the civilization. He
explains in India: A Wounded Civilization:
international followings, and their public-relations men) are no longer what they
were.62 This comment highlight that the Indian culture is under slow
transformation by apeing the West. Naipaul feels in India: A Wounded Civilization,
that the changes that had happened to Indian culture purports parody: and
sometimes unconscious mimicry.63 The use of the term unconscious mimicry
stresses on the modern culture of Indians by apeing the West. The disintegration of
the Hindu culture is represented by Naipaul through his travel narratives. The most
awful form of beggary was seen in Bombay as he was able to experience it closely
and comment on it in India: A Wounded Civilization:
Naipaul as a traveller hates the beggary that he saw in India as the beggars
pester tourists. Through his narrative, he documents the beggary of an individual
as the beggary of all the people. By branding beggars as a nuisance and
disgrace, he provides a new identity for the people. Dileep Padgoankar,
comments in V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism, about the
misrepresentation of India by Naipaul:
The very titles of his first two books on India-An Area of Darkness
and A Wounded Civilization- made it clear that he regarded this
country as yet another, indeed extravagant, example of decay and
decomposition, inertia, violence, fear and generally of intellectual
puerility and relentless, moral turpitude. His was a stark vision: one
which lacked the flimsiest hope of progress or redemption.65
The stark vision of Naipaul could be seen in the identity that he creates
for the whole Indian civilization by showing the deeds of a single individual.
Indian land and byways could be seen as portrayed dirty with human excreta and
the Indian attitudes were also described as dirty with the hatred for the fellow
122
beings of low caste. The human habit of defecating in the public places is
highlighted by the writer like that of Lawrence in Sea and Sardinia (cf. 99-100).
This shows that Naipaul was much conscious of an individuals public and private
space. The notion of public and private space in Naipauls narrative might be
due to the Western influence that he had. He remarks in India: A Wounded
Civilization:
Through these sections we walked without speaking, picking our
way between squirts and butts and twists of human excrement. It
was unclean to clean, it was unclean even to notice. It was the
business of the sweepers to remove excrement, and until the
sweepers came, people were content to live in the midst of their
own excrement.66
The awareness of public and private space made the writer be conscious
about Indian premises as that of D. H. Lawrence in Twilight in Italy and Sea and
Sardinia. The total neglect of the people towards the cleanliness of their premises
remains un neglected by Naipaul as seen from this comment. The disgust that he
felt, even to look, at the streets is seen through the words It was unclean to clean,
it was unclean even to notice. The extent to which Naipaul was toned by the
European life style can be seen from the remark we walked without speaking.
This comment shows the impact of his Trinidadian culture in his behaviour. Even
though changes have happened in the living condition of India, Naipaul does not
appear to have focussed on it, as Purabi Panwar, comments in V. S. Naipaul: An
Anthology of Recent Criticism:
This comment highlights the idea that, Naipaul might have misrepresented
the behavior patterns of the Indians in order to give his travel narrative a fictional
touch. This is the point where the objective of writing serious travel narrative often
fails in Naipaul. He had to be conscious of the fact that an individuals own set of
behaviour need not be the same behaviour pattern of the whole civilization. It
should be seen as purely individual and personal. The defecation of one individual
in a public place need not reflect the habit of the whole civilization as Naipaul has
depicted. This absence of civic sense69 as mentioned in India: A Million Mutinies
Now, is not necessarily the common quality of the Indians. The defecation in
public space can be seen as a routine activity that people do without seeing
anything serious in it.
Colonization has given a platform for India and its citizens to contemplate
on the countrys position in the world. Hence the notion of a new cultural
consciousness arose in the country after the political chaos. This could not be
completely neglected even though Naipauls narrative contradicts this notion. The
shaping of Indian culture according to Naipauls travel narrative was thus: Caste
and clan are more than brotherhoods; they define the individual completely. The
individual is never on his own: he is always fundamentally a member of his group,
with a complex apparatus of rules, rituals, taboos.71
Indian culture does not provide individual identity to the people. People are
divided into groups sharing a collective identity through rituals and rules of the
civilization. The behaviour of every individual was according to their groups will.
Indian culture was formulated by the roles that each individual performed. Naipaul
comments in India: A Wounded Civilization:
These rules and regulations formed the frame work of the Indian culture as
seen in Naipauls travel narratives. Naipaul stresses this blind religious belief of
the Indians in India: A Million Mutinies Now thus: Religion, faith: there seemed
to be no end to it, no end to its demands. It was like part of the nerves of the over-
populated, over-protected valley.73 This comment emphasises that rules and
regulations codify the society and the culture of India. There is no existence for the
individual outside this framework. Indian culture could be seen as a series of caste
codes based on which every Indian was obliged to work. Naipaul narrates in India:
A Wounded Civilization:
Caste codes are seen from this comment as providing the framework for
Indian culture. The feeling of idealization or purposelessness of the Indian life is
emphasized by Naipaul through his narratives. This feeling makes the writer
suggest a remedial measure. It was to commit suicide. He suggests in India: A
Wounded Civilization: I would confess that I have come to feel that a large
majority of the persons I know should do so, because I cannot see any point in their
remaining alive.75 This remark of Naipaul in his travel narrative is a kind of de
motivation for all the Indians who are striving hard to make a life under
challenging circumstances as that of Independence and Emergency. Naipauls
pessimistic comment does not mean to say that he does not see a future for the
Indians. The only way out of this cultural chaos is the awareness that could be
generated to the people. India has its own distinct culture, art, rulers and legislature
from the past. But this past has to be awakened in the mind of the present
generation, only then India could step forward to its development. Cultural chaos
could only be nullified through cultural awareness. Naipaul brings in this vision
for progress of the civilization through his India: A Wounded Civilization:
Indian heritage and culture could hence be seen as lost with the passage of
time, during the long years of war and conquest that have to be rediscovered. The
reason for the social and political crisis that India suffered from is due to the
cultural confusion that Indians are facing in the present. Naipaul remarks in India:
A Wounded Civilization thus: Archaic emotions, nostalgic memories: when
these were awakened by Gandhi, India became free. But the India created in this
126
way had to stall. Gandhi took India out of one kind of Kal Yug, one kind of Black
age: his success inevitably pushed it back into another.77 The doom of the
civilization could be seen when the traveller/writer branded India as Kal Yug or
Black age. This is a kind of negative identity assigned to Indian civilization.
Naipauls presentation of India in his travel narratives was as a land of diverse
beliefs and customs. Religious beliefs of the people are given emphasis in his
travel narratives. A life without religious beliefs would make the people feel lost
according to the writer. Every object that he saw in India was assigned certain
meanings. They were charged with the blind beliefs of the people. Naipaul
suggests in India: A Wounded Civilization, the example of the religious belief of
Bengal: The truth is frightening, as I learned only recently near the end of the
book. The pumpkin, in Bengal and adjoining areas, is a vegetable substitute for a
living sacrifice: the male hand was therefore necessary.78 Religious beliefs of the
Indians is a theme that the writer is obsessed with throughout his travel narratives.
It is seen by Naipaul as a hindrance for the progress of Indian culture as he was
unable to find any significance for these beliefs. He mentions in India: A Wounded
Civilization thus: the memories of that India, which lived on into my childhood in
Trinidad, are like trapdoors into a bottomless past.79 The imagery that the
writer/narrator employs while referring to the religious beliefs of the Indians as
trapdoors that lead to bottomless past indirectly conveys to the readers the
discontent that Naipaul had with the blind beliefs.
ancestry. The quest begins with the travel narratives of Bruce Chatwin, to
understand how he encounters a new/foreign culture.
128
Notes
1
Bruce King. Modern Novelists: V. S. Naipaul. (London: The Macmillan Press,
1993) 10.
2
Purabi Panwar. V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. (Delhi:
Pencraft International, 2003) 96.
3
Mel Gussow, Travel Plus Writing Plus Reflection Equals V. S. Naipaul.
January30,1991.TheNewYorkTimes.http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?re
s=9401E0D71439F934A1575AC0A967948260&sec=travel&spon=&pagewanted=
2.
4
Naipaul, V. S. India: A Million Mutinies Now. (Auckland: Minerva Paperback,
1990) 8.
5
Purabi Panwar. V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. (Delhi:
Pencraft International, 2003) 172.
6
Bruce King. Modern Novelists: V. S. Naipaul. (London: The Macmillan Press,
1993) 9.
7
Naipaul, V. S. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 7.
8
Ibid., 126.
9
Manjit Inder Singh. V. S. Naipaul. (New Delhi: Rawat Publication, 1998) 134.
10
Purabi Panwar. V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. (Delhi:
Pencraft International, 2003) 56.
11
Manjit Inder Singh. V. S. Naipaul. (New Delhi: Rawat Publication, 1998) 129.
129
12
Naipaul. V. S. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 130.
13
Bruce King. Modern Novelists: V. S. Naipaul. (London: The Macmillan Press,
1993) 5.
14
Ibid., 135.
15
Ibid., 135.
16
Naipaul. V. S. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 9.
17
Purabi Panwar. V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. (Delhi:
Pencraft International, 2003) 45.
18
Naipaul. V. S. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 15.
19
---. India: A Million Mutinies Now. (Auckland: Minerva Paperback, 1990) 8.
20
Manjit Inder Singh. V. S. Naipaul. (New Delhi: Rawat Publication, 1998) 191.
21
Peter Hulme. Travelling to Write. (1940-2000) The Cambridge Companion to
Travel Writing. Ed. Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002) 89.
22
Purabi Panwar. V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. (Delhi:
Pencraft International, 2003) 56.
23
Kate Teltscher. India/Calcutta: City of Palaces and Dreadful Night. The
Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing. Ed. Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 194.
130
24
Purabi Panwar. V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. (Delhi:
Pencraft International, 2003) 408.
25
Manjit Inder Singh. V. S. Naipaul. (New Delhi: Rawat Publication, 1998) 190.
26
Ibid., 144.
27
Ibid., 21.
28
Kate Teltscher. India/Calcutta: City of Palaces and Dreadful Night. The
Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing. Ed. Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 194.
29
V. S. Naipaul. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 33.
30
Ibid., 174.
31
Mel Gussow, Travel Plus Writing Plus Reflection Equals V. S. Naipaul.
January30,1991.TheNewYorkTimes.http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?re
s=9401E0D71439F934A1575AC0A967948260&sec=travel&spon=&pagewanted=
2
32
Bruce King. Modern Novelists: V. S. Naipaul. (London: The Macmillan Press,
1993) 3.
33
Ibid., 3.
34
Purabi Panwar. V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. (Delhi:
Pencraft International, 2003) 96.
35
Bruce King. Modern Novelists: V. S. Naipaul. (London: The Macmillan Press,
1993) 1.
131
36
Manjit Inder Singh. V. S. Naipaul. (New Delhi: Rawat Publication, 1998) 51.
37
Ibid., 21.
38
Bruce King. Modern Novelists: V. S. Naipaul. (London: The Macmillan Press,
1993) 35.
39
Naipaul. V. S. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 30.
40
Bruce King. Modern Novelists: V. S. Naipaul. (London: The Macmillan Press,
1993) 43.
41
Ibid., 45.
42
Naipaul. V. S. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 70.
43
Billie Melman. The Middle East/Arabia: The Cradle of Islam The Cambridge
Companion to Travel Writing. Ed. Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002) 107.
44
Naipaul. V. S. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 71.
45
Purabi Panwar. V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. (Delhi:
Pencraft International, 2003) 45.
46
Naipaul. V. S. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 15.
47
Manjit Inder Singh. V. S. Naipaul. (New Delhi Rawat Publication, 1998) 120.
132
48
Naipaul. V. S. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 15.
49
Ibid., 18.
50
Ibid., 25.
51
Ibid., 25.
52
Ibid., 174.
53
Ibid., 154.
54
Purabi Panwar. V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. (Delhi:
Pencraft International, 2003) 60.
55
Naipaul. V. S. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 32.
56
Purabi Panwar. V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. (Delhi:
Pencraft International, 2003)14.
57
Naipaul. V. S. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 34.
58
Bruce King. Modern Novelists: V. S. Naipaul. (London: The Macmillan Press,
1993) 2.
59
Naipaul. V. S. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 46.
60
Ibid., 46.
61
Ibid., 47.
133
62
Ibid., 51.
63
Ibid., 52.
64
Ibid., 58.
65
Purabi Panwar. V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. (Delhi:
Pencraft International, 2003) 55.
66
Naipaul. V. S. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books,
1977) 68.
67
Purabi Panwar. V. S. Naipaul: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. (Delhi:
Pencraft International, 2003) 17.
68
Ibid., 192.
69
Naipaul. V. S. India: A Million Mutinies Now. (Auckland: Minerva Paperback,
1990) 65.
70
---. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1977) 93.
71
Ibid., 102.
72
Ibid., 103.
73
---. India: A Million Mutinies Now. (Auckland: Minerva Paperback, 1990) 510.
74
---. India: A Wounded Civilization. (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1977) 115.
75
Ibid., 139.
76
Ibid., 144.
134
77
Ibid., 152.
78
Ibid., 10.
79
Ibid., 10.