MA-English-Semester-IV-Paper-Postcolonial-Literature-munotes

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CONCEPTS AND ISSUES IN
POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE - I
Part I
Unit Structure:
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Colonialism
1.2 Postcolonialism
1.3 The Historical and Ideological Moorings behind Commonwealth
Literature
1.4 Summing up
1.5 Important Questions
1.6 References
1.0 OBJECTIVES
Dear learner, this chapter will familiarise you with concepts such as
Colonialism and Postcolonialism. Also, the chapter will deal with The
Historical and Ideological Moorings behind Commonwealth Literature.
You will develop a basic understand ing of Colonialism and
Postcolonialism. The chapter will also acquaint you with some of the
major and minor concepts in Postcolonialism. . Besides, you will develop
an understanding of terms like Exotic Other" and "Demonic Other,
History, Nation Race, Gend er Black Feminism etc.
1.1 COLONIALISM
Colonialism is the practise of one country acquiring complete or partial
political control over another and settling there with settlers in order to
exploit that country's resources and economy. It might be challengin g to
differentiate colonialism from imperialism because both involve the
political and economic dominance of a dominating country over a weaker
territory. From the dawn of time until the beginning of the 20th century,
strong nations fought openly for contr ol of new territories through
colonialism. By the time World War I broke out in 1914, nearly every
continent had been colonised by European nations. Although colonialism
is not as actively implemented as it once was, there is evidence that it still
has inf luence in the modern world. Let us take a look at the following
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2 ● The process of a nation acquiring whole or partial governmental
authority over a dependent nation, territory, or population is known as
coloni alism.
● When people from one nation move to another in order to take
advantage of their population and natural resources, this is known as
colonialism.
● The indigenous populations of the nations that colonise are often
subjected to attempts by colonial power s to impose their own
languages and traditions on them.
● Both imperialism and colonialism include the use of force and
authority to dominate over another nation or people.
● By 1914, Europeans had colonised the vast majority of the world's
nations.
So, from t he above words, we can define colonialism as an act of political
and economic supremacy in which settlers from a foreign power take
control of a nation and its people. Most colonial nations strive to profit by
exploiting the people and resources of the nat ions they have conquered.
During this process, colonisers attempt to impose their political, religious,
and cultural views on the native population, occasionally employing force.
While most people have an unfavourable opinion of colonisation because
of its often terrible history and resemblance to imperialism, some nations
have profited from it. Singapore, which was a British colony from 1826
until 1965, for example, attributes its exceptional economic growth to
"valuable components of colonial legacy." Col onization frequently offered
poor or emerging countries with immediate access to Europe's bloated
trading market. During the industrial revolution, the demand for natural
resources in the major European countries increased significantly, and
colonial power s were able to export them for great profits.
The benefits were substantial, especially for many European, African, and
Asian nations affected by British colonisation. Along with lucrative trade
deals, English institutions such as common law, private prope rty rights,
and formal banking and lending processes provided the colonies with a
firm foundation for economic growth, leading to their independence.
However, colonialism's detrimental repercussions frequently exceeded its
beneficial ones. The governments of the invading nations regularly
imposed harsh new rules and fees on indigenous people. It was normal
practise to confiscate and destroy native lands and cultures. As a result of
the combined effects of colonialism and imperialism, many indigenous
people were sold into slavery, slaughtered, or died of disease and
starvation. Many others were evicted from their homes and scattered over
the world. Many African -Americans, for example, may trace their history
back to the so -called "Scramble for Africa," an unp aralleled period of
imperialism and colonialism that occurred between 1880 and 1900 and
ended in European nations occupying the bulk of the African continent.
Today, only Ethiopia and Liberia are believed to have avoided European munotes.in

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3 colonialism. Now let’s try to understand Colonialism and Imperialism
together.
Although the phrases colonialism and imperialism are frequently used
interchangeably, they have slightly different connotations. Imperialism is
the political ideology that motivates colonialism, which is the physical act
of occupying another nation. To put it another way, colonialism might be
seen as an instrument of imperialism. Both colonialism and imperialism
involve the subjugation of one nation by another. Similar to colonialism,
imperialism is a mea ns by which the aggressor nations seek to make
money and gain a military edge in the area. Imperialism, on the other
hand, refers to the direct or indirect political and financial dominance of
another country, either with or without the need for a physical presence.
This is in contrast to colonialism, which always entails the direct
establishment of physical settlements in another country. Countries that
engage in colonialism typically do so in order to gain economically from
the exploitation of the colonis ed country's priceless natural and human
resources. As opposed to this, nations pursue imperialism in an effort to
expand their political, economic, and military hegemony over vast
territories, if not entire continents.
America, Australia, New Zealand, Alg eria, and Brazil are a few examples
of nations whose history are usually seen as having been impacted by
colonialism. These nations came under the rule of numerous settlers from
European powers. Examples of typical situations of imperialism, in which
forei gn rule is established without any meaningful settlement, are
European dominance of the majority of African nations in the late 1800s
and American dominance of the Philippines and Puerto Rico. Hope you
understand the difference between Colonialism and Imp erialism. Now, let
us take a look at the history of Colonialism.
Around 1550 BCE, the ancient civilizations of Greece, Rome, Egypt, and
Phoenicia started expanding their dominion over neighbouring and non -
contiguous lands. This is when colonialism first em erged. These
prehistoric civilizations built colonies using their greater military power,
utilising the knowledge and resources of the people they conquered to
grow their empires. During the Age of Exploration in the 15th century, the
first stage of modern colonialism got underway. The longest -lasting of the
contemporary European colonial empires, the Portuguese took control of
the North African nation of Ceuta in 1419 in search of new trade routes
and civilizations outside of Europe.
Spain opted to embark on exploration after Portugal expanded its empire
by colonising the populated islands of Madeira and Cape Verde in the
central Atlantic. Christopher Columbus, a Spanish explorer, set sail in
1492 in pursuit of a western sea passage to China and India. Inst ead, the
start of Spanish colonialism was signaled by his landing in the Bahamas.
Spain and Portugal continued to acquire and exercise power over
indigenous countries in the Americas, India, Africa, and Asia as they
competed with one another for new areas to exploit. The establishment of
the French and Dutch overseas empires, as well as the English overseas munotes.in

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4 possessions, notably the colonial United States, which would later grow
into the vast British Empire, contributed to the flourishing of colonialism
during the 17th century.
The first period of decolonization, during which the majority of the
European colonies in the Americas attained their independence, began
with the end of the American Revolution in 1783. The loss of their New
World territories irrevoca bly damaged both Spain and Portugal. The Old -
World nations of South Africa, India, and Southeast Asia were the focus
of colonial endeavours by Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and
Germany. European colonialism was described as "New Imperialism"
during the period from the opening of the Suez Canal and the Second
Industrial Revolution in the late 1870s until the outbreak of World War I
in 1914. The learners are advice to read these concepts in detail for the
deeper understanding of the same. Now, let u s take a glance over
Postcolonialism.
1.2 POSTCOLONIALISM
Postcolonialism is a critical examination of Third World nations' histories,
cultures, literature, and discourse in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean Islands,
and South America. It is concerned in the stu dy of colonisation, which
dates back to the Renaissance, decolonization (the process of reclaiming
and recreating indigenous cultures), and the neocolonizingprocess(the
result of postmodernism and late capitalism, in which multinational
businesses rule the world). By concentrating on the continual power
struggles between cultures and the junction of cultures, postcolonialism
analyses the metaphysical, ethical, and political problems surrounding
cultural identity, gender, nationality, race, ethnicity, subjec tivity,
language, and power.
Postcolonial literary criticism, which draws inspiration from
poststructuralist and postmodern ideas of decentering, challenges the
universalist claims of literature, identifies colonial sympathies in the
canon, and replaces co lonial metanarratives with counter -narratives of
racialization through tactics such as separatism, nativism, cultural
syncretism, hybridity, mimicry, active participation, and assimilation. It
criticises cultural hierarchy and modernity's Eurocentrism, bot h of which
are backed by an anti -essentialist view of identity and culture. The
Wretched of the Earth (1961) by Franz Fanon, Orientalism (1978) by
Edward Said, In Other Worlds (1987) by Gayatri Spivak, The Empire
Writes Back (1989) by Bill Ashcroft et al, Nation and Narrative (1990) by
Homi K. Bhabha, and Culture and Imperialism (1993) by Edward Said are
some of the major theoretical works in postcolonial theory. Indigenous
peoples from previously colonised and marginalised nations are
increasingly discover ing their voices in literature and attempting to
establish their own claims about their visions, stories, and histories.
In order to highlight the modalities of representation through which
Europeans built Indians in politically biassed ways, postcolonial criticism
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5 supported imperial ideology, colonial supremacy, and ongoing Western
hegemony. It investigates its racial, gendered, and colonial assumptions
beyond the outwardly universal , aesthetic, and humanist themes.
Postcolonial critics reinterpret and analyse the features of literary works
by focusing on the circumstances surrounding their creation, exposing any
hidden colonial ideals. This technique can be seen in Chinua Achebe's
rereading of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Edward Said's rereading of Jane
Austen's Mansfield Park, Sara Suleri's rereading of Kipling's Kim, and
Rereading of E.M. Forster's A Passage to India by Homi K. Bhabha. Now,
let us take a look at the major key concept s in Postcolonialism.
The "Exotic Other" and the "Demonic Other" are two concepts related
to othering. The Demonic Other is portrayed as inferior, negative, savage,
and wicked in books like Heart of Darkness and A Passage to India,
whereas the Exotic Other expresses a fascination with the innate dignity
and beauty of the primitive/undeveloped other, as expressed in Yeats'
Byzantium poetry.
Diaspora : The term "diaspora" refers to people who have been uprooted
or dispersed from their native lands and who poss ess and share a collective
memory and myth. The nostalgic memory of "home" or an inherited
ideology of "home" becomes a personal identity as well as a collective
identity of members of a particular community. They have no real roots
anywhere and exist only in their "Imagined homelands" in their minds.
They compromise between their culture and the host country's at the new
place. For instance, numerous authors, including Bharati Mukherjee,
Meena Alexander, Menon Marath, Dom Moraes, Farrukh Dhondy, Kiran
Desa i, Jhumpa Lahiri, and others, have thoroughly studied the Indian
diasporic experience. Despite the possibility of visiting the location that is
perceived as the place of origin, diasporic theorists Avtar Brah and Robin
Cohen suggest the idea of a home as a mythical one, a place of longing in
the diasporic imagination, and a place to which there can be no return.
History: writing the writers of the Third World countries are becoming
more interested and eager to write about their native histories, problems
with colonisation, and anti -colonial resistance in the wake of
decolonization, after long years of imperial suppression and effacement of
identity. They have written case studies of cultural colonisation, native
identity, and anti -colonial resistance. Thus, the culturalist nationalist strain
of anti -colonial writing is prevalent in the first phase, and it is embodied in
movements like Negritude, Africanite , and African Aesthetic . These
battles were an attempt to free themselves from colonial attitudes and
ways of thinking on both an individual and a colonial level. The
postcolonial obsession with history, which is closely related to the
overarching objective of decolonization, examines topics like questioning
the effects of colonialism, particularly in terms o f cultural alienation; the
anti-colonial struggles of the Third World and the rise of nationalism; the
creation of mimic men in the colonial culture; the appropriation of history
by the colonial master; and attempts to retrieve and rewrite their own
histor ies by the former colonisers. A postcolonial culture's search for its
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6 impossible to recover native history free of colonial influence. Underneath
the layers of colonial historiography, the Subaltern Studies project looks
for the local resistance to colonialism.
Nation : Postcolonial authors are aware of their part in establishing
nations. By rejecting and resisting Western constructions of the "other" as
being primitive, savage, demonic, etc. and by attempting to locate a pre -
colonial past that would aid in the redefinition of a nation and the
projection of a destiny and future, the nation -building project in
postcolonial literature seeks to erase the colonial past.
Race: According to Michael Banton, the idea of race has served as the
foundation for prejudice and disempowerment. In social, political, and
cultural theory, race has grown to be a crucial term. Critical race studies,
which covers ethnicity studies, minority literature studies, and studies of
particular traditions in literature and philosophy, directly confronts issues
of race and racial prejudice. Race and ethnicity issues have greater
political and social relevance because they give rise to collective,
communal identities. Cultura l studies, media studies, black british studies,
Asian American studies, etc. have all benefited greatly from the political
reading and critical practise of racial studies.
Gender : In postcolonial gender discourse, it is discussed how patriarchy
and imper ialism both colonised women on two different levels. In the
latter half of the 20th century, gender and sexuality emerged as major
themes in postcolonial writing. Anita Desai, Ama Ata Aidoo,
SunitiNamjoshi, BuchiEmecheta, and Nawal El Saadawi have all writ ten
about gender and the place of women in postcolonial societies. Native
Canadian and African -American women like Gloria Anzaldua and Maria
Campbell have written a lot of autobiographical pieces about the
relationship between gender and racial/ethnic iden tities. The state of
women in Third World nations is examined in postcolonial gender studies
in relation to how class, caste, the economy, political empowerment, and
literacy have impacted this situation. The influence of "First World
Feminism" on Third Wo rld writers while investigating the potential of
Third World Feminism is another fascinating field of study.
Black Feminism: The dominant roles of black males in the civil rights
movement and white women in feminist propaganda forced the emergence
of Black Feminism, which emphasised the close relationship between
sexism and racism. The marginalised, intersectional condition of Black
women is discussed in Kimberle Crenshaw's Identity Politics, Women,
Race and Class by Angela Davis, and Womanism by Alice Walk er.
Combahee River Collective, a Black feminist lesbian organisation founded
by activists like Barbara Smith, is fundamentally distinct from "white
feminism."
Neocolonialism: is the term used to describe the European imperial
powers' ongoing economic hege mony over and exploitation of the Third
World's "politically free" nations. Neocolonialism is most frequently
accomplished through a network of politicians, bankers, generals, and munotes.in

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7 chief executive officers rather than just state control by Euro -American
forces. International aid and development programmes frequently coincide
with economic policy directives that cripple the economy of Third World
nations. Therefore, a more hazardous kind of colonialism is
neocolonialism.
1.3 THE HISTORICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL
MOO RINGS BEHIND COMMONWEALTH
LITERATURE
The writings of "members" of the former British Empire are sometimes
referred to as Commonwealth Literature, Post -Colonial Literature in
English, New Literature in English, or World Writing in English. The
quantity of t itles, however, indicates the expanding significance of these
writings on a global scale, as demonstrated this month at the London
Festival of Commonwealth Literature, which featured authors from all
over the world. They may include Michael Ondaatje, a Sri Lankan -
Canadian author of "The English Patient," the book that served as the
basis for the Oscar -winning motion picture. The Commonwealth
Foundation, the University of London, and other sponsors will support a
nine-day festival to commemorate the Year of the Commonwealth in
Britain and the 10th anniversary of the Commonwealth Writers Prize.
Salman Rushdie, an Indian -born author of the Satanic Verses and
Midnight's Children, once argued that "Commonwealth Literature Does
Not Exist," and numerous writers hav e concurred with him in this
assertion “ Isn’t this the very oddest of beasts… a school of literature
whose supposed members deny vehemently that they belong to it? Worse,
these denials are simply disregarded! It seems the creature has taken on a
life of it s own,” Rushdie has written. In his opinion, the closest definition
of Commonwealth literature was "that body of writing written in the
English language, by persons who are not themselves white Britons, Irish,
or citizens of the United States of America," which came off as
patronising. Rushdie explained that certain so -called Commonwealth
authors have more in common with Latin American authors' "magical
realism" than with writers from other former British colonies, and that the
formation of this "phantom ca tegory hid what was really going on and
worth talking about."
But even if there is no Commonwealth Literature, there is undoubtedly a
Commonwealth. The (British) Commonwealth of Nations, as it was
originally known, is a group of states made up of the Unite d Kingdom and
its former colonies, as well as any dependent countries. Australia, Canada,
South Africa, and New Zealand were part of the original alliance when it
was formed in 1931; despite their self -government, they swore allegiance
to the British Crown . In 1949, when participants decided to do away with
both the term "British" and the idea of allegiance, the group was enlarged
and reorganised. The Commonwealth is a loose association of 53 nations
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8 Thus, the te rm "Commonwealth Literature" is used to describe literary
creations from nations that were formerly a part of the British Empire.
However, it often does not include novels from the United Kingdom
unless they are written by residents who are natives of a fo rmer colony.
The greatest irony, however, is that a significant portion of the best
literature to come out of Britain in recent years was written by authors
from or with roots in colonies. These authors include the late Jean Rhys,
Timothy Mo, V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, and Ben Okri from
Dominica, Hong Kong, Trinidad, India and Nigeria respectively. Their
success has resulted in publications like books and articles under the title
"The Empire Writes Back."
The terms "post -colonial literatures" and "Common wealth Literature" are
sometimes used synonymously, but the latter term may also refer to works
in French or Portuguese. According to a recent analysis, the majority of
critics concur that the term "post -colonial" in the English context
encompasses the lit eratures of South Pacific Island nations, Australia,
Bangladesh, Canada, the Caribbean, India, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand,
Pakistan, Singapore, and Sri Lanka. A similar list of countries would go
under the heading "Commonwealth." Although some proponents of post -
colonial theory would also include the United States in their category,
proponents of the term Commonwealth would unquestionably leave out
the United States while including nations like South Africa for "reasons of
completeness." Despite leaving t he Commonwealth in 1961, South Africa
returned in 1994.
The term "Commonwealth Literature" is merely an academic designation
that has no meaning to the general public. Asking someone to name five
well-known Commonwealth authors will undoubtedly result in a blank
expression. Does Jamaica Kincaid, who was born in Antigua but has spent
a lot of time here, fall under this description? What about Indian writer
Bharati Mukherjee, who chose American citizenship and calls herself an
"American"? The fact that so -called Commonwealth literature is authored
in one location by authors from another location may be a significant part
of it. A large number of modern authors have chosen to reside in Canada
or the United States, as opposed to an earlier generation of writers who
decided to live in Britain. Along with the Indian/Asian diaspora, a sizeable
portion of the West Indian, or Caribbean, diaspora —which is a subset of
the African diaspora —has settled in Canada. To name just a few,
worldwide authors with Canadian connect ions include Rohinton Mistry,
Cyril Dabydeen, Michael Ondaatje, Olive Senior, and Neil Bissoondath.
Many of these authors' parents were also descended from settlers who
came from different colonies. As a result, displacement is a literary style
element for them. English is perhaps the single element that all
Commonwealth literature has in common, yet it is English with a twist.
For instance, in a Caribbean short story, the narration might be in "Queen's
English" while the dialogue might be in Creole. The us e of native
language without translation is the same in both Indian and African
literature. The fact that many authors in Commonwealth nations have
opted not to write in English, either to make a political statement or to
reach readers who do not speak the language, complicates matters. munotes.in

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9 The title "Commonwealth Literature" may ultimately serve solely to
highlight the literature of those who might not otherwise be given notice.
Prizes for writers from the four regions of Africa, the Caribbean/Canada,
Eurasia , and Southeast Asia/South Pacific will be given out as part of the
Festival in London. It is a solid bet that no author, whether Indian,
Caribbean, British, or African, will argue about the phrase when he or she
receives the check because the award is cal led the "Commonwealth
Writers Prize."
1.4 SUMMING UP
Dear learner, let us sum up what we have learned in this chapter. We
discussed concepts such as Colonialism and Postcolonialism. We have
arrived at a basic understanding of the Historical and Ideologica l
Moorings behind Commonwealth Literature. The chapter also discussed
some of the major and minor concepts in Postcolonialism. We then took a
cursory look at terms like Exotic Other" and "Demonic Other, History,
Nation Race, Gender Black Feminism etc. with illustrations.
1.5 IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
Consider working on the following concepts with the help of notes and the
references given at the end of the chapter.
● The role of Colonialism in the history of colonized nations.
● Write a detailed note on the impact of Colonialism on the
contemporary literature.
● What is the essence of Post -Colonialism? Explain with suitable literary
examples.
● Comment on the emergence and growth of decolonization.
● Write an essay on “the Historical and Ideological Moorings behind
Common wealth Literature”.
● Write a detailed note on the post -colonial concepts such as Exotic
Other" and "Demonic Other, History, Nation Race, Gender Black
Feminism.
1.6 REFERENCES
● Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on colonialism. NYU Press, 2001.
● Dirks, Nicholas B. Col onialism and culture. University of Michigan
Press, 1992.
● During, Simon. "Postmodernism or post colonialism today." Textual
practice 1.1 (1987): 32 -47.
● Horvath, Ronald J. "A definition of colonialism." Current
anthropology 13.1 (1972): 45 -57.
● Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/postcolonialism. Routledge, 2007.
● McEwan, Cheryl. Postcolonialism and development. Routledge, 2008. munotes.in

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10 ● McLeod, John. "Beginning postcolonialism." Beginning
postcolonialism (second edition). Manchester University Press, 2020.
● Merry, Sally Engle. "Law and colonialism." (1991): 889 -922.
● Mishra, Vijay, and Bob Hodge. " What is Post ( -) colonia lism?."
Colonial discourse and post -colonial theory. Routledge, 2015. 276 -
290.
● Osterhammel, Jürgen, and Shelley Laura Frisch. Colonialism: A
theoretical overview. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2005.
● Okazaki, Sumie, E. J. R. David, and Nancy Abelmann . "Colonialism
and psychology of culture." Social and personality psychology
compass 2.1 (2008): 90 -106.
● Pennycook, Alastair. English and the discourses of colonialism.
Routledge, 2002.
● Tiffin, Helen. "3. Post -Colonialism, Post -Modernism and the
Rehabilita tion of Post -Colonial History." The Journal of
Commonwealth Literature 23.1 (1988): 169 -181.
● Shohat, Ella. "Notes on the" Post -Colonial"." Social text 31/32 (1992):
99-113.
Web Sources:
● https://www.thoughtco.com/colonialism -definition -and-examples -
5112779
● https://www.ipsnews.net/1997/04/literature -what -is-commonwealth -
literature/
● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism
● https://byjus.com/free -ias-prep/colonialism/
● https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/
● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcolonialism
● https://www.brita nnica.com/topic/postcolonialism
● https://www.vedantu.com/history/post -colonialism
● https://www.encyclopedia.com/philosophy -and-
religion/philosophy/philosophy -terms -and-concepts/postcolonialism
● https://literariness.org/2016/04/06/postcolonialism/
● https://www.e -ir.info/2017/12/08/postcolonialism -in-international -
relations -theory/


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11 2
CONCEPTS AND ISSUES IN
POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE -II
Part II
Unit Structure:
2.0 Objectives
2.1 Orientalism
2.2 Neo-Colonialism
2.3 Cultural Hybridity
2.4 Summing up
2.5 Important Questions
2.6 References
2.0 OBJECTIVES
Dear learner, this chapter will famil iarise you with concepts such as
Orientalism, Neo -Colonialism and Cultural Hybridity. You will develop a
basic understanding of its origin and development. The chapter will also
acquaint you with the some of the important thinkers and their views on
the ab ove terms. Besides, you will develop an understanding of the
relation or interconnections of Orientalism, Neo -Colonialism and Cultural
Hybridity. And its impact on current popular culture.
2.1 ORIENTALISM
Orientalism is a method of viewing and hence catego rising Middle Eastern
and Asian cultures as inferior, backward, strange, or in need of Western
rescue. Though not expressed directly, it is a prevalent or inherent
motivation behind stereotypes, advertising, latent bias, appropriation, and
attempts to "res pect" such cultures. Most people don't notice when a
Western corporation starts an ad campaign using a lady costumed as a
geisha. When many people hear the name of a Japanese film, they
immediately think of ninjas and shoguns, exquisite courtesans and hono ur-
driven carnage.
A Middle Eastern palace inspires images of soft sofas, harems of
seductively naked women, and bejewelled emperors worshipped by
nameless throngs. An Asian army is frequently compared to a faceless
"horde," such as the Mongols, who won on ly on the strength of their
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12 penetrate their minds, such pictures and definitions are ubiquitous in the
Western world and are both direct and indirect outcomes of Orientalism.
Edward Said us ed the term Orientalism in 1978 when he published his
seminal book of the same name on the subject. Edward Said, an Arab -
Palestinian residing in Western countries, was intensely aware of the
cultural view of the East and examined how it manifested in polit ics and
culture. His disputed book gave the world a formal explanation for
something that has been going on for at least two thousand years. The epic
conflicts between the Greeks and Persians may have been the source of
such psychological and physical host ility—a major clash of the western
and eastern worlds —but the fight has evolved and grown more
sophisticated through the years.
This early exposure of the "civilised, heroic, virile, and honourable"
Western man to the "barbaric, primitive, strange, and fee ble" Eastern
fighters lay the groundwork for prejudice against "the East's" people,
ideas, and influences. Exaggerated claims and implausible tales are
intertwined with myth, tradition, magic, and folklore in the earliest
Western history books and portraya ls of the Middle East and Asia. Once
the Silk Road was created in the 13th and 14th centuries, grandiose myths
returned, often spiced up with dramatic embellishments to emphasise the
unusual and exotic nature of this "Other" country.
Given the limited trav el between these two vast regions of the world over
generations and centuries, some of these notions got ingrained in Western
perceptions of Eastern culture. When the period of colonialism began,
Western empires felt empowered by their claimed superiority, believing it
was a sacred mission to bring civilization to such savages, to "save" them
from themselves. To this day, the West's imperialism in the East
continues, with perpetual oil wars and Middle Eastern interventions, as
well as the constant export of Western products and pop culture ideas.
Orientalism is derived from the term Orient, which was coined to
designate the East, as opposed to the Occident, which represents the West.
The Occident was viewed as a normal part of the world, as well as the
centre of importance, with civilization and the assistance of a single god.
The Orient, on the other hand, was "Other," aberrant from civilised society
norms, where several gods were commonly worshipped. The Occidental
men were strong individuals, heroic and n oble, virile and sexual, but also
godly, moral, and truthful. Western women were god -fearing and hard -
working, chaste and faithful to their husbands.
In the East, males were thought to be immoral and weak, faceless and
physically inferior, and hideous in appearance or behaviour, making them
easy to equate to animals or non -humans. Orientalism portrayed Eastern
women as highly sexualized, immoral, and disloyal, yearning for the
virility of Western males. Orientalism has incorrectly defined the East as
every thing the West is not, or at least everything the West aspires not to
be, over the years. In the past, this Otherness has made it simple to
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13 statistical reporting of losses in Vietnam and Cambodia, Russia, and
Serbia, and the two decades of conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen,
Libya, and Syria. This artificial physiological distinction enabled Japanese
citizens to be interned in America, horrible brutality against Asian -
American men and wo men to this day, and possibly even the nuclear
devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the sole military application of
atomic weapons in history.
Some people wonder if Orientalism is racist because it is abstract and
nebulous —a philosophy, a state of mind, a Western impulse, a horrible
explanation. While this centuries -old perspective of the West towards the
East is not intrinsically racist, it is intentionally ignorant, and can often
lead to more tangibly racist behaviours and aberrant conduct towards
persons considered as part of this "Other".
Humans may appear to be technologically evolved and sophisticated in
our belief structures, but tribalism has always been and will always be a
component of how we interact with other members of the species. Oriental
vs. Occidental is an obsolete and harmful tribal definition binary, one that
appears increasingly irrelevant in a globalised world of mixed -population
states, but it is still very much alive.
Humans recognise the concept of "Other" immediately after develo ping a
feeling of "self," but in Orientalism, the "Other" represents more than half
of the world's population. Orientalism is a pernicious and still prevalent
mentality that holds the East to be inferior or diametrically opposed to the
West in all aspects.
Knowing this notion and being aware of the various ways it might
manifest itself can help you walk through the world as a free individual of
the globe, free of tribal bias or apprehension about the unknown. With
this, let us now take a glance at Neo -Colon ialism.
2.2 NEO -COLONIALISM
The concept "Neocolonialism" primarily refers to the activities and
consequences of some colonial -era remains and agencies in a given
society. Post -colonial studies have thoroughly demonstrated that, despite
obtaining independe nce, the influences of colonialism and its agents are
still very much evident in the lives of the majority of former colonies.
Almost every area of ex -colonized society retains colonial influences.
Neocolonialism is concerned with these influences, their a gents, and their
consequences.
The word neocolonialism was originally used in Jean Paul Sartre's
Colonialism and Neocolonialism (1964). The phrase has become a key
concept in African philosophy, particularly in African political
philosophy. Sartre argued i n the book for the immediate disengagement of
France's grasp on its ex -colonies, as well as total freedom from the
persistent influence of French policy on those colonies, particularly
Algeria. However, the phrase was originally used in Africa at one of th e
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14 groupings from colonial -ruled African countries that conducted
conferences in Accra, Ghana, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The term
"neocolonialism" received its first official defini tion in the AAPC's "1961
Resolution against Neocolonialism.". It was defined as the deliberate and
continuing existence of the colonial power in self -governing African states
by making these states victims of political, mental, economic, social,
military, and technological forms of dominance carried out through
oblique and clever means that did not include aggressive force. The word
neocolonialism first appeared in print in 1965, with the publication of
Kwame Nkrumah's Neo -colonialism: The Last Stage of Imp erialism.
Since then, neocolonialism has become an issue in African philosophy,
spawning a body of literature that has been published and discussed by
scholars in Sub -Saharan Africa and beyond. As a subject of African
philosophy, representation of the term neocolonialism necessitates a
critical examination of Africa's current socioeconomic and political state
following the end of colonial rule, as well as the persistence of the ex -
colonizers' socioeconomic and political ideologies in Africa.
Former colonial rulers' subtle dissemination of socioeconomic and
political activities aimed at sustaining capitalism, neoliberal globalisation,
and cultural subordination of their former colonies is known as neo -
colonialism. Former colonial masters guarantee that newly independent
colonies remain economically and politically dependent on them in a
neocolonial state. The colonial masters' home governments benefit
economically, politically, ideologically, culturally, and militarily from the
dependency and exploitation of t he now independent colonies'
socioeconomic and political existence. This is typically accomplished
through indirect management of newly independent states' economic and
political practises, rather than outright military control, as was the case
during the colonial era.
The concept of neocolonialism may be traced back to Karl Marx's (1818 -
1883) seminal critique of capitalism as a stage in the socioeconomic
development of human society. The importance of Marxist socioeconomic
philosophy in modern times cannot be questioned. The socio -economic
theory continues to be heavily influenced by Marx's model of society as
being composed of an economic foundation, legal and political
frameworks, and a specific type of social consciousness, which was
articulated in both The Capital (1972) and the Preface to the Critique of
Political Economy (1977). Marx proposes hypotheses that explain a
certain type of evil under capitalism. Today, capitalism has developed
multinational businesses capable of amassing far more effective
intelligence behind their often -sinister objectives than any nation's
government can amass in order to keep multinationals at bay. As things
currently stand in the capitalist system, there is evidence that some of
Marx's predictions were correct. The world appears to continue to accept
the wealthy 1%'s overwhelming control of economic and political
resources. Marx's predictions have undoubtedly been validated in more
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15 In a nutshell, neocolonialism is a catch -all term for any pol icies,
infrastructures, and people actively contributing to society who indirectly
contribute to perpetuating colonial practises. The essence of
neocolonialism is that, while the state appears to be independent and in
complete control of its affairs, it is actually influenced by outside
economic and political forces (Nkrumah1965, 7). The loss of authority of
state machinery to neocolonialists is at the heart of Nkrumah's argument.
In a neocolonial situation, imperialists typically maintain their control in
as many areas of the former colony as possible, reducing it to the status of
a neocolony rather than an independent state. To that purpose, the state
looks up to its imperialists in politics, economy, religion, and even
education, rather than improving on its own indigenous culture and
practises. The more technologically advanced nations ensure their
connection with low -income nations through neocolonialism, such that
this relationship effectively eliminates the possibility for the development
of the smalle r states while contributing to the capital gain of the
technologically advanced nations.
Achille Mbembe investigates the nature of neocolonialism in Africa
further in On the Postcolony, claiming that the underlying philosophy on
which neocolonialism is bas ed consists of bald assertions with no tenable
arguments to support them. Evidently, once colonialism ended in Africa,
the West did not believe that Africans were capable of organising
themselves socially, economically, and politically, in his opinion.
According to Mbembe, the rationale for holding such notions and
propagating them is simply because the African is thought to be
cognitively weak and prone to irrationality. According to him, Africans'
ability to rationally organise themselves is "perceived th rough a negative
perspective" (Mbembe 2001, 1). This view depicts the African as never
having traits and characteristics that are legitimately part of human nature,
or rather, those things and attributes are normally of lesser value,
importance, and qualit y (Mbembe 2001, 1). In other words, because
Africans and other people who are different from the West in terms of
race, language, and culture lack the power, rigour, quality, and intellectual
analytical abilities that characterise Western philosophical and political
traditions (Mbembe 2001 2), it is difficult to believe that they would have
the rational capacity to organise themselves socially, economically, and
politically. Mbembe retorts to this blatant declaration and negative
interpretation, claiming th at the West has always had insurmountable
difficulty embracing an African theory on the "experience of the Other,"
or on the question of the "I" of others, which the West appears to perceive
as foreign to it. To put it another way, the conventional Western tradition
has always denied the existence of any "self" other than one's own. It has
always disputed the concept of a shared human nature, claiming that "a
humanity shared with others has long posed, and continues to pose, a
dilemma for Western consciousn ess" (Mbembe 2001, 2).
Essentially, this deception is not unique to the neocolonial period. Its
history can be traced back to the trans -Atlantic slave trade and
colonisation. V. Y. Mudimbe claims in his book, The Invention of Africa, munotes.in

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16 that three strategies are emblematic of the colonial structure in Africa: the
dominance of physical space, mind reformation of natives, and integration
of local economic histories into the Western perspective. This structure
represents three complementing dimensions of colonial organisation,
encompassing the physical, human, and spiritual aspects of the colonising
process (Mudimbe 1988, 2). This colonial system emphasises a
historicality that encourages discourses on African primitivism, which is
used to rationalise why the cont inent needed to be conquered and
colonised in the first place (Mudimbe 1988, 20).
Based on this different reality of each culture, William Abraham addresses
the problems and challenges that face post -colonial Africa in relation to
the continent's contact w ith Europe in The Mind of Africa. Abraham
recognises the existence of neocolonialism in Africa, but offers an
integrative type of culture in which certain beneficial features of Western
culture might be combined with African culture to build a single tie
(Abraham 1962, 83). Despite the ongoing social, economic, and political
transformation in Africa as a result of neocolonialism, Abraham
emphasises that Africa's culture must be protected from being degraded by
Western influence and civilization, or what he refers to as "the externality
of an outsider" (Abraham 1962, iv)
The foregoing analysis of the nature of neocolonialism and its various
manifestations minimally elaborates on the themes of subjection and the
perceived imposition of a hegemonic economic, po litical, and social order
by imperialists, primarily through trade relations or development
assistance disbursements. The conclusion of this is that post -colonial
African states appear to have failed to apply themselves to the difficulties
of self -sufficie ncy.
The history of neocolonialism is an examination of the origins of
neocolonialism in Africa. This analysis illustrates how the concept of
neocolonialism was fostered before most African republics gained
independence. Without a doubt, the term neocoloni alism is related to other
themes. This explains why the terms colonialism, imperialism,
decolonization, and globalisation are critical to comprehending
neocolonialism. This suggests that neocolonial aspects may remain a part
of Africa's socioeconomic, cult ural, and political existence. However,
some of the social and political philosophical problems that Africans may
continue to have include: Can neocolonialism be abolished in Africa? In
terms of the effects on the African economy, can the virtues of
neocol onialism exceed the negatives or vice versa? Will Africa ever be
fully free? And the same applies to all the colonies. Think about India and
study critically the traits of neocolonialism in Indian culture.
2.3 CULTURAL HYBRIDITY
Hybridity/Syncretism : These terms refer to the schizophrenic state that
migrant experiences while trying to meld their native culture with that of
their new home without giving up either. The negotiation of two identities,
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17 identities or solidarities, or in extreme situations, the reassertion of native
cultural identity as evident in cultural fundamentalism, is the main theme
of postcolonial diasporic literature. The work of political theorists like
Will Kymlicka, who advocates for "multicultural citizenship" in a
globalised society, has had an impact on hybridity in postcolonial studies.
In order to move beyond the "constructed" limits of both, this results in the
emergence of new identities where the original identit y, historical
experiences, and memories are not abandoned but are instead
constructively merged with the host culture. This helps forge solidarity
against fundamental racial oppression. Stuart Hall and other cultural
theorists have pushed for "new ethnicit ies" that reject notions of a
fundamental black or white identity in favour of a "genuine variety of
interests and identities."
Two-fold consciousness Double consciousness is a key idea developed by
W.E.B. Du Bois that parallels Frantz Fanon's claim in Black Skin, White
Masks that the black constantly sees himself through the eyes of the white.
Du Bois defined double consciousness as "two souls, two thoughts[…] in
one dark body," but Meena Alexander later changed it to "many souls,
many thoughts […] in one dark body," referring to the migrant's
experience in multiple subject positions, which is a recurring theme in the
writings of Ben Okri, Amitav Ghosh, Derek Walcott, Salman Rushdie,
Caryl Phillips, and others.
In her book Can the Subaltern Speak? , Gayatri Spivak popularised the
word "subaltern," which was first used by Antonio Gramsci to describe the
working class. Spivak raises questions regarding the subaltern's voice in
resistance to the coloniser and the subaltern's voice's validity, asking
whether the subaltern speaks or is spoken for. As a result, Spivak mocks
the hypocrisy of postcolonial discourses, which ostensibly strive to
provide previously unheard voices with a platform while actually
perpetuating the marginalisation and subalternity of the down trodden. In
her essay, Spivak criticised the work of the Subaltern Studies collective,
which also included Dipesh Chakrabarty, Shahid Amin, and Ranajit Guha.
In postcolonial and cultural studies, the concept of 'cultural hybridity' is
examined from a varie ty of theoretical and disciplinary viewpoints. It is
also considered in light of globalization's cultural encounters,
interferences, and exchanges. The old connotations of inferiority,
impurity, and miscegenation linked with the term "hybrid" have been
eliminated, and it is now used as a very useful phrase for comprehending
cross -cultural exchanges. The phrase 'Cultural Hybridity' refers to the
various cultural intermixes. Many attempts to define the term "hybridity"
have been undertaken in the context of p ostcolonial literature. However, as
Robert Young correctly states, "there is no one or true definition of
hybridity: it changes as it repeats, but it also changes as it repeats" (CD
25). It is difficult to cover the topic from all theoretical and critical angles
because it is debated from so many. However, hybridity theorists share
some ground and highlight certain comparable characteristics of the term.
Postcolonial thought used the concept of hybridity at the initiative of
Homi Bhabha, and later in the wr itings of Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, and munotes.in

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18 James Clifford, to denote the trans -cultural forms that came from
linguistic, political, or ethnic intermixing. The concept of hybridity and its
adoption, with all of its beneficial consequences, challenged establish ed
binaries and symmetries such as East/West, black/white,
colonizer/colonized, majority/minority, self/other, interior/exterior, and so
on.
Thus, hybridity contradicts the notion of racial and cultural authenticity, of
permanent and essentialist identity. It supports the composite, the impure,
the heterogeneous, and the eclectic by embracing blending, combining,
and syncretism. It promotes itself as an alternative discourse that subverts
the entire concept of a dominant culture and establishes a distinct c anon
that invites a re -examination of power relations. The goal for the cultural
purity of a nation is unattainable, and such a desire might lead to cultural
fundamentalism. The concept of cultural purity can lead to the horrors of
segregation and ethnic c leansing, which can result in murder and carnage.
In the current climate of globalisation, greater international solidarity is
essential, which can be achieved by accepting the concept of cultural
hybridity. Furthermore, in the name of globalisation, Weste rn cultures are
attempting to enslave the world to a distinct economic hegemony. The
development of cultural hybridity can aid in the management of the West's
desire to homogenise global cultures. Racial and cultural discrimination
has become more prevalen t in so -called cosmopolitan cultures.
Thus, multiculturalism has fostered the perception of ethnic groups'
intrinsic purity. Culturally hybridised cultures can provide an appropriate
response to the scourge of discrimination. We must rise above the cultura l
walls that separate the West and the East (Other), and such a constructive
approach can lead us to accept the condition of hybridity, pluralism, and
diaspora, as well as the concept of International Culture.
2.4 SUMMING UP
Dear learner, let us sum up wha t we have learned in this chapter. We
discussed concepts such as Orientalism, Neocolonialism and Cultural
Hybridity. We have arrived at a basic understanding of its history, its
origin and development. The chapter also discussed some of the important
thinkers and their perspectives on these terms. We then took a cursory
look at the relation of east and west and how the discussed terms help
western culture for its base in the world. And lastly, we studied the
importance of impact of cultural hybridity and t he impact of
multiculturalism.
2.5 IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
Consider working on the following concepts with the help of notes and the
references given at the end of the chapter.
● The role of historical texts in the history of east.
● Write a detailed note on the characteristics of Orientalism. munotes.in

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19 ● What is the essence of Neocolonialism and how it works?
● Comment on the emergence and growth of cultural hybridity or
multiculturalism.
● Write an essay on “cultural hybridity”.
● Write a short note on Orientalism.
● Write a short note on Neocolonialism.
2.6 REFERENCES
● Abraham, William. The Mind of Africa. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1962.
● A discourse on neocolonialism and integrative form of culture in
Africa.
● Afisi, Oseni Taiwo. “Tracing Contemporary Africa’s Conflict
Situation to Colonialism: A Breakdown of Communication among
Natives”. Philosophical Papers and Review Vol.1 (4): 59 -66 (2009a).
● A historico -philosophical analysis of colonialism as the root of tribal
conflicts in Africa.
● Afisi, Oseni Taiwo. “Human Nature in Marxism -Leninism and African
Socialism”, Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical
Association of Kenya, New Series. Vol. 1(2): 25 -40 (2009b).
● A comparative analysis of the nature of man in the philosophical
ideologies of Marxism and African philosophy.
● Afisi, Oseni Taiwo. “Globalization and Value System”. LUMINA.
Vol. 22.(2): 1 -12 (2011).
● A discourse on the nature of globalization: its negatives and benefits
on Africa’s value system.
● Attah, Noah Echa. “The historical conjuncture of neo -coloni alism and
underdevelopment in Nigeria”. Journal of African Studies and
Development. Vol.5 (5): 70 -79 (2013).
● A historical analysis of the effect of colonialism in Africa.
● Blocker, Gene. “African Philosophy”. African Philosophical Inquiry.
Vol.1(2): 1 - 12 (1987).
● A critical discussion on the idea and content of African Philosophy.
● Bruhl, Lucien Levy. How Natives Think, Princeton. N.J: Princeton
University Press, 1985.
● A discussion on the distinction between the mindset of the primitive
and the mindset of the civilized human beings.
● Eze E. Chukwudi. “Modern Western Philosophy and African
Colonialism”. E. Chukwudi Eze (ed) African Philosophy: An
Anthology. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1998. munotes.in

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20 ● A discourse on the contradictory nature of European Enlight enment
period and its promotion of slavery and colonialism at the same time.
● Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. London: MacGibbon, 1952.
● An analysis of the psychology of the colonial situation.
● Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press,
1962.
● A critical analysis of colonialism, cultural and political decolonization.
● Goldsborough, J. “Dateline Paris: Africa’s Policeman”. Foreign Policy
33. (1979).
● An analysis of the French African economic policy.
● Hegel, G.W.F. Lectures on the Phil osophy of World History. Trans. H.
B Nisbet. Cambrdige: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
● Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture , London: Routledge.1994.
Prin
● Eliot, T.S. “Notes Toward the Definition of Culture London”: Faber
1948, reprinted 1962. Print
● Young, Robert. Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory and Races.
London: Routledge.1995. Prin.
Web Sources:
● https://www.scienceabc.com/social -science/what -is-orientalism.html
● https://iep.utm.edu/neocolon/
● https://www.slideshare.net/ManishaShah30/cultural -hybridity -
80048194
● https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=cultural+hybridity+in+literetu
re&qpvt=cultural+hybridity+in+litereture&FORM=VDRE
● https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978 -3-642-21846 -0_2
● https://graduateway.com/hybridity -literary -theory/
● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism
● https://iep.utm.edu/neocolon/
● https://www.sociologygroup.com/neo colonialism/
● https://www.britannica.com/science/Orientalism -cultural -field-of-
study
● https://www.scienceabc.com/social -science/what -is-orientalism.html
● https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social -sciences/orientalism

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21 3
CRITICAL STUDY OF HARIKUNZRU’S
THE IMPRESSIONIST
Unit structure :
3.0 Objective
3.1 Kunzru, Hari - The Impressionist
3.1.1 Introduction to Hari Kunzru
3.1.2 Plot
3.1.3 Summary of ‘The Impressionist’
3.1.4 Analysis of ‘The Impressionist’
3.1.5 Majo r characters in ‘The Impressionist’
3.1.6 Critical review of the Central Character
3.1.7 Conclusion
3.2 Let’s Sum up
3.3 Important Questions
3.0 OBJECTIVES
 To open up avenues of research in postcolonial studies by acquainting
learners with the comple xities and diversity in the studies of location
and culture.

 To encourage learners to interrogate rigid frameworks of the literary
canon while sensitizing them to the increasing marginalization of the
literature of nation states with a history of colonia l rule.

 To familiarize the learners with socio -cultural and political expressions
in literary narratives from a postcolonial perspective.

 To orient the learners towards the concepts of postcolonial literature
and introduce them to various schools of th ought evident in academic
deliberations.
3.1 KUNZRU HARI - THE IMPRESSIONIST
3.1.1 Introduction to Hari Kunzru
Hari Mohan Nath Kunzru born on 1969 is a British novelist and journalist
from London. He is born to a Kashmiri Pandit father, and a British mother .
In the year 1997, Hari Kunzru began his career as a journalist for the munotes.in

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22 Wired UK and later worked for various acclaimed and well -known media
houses such as The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Time Out, and Sky
TV. Other than his career as a journalist, Kun zru also worked for
Wallpaper Magazine as a music editor and he was also a regular
contributor to the British online magazine named Mute.
In 2003, Hari Kunzru published his first novel titled ‘The Impressionist’ .
For his novel ‘The Impressionist’ he receiv ed a substantial and
considerable advance of £1 million. Thereafter, the British author and
journalist Kunzru has published eight novels, out of which most have been
international bestsellers. In his remarkable and esteemed career, Hari
Kunzru has received a number of literary awards, including the Betty
Trask Award for his first novel ‘ The Impressionist’ and the New York
Times Notable Book of the Year for ‘Transmission’. Kunzru’s last book
titled ‘Red Pill’, was published in the year 2020, which also becom e one
of The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2020.
Hari Kunzru is one of the most eminent and renowned authors of the post -
colonial period. His works are known to scrutinize the darker shades of the
colonial era, and their impact and effect on the liv es of the global diaspora.
Some of the considerable facets of his works are the pluralities of
ethnicities, caste, class, and gender, and how colonialism, for the most part
British imperialism, shaped these diverse individual identities. Hari
Kunzru’s nove ls also delves into the post -modern chaos within these
multi -dimensional identities, additionally establishing him as a notable
and distinguished post -colonial writer. Furtherfore, Hari Kunzru is known
to have a strong and robust political awareness, which can also be seen in
his literary works. One such instance was Kunzru’s refusal to accept the
John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for his debut novel, ‘The Impressionist’ ,
because he opined and observed that the sponsor, Mail on Sunday and its
associate daily, the Daily Mail , insulted, demeaned and aggrieved refugees
and those who seek asylum from foreign countries.
3.1.2 Plot
The novel ‘The Impressionist’ by Hari Kunzru concerns and solicitudes
Pran Nath, who is also known throughout the book by several other
names . Pran Nath Razdan is the child of a one -time affair between an
English father and an Indian mother. His life from birth to roughly the age
of twenty -two, as he travels from India to England to Africa during the
time colonialism begins to come to a close. As the story progress, Pran
Nath takes on distinct personalities -- some of which were given to him by
others, while some willingly and readily picked up to his advantage —as
he seeks a permanent and enduring identity.
3.1.3 Summary of ‘The Impressionist’
From Victorian India to Edwardian London this remarkable and
memorable novel ‘The Impressionist’ by Hari Kunzru amaze readers with
its artistry and it also challenges what it means to be Indian or English,
black or white, and every degree that lies between t hem. munotes.in

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the Impressionist
23 Fathered, through circuitous prospects, by an Englishman, Pran Nath
Razdan, the boy who will become the Impressionist, was passed off by his
Indian mother as the child of her husband, an affluent man of high caste.
He was grown up as a spoiled child, in a life full of luxury and comfort,
just down river from the Taj Mahal. At the age of fifteen the news of Pran
Nath’s true parentage is disclosed to his father and he is tossed and thrown
out into the street just because he was a social outcast. Hence, i n this
manner an extraordinary, near -mythical journey of a young man began
who thought, he must reinvent himself to survive in the social where they
were seen as a pariah an outcaste, not once, but many times. Pran Nath
was imprisoned by a brothel and dres sed in women's clothes, and his
sensuous and voluptuous beauty is exploited and abused as he is made to
become Rukhsana, a pawn, a chump in a game between colony and
empire. To a corrupt and immoral British Major, he becomes Clive (i.e.
cliff or slope), an object of desire and lust taught to be a model English
schoolboy. After escaping to Bombay, Pran Nath begins a double life
as Robert, dutiful and obedient foster child to a Scottish missionary couple
and his identity as Pretty Bobby, he is seen as an erra nd boy and sometime
procurer to the tawdry women of the city's most flagrant and blatant
district.
However, as the political disturbance begins to stir, Pran Nath finds
himself in the company of a hopeless and ill -fated young Englishman, an
orphan named J onathan Bridgeman. With all the experiences in life he has
learned quickly that perception is a ready replacement and substitute for
reality. Pran Nath in a very short period of time finds himself on a boat
bound for Southampton where, with Bridgeman's pas sport, he will begin
his journey again. Hence, first in London, then at Oxford, the
Impressionist whets his chameleon and opportunist -like skills, making
himself whoever and whatever he needs and desires in life should be
obtained in any manner.
3.1.4 Anal ysis of ‘The Impressionist’
The British novelist and journalist Hari Kunzru’s novel ‘ The
Impressionist’ follows the experiences of the chameleon -like protagonist
named, Pran Nath, who, in finding himself in distinct social and often
colonial situations, mo difies his identity and character conducive to
remain undetected and unfound, frequently occupying the position of an
invisible historical charlatan and deceiver. Pran Nath is the child of an
Indian mother and English father, conceived under extraordinary and
circumstantial prospects. The protagonist Pran Nath also resembles
Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando, passing through disparate phases of
colonial and postcolonial Indian history in the passage of the novel,
together with the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, an d political intrigues and
conspiracies in the Nawab’s court at Fatehpur. Pran Nath participates in
middle -class British society, attending a renowned and esteemed boarding
school and Oxford University, and hence, accentuates to whimsical social
discriminat ions and injustice that permit him, as a white -passing colonial,
to integrate and merge into society, but not his Jewish communist
roommate named, Gertler. Pran Nath thereafter, contributes to the field of munotes.in

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24 anthropological research, carelessly and negligent ly encouraging the
propagation and dissemination of Professor Chapel’s beliefs of white
supremacy with regard to the apocryphal Fotse tribe. It is at this moment,
having experienced angst and restlessness concerning his position as a
colonial subject who h as passed for white, that Pran Nath faces the reality
that his processes of shape -shifting have forfeited and lost his right to a
true personal identity.
Hari Kunzru establishes Pran Nath’s status as at once an insider and yet an
outsider all through the n ovel, as with the strong and infuential scene of
his entrance into Amritsar. Having escaped Fatehpur, after being fetishised
for being white -passing, Pran Nath uses this knowledge and expertise to
his advantage conducive to navigate colonial India and seiz e and carve out
a space where he can exercise his autonomy. In the novel ‘The
Impressionist’ by Hari Kunzru, the city has recently experienced the
Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13th April 1919, when hundreds of Indian
civilians were shot, demolished, devast ed and killed by British military
and armed forces under martial law. Pran Nath enters the town which is
just like a ghost town, and the town is guarded and vigilant by British
soldiers whom he circumvents by feigning a British accent, and then
proceeds to the train station where white colonials are waiting to be
evacuated. The British novelist Hari Kunzru portrays Pran Nath’s entrance
as ‘Walking into whiteness’ (p. 187), indicating and implying the firmness
and absoluteness of ‘whiteness’ as an almost per ceptible space disparate
from the spaces inhabited and occupied by others. This palpability
enlarges to an individual’s body odour, where ‘the stench of sweat hits
[Pran] like a fist’ (p. 187). Pran Nath responds and reacts by invoking the
rhyme ‘Fee -fi-fo-fum’ from the fairy -tale ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, which
postulates a complex and intricate association between an Englishman and
his scent ‘be he alive or be he dead’ (p. 187). Howbeit, Hari Kunzru
upturns the rhyme’s meaning so that it serves as a remin der to Pran Nath
of his own exposure and susceptibility in the face of ‘the mob, the ogre’
(p. 187), the crowd of white colonials crowded in the station. Pran alert
and cognizant that he does not possess the ‘smell of Englishmen’ (p. 187)
and will ultimate ly, in the course of time, be caught out as he advances
through the packed station. Regardless of this sense of foreboding, ‘[n]o
one questions him as he passes by’ (p. 187) because his light -skinned
appearance and existence allows him to pass as white. Th is incident is one
of the novel’s most dramatic picture and instance of what it means to pass
racially.
The discrepancy between Pran Nath’s inner self -consciousness and his
outer appearance is seemingly captured and impounded in his relationship
with Astar te Chapel. Pran cannot comprehend why she would forgo the
privileges of a white middle -class British woman to be with a black man,
citing ‘European degeneration’ (p. 358). Pran Nath is also bewildered and
perplexed when Astarte rebukes Jonathan for being ‘ so English ’ (p. 407).
In this manner Hari Kunzru puts forward a subtle and exquisite
commentary on what and how it is to be an immigrant in the UK today. In
spite of the fact, Pran Nath for years effortlessly believes and considers the
identity of Jonathan Bridgeman, he nevertheless feels like a charlatan in munotes.in

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Critical Study of Harikunzru’s
the Impressionist
25 his own body. In the Amritsar train station, Pran Nath is also purported
and described as ‘a trespasser, a black cuckoo in the nest’ (p. 188). Pran
Nath being a person of mixed race, he is portrayed as vulnerable and
susceptible, and yet a threat to ‘real English boys’ despite they look quite
similar (p. 188). Pran Nath’s appearance and very existence obscure the
lines between coloniser and colonised; his presence disturbs the order of
hierarchy which pl aces the white coloniser as superior by suggesting its
artificiality.
3.1.5 Major characters in ‘The Impressionist’
 Pran Nath Razdan
Pran Nath, the novel’s protagonist pretends and assumes several identities
throughout the plot. These identities include R ukhsana, this was the name
given to Pran Nath during his time spent with court eunuchs (bedroom
guard), Pretty Bobby, the name by which he was called in Bombay, and
Jonathan Bridgeman, his name in England, which he is able to assume
through the identificat ion papers of a British man who dies in his
presence.

 Reverend Andrew Macfarlane
Revered Andrew Macfarlane is another character in Hari Kunzru’s novel
‘The Impressionist’. Reverend and his wife are humble beings. He is a
religious man and is working in B ombay. Andrew loves phrenology since
childhood and hence pursues phrenology as a hobby, and he employs
Bobby in measuring skulls and photographing living subjects.

 Elspeth Macfarlane
Elspeth Macfarlane is also one of the major characters in the novel.
Despite the fact she is married to Andrew, she does not interact with her
husband. She avoids and forgoes Christianity in favour of Theosophy as
the only means t o communicate with her sons, who both died in World
War I .

 Astarte Chapel
Astarte Chapel is another character in the novel. Astarte is referred to as
Star after Bridgemen meets her by the end of the novel. Astarte Chapel is
the daughter of an Oxford professor who teaches Anthropology . Pran
Nath, as Jonathan, meets Astarte at one of the parties and eventually
thetwo enter into a relationship.

 Roland Forrester
Roland Forrester is the biological father of Pran Nath. Roland is a British
forest official. He is an adventure lover, and often travells around in the
wilderness. Not much can be observed and noticed ab out Ronald in the
novel, besides the fact that he was cold enough to leave the girl alone in a
cave who saved his life hours before.


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26  Amrita
Amrita is the daughter of an affluent moneylender and she is the mother of
Pran Nath. She is a brave and courage ous young woman, though addicted
and accustomed to opium from a very young age. She is aware of the fact
that her body is not her property but it is of the one who will marry her,
hence, she decides to scrutinize her sexuality as much as she can, and
there fore, encounters with Roland. Amrita dies immediately after giving
birth to Pran Nath.
 Jonathan Bridgeman
Jonathan Bridgeman is a drunk stupid and foolish man, with a
considerable amount of wealth and property to his name. His stupidity,
foolishness and dr unkenness cost him his ticket to his homeland, i.e.
London, his property documents, and also his very identity.

 Lily Parry
Pran Nath falls in love with Lily Parry but sadly, she doesn’t accept him.
Lily, an Anglo Indian herself, rejects Pran Nath because he isn’t a
pureblood British.
3.1.6 Critical review of the Central Character
 From Arrogance to Humility
Pran Nath’s character has a greatly and intensely wide arc, beginning as
the imperious defiled brat, and ending as a wanderer with a caravan of
camels. This journey not only exhibits the literary prowess of the writer,
but also the psychological aspects of human nature.
 A desperation to Fit in
As the protagonist Pran Nath realizes that he is of English descent, he
begins trying to become a true Englishman , just to fit in the world.
Rejection from Lily Parry to whom he loves, in addition augment this
quest, which eventually leads him to commit crimes such as robbing
Jonathan Steal of his identity and property. Pran Nath’s endeavour to
adjust with the differ ent and strange climate and culture of England
depicts his reckless and outrageous behaviour, implying what it means to
be pureblood to him.
 Opportunist to the Core
 All through the novel, Pran Nath proves to be a true opportunist, right
from the beginning it can be seen, when he tries to fulfill his carnal
yearnings by exploiting the daughter of the housemaid Anjali. His stint
as Pretty Bobby proves that Pran Nath will not leave any opportunity
and chance to earn a quick buck, even at the cost it is meant to act and
behave like a gofer or even work as a pimp. Pran Nath’s height of
opportunistic can be seen when he tricks and chits Jonathan
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Critical Study of Harikunzru’s
the Impressionist
27  Internal Conflict and Self -Realization through Love
Throughout t he novel it can be seen that Pran Nath has two love interests,
first being, Lily Parry, and second being, Astarte Chapel. After the
encounter with Lily Parry, Pran Nath’s conflict begins as he wants to shed
and discard his half -blood identity and become a true Englishman, barring
the values of humanity along the way. Nevertheless, the rejection from
Astarte Chapel makes him understand and become aware of, that colour
doesn’t matter, and what matters the most is your inner self which should
be pure and which isn’t quite white or black, to say the least. Hence, the
spark and gleam of colour ablaze by his first love is certainly drowned and
submerged by the self -realization due to the second one.
3.1.7 Conclusion
Hari Kunzru’s novel ‘The Impressionist’ is one o f the most significant
novels written since the turn of the century. The novel by Kunzru is not
just a story about the protagonist, Pran Nath Razdan, it is, in fact, a
historic document and record to experience and knowledge life during the
colonial period . The novel also evidences the life of the Anglo -Indian
community, a micro -community that has been at loggerheads with the
society, and the predicament and the dilemma of those Anglo -Indian
community continues even today.
The British novelist and journalis t Hari Kunzru, is undoubtedly and
unquestionably one of the admirable Anglo -Indian authors of all time, and
therefore, his depiction of the community to which he belongs to adds
more authenticity and credibility to the narration. The novel, thus, is a
significant read for those interested in analysing and scrutinizing post -
colonial literature from the prospect of this meager and sparse community,
and get a new and fresh outlook and standpoint about British Imperialism.
Few other remarkable elements that a re quite evident and obvious
throughout the narrative are the portrayal of human life in the 20th
century, and also Hari Kunzru’s use of historic reference to take the
narration forward and going. For example, his conversation and discussion
about the Taj Mahal establishes the base for understanding the city where
Pandit Amar Nath Razdan lives, and where Pran Nath Razdan is born.
3.2 LET’S SUM UP

The unit extensively discusses about Hari Kunzru’s novel ‘The
Impressionist’. An incredibly detailed, backgroun d-heavy tale about a
mixed -race boy born in India at the turn of the 20th century. The
Impressionist is a historical novel which follows the experiences of the
chameleon -like protagonist named, Pran Nath, who, in finding himself in
different social and oft en colonial situations, alters his persona in order to
remain undetected and unfound, again and again occupying the position of
an invisible historical imposter. An admirable and magnificent novel that is
chaotic at times but suits the thinking and behaviou r of the main character
navigating chaos. clever and quite imaginative throughout and enjoyable. munotes.in

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Postcolonial Literature
28 3.3 IMPORTANT QUESTIONS

 Discuss in detail about the character of Pran Nath Razdan.

 Write a detailed summary of ‘The Impressionist’ by Hari Kunzru.

 In the e nd of the novel, what connections can be drawn between the
Impressionist and his biological parents? What has he inherited from
them?

 Write a detailed note on the major and minor characters of the novel
‘The Impressionist’ by Hari Kunzru.

 How would the m ain character's fate be different if the story were to
take place in the twenty -first century?

 Does the protagonist of the novel choose to adopt each new guise, or
do pressures of the political or social climate force him to find a new
persona? When does he exhibit free will in his decision to change?

 Anjali's indictment of Pran Nath states how his presence in the
household breaks the tenets of the orthodox Hindu religion and
suggests that it has brought a curse on them all. What other symbols
led Anjali to be wary of Pran Nath and his mother? What other
cabalistic methods do characters employ to interpret life?

 Discuss the concept of pure blood versus mixed. How did the British
imperialistic campaign, the Great War for Civilisation, contribute to
the ext reme opinions regarding race and culture? What parallels can be
drawn between the climate in colonial India and Africa and other
significant social conflicts?

 The duplicity of the Impressionist's skin could not create alternate
identities on its own. Disc uss the various attire worn by the
Impressionist in his many incarnations. From schoolboy uniforms and
silk saris to academic robes and adventurer's khakis, how did his
clothing shape others' impressions?
References :
 writersmakeworlds.com
 bookbrowse.com
 www.wikipedia.com
 bombayreads.com
 readinggroupguides.com
 www.goodreads.com

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29 4
CRITICAL STUDY OF ARVIND ADIGA’S
BETWEEN THE ASSASSINATIONS -I
Part I
Unit Structure :
4.0 Objectives
4.1 About the author
4.2 Summary and Analysis of Between the Assassinations
4.0 OBJECTIVES
1. To critically analyse and understand the core elements of the novel
“Between the Assassinations” by Arvind Adiga.
2. To study the representation of class, caste and religious elements
through various characters in the novel.
3. To justify Adiga as a postmodern and postcolonial writer.
4.1 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Arvind Adiga is an Indian novelist, journalist, and writer. He is best
known for his debut novel, "The White Tiger," which won the Man
Booker Prize in 2008. The novel is a satirical take on India's class system
and tells the story of a poor Indian driver who becomes a suc cessful
entrepreneur.
Adiga was born in Chennai, India, in 1974 and grew up in Mangalore,
India. He received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University
and his master's degree from Oxford University. Adiga began his career as
a journalist, working for Time magazine and The Financial Times. He
later transitioned to writing fiction and has published several novels,
including "Between the Assassinations", "Last Man in Tower" and
"Selection Day." Adiga's writing often explores themes of class, caste, an d
corruption in India.
4.2 SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF BETWEEN THE
ASSASSINATIONS
Between the Assassinations (2008) is a collection of inter -linked stories
set in Kittur on the South western coast of India, between 1984 and 1991.
The book is an authentic, obje ctive chronicle of the political, economic
and socio -cultural history of Indiabetween 1984 and 1991 from the
perspectives and stories of various characters in the novel. Arvind Adiga
presents Kittur, a small undistinguished town, as India in miniature. It is
interesting to note how Adiga has succeeded in narrating the true story of munotes.in

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Postcolonial Literature
30 a nation and presentingthe intricate intertwining of national and personal
destinies in post -independence India.
Between the Assassinations is an entertaining, finely detailed “n ovel in
stories”, presented as a travelogue and written in a warm,lively, colloquial
style, with a cartographer’s precision and a novelist’s humanity. The
stories revolve around different classes, castes and religions in India.
Adiga sets Kittur on India’s south -western coast, in between Goa and
Calicut, bounded by the Arabian sea on the west and the Kaliamma river
on the east. A town with a rich history, amazing scenic beauty and diverse
religions, races, cultures and languages, Kittur is a ‘must -see’ plac e for
tourists, especially during the “dry, cool” months of October, November
and December.
Adiga’s book reads like a tourist brochure. The first page gives
information on ‘How to Get to Kittur’. Then follow twelve (in certain
editions, fourteen) short sto ries which are put down in the form of the
jottings of a traveller’s diary from Day One to Day Seven. Sandwiched
between the stories are informative sections like ‘How our Town is Laid
Out’, ‘The History of Kittur’, ‘The Languages of Kittur’, ‘Kittur Total
Population - caste and religious breakdown’. The book concludes with a
chronological account of the major events in Kittur between October 1984
and May 1991. Adiga pretends to be a tourist guide, someone who has
spent years in Kittur and knows the place in and out and is intimately
explaining things to the reader.
The first story of the book is the story of a little boy, Ziauddin, a
coolie,who rises above his poverty and the insults of the majority
community, to turn down the attractive offer of becoming a terrorist.
Adiga, through this story shows how our secularism isunder threat and the
indoctrination of impressionable minds. Those years when the story takes
place, witnessed the anti -Sikh and Babri -Ayodhya riots thatshook the very
soul of a nation.Though riots had been occurring ever since Partition,
1984 -1991 was the time during which religious fundamentalists whipped
up religious passions and sentiments to a new frenzy and the secular fabric
of the nation seemed to be in danger.
Adiga now describes the l ayout of the town. At the heart of Kittur is the
adult film theatre Angel Talkies lying in the commercial district of
Umbrella Street. To its north is the Catholic area of Valencia and Bajpe
forest. To the south lies the sea -port and Tipu Sultan’s fort.
The second story of Abbasi, a factory -ownerwho fights corruption,risking
his livelihood,shows how the corrupt system and red -tapism suffocates a
country. Every patriotic Indian will ask himself the question Abbasi puts
to his own self: “Is there nothing we c an do to fight back?”
There is the story of a Dalit bookseller, Xerox Ramakrishna, who takes
pride in selling illegally photocopied books at low rates. His father’s
profession was cleaning the toilets of rich landlords with his loincloth that
he did not w ant to do. But, when he is caught selling Rushdie’s ‘Satanic
Verses’, the upper caste Inspector takes pleasure in breaking his legs,
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Critical Study of Arvind
Adiga’s Between the Assassinations-I
31 the hospital, Xerox openly defies the police and pl ans to sell only one
book “banned throughout the Republic of India” - ‘Satanic Verses’. For the
policeman and the lawyer who torture him, Xerox is not just a petty thief
but a symbol of the oppressed who have begun to assert themselves and
challenge the pow erful. Xerox’s open rebellion shows that the lower caste
members will no longer take insults lying down. His act of defiance
challenges the Indian State which has failed to establish true equality.
Adiga underlines the fact that unless social attitudes cha nge, no amount of
quotas will lend dignity to the downtrodden .The conditions in jail and the
corruption of the police force reflect the sorry state of the criminal justice
system in India.
Another story deals with a college student, Shankara Kinni who bur sts a
bomb in class to avenge those who humiliate him for being a half -caste.As
he tells himself, “I have burst a bomb to end the 5,000 year old caste
system that still operates in our country…to show that a man should not be
judged, as I have been, merely by the accident of his birth.”Adiga projects
the intense longing of an older generation to find security in caste and of
an educated young generation to be “free” of this “repulsive” creation of
their ancestors. It has beem made clear that, on the eve of the 21st century,
no religion in India is free from this system. The frustration and discontent
that ripened in that era, have resulted today in Naxalism and terrorism.
Shankara’s act of exploding a bomb sounds so familiar in this age.
The fifth and sixth stories are about two men, D’Mello and Kamath,
confronted with change, with the truth of the moral and political
degeneration of a country. Mr. D’Mello, the strict, orthodox, highly
idealistic teacher at St.Alfonso’s School, is bitterly disillusioned by th e
corruption in post -independence India and the immorality of the young
generation. When, his favourite pupil and sole comfort, Girish too shows a
desire to see pornographic pictures, he dies of a heart attack.The old -
fashioned D’Mello versus the rest of t he school symbolizes the fall of
orthodoxy and the changing morality of a nation during the era when
western ideas were being increasingly imitated. The shadow of the
Emergency lies heavily over the story as does the question whether
coercion is to be allo wed in a democracy and to what extent the State can
control the private lives of citizens, questions that echo even today.
D’Mello strongly feels that India has a “beast” inside her and only Mrs.
Gandhi knew how to control it.
Adiga now quotes a Jesuit sch olar and narrates the history of Kittur, which
turns out to be a history of India in miniature, ruled by invaders and
colonizers. An ancient town famous for the Kittamma Devi Temple, it
became home to Arab merchants, Muslim dervishes, The Vijaynagar
empir e, Jesuits, Portugese, British and finally the freedom struggle in
1921.
Gururaj Kamath, committed and famous journalist, one day realizes that
freedom of the press is a myth. He realizes that it is the “fate of every
journalist..in this whole world” to wa lk on a “false earth” where innocents
are punished and guilty are free, for his paper is owned by the corrupt
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Postcolonial Literature
32 of Kittur is deemed as madness and he loses his job.It was during t his era
that newspapers and media were increasingly becoming the fiefdom of
politicians and business -houses.The Emergency curbed freedom of the
press and the late 80s and early 90s saw the media reduced to a
handmaiden of the elite, a process that has reac hed its culmination today.
As the Editor tells Kamath, “You and I and people in our press pretend
that there is freedom of press in India but we know the truth.” Ignorance
seems to be bliss for knowledge leads to a frustrating death. As Arundhati
Roy state s in her essay “Peace is War”, neoliberal capitalists control
democracies by reducing the press, parliament and judiciary to
commodities that are available to the highest bidder. (17) The incredible
extent of corruption in public life, even in the judiciar y came to the fore in
the 1990s. Aravind Adiga poignantly delineates the psychological crisis of
a changing nation as the common man finds himself helpless in the face of
the corrupt and mighty State and System.
Even as Adiga gives a brief description of t he languages of Kittur, readers
shall realize that it is a portrait of India, a nation that has retained its
multicultural, multilingual identity inspite of the onslaughts of
globalization. Several dialects of Kannada, Tulu, Konkani,
Malayalam, Tamil, Urdu and English are spoken by people ranging from
Brahmins to Bunts and Hoykas, Roman Catholics to Muslims, Migrant
workers to affluent middle classes.
The next three stories present a moving picture of poverty and the ever -
incre asing gap between rich and poor as India enters the era of
liberalization and privatization. Adiga’s stories reveal the total failure to
implement the Directive Principles. The story of rural migration to cities
and the life in slums is seen through the e yes of the little children of a
construction labourer, Soumya and Raju, who beg to buy drugs for their
father. The two stories of two servants, Jayamma a Brahmin cook and
George D’Souza a catholic drive, show the subtle yet formidable barriers
that separat e master and servant, rich and poor. Adiga explores the
psychology of the master -servant relationship revealing how poverty
becomes a great leveler, uniting people of all castes and creeds.
Meanwhile, Adiga provides a caste and religious breakdown of the 1981
census of Kittur, where 89 people out of more than one lakh declare
themselves free of religion and caste.
The tale of Ratnakara Shetty, a struggling lower middle -class salesman
who helps a young man to fight AIDS, reflects the powe r of
one man’s compassion against the backdrop of the enormous social
stigma and ignorance attached to the disease, at a time when India came to
terms with the AIDS epidemic. This episode takes place against the larger
backdrop of moral, social and political degradation in the
country. A man represents the fatalism of Indians when he says,
“Everything’s been falling apart in this country since Mrs. Gandhi got
shot…We’re not meant to be masters of our own fate..” Ratnakara Sh etty
believes in destiny but will not give up without a fight. The fate of an
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Critical Study of Arvind
Adiga’s Between the Assassinations-I
33 Next, we are shown how the beautiful forest of Bajpe,the ‘lungs ‘ of
Kittur is mercilessly destroyed, symbolic of the m assive deforestation
unleashed in the 80s and 90s by greedy multi -national corporations and
land developers, creating the monster of pollution and a spiritual
wasteland.
Finally, the story of a disillusioned old Communist, Comrade Murali, is
the story of how Marxism, idealism and all other political
ideologies have failed to uplift the less privileged in India, as these
systems are either hopelessly outdated and impractical or completely
corrupt.
The continuing colonial legacy i s frequently reflected in the stories,
whether it is in the references to British rule or the disillusionment with
post-independence India. The divide and rule policy continued by
politicians to spark riots that serve vested interests or the memorials of
freedom fighters that are shown only to those who speak English or dress
well. The conflict between tradition and modernity which pervades several
stories is also the result of a unique interaction with the West. Neo -
colonialism continues as the elite join hands with western powers to set up
empires in India and even gag or buy the media. The propaganda machine
in the West asserts that the West is aiding the poor East, while in fact
looting it(18) There is even an English lady who earns a living teaching
Yoga to Indians. Each story has discontented poor like Xerox
Ramakrishna or George D’Souza or Soumya and Raju who thirst for the
power of education and money. The stories of Xerox, Shankara and
Jayamma show individuals hopelessly trapped in an absurd caste system
that curbs the full flowering of the human being. Infact, caste itself is a
colonial construct. It was the British who solidified the caste system by
introducing caste based census . Imperialists asserted that caste -rivalry
was an essential part of the Indian identity and thus justified colonial rule.
(19)
The chronology of events in Kittur at the end of the book proves that
Kittur is a mirror image of India between 1984 and 1991. On 31st
October 1984 Kittur gets news of Indira’s assassination an d shuts down
but there is greater interest in knowing the political destiny of the nation
even as thousands of TV sets are bought to watch the PM’s funeral. In the
November 1984 elections, just like Rajiv Gandhi, the Congress
candidate ri des a sympathy wave, defeating his political rival by a huge
margin.1985 sees a surge in stock trading and private business. 1986
sees politicians leading Backward Class agitations. 1987 brings in a
craze for cricket, communal riots , RSS rallies, urbanization,
deforestation and slums. 1988 -89 ushers in the Maruti car and the rise of
the BJP. 1990 is a happening year - bomb blasts, computers, economic
crisis due to Gulf war. All these are indicative of changes in India
which is equally affected by international events and Rajiv’s IT
plans. But on 21st May 1991, Kittur again shuts down after the
PM’s assassination and once again a nation’s destiny changes course.
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34 5
CRITICAL STUDY OF ARVIND ADIGA’S
BETWEEN THE ASSASSINATIONS -II
Part II
Unit Structure :
5.0 Objectives
5.1 Structure of the novel
5.2 Social and Cultural Conflict in the Novel
5.3 Representation of Caste and Class in the Novel
5.4 Conclusion
5.5 Refer ences
5.0 OBJECTIVES
1. To critically analyse and understand the core elements of the novel
“Between the Assassinations” by Arvind Adiga.
2. To study the representation of class, caste and religious elements
through various characters in the novel.
3. To justify Ad iga as a postmodern and postcolonial writer.
5.1 STRUCTURE OF THE NOVEL
Adiga's structures his collection of short stories as a day by day guide for a
visitor coming to Kittur. The first short story, "Day One: The Railway
Station," details the life of a Mu slim boy named Ziauddin. The boy comes
to Kittur to find a job. He is adamant about his heritage as a "Pathan,"
which causes him to work for a foreigner who is planning an attack on
Indian soldiers. By the end of the story, Ziauddin is disgusted by the
foreigner and goes back to working as a coolie.
"Day One (Afternoon): The Bunder" follows the life of a textile factory
employee who is immersed in a world of corruption and bribes. He feels
guilty about his workers losing their eyesight and the realization h aunts
him until the end of his story.
In "Day Two: Lighthouse Hill," a poor man nicknamed "Xerox" sells
illegally copied books to students who walk down Lighthouse Hill. He is
constantly being arrested but he is never deterred, even when he is beaten
for selling one of India's banned books.
A young boy named Shankara in "Day Two Afternoon: St. Alfonso's
Boys' High School and Junior College" sets off a bomb in order to rewrite munotes.in

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Critical Study of Arvind
Adiga’s Between the
Assassinations -II
35 5,000 years of wrongs. He wrestles with his status as an outsider in both of
the c astes he belongs to, hating both of them for the things they do to each
other.
"Day Two (Evening): Lighthouse Hill (The Foot of the Hill)" details the
life of a teacher who, despite all of his efforts, has discovered that there is
no innocence left in scho ol boys and that corruption is at the heart of
Kittur.
Keshava is a vibrant boy in "Day Two (Evening): Markey and Maidan"
who becomes enamored with the world of the buses. He becomes a small
celebrity in Kittur and subtly changes the world around him while losing
himself.
"Day Three: Angel Talkies" is a riveting story of a journalist who
discovers the truth that lies in the dark alleys of Kittur and seeks to rewrite
it for all to see.
"Day Four: Umbrella Street" follows a man named Chenayya who knows
he is slowly working himself to death. He desperately tries to crawl out of
the walls of poverty, only to realize that he and the poor like him, have
made that feat impossible.
Soumya, the young girl in "Day Four (Afternoon): The Cool Water Well
Junction," is se nt on a mission by her father to procure drugs. Her journey
takes her across the treacherous streets of Kittur and illustrates the lengths
a person will go to for the love of their family.
"Day Five: Valencia (To the First Crossroad)" is the tale about a o ld
Brahmin woman obsessed with the caste structure, religion and her
nephew. She is tired of working for households with spoiled children but
her obsession with caste does not allow her to move within the society.
A poor man secures a steady job for a rich lady in "Day Five (Evening):
The Cathedral of Our Lady of Valencia." He and his sister become
permanent fixtures in her household until the day he makes a mistake that
is unforgivable and irreversible.
"Day Six: The Sultan's Battery" follows the life of R atna, a man who sells
counterfeit pills to men who have venereal diseases. In a dark twist, the
boy he picks for his daughter to marry is infected with the same type of
disease, and even though Ratna calls the marriage off, he feels a duty to
help the unfo rtunate boy.
"Day Six (Evening): Bajpe" is the story of a couple who still practice the
traditional art of Brahmin courtesy. However, their dinner parties have a
taboo subject, which causes much speculation about how their relationship
works.
The last stor y in Adiga's collection, "Day Seven: Salt Market Village,"
tells the story of an older Communist man who becomes obsessed with a
younger woman. The idealism of his youth and the Communist party drive
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36 readers are able to see the man turn to the corruption and old traditions of
India to help him get what he wants.
5.2 SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONFLICT IN THE
NOVEL
Adiga’s Between the Assassinations depicts power relations of the poor
dominant cla ss over the rich lower class but a brilliant exploration of
subordinate class’ resistance. He tries to explore the different types of
power structures that operate in the society and shows how it influences
human life. He focuses the interrelated expressio ns of power such as
political power, economic power, physical force, religious power and
ideological power which keep the people in unjust and unequal positions.
The main purpose of the study is to explore and analyse the power
relations in his novels. The novel describes truth because it is relative to
discourse and it is the product of power. Truth is relative to social and
learned discourses. Truth is produced by power relations. In the novel
Gurkha narrates an accident to Gururaj where he talks about th e richest
man in this town, who own the press Gururaj works for and who is also a
political leader. Though it is known to all about his crime and wrong
doings, he cannot be arrested. The power cannot be punished, the
government always protects high -class p eople and richest people. In this
bureaucratic world, the truth is the first casualty as it is discovered by the
upright journalist Gururaj Kamath. He is fed up with the bureaucratic
corruption, injustice and politics around him. It has beautifully brought out
how truth has been suppressed by the power in today’s world through the
character of Gururaj, a journalist who is on a mission to find the truth.
Mr Engineer is involved in an accident but the truth is undiscovered by the
power of money. Gururaj got the news from the Gurkha, a local watchman
that Mr Engineer himself hit a man on his way back home, the police
reports were changed in favour of Mr Engineer. The tycoon gets one of the
employees in his factory to say that he was driving the car when the
accident happened. The employee gives the police a sworn affidavit. It has
pointed out that how the tycoon with the power of money and influence
can cover up both the police and the judicial system “A man might have
been sent to jail for no good reason; a gu ilty man might be walking free.
And all you can say is, let's drop the matter. Gururaj looks at the editor -in-
chief with new eyes. The old man has a nimbus around him, of all the
things he had learned over the length of his career and could never
publish.” (BA 125) The fact that the newspaper is owned by a
businessman who serves only capitalist interest. “This is the fate of every
journalist in this town and in this state and in this country and maybe in
this whole world … It is a false earth I am walking o n. An innocent man is
behind bars, and a guilty man walks free. Everyone knows that this is so
and no one has the courage to change it” (BA 129)
Adiga has highlighted how religious system and economical states
exploited the society by some evil people in o ur country through the
character of Ziauddin. Ziauddin, a twelve -year-old, sixth of the eleventh
children of a poor family works in a tea stall. Working at a tender age, he munotes.in

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37 develops a sense of isolation from the society. Left to fend for him, he has
to str uggle to survive like an adult. In the town of Kittur, Muslims are
discriminated against and are not part of the mainstream society.
The marginalization of the Muslims extends to employment opportunities
as well. The shopkeepers near the railway station ne ver hire a Muslim
worker but Ramanna Shetty employs Ziauddin due to his innocence. After
a stay for four months with his parents, the boy returns completely
transformed, losing his innocence. He develops a sense of pride in his
religion and yearns to know his ancestral roots. The honest boy
metamorphoses into a thief stealing small things. This leads to his removal
from one work after another. While fighting, he always affirms his identity
as a Pathan, slapping his chest, He shouts, “From the land of the Pa thans,
Far off the north, where there are mountains full of snow! I’m not a
Hindu! I don’t do hanky -panky!”I am a Pathan…We came here and built
the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort in Delhi.”(BA1)
The religious pride and a sense of separation spread poison in th e mind of
the young boy. A feeling of insecurity and mistrust makes him hate the
Hindus with whom he has spent many happy moments of life. He has been
brainwashed by some religious extremists and this makes the young boy
hate the others. Ziauddin’s quest f or identity increases when he comes in
contact with a north Indian Muslim, Pathan with whom he develops a
sense of belonging. The stranger’s expensive clothes, handsome face and
his perfume make him take a pride in his acquaintance. He feels “This
man is a countryman of mine” (BA15).
The stranger tempts Ziauddin to count the number of trains with Indian
soldiers which leads to some terrorist activity. Appealing to his Muslim
Pathan identity, the stranger tries to get the work done. Ziauddin realizes
that he is being used by the self -centered terrorist and escapes from his
clutches and leads a normal life as a coolie at the railway station. The
novel through Ziauddin’s story tries to probe into the causes of terrorism
and how innocent people are used as pawns by the real perpetrators of
terrorism.
Next Adiga, has captured cast system through the case of Shankara, a
child born from the union of a Brahmin father and a low caste Hoyka
woman. He is not secure about his identity and tries to take revenge
against th e caste biased society by exploding a bomb in his school. He
thinks he has “burst a bomb to end the 5,000 -year-old caste system that
still operates in our country. I have burst a bomb to show that a man
should not be judged, as I have been merely by the ac cident of his birth”
(BA 59)
Shankara is under the false impression that his teachers at the school must
be mocking him behind his back. Exploding a crude bomb in his school is
his way of hitting back at the caste discrimination he faces. After the bomb
explosion, he dreams that he will be treated differently in jail. He also
thinks that the Hoyka self -advancement committee would take out
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38 released, great crowds would wave for him and he woul d be launched on a
political career. Shankara is always treated as someone special among his
Hoyka relatives as he is a half -Brahmin and hence much higher than them
in the caste scale.
He is also rich and hence much higher than them on the class scale. His
father, a Brahmin plastic surgeon in the Gulf has married his Hoyka
mother to the dismay of Brahmins. Shankara, as a result, gets a very
challenging identity in the society - neither a Brahmin nor a Hoyka. He
feels that he has the worst of both the castes in his blood. The anxiety of
fear about the Brahmin and the propensity to act without thinking of
Hoyka. Social disconnect and his ignorance make the boy more violent.
The Brahmin relatives see him as the product of a daring adventure on the
part of his fa ther and consider him as a mixture of started feeling that his
father belonged to no caste or race. Such people lived for themselves. His
mother feels inferior in the company of the Brahmin relatives. “She did
not want to meet the Brahmin woman alone. Her sole claim to acceptance,
to respectability, was the production of a male child, an heir and if he
wasn’t in the house, then she had nothing to show. She was just a Hoyka
trespassing into a Brahmin’s household” (BA 61). Shankara thinks that it
is her own f ault if she feels distressed in the Brahmin relative’s presence.
Repeatedly he tells his mother to ignore the Brahmin relatives. Through
the dilemma of Shankara raises a question whether caste or class is worst
in society. Shankara though rich is not given recognition by the upper
caste. Although he is the son of a Brahmin, he is never considered a
Brahmin. His driver who belongs to upper caste is poor. The old Brahmin
who shows sympathy to him cannot afford a car for travelling. But
Shankara has ample weal th. He contemplates, “He is of a caste higher than
me, but he is poor. What does this mean, caste? Is it just said to yourself?
Caste is a fiction, would it vanish like smoke; if you said, ‘I am free’,
would you realize you had always been free?” (BA 69)
Religion is one of the major factor that pervades the Indian life. Towards
communal relations Adiga’s attitude is firmly modern, favouring peace
and harmony. Though he does not portray extremist Hindus or Muslims
but he does refer to communal riots which ar e reported by a section of the
press with bias. It is truthful reporting that can identify real culprits and
thus prevent the recurrence of such riots. Such a correct picture of a riot is
presented by a brave and truthful journalist Gururaj to whom a Musli m
thankfully says, “If more people did what you do, there won’t be any more
riots in the town” (BA 117)
Communal riots are also sometimes used as a cover by land -sharks to grab
land thereby masquerading real estate transaction as a riot. Another evil
deepl y entrenched is that of corruption upon portraying the pathetic fate of
complete blindness imposed upon several poor old women made to stitch
minute and complicated designs in semidarkness. The merchant Abbasi
flourishes on fine spun cloth of corruption an d bribing. Sometimes
threatening the government officers, especially of Income Tax
Department. He is supported by his friends, mostly Muslims, outwardly
condemning corruption who are themselves property -sharks making munotes.in

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39 millions under the veil of communal rio ts or lending money at the killing
interest rate of 3% compounded every month, making the lives of the poor
needy borrowers miserable, leading some of them to suicide.
In such a situation, people can depend on only two institutions for the
remedy – the ju diciary and the Press. He has made no reference to the
first, though the cancer of corruption has also allegedly entered. In such a
situation, people can depend only on the Fourth Estate, the Press, for
checking corruption and also for preventing communal riots. But the press
too for its very survival depends on money which it can get only from rich
companies, other private parties and its owners. It has sometimes in its
own interest to misrepresent the truth like that of the traffic accidents, in
which the driver takes the blame of the master riots etc.
An honest journalist, Gururaj in the story is dismissed for telling the truth
and is made literally to eat his copy of the paper by a young and ambitious
journalist. A sick physician like the press can hardl y cure the deep -rooted
and widespread malady of corruption. Only a token upholder of the truth
is successful on a minor matter that of selling copies of Salman Rushdie’s
banned novel, The Satanic Verses. This only emphasizes that the problem
of the corrupt press remains.
Social relations highlight the caste -system which has split the society into
two main groups the Brahmins and the Hoykas with their distinctive
language Tulu. Their ill -treatment by the Brahmins results in a feeling of
rebellion expressed i n the story, our school by the bursting of a bomb in a
classroom by Shankara who is considered a monstrosity because of his
being a half -Brahmin and half -Hoyka. He is rejected by both.
Between the Assassinations presents a society that cuts across castes,
religions, differences of wealth, power and moral or political beliefs and
values. It is capable of being the seedbed of many novels of light and
darkness which is present explicitly in a few of its stories.
5.3 REPRESENTATION OF CASTE AND CLASS IN THE
NOV EL
Between the Assassinations (2008) showcases the most beloved aspects of
Adiga’s writing to brilliant effect: the class struggle rendered personal and
the fury of the underdog. Adiga has aptly captured the reality of our
society in a kalideoscopic manner in his novel, Between the
Assassinations. He has captured the various malpractices that are rampant
in our society such as corruption, child labour, social discrimination on the
grounds of caste, religion, class and gender through a story of ‘everyman’
of ‘everytown’ of the period of transition between the assassinations of
Indira and Rajiv Gandhi viz. 1984 to 1991. Adiga seems to suggest that
for our country to move on the path of progress we have to tackle these
burning issues.
In the novel, the novelis t has through Ziauddin’s story tried to probe into
the causes behind terrorism and how innocent people are used as pawns by munotes.in

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40 the real perpetrators of terrorism. In this bureaucratic world, truth is the
first casualty as is discovered by the upright journali st Gururaj Kamath.
He is fed up of the bureaucratic corruption, injustice and politics around
him. (Nikam, 2011: p. 143) Adiga has beautifully brought out how truth
has been suppressed in today’s world through the character of Gururaj, a
journalist who is on a mission to discover the truth. Adiga has shown how
several layers of pretension are peeled away from his eyes before he
recognizes the fact that newspapers are a means of doing business and
nothing more than that.
Adiga has pointed out that how the ty coon with the power of money and
influence is able to manipulate both the police and the judicial system. It is
important to note that Mr Engineer gives the police four or five thousand
and gets the car changed as it was a new Maruti Suzuki; giving the pol ice
another thousand to change the identity of the killer car to a Fiat, and Mr.
Engineer has his car and drives around the town again. The police are
aware of the truth. When Gururaj, a man of principles learns the truth he
wants to print the truth and re investigate the matter but his editor tries to
bury the matter. Gururaj bursts with anger, “A man might have been sent
to jail for no good reason; a guilty man might be walking free. And all you
can say is, let's drop the matter”(p.125). Gururaj looks at t he editor -in-
chief with new eyes. “The old man has a nimbus around him, of all the
things he had learned over the length of his career and could never
publish.” (p.125) The fact of the matter is that the newspaper is owned by
a businessman who serves only capitalist interest: “This is the fate of
every journalist in this town and in this state and in this country and
maybe in this whole world … It is a false earth I am walking on. An
innocent man is behind bars, and a guilty man walks free. Everyone knows
that this is so and not one has the courage to change it” (p.129).
In the novel, Adiga has focused on how venereal disease is a taboo in our
society. Although many people suffer from it, they do not go to the
hospital for fear of censure in society and reso rt to treatment from quacks
and suffer in the process. A case in point is Ratnakar Shetty, a father of
three daughters, who toils day and night to save money for their dowry in
this materialistic world. He has adopted the profession of a fake sexologist
to fulfill the needs of his family. While coming home in the bus, he sells
books and pens among other things. Although, he has saved dowry for his
first daughter, he is worried for the next two.
When he has fixed the match of his eldest daughter, he discover s to his
horror that the groom suffers from a sexually transmitted disease, which
he picked up from a prostitute. Strangely enough the same boy approaches
Shetty for a cure. Though Shetty advises him to go a doctor, the boy
refuses for fear of social discr imination. Ratnakar brings him to the real
sexologist who diagnoses that the boy is suffering from kidney failure.
In India class differences die hard. Although discrimination on the basis of
caste is banished by the constitution but in reality it is a par t and parcel of
everyday Indian life. Even if a poor man works hard and wants to rise up
in life it does not mean that he will be accepted by the upper class society munotes.in

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41 as an equal. George, the mosquito man who spreads the pesticides tries to
establish a rela tionship with a rich lady, Mrs. Gomes but fails in the end.
As a poor man George realizes, “the biggest difference is, between being
rich and being like us? The rich can make mistakes again and again. We
make only one mistake, and that's it for us” (p.186) . George slowly wins
her confidence and becomes her part -time gardener, and then driver.
He also manages to bring his sister, Maria, as a cook. It is his mistaken
perception that Mrs. Gomes is different from other rich people. However,
she feels that he is slowly trying to take over her household. The cook who
is dismissed to make way for George’s sister Maria says: “I know what
you are trying to do with her! I told her you’ll destroy her name and
reputation! But she’s fallen under your spell” (p.205).
Due to bitterness, poverty and shame George had put off the thought of his
marriage so long but “the regret still gnawed at him, created by his contact
with this rich woman, that he could have done so much more with his life”
(p.207). His delusion is soon shat tered. He is instructed by her to spread
the pesticides in the gutter in the same manner in the past but now he is
aggrieved to know that she still treats him like a servant. Previously, he
would move mountains for her but now he has extraordinary hopes fr om
her to be treated with nobility and dignity. He understands, “Oh, these rich
people are the same … We’re just trash to them. They'll just use us and
throw us out. A rich woman can never see a poor man as a man. Just as a
servant” (p.208). Knowing that h er reputation is at stake, Mrs. Gomes
removes him and his sister from work.
Another point Adiga rises is that in India, the caste in which one is born
leaves a permanent imprint on the person. These ideas are deeply
embedded in our psyche and are resistant to change. Adiga has captured
this through the case of Shankara, a child born from the union of a
Brahmin father and a low caste Hoyka woman. He is not secure about his
identity and tries to take revenge against the caste biased society by
exploding a bom b in his school. He thinks he has “burst a bomb to end the
5,000 year -old caste system that still operates in our country. I have burst
a bomb to show that a man should not be judged, as I have been merely by
the accident of his birth” (p.59).
5.4 CONCLUSI ON
"Between the Assassinations" by Aravind Adiga is a powerful and
thought -provoking novel that delves into the complexities and
contradictions of life in a small Indian town in the 1980s. The author
masterfully portrays the lives of the town's inhabitants , who are caught
between the forces of tradition and change, poverty and wealth, and hope
and despair.
The book is a powerful commentary on the social and political realities of
India during this period, and highlights the struggles of the marginalized
and oppressed. Adiga's writing is evocative and poignant, and he brings munotes.in

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42 the characters and their stories to life in a way that is both relatable and
deeply moving.
One of the most striking aspects of the novel is the way it portrays the
complexity of human na ture, and the ways in which individuals can be
both good and bad, kind and cruel, and capable of great love and great
hate. The author does not shy away from tackling difficult and
controversial issues, and this makes for a novel that is both challenging
and rewarding.
Overall, "Between the Assassinations" is a powerful and thought -
provoking novel that is both a commentary on the social and political
realities of India in the 1980s and a profound exploration of the human
condition. It is a must -read for any one interested in Indian literature and
the complexities of life in modern India.
5.5 REFERENCES
1. Adiga, Aravind, Between the Assassinations, 2008, Picador. Print.
2. Anthony Raj andDr.K.Shibila. “Social And Cultural Conflict in
Arvind Adiga’s Between the Assa ssinations”. Research Journal of
English Language and Literature (RJELAL) A Peer Reviewed
(Refereed) International Journal. Vol.5.Issue 3. 2017 (July -Sept).
3. Chopra Radika.“Social Criticism in Aravind Adiga’s Between the
Assassinations”. IRWLE VOL. 10 No. I I July 2014
4. KomalbenArvindbhai Bhatt and R. K. Mandalia.“Representation of
Social Problems in Arvind Adiga’s Between the Assassinations”.
Journal of Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education -
Multidisciplinary Academic Research.
5. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308200390_”Aravind_Adiga
's_Between_The_Assassinations_Narrating_The_Nation_ In_Postcolon
ial_Times ”
6. http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide -between -the-
assassinations/#gsc.tab=0
7. http://ignited.in/a/57795
8. https://worldlitonline.net/2014 -july-articles/2 -social -criticism -
radhika.pdf

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43 6
ESSAY: EDWARD SAID’S
“ORIENTALISM”
Unit Structure:
6.0 Objectives
6.1 Introduction of Edward Said
6.2 Analysis of Edward Said’s Orientalism
6.3 Conclusion
6.4 Questions
6.5 References
6.0 OBJECTIVES
This unit discusses Edward Said’s work Orientalism. It deals with a short
introduction of Edward Said and critical analysis of his work, Orientalism.
6.1 INTRODUCTION OF EDWARD SAID
Edward Said, in full Edward Wadie (William) Said, was born on
November 1, 1935 in Jerusalem. He was a Palestinian -Christian schol ar, a
controversial literary critic, and a bold political activist. An Arab Christian
in America, Said raised his voice for the social and political rights of the
Palestinian people. He also advocated for the creation of an independent
Palestinian state. S aid was, indeed, a North Star for Palestinians and
subaltern communities across racial, religious and geographic lines. H e
was for many years America’s foremost spokesman for the Palestinian
cause. His writings have been translated into 26 languages, inclu ding his
most influential book, Orientalism (1978), an examination of the way the
West perceives the Islamic world. Much of his writing beyond literary and
cultural criticism is inspired by his passionate advocacy of the Palestinian
cause, including The Qu estion of Palestine , (1979), Covering
Islam (1981), After the Last Sky (1986) and Blaming the Victims (1988).
He went to a New England boarding school, undergraduate years at
Princeton and graduate study at Harvard." (from the Columbia University
website)E dward Said is one of the foremost thinkers writing today. His
work as a literary and cultural critic, a political commentator, and the
champion of the cause of Palestinian rights has given him a unique
position in western intellectual life.

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44 Part I
6.2 A NALYSIS OF EDWARD SAID’S ORIENTALISM
Edward Said is a cultural critic of the late twentieth century and founder of
postcolonial studies. He was born in Jerusalem in 1935 and then moved to
Cairo after 1948’s Arab -Israel war. He did his Ph.D. in English Lite rature
at Harvard University and remained in the US until his death in 2003.
Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) focuses on Western representations of
the “Orient”, East and Middle East, and their cultures which were
presented as uncivilized and savage by th e European countries. Said
argues how Western countries define East and Middle East as other,
completely opposite to them. He highlights the real and constructed
Western image of the Orient. He states how colonizers dominate
politically and financially a c ountry. He attacks colonial mind set which
believes the West is superior to the East. He challenges Western
prejudices about colonized countries. He analyses how the West
manipulates and dominates the East by using Orientalism. He believes that
Islam has b een fundamentally misinterpreted in the West (272).
Said emphases that the colonizers exploited the colonized people’s
resources and labour under the pretext that they are helping them to be
modern and civilized like Europe. He presents how colonizers succ essfully
convinced it them by constantly insulting their cultures. He also underlines
how after decolonization, the colonizers continuous to dominate the East.
His book Orientalism underlines the connection between politics and
colonialism which helps West to justify their self -imposed status as a
superior culture. Said reveals how strategically the western academia joins
hands with political power to produce view of the Orient. He discusses his
own experiences of inferior treatment given to him as an Arab in the US.
He states,
My own experiences of these matters are in part what made me write this
book … the life of an Arab Palestinian in the West, particularly in
America, is disheartening. The web of racism, cultural stereotypes,
political imperialism,* [ and] dehumanizing ideology holding in the Arab
or the Muslim is very strong indeed. (Said Edward, Orientalism)
Said’s views about orientalism are more vivid and stronger as compared
to Franz Fanon’s views presented in his book, The Wretched of the Earth
(1961) as Fanon actually lived under colonial rule while he publishing his
views, on the contrary, Edward Said published his ideas in postcolonial
world. Said triggers the argument that how the West continues to control
indirectly after decolonization. He t ells the how as migrants, he and his
friends were forced to use only English. He considers this forceful act as
an attempt to wipe out their Arabian culture considering it as an inferior
one. He also argues though they were forced to accept Western culture , at
the same time, they were made to feel like outsiders: non -Europeans
“others”. Hence, throughout the book, Said projects his understanding of
how the West looked at the Orient and its impact on Oriental life. munotes.in

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45 Edward Said refers the French philosopher, Michel Foucault who clarifies
how power is used by regulating what can be said, how it can be said, and
who can say it. Said’s Orientalism claims that the European political
power and its academic discourse produced a concept of the “Orient”’. He
calls Eu ropean Orientalist as Foucault’s “’discourse” which creates and
fabricate the East as inferior through its Western representation. Said’s
ideas are also influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Italian Marxist’s concept of
hegemony in which Gramsci describes how one group dominates the
other. Said clarifies how after the industrialization Europe got power by
force and through system. He presents how the West convinces the East
through education not only to accept inferior status of Orient but also to
get controlled b y Europeans. He talks about the psychological and
political influence of colonialism.
Edward Said focuses on how Orientalism as a tool of European
colonialism in nineteenth and twentieth century to shape social, culture,
economic and political structures globally. He discusses an ideology and
real system of European colonialism through which orientalism has its
roots. He considers Frantz Fanon and AiméCésaire’s anti -colonial and
critical theory based on political gap between the colonizers and
colonized. H e depicts how colonizers aimed to change the social system
and beliefs of colonized country. He emphasizes that though the
colonialism has been ended but scholars still have colonial mindset.
Said brings to light the bias representation of the Western abo ut the East.
He pinpoints how the West not just described the East but created it by
presenting it as Orient. He uses Michel Foucault’s “discourse” as Foucault
claims that discourse not informs but creates the things it describes. He is
a founder of postco lonial studies which uses interconnectivity of cultural
studies, history, and philosophy to study the influence colonizers on
colonized vise versa. He refers the description of the Middle East in
nineteenth -century books, articles and travelogues which bri ng to his
notice Europeans’ view as Orientals.He focuses on the West ideology and
system of ideas behind the study of the East. He explores how the ideas of
orientalism developed and managed to continue till today. He brings to
light how the West’s descrip tion of the East made it subservient.
Said refers the cultural texts written during the colonial and post -colonial
period to understand how oriental ideas still managed to sustain after the
decolonization. He believes that orientalism has divided the worl d in the
two groups —the first one is the familiar, Europe or the West and another
one is the orient, the East. He underlines the unshakable belief of the West
that it understood the world completely and all its ideas about the East are
correct. He clarifie s that the ideas expressed by the scholars about the
Middle East express their own views and influenced the views of others.
Foucault traces that the scholars sets the boundary for the others when
they express their ideas in discourse. Said emphasizes Derr ida and
Foucault’s view that the discourse controls the way we see the world and
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46 Said refers anti -imperial writings of the French of 1950s and 60s. He
analyses Frantz Fanon’s books, Black Skins, White Masks and The
Wretched of the Earth.Fanon as a psychiatrist explains the psychological
damage caused by colonialism to the colonized people. He highlights how
the colonized people started to belief that they are racially inferior. He also
suggests that the colonizer’s language a nd discourse of colonialism is
strong enough to control the political system and individual psychology.
Edward Said’s Orientalism is based on the views from writers from
Africa, Middle East to South Asia. Albert Memmi, Tunisian Jew writer in
his book, The Colonizer and the Colonized and AimeCesaire’sDiscourse
on Colonialism exposes how colonialism works as a system of
domination.
Said highlights the views of the scholars who studied the history of
Orientalist thought. He talks about the French -Egyptian pol itical thinker
Anouar Abdel -Malek as a Marxist traces European need of colonies
shaped according to European view for its economic benefits. Said
discusses how the writers like Maxime Rodinson, Marxist historian, A. L.
Tibawi, the English medievalist and R . W. Southern presented the
European ideas about Middle East. Said gives more importance to Ibrahim
Abu-Lughod who explains the dominance of European ideas on Arab
culture. Abu -Lughod also traces how Arab scholars criticize these
European which dominate th e Arab culture under the rubric of cultural
development. He writes “’count -hegemonic” view of Middle East which
rejects European ideas and challenges the European idea of passive
colonies. Said further adds more to the idea of Abu -Lughod and explains
the impact of European ideas on colonies.
Said’s Orientalism compares how cultures represent the East which is
totally contrast to the depiction of Europe. He tells how the Western view
presents the East as “’ignored but complex”’. He tells the description of
the East as the Orient by the West reveals its own internal logic, learning,
consciousness. He investigates how “system of representations” create a
strange, unchanging and inferior “Orient” (the East/colony) which is
totally contrast to a modern and super ior “Occident” (the West). He
underlines how Europeans’ description of the Eas —the Middle East and
South, Central and South -East Asia as inferior helps it to take political,
economic, social and even psychological control its colonies.
Said divides his te xt, Orientalism in three parts —“Thee Scope of
Orientalism”, ‘Orientalist Structures and Restructures” and “Orientalism
Now”. In the first section of the book, Said talks about scope of
orientalism in various countries/colonies and periods of time. In the
second section, “Orientalist Structures and Restructures” he highlights
how the orientalist scholars collect the information about the European
views about the East through the literature, arts and history. In third
section, “Orientalism Now”, he mentions t he impact of World War I on
Orientalist thinking. He mentions Cold War and explains how during Cold
War Europeans present Islam as backward, unchanging, mysterious and
not interested in progress. Orientalism, the text also reveals the oppressive
treatment given by the West. He proves how the Orientalist, past and munotes.in

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47 present is a myth -making ideology of transforming the identity for the
selfish benefits like politics.
Said’s Orientalism is based on the fancy thought of the West that the West
as superior and the East as inferior. It justifies the dominance of the West
on the East.He mainly focuses on the cultural and academic
representations of the East as inferior by the West. He claims that for
getting the political, economic and social control, Europeans damag ed the
colonized psychologically by describing and creating their image as
Orients. He highlights how “Orient” is an imaginary idea of the West
which describes the way of life which thoroughly opposite to the West. He
majorly underlines the Western cultura l and academic works constructed
the “Orient” identity of the East. He writes,
My thesis is that the essential aspects of modern Orientalist theory and
praxis (from which present day Orientalism derives) can be understood,
not as a sudden access of object ive knowledge about the Orient, but as a
set of structures inherited from the past, secularized, redisposed, and re -
formed by such disciplines as philosophy, which in turn were naturalized
(and) modernized.
Said argues that the Oriental identity is constr ucted by the West to make
their colonies feel that they are “less evolved” hence, deserved to be
controlled by the civilized West. He points out how the West made the
colonies to feel inferior and believe that only with the Western help, they
could develop . This view is known as “Latent Orientalism” which
represents the belief that the West is superior, civilized, developed
andmodern. It justifies Western presence and control in the colonies.
“Manifest Orientalism” is a physical presence of this idea in the
institutions like university, academic writings and cultural works. He says
latent orientalism does not change much but manifest orientalism changes
as per the political and economic situations. While considering the roots of
Orientalism, he considers how the West comes in contact with the East
because it will give clear idea about what made the West to represent the
East as an Orient. He focuses on how eighteenth century onwards there is
cultural shift as scientific spirit starts giving more importance to the
reasons than religion and expansion, historical confrontation, sympathy
and classification became the pillars of modern Orientalism in 18th
century. He clarifies this modern European thinking motivated the West to
expand and gave license to civilize a nd develop the Orient.
Said proves how Orientalists justify the need of Western help to the East.
He explains that how orientalism helped the West to gain political and
economic power in the East as it was presented as passive object which
needed to be co lonized. He usesvery simple and easy academic language
deliberately to explicate how orientalism is a political move of Europeans
to alienate and control the East in order to get economic boost.
Said blends the Philological and anthropological resources t o understand
Oriental identity of the East fabricated by the West. He refers the
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48 Lawrence who traces how the British use the Orient as a stage to display
their heroism. He writes how Orients were ready to accept any identity
forced to them. He says,
The Orientals was linked to elements in Western society (delinquents, the
insane, women, the poor) having in common an identity best described as
lamentably alien . . . Orientals were . . . analyzed not citizens, or even
people, but as problems to be solved or confined or . . . taken over.
Said reveals how Orient is a product of European social anxieties after
industrial capitalism. He quotes Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of
Species (18 59) which describes the East as scientifically backward. He
also claims that Orientalist writers’ writings are erotic and seductive in
tone. He supports his ideas with French novelist, Gustave Flaubert’s views
about the Orient. Flaubert associates Orient w ith sex. He feels the
Orientalist “hero” is so weak and passive that he transforms his sexual
desire into enlightenment. He feels Orient needs help and care from the
West to be strong. He exemplifies how Orient is weak and feminine in the
matter of writing s as well.
Said’s text, Orientalism centers around academic representation of
colonialism and postcolonial studies. He argues how Orientalism divided
the world in the different colonial categories —. Orientalism puts light
upon the relationship and conflic t between the West and the East. He helps
to understand the anti -Islamic feeling raised in the Western Europe and
US. He brings to attention the international events like 9/ll atomic attack
on the Twin Towers of US and 1979’s Iranian Revolution. He shows h ow
these international events signify the attention given by the academics and
general public to Orientalism. After the economic crisis faced by the
colonies, Said’s Orientalism encourages the re -examination of the process
of decolonization.
Said’s Orient alism focuses majorly on the recent European colonialism.
Many scholars criticize Said for his use of Michel Foucault’s concepts of
discursive formation in which the wriiten, spoken and performed
communication forms the basis of analysis. As Said relates t his concept
with the Western scholars fabrication and description about the East as
Orient —passive and uncivilized. Said also refers Foucault’s concept of
disciplinary power which underlines the way dominant group uses its
authority over a dominated group. He marks how the Western academics
represent the East through their scholarly academic and cultural writings.
He talks about how the East is created than presented by the West as
Orient. Critics find that Foucault’s idea of discourse does not fully
exempl ify Said’s Orientalism. Foucault thinks that discourses cannot be
avoided or changed by any one writer but Said refers to few individual
authors as representatives of all Orientalist thinkers and these
representatives change Orientalism as a discipline. Wh en Said realizes this
limitation of his text, he writes,
Orientalism is a partisan book, not a theoretical machine ... The interest I
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49 variability and unpredictability … What I tried to prese rve in my analysis
of Orientalism was its combination of consistency and inconsistency, its
play, so to speak.
Said highlights Joseph Conrad’s representation of South Africans as
savages and cannibals. He marks Conrad’s representation of African for
highli ghting the crisis of European sense of self and anxietiesin
industrialized world and their ideas about others.Every critic according to
his own views about politics and ethnicity reacts to Orientalism.
Orientalism criticizes the Western academic. Critics p oint out that Said
has only considered East and South Asia. Hence, they argue that his views
are not fully correct as they are based on the incomplete facts and
material. They also feel that Said has completely ignored German, Dutch
and Russian Orientalis ts’ ideas. Said in his text, Orientalism considers the
“Near East” and British and French scholars. They find Said’s view of
Western Studies of Orientalism incorrect as he calls Western Studies of
Orientalism too rigid and less accurate.
Bernard Lewis, Pr ofessor emeritus of Islamic history at Princeton
University and Western scholar of the Middle East reviewed Orientalism
and published it in the New York Review of Books. He accused Said for
politicizing Orientalism in “Letters to the Editor”, a section of the
magazine. He claimed that Said deliberately and forcefully tried to make
his views and criticism related to his views, facts and methods politically
important. Lewis criticized the way Said connects Orientalism and
European empire. Said responded to th e critics who criticized his point
about the relationship between Orientalism and colonialism by stating that
Orientalism not just focuses on the content of Orientalist writing but it also
considers the way the content is expressed. He states the unwilling ness of
the scholars like Lewis to accept the political dimension of their
scholarship and writings. He exemplifies his point with Napoleon’s
journey to Egypt in 1798. He states that Western move into the Orient
under the pretext of research and exploratio n but in reality they prepare
their way for political and economic colonization.
Sir Richard Burton praises Said’s work but he criticizes that by saying,
‘we are never directly given the Orient’ (196). But it is hard to believe as
the Orient cannot itself speak, it depends on the external representation.
Said twice quotes Marx epigraph from The Eighteen Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte,‘they cannot represent themselves; they must be represented
(xiii. 21, 293). Said argues that there can be ‘no such thing as de livered
presence, but a re -presence, or a representation.’ As Derrida believes that
non-written language cannot represent the spoken language as it is, in the
same way, the West cannot represent the East the way it was and it is. He
also says that the colo nizers misinterpreted the East as in order to define
themselves superior. He traces as Derrida talks about the relations of the
opposition that how one is used to define other. But it does not mean that
the other is inferior it is just the way through whic h the powerful presents
itself superior. Said highlights how the West presents East inferior so it
can present itself superior. He says there is thin line between
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50 Orientalism that what i s commonly circulated by culture is not truth but
representations.
Some critics oppose Said by mentioning that the West study the Islamic
world long before than modern age as Said in his text, Orientalism gives
the references are from eighteenth century. They connect Said’s
Orientalist view with Samuel Huntington’s view that in future global
conflicts due to the cultural differences, Islam can be considered opposite
to Western civilization. Gayatri Spivak, Indian philosopher criticized
Orientalism for not considering gender and class issues.She defines
colonies which are considered and projected as inferior by the West as
colonial “subaltern”. Homi Bhabha underlines hybridity to argue that the
cultural mix means both colonizers and colonized are not wholly part of
one group or another, hence, social and cultural misunderstandings is a
key feature of colonialism.
Some critics agree with Said’s opinion about the presentation of Orient by
Western scholars. Critics like James Clifford, anthropologist feel Said has
misinterpreted Occident (the countries of the West) and the Orient (the
East) as different and separate which in reality they feel were part of a
continuous sequence and were not different. Said replied strongly to such
criticism by saying that he saw how the East was described and
constructed by Orientalists as per their geographical and cultural
understanding. Said gets the opposition for his orientalism but afterward
he added an epilogue to his book and expressed regret over how Arab and
Muslim group s used his work to justify their aggressive and rigid
nationalism. He pointed out that the academic scholars also focus more on
the linguistic than the historical importance of the text.
Said’s Orientalism focuses on how Western academic has been politici zed.
In his text he tries to highlight this relation between politics and academic.
He suggests by observing how the other societies are represented if focus
will be given on it this problem can be solved. He supports his view with
Michel Foucault’s discou rse approach which is integral part of
postcolonial studies. Frederick Cooper highlights the advanced scholars
who study the colonialism and colonial representations of their colonies in
Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History. He says:
The mos t thought -provoking dimension of the ‘new’ scholarship on
colonial situations, in relation to the ‘old’, is the way it calls into terms of
social biases but in terms of the ways in which forms of knowledge and
conceptions of change are themselves shaped by a history of which
imperialism is a central development.
Said’s Orientalism criticizes colonial rule which through a particular
language and concept gives the authority to the West to organize and
understand knowledge from its point of view and control o thers.
Said’s Orientalism questions decolonization which could not cut off past.
He argues how after independence Europe continues to dominate. He
underlines how colonial control continues through modern global
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51 colonialism left behind through which it can control and dominate its
colonies. He majorly focuses on how colonialism gave rise to modern
Western postcolonial studies. He also talks about sub -alternity, hybridity,
transnationalism, gend er and sexual studies. E focuses on what was
produced culturally by European elite. He criticizes how the European
elites support the colonial role. He considers how certain false
assumptions of European scholars have impacted the colonies today. He
exempl ifies it by giving Nicholas Dirks reference who considers castes
system in India is not rigid. He highlights the wrong understanding and
misinterpretation of the West through their writings. His argument touches
the points made by Ann Laura Stoler who talk s about colonizer’s control
on sexual reinforcement and idea of difference. He tells how mixed -race
couple ad children were considered a danger to social stability.
Edward Said’s book, Orientalism still continues to influence the people.
After Iraq and Afg hanistan wars and 9/11 attack the text became more
irrelevant for highlighting the post -colonial condition of the colonized
people and their description given by the West. Said traces how Western
countries financially dominate and Eastern countries only pr ovide the
services. This global economic situation can be understood from Said’s
quote:
What I should like also to have contributed here is a better understanding
of the way cultural domination has operated. If this stimulates a new kind
of dealing with th e Orient, indeed if it eliminates the ‘Orient’ and the
‘Occident’ altogether, then we shall have advanced a little in the process
of what Raymond Williams has called the ‘unlearning’ of the inherent
dominative mode.
Said appeals the scholars to separate themselves from the politics and the
bias projection of the East as his Orientalism focuses on the facts and
truth. Gayatri Spivak replied to the appeal by saying, “Can the Subaltern
Speak?” The Iranian -American scholar, Hamid Dabashi points out how
the We st categories people for convince. He calls it as “disposable
knowledge” which no longer useful after the shift in political system.
Timothy Mitchell applies Said’s ideas of Orientalism to the international
development. He says that the other cultures need the help the West.
Said focuses on the political and historical context in the academic
writings. He explains how the both reflects and also actively produces the
political conditions in which the text is written. He projects how scholars
and culture ref lects the contemporary political ideas. Scholars like,
Ammiel Alcalay, Paul Gilroy and Moira Ferguson underlines the modern
world and its roots in colonialism. They separate modernization from
westernization. Edward Said’s Orientalism continues to help to understand
the postcolonial power and culture discourse as Orientalism deals with the
changing political context. The historian Frederick Cooper wrote:
Said’s influence has been profound and limited to literary studies . . . His
approach opened up analysis of a wide array of cultural productions and
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52 Cooper focuses on the political involvement as well which helps the West
to dominate after the decolonization. Said says that Orientalism did not
and wil l not end in future as well.
Many scholars depend on Said’s work to analyzing and classifying the
population. They also refer Said for understanding the gender and
sexuality from history and Orientalist contexts. Ann Laura Stoler
highlights how the West h as imposed the idea of ideal family or sexuality.
Puar Jasbir criticizes how the West has presented the East inferior. Puar
scholars put forth how the Western ideas are used as barometer of
modernity. She calls this attitude as “homonationalism”.
6.3 CONC LUSION
In short, Edward Said’s Orientalism influenced the study of humanities
and scholars point of views about colonialism and post -colonialism. It
gives the opportunity to the colonized countries to voice their unrest being
presented in humiliating manne rs. It tries to bring forth the political
knowledge of the knowledge. It tells how the image of the East is cultural,
historical, locational and representational by the West. He says, “A line is
drawn between two continents. Europe is powerful and articula te: Asia is
defeated and distant. Aeschylus represents Asia, makes her speak in the
person of the aged Persian queen, Xerxes’ mother. It is Europe that
articulates the Orient(57).”
6.4 QUESTIONS
1. What is Edward Said's main thesis and idea in "Orientalism"? Is he
against the West's subordinate view of the East?
2. Explicate Orientalism with suitable literary examples.
3. Critically analyze Edward Said’s work, Orientalism.
6.5 REFERENCES
 Said Edward. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978.

 Quinn Riley. An Analys is of Edward Said’s Orientalism. Macat
International Ltd. 2017. Ebook -ISBN 978 -1-912281 -80-0

 www.academia.edu/25550382/An_Analysis_of_Edward_Saids_Orient
alism

 www.res earchgate.net/publication/307167756_A_Summary_of_Orient
alism_by_Edward_Said_1978

 Used Books, Orientalism Edward Said Critical Quaterly, vol.36, no. 4

 www.kobo.com/in/ en/ebook/an -analysis -of-edward -said-s-orientalism

munotes.in

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53  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_(book)

 www.academia.edu/11162747/Notes_on_Saids_INTRODUCTION_to
_ORIENTALISM

 culturalstudiesnow.blogspot.com/2017/09/summary -introduction -to-
orientalism -by.html

 litera riness.org/2020/11/10/analysis -of-edward -saids -orientalism

 An Introduction to Edward Said, Orientalism, and Postcolonial
Literary Studies.https://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2004/09/introduction -
to-edward -said.html



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54 7
ESSAY: ARJUN APPADURAI’S ESSAY,
“DISJUNCTURE AND DIFFERENCE IN
THE GLOBAL CULTURAL ECONOMY”
Unit Structure:
7.0 Objectives
7.1 Introduction of Arjun Appadurai
7.2 Analysis of Arjun Appadurai’s “Disjuncture and Difference in the
global Cultural Economy”
7.3 Conclusion
7.4 Questions
7.5 References
7.0 OBJECTIVES
This unit discusses Arjun Appadurai’s essay, “Disjunction and Difference
in the Global Cultural Economy”. It deals with a short introduction of
Arjun Appadurai and critical analysis of his work, “D isjunction and
Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”.
7.1 INTRODUCTION OF ARJUN APPADURAI
Arjun Appadurai is the Goddard Professor in Media, Culture and
Communication at New York University, where he is also Senior Fellow
at the Institute for Public K nowledge. He serves as Honorary Professor in
the Department of Media and Communication, Erasmus University,
Rotterdam, Tata Chair Professor at The Tata Institute for Social
Sciences, Mumbai and as a Senior Research Partner at the Max -Planck
Institute for R eligious and Ethnic Diversity, Gottingen. He was previously
Senior Advisor for Global Initiatives at The New School in New York
City, where he also held a Distinguished Professorship as the John Dewey
Distinguished Professor in the Social Sciences. Arjun A ppadurai was the
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at The New School from
2004 -2006. He was formerly the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of
International Studies, Professor of Anthropology, and Director of the
Center on Cities and Globalizati on at Yale University. Appadurai is the
founder and now the President of PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge
Action and Research), a non -profit organization based in and oriented to
the city of Mumbai (India). He has also served as a consultant or advisor
to a wide range of public and private organizations, including many major
foundations (Ford, MacArthur, and Rockefeller); UNESCO; UNDP; the
World Bank; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the National munotes.in

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Essay, “ Disjuncture and
Difference in the Global
Cultural Economy”
55 Science Foundation; and the Infosys Foundation. He currently serves on
the Advisory Board for the Asian Art Initiative at the Solomon
Guggenheim Museum and on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Forum
D’Avignon in Paris.
Professor Appadurai was born and educated in Bombay. He graduated
from St. Xavier’ s High School and took his Intermediate Arts degree from
Elphinstone College before coming to the United States. He earned his
B.A. from Brandeis University in 1967, and his M.A. (1973) and Ph.D.
(1976) from The Committee on Social Thought at the Universit y of
Chicago.
During his academic career, he has also held professorial chairs at Yale
University, the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania,
and has held visiting appointments at the École des Hautes Études en
Sciences Sociales (Paris), the University of Delhi, the University of
Michigan, the University of Amsterdam, the University of Iowa, Columbia
University and New York University. He has authored numerous books
and scholarly articles, including Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the
Geography of Anger (Duke 2006) and Modernity at Large: Cultural
Dimensions of Globalization , (Minnesota 1996; Oxford India 1997).
Appadurai’s latest book, The Future as a Cultural Fact: Essays on the
Global Condition was published by Verso in 2013. His boo ks have been
translated into French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese
and Italian.
Part II
7.2 ANALYSIS OF ARJUN APPADURAI’S
“DISJUNCTURE AND DIFFERENCE IN THE
GLOBAL CULTURAL ECONOMY ”
Arjun Appadurai essay, “Disjunction and Difference in t he Global
Economy”(1990) focuses on the cultural homogenization and
heterogenization. He says, “One man’s imagined community is another
man’s political prison.” Hepinpoints how media brings various cultures
together rapidly. He articulates that the music, life style, laws and
traditions get transferred from one culture to another. He not only
underlines the positive impacts of the transformations but also highlights
how these transformations can be threat to the indigenous culture for
example, Japanization of Koreans, Vietnamization of Cambodians or
Indianization of Sri Lankans. He draws the attention towards the resultant
political issues which can be occurred as a result of cultural
transformation.
Appadurai defines the central problem of modern day global ization as the
tension between homogenization and heterogenization. He states how
homogenization caused by globalization often relates to claims about
commodification or Americanization, and often the two are linked
together. He claims that what such theor ies do not take into account is that
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56 often indigenized to the local culture. Furthermore, Appadurai argues that
fear of cultural invasion is not limited only to Americanization but rather
to every situation in which elements from one culture penetrate another. He
talks about the global manifestation of the cultural fractal spread through
media. He exemplifies the modern marketing of media not only spreads
the culture but also promotes the products. He believes that the media
dismisses the geographical distance between nations and cultures. He tells
how all the theories and concepts are inadequate due to certain
fundamental disjunctures between economy, culture and politics which the
theorists might not have considered.
Appadurai formulates a mental model for the disjuncture between
different sorts of global flows by creating terms —ethnoscapes,
technoscapes, finanscapes, mediascapes and ideoscapes that serve as an
elementary framework w hich serves to analyze the complex relationships
of these flows in five dimensions. Each term represents a particular
dimension of global flows which are at the same time dis -junctive,
interdependent and interrelated. For example, if there is no ethnoscape
then there will be no change in the culture. it will be same in the case of
technoscapes and finanscapes. The mutability of these concepts is inherent
to the very use of the term “Scape” by Appadurai, as it serves him to
describe the ever changing shape o f global flows rather than to describe
the static conditions of inter -relations between nation -states. He uses this
suffix ‘scape’ to show how all the disjunctures are connected by historical,
linguinstic and political situatedness such as anation -states, multinationals,
diaspora and sub -national groupings and movements likes religions,
political and economic. He says the individual with his/her experience of
these built block to which Benedict Anderson called as imagined worlds,
multiple worlds which are p roduced by historical imaginations of the
person and groups. Today also many people in the world continue to live
in such imagined world and imagined communities. He justifies that the
suffix ‘scape’ facilitates to point to the fluid, irregular shapes of t hese
landscape. He tells how these shapes characterize international capital as
deeply as they do international clothing styles.
In short, Appadurai introduces the concept of ‘scapes’ to provide a new
framework for analyzing the cultural dimensions of glo balization.
Ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes
serve as his central categories, the “building -blocks” of culture. (In
Crossing and Dwelling, Thomas Tweed suggests that we also think about
“sacroscapes,” or trans -locative religious flows.) Unlike old -fashioned
center -periphery models, Appadurai argues, the word, scapes suggests an
alternative spatial rendering. Scapes are amorphous, of variant sizes, and
flow in multiple directions. They serve as images of cultural processe s—
snapshots of cultural distributions, flows, and integrations at any given
time. Appadurai hastens to add that the relationship between these scapes
is “deeply disjunctive and profoundly unpredictable.” Scapes are
intrinsically fluid. This marks a departu re, for example, from more
traditional Marxian analyses of culture that might privilege the
“financescape” as the most powerful locus demanding the orbit of other
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Essay, “ Disjuncture and
Difference in the Global
Cultural Economy”
57 Appadurai links globalization with major changes in the global cultural
economy. While cultural contact and exchange have always occurred to
some degree, he thinks that these processes have profoundly intensified in
recent years with the advent of rapid mass media technologies and
increased migration. What we are seeing now, he argues is something
entirely and qualitatively new. diaspora and diffusion, not stability, are the
rule for new cultural formations. He sees “the configuration of cultural
forms in today’s world as fundamentally fractal, that is, as possessing no
Euclidian bounda ries, structures, or regularities” (20). In this new world, it
makes no sense to try to understand cultures as holistic, coherent, or
autonomous. Culture is no longer limited to specific nation or to a
geographical territory. The new global cultural econom y, on the contrary,
is complex, disjunctive, and overlapping. He writes about “Global flows,”
not autonomous nations, characterize cultures and their interrelationships.
According to Appadurai, the characteristic of the modern world is
something in which t he cultural objects are fractals as they replicate and
spread. This characteristics of the modern world depends on the
boundaries is flawed and unable to grasp the complete cultural
phenomena. He highlights how we think the cultural objects are confined
to the single territory and have a pure form and they do not interact with
the other cultural objects. Then, he explains how such analysis will be
flawed. For example, if we will consider one of the cultural markers like
food. If we travel to different part s of the world, the same food we find in
different taste or the use of the ingredients will be different for example,
the Chinese food if we taste specific Chinese dish in China and the same
food item if we will try in India then the taste, the ingredients and cooking
style everything will be different. In short, we cannot claim a particular
food type as Indian food or Chinese food is a pure form of pure cultural
object untouched by other cultural influence. He claims that no pure form
of the cultural objec ts exists.
Appadurai explains a disjuncture, separation or disconnection in the global
cultural economy. He says these separations, disconnections and
disjuncture are between economy, culture and politics which create the
problems for the global economy. F or example, if we will consider Saudi
Arabia and sharia law in Muslim countries, it can be a cultural form of
religion and politics. Here, we can observe the multiculturalism which is
more difficult to ensure that political system is integrated to economi c and
cultural systems. As Muslim law of marriage is different than the other
laws in the world, then it becomes confusing to the non -Muslim to follow
which law. Appadurai underlines this disconnection between politics and
culture.
Appaduari considers wha t are building blocks of today’s imagined worlds
and how they are distinct and related to each other. He refers Benedict
Anderson’s “imagined communities”. According to Anderson, we belong
to a common communities, heritage and destiny. He tells how our
imagination is connected with the print form —printed books, newspapers,
novels in the same language dealing with the same issues. He tells that
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58 between the reality and fiction. As a result, w e construct our imaginary
world or block accordingly. Further, he tells how modern world has
become highly interactive, deterritorialized and fractal. He traces how they
think and imagine ethno -scape -movement of people, technoscape -
movement of technologies , finance -scape - movement of capital, media -
scape -movement of technology based information. He pinpoints how there
is no barrier of language and there can be multiple explanations. He also
mentions ideoscape which relates with transformation of ideology wi th no
physical boundaries. He traces that in today’s technology based world it is
impossible to consider as a fix block or permanent information or fact
because the rapid media constantly shaping and reshaping our facts,
imagination and reality.
Further, Appaduarai explains how the common model of understanding of
the global economy does not fit with the ever expanding and changing
cultural mixing in this current era. The previous thoughts of separate
“center -periphery models” and “push and pull (in terms of migration
theory)” do not correspond to the “movements,” as he calls them, of
cultural expression. He uses a suffix, scape to explain the disjunction. He
uses ‘scape’ as a suffix which is generally used to understand irregular
shapes of the landscape. His use of the suffix "scape" is meant to illustrate
that these are cultural vistas which depend on the position of a given
spectator, and that they are constantly changing. He claims that the
complexity of the global market is connected with the disjunctio n of
economy, culture and politics. Here, he uses it to trace the cultural,
economic and political disjunction promoted by the media. He shares
certain reasons which are responsible to the disjunction. He underlines the
disjunctions through five conceptual dimensions, "scapes", of the global
culture: ethnoscape, mediascape, technoscape, finanscape and ideoscape.
The first is, ‘ethnoscape’ which represents the people who geographically
shift from one place to another like tourists, immigrants, refugees, exil es,
guest -workers and other moving people or groups. He states that these
groups or people also influence the global culture and politics. He states
how this migration from village to city or from one country to another
impacts not only culture, politics, production but also policies.
Appadurai refers "ethnoscape" to underline the growing movement of
people into one another due to immigration which changes the global
dynamics. In "technoscape", Appadurai addresses the growing spread of
technology. Mediasca pes are narrative or visual representations of parts of
reality which shape the perception of the other, fantasies and ambitions.
He underlines how media creates the image of the world. Media blurs the
line between the reality and the imagination. Mediasca pes mix the world
of commodities, news, politics and ethnoscapes. Ideoscape relates to the
ideological dimension of states and other agencies. Notions like "freedom"
or "democracy" need to be translated when crossing the borders of other
cultures. Mediasca pes is image -centred. It presents information which
transfers the people to an imagined world which has a characters and plot.
According to Appadurai ‘ethnoscape’ means the landscape of people who
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59 refugees, exiles, guestworkers and other people who constantly move in
world and influence world culture, politics and economy. He talks about
the desire of the stable people who wish and fantasies to travel the world.
He tells how in reality p eople move from one part of the world to the other
part. And as these people travel, there is a shift in international capital it
means the place, nation gets changed and accordingly their needs,
technology, the production of that place, that nation’s poli cies will be
adjusted. He underlines how these people cannot reside at one place form
long time. In this way, they keep on move and change the nations and
policies worldwide.
Appadurai through ‘technoscape’ represents rapid flow of the information
through technology.Appadurai points out how the information is spread
through media without any geographical restrictions and boundaries. As a
result of it, number of countries has rapidly become multicultural. He
points out how it affects to the global economy. He highlights how the
migrants move from one place to the other and from one nation to the
other and get settled there for a while as per their needs and wish. But in
their stay, they purchase new house or their basic needs like house for
which they take l oans from the bank which in return, helps the economy to
grow. Hence, Appadurai talks about ‘finanscapes’ as the global capital is
now more mysterious, rapid and difficult landscape to follow. He includes
current markets, national stock exchange and commod ity speculations in
finanscapes which is very vast and fast. He says that the global
relationship between ethnoscapes, technoscapes and finanscapes is very
disjunctive and unpredictable due to its own constraints and incentives.
Thus, he refers to consider human movement, technological flow and
financial transfers which are interconnected and can be influenced with
political, informational and techno -environmental changes.
Appadrai pinpoints how technoscapes is influenced with the complex
relationships betw een information among the increasing numbers of other
mediums like newspapers, magazines, television stations and films. He
states how the images of the world or the information provided by the
media depends on the various factors like the mode (documentar y or
entertainment), their audiences (local, national or transnational) and the
interests of those who own and control them. He marks how the uneven
distribution of technologies affects the financial and political status of
country. He underlines how the t echnology or media creates the image of
the world.
Appadurai highlights how ideoscapes and mediascapes are closely
connected. Mediascapes refers to distribution of electronic capabilities to
produce and disseminate information through the media such as
newspapers, magzines, television stations and films. Appadurai underlines
how today the media is responsible to create the image of the world. He
explains that these images created by media involve many complicated
factors like the mode of the media, purpos e (entertainment/education),
target audience. He traces the mediascapes like television, film and
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60 narratives and ethnoscapes which the profound mix of news and politics.
Mediascapes bl urs the line between the real and imagined world.
Ideoscapes are also the chain of the images but they directly deal with the
political power and ideologies of states or the counter -ideologies which
influence people to get the power. These ideoscapes incl ude the terms and
images such as freedom, welfare, rights, sovereignty, representation and
democracy. This type of vocabulary targets the specific populations which
moves from place to place, ethnoscapes and sometimes, mediascapes
create problems for ideos capes with which they are presented. Ideoscapes
are dependent on conventions and the paradigmatic framework of cultures
in order to be given their meaning in every culture. Flexibility is
complicated in particular diaspora. Appadurai explains it through th e
example of the meaning of democracy. He says how democracy can be
interpreted differently under the ruling ideoscapes or different parts of the
world.
Appadurai claims that the global movement of these various scapes helps
under a growing disjunction bet ween them. The movement of people,
technology, funds, media and ideas exists in varying and colliding forms.
One of the characteristics of this phenomenon according to Appadurai is
the state of deterritorialization with cultural groups living apart from th eir
territory (such as immigrant groups), changing the scapes which adapt
themselves to the new situation and creating the tension between openness
to global processes and the will to retain a cultural identity. He
exemplifies it with Saudis acceptance of the guestworkers and creating
labor diaspora —Turk, Italian and South Asian. Some labor groups like
Turks maintain constant contact with their home -nations but some
migrants desire to live in Saudi which creates the problem of
deterriorialization.
Appadura i says deterriorialization brings labor into lower class sectors of
rich societies. Deterriorialization presents senses of criticism or
attachment to politics in the home -state. He says how deterriorialization
develops when money, commodities and persons a re involved and chase
each other around the world. He connects them with mediascapes and
ideoscapes. He says the ideas and images produced by mass media are
only partial guides to the goods and experiences that deterritorialized
populations transfer to one another.
Further, Appadurai’s vision of a flowing, borderless world strikes as
somewhat premature. He shares the example of Mexican migrants who
‘flow’ by the tens of thousands each year into Arizona and other parts of
the southwestern United States and the US -Mexico border and continue to
be highly militarized. He tells how state borders have been fortified —not
compromised, walls have been erected and racism and xenophobia
increased. This is just a way of saying that borders in response to global
flows a re resilient. A Mexican migrant would agree with Appadurai that
today’s world maintains no “boundaries, structures, or regularities” (20). munotes.in

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Essay, “ Disjuncture and
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Cultural Economy”
61 Appadurai describes heterogeneous, context -dependent, and radically
impermanent world that runs the risk of losing it s theoretical usefulness.
His analogies drawn from fractal geometry and chaos theory are exciting,
but do not exactly lend analytical precision. He says that cultural
formations are wholly random and contingent. Appadurai is equivocal.
“This does not mean that the causal -historical relationship between these
various flows is random or meaninglessly contingent, but that our current
theories of cultural ‘chaos’ are insufficiently developed to be even
parsimonious models, at this point, much less to be predict ive theories, the
golden fleeces of one kind of social science” (21).
Appadurai’s new framework is not without shortcomings. Appadurai, like
Thomas Tweed in Crossing and Dwelling underestimates the realities of
power in controlling and directing global flo ws. Appadurai’s essay does
not completely answers the question whether the world is really in a state
of complete disjuncture. Total disjuncture, it seems woefully unhelpful
frame for understanding global inequalities. One not need be an
ideological Marxis t to see how the global flow of financial capital
continues to be a directive though perhaps not the determinant —power,
capable of upsetting other flows. Hollywood, after all, is far from bankrupt
and continues to dominate global mediascapes. Global techno scapes
remain fueled by the billions and billions of dollars poured into the bloated
defense budget of the United States. Ethnoscapes are aggressively
politicized and policed in many parts of the world, and function to keep
poorer classes out of richer cou ntries. Appadurai states how flow of capital
indeed remains an incisive power, perhaps he would be unable to reach
such sanguine conclusions about the potential of imagination and agency.
Appadurai considers deterrioriation as the central force of the mode rn
world as it provides laboring population into the lower class sectors and
spaces of relatively wealthy societies by creating exaggerated and
intensified senses of criticism or attachment to politics in the home -state.
He exemplifies it by giving Hindu’s oversees movement is exploited y
within and outside India to create a network of finances and religious
identifications. He traces how it creates cultural problems for Hindus in
abroad and the involvement of the politics of Hindu fundamentalism at
home. H e also talks about how deterritorialization creates new market for
film, art and tourism. He focuses on how this provides the material for
new ideoscapes in which ethnic conflicts can start. He provides the
example of Khalistan, an invented homeland of the deterritorialised Sikh
population of US, England and Canada. This also exemplifies threat of
internal colonialisms. He proves how deterritorialization new feature of
global cultural politics. He states how the disjunctive relationships
between the various landscapes creates a problems at states and nations
level. In both, nation and state, there is a conflict of imagination control
one another for example Tamils in Sri Lanka proven as threat to the
traditional diaspora which initiated the micro politics of a nation -state.
Further, Appadurai gives examples of transnational movement of martial -
arts from Asia to Hollywood and Hong Kong films. He explicates how
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62 popular and a result, its fuel to increase the violence at national and
international levels. He traces how images of violence linked with
aspiration for community in some imagined world.
Appadurai talks about paradox of ethnic politics which has introduced
primordial of language , skin color or neighborhood worldwide. It
influences the sentiments at great force. It impacts sentiments, identities
and political ideas. Appadurai also highlights how this has the capacity to
hold together the constantly migrating people, ethnoscape thr ough the
sophisticated media by creating traditional and retrospective affiliations.
He states that the impact of primordial product can be disturbed by
disjunctive and changing commerce, media, national policies and
consumer fantasies. He traces that the relationship between cultural and
economic of global disjunctures vicissitude of international flows of
technology, labor and finance creates a problem of uneven development.
He pinpoints the fetishism of the consumer which indicates the
transformation of the consumers through mediascapes especially,
advertisements. He specifies that global advertising is the key technology
for the worldwide dissemination of creative and culturally chosen ideas of
consumer agency.
Appadurai traces that globalization of cul ture is different than
homogenization but links globalization uses multiple elements of
homogenization like armaments, advertising techniques, language, clothes
and styles. He states how homogenization influences the local political
and cultural economies. He articulates how too much freedom to global
flows and nation -state can create problem of revolt. He also highlights that
the export of the designs and commodities of difference gives birth to
internal politics of majoritarianism and homogenization which can be
witnessed in debates over heritage. He points out the core objective of
global culture is the politics of mutual effort of sameness and difference to
cannibalize one another to control the universe.
Appadurai connects deterritorialization with mon ey, finance, market and
investments. He shows how this type of deterritorization gives birth to
money conflict. He exemplifies it through the examples of Japanese
properties in Los Angele and dominance of Arabs from Gulf State in
Bombay, India. He also con siders though there are conflicts in them but
still there is a commodities transfer between the countries which change
consumer taste which in return affect to the market and business, at the
same time, there is a threat off smuggling which gives birth to grey
market. He also brings to the light the dark and dirty fact of sex or flesh
market which takes place at international level which is also a product of
ethnoscapes, finanscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes and ideoscapes.The
West Bank, Namibia and Eritr ea are the platforms to negotiate between
existing nation -states and deterritorialized groups. He tells mass media
guides the goods and experiences that the deterriorialised population
transfers to one another. He talks about cultural politics of
deterriot orialization which is connected with global economy.
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63 7.3 CONCLUSION
In short, Appadurai suggests underlying patterns. Yet in the midst of
what, at this early stage, appears to be chaos, we simply have not yet been
able to identify or articulate such pat terns using our current social
scientific toolkits. Appadurai’s essay presents provocative implications a
work on landscape. Specifically, his discussion of deterritorialization
radically disturbs what anthropologists and historians think of as a “site.”
A site can no longer be one physical location, for flows can only be
glimpsed in their mobility. We cannot only look at a local religion; we
must look at Tweed’s sacroscapes.
Appadurai means we ought not to be interested any longer in territories
and ‘flow’ requiresto abandon ‘place’.He misses the fact that flows can
actually help create and transform geographic spaces. Places are not
static —they are made and remade depending on the movements, actions,
and ideas of their successive inhabitants. In other word s, it is not only
deterritorialization that occurs with globalization, but also
reterritorialization. Old spaces may be left behind by one group, only to be
newly inhabited and newly remade. The desert outside Tucson, for
example, has become one such reter ritorialized landscape, recently
repopulated with border patrol guards, various humanitarian aid workers,
and teams of clandestine crossing migrants. Novel arrangements of law,
nongovernmental organizations, black markets, and religious practices
have aris en in this reterritorialized chunk of earth.
In conclusion, Appadurai’s model mentioned in “Disjuncture and
Difference in the Global Cultural Economy” serves a reflective,
multidimensional view on the macroscopic processes of a globalized
society. Appadur ai analyses these complex relationships on a fundamental
level. He exemplifies the strong interdependencies between the formulated
scapes and points out both the procedural and disjunctive nature of the
topic. He puts forth his perspectives on the global f low of people,
technology, finance, information and ideologies through this essay.
7.4 QUESTIONS
1. Critically analyze Arjun Appaduarai’s essay, “Disjuction and
Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”.
2. Explain Appadurai’s mental model for the disjuncture between
different sorts of global flows mentioned in his essay, “Disjuction and
Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”.



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64 7.5 REFERENCES
 Appadurai, A. (2016). Disjuncture and Difference in the Global
Cultural Economy. Theory, Culture & Society.
https://doi.org/10.1177/026327690007002017
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249672231_The_anthropolo
gy_of_global_flows_A_critical_reading_of_Appadurai%27s_Disjunct
ure_and_Difference_in_the_Global_Cultural_Economy%27
 Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy Response
Paper, Alexander Morosow 11401438,Istanbul, 04. May 2015
https://www.researchgate.net/publi cation/276169254_Response_Paper
_-_Disjuncture_and_Difference_in_the_Global_Cultural_Economy
 www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMm_fQOw2Ew
 http://youtu.be/jsoUczl8Saw
 https://www.tumblr.com/disgorgedintotalrecall -
blog/23697601298/arjun -appadurai -disjuncture -and-difference -in
 https://culturalstudiesnow.blogspot.com/2011/05/arjun -appadurai -
disjunction -and.html . Thursday, May 26, 2011.
 Review of Disjuncture and difference in Global Cultural Economy |
URL: https://tmblr.co/ZnwkFvM4VBCI


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65 8
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE PRESCRIBED
POEMS OF IMTIAZ DHARKER -I
Part I
Unit Structure :
8.0 Objectives
8.1 About Imtiaz Dharker
8.2 Analysis of Dharker’s Poems
8.0 OBJECTIVES
1. To study prescribed poems of Imtiaz Dharker
2. To trace his contributions to Ind ian poetry
8.1 ABOUT IMTIAZ DHARKER
Born in Lahore in 1954, Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist, and documentary
filmmaker of Pakistani -Scottish descent.She moved to Scotland when she
was very young and was brought up in Glasgow. She presently lives in
London and Mumbai and sees herself as a “Scottish Muslim Calvinist,”
having been adopted by India and married into the Welsh family. For her
English poetry, she was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal and Meritorious
achievement in poetry.
8.2 ANALYSIS OF DHARKER’S P OEMS
Imtiaz Dharker has published six collections of poems, works among other
things as a documentary maker in India and has shown her drawings in
solo exhibitions in India, London, New York and Hong Kong. In her
poetry she takes on topics such as homeland , freedom and travel in an
imaginative and questioning way and points to cultural and geographical
conflicts within society and gender politics, which has brought her the
2014 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and the Cholmondeley Award.
Imtiaz Dharker’s poem ‘Living Space’ expresses a physical manifestation
of poverty in the form of a dilapidated, poorly constructed home. She does
not simply elucidate the structural integrity of the home in question but
uses that rundown home as an impetus to comment on lives shrouded in
poverty. The poem highlights the financial circumstance through the home
by commenting on people rather than things, both their present states and
their future possibilities.“Living Space” describes the slums of Mumbai
and is a snapshot of a h ome that lacks straight lines, solid walls, or secure
ceilings. Instead, this “structure leans dangerously,” highlighting
fragility —but it leans “towards the miraculous,” too. It speaks of a “rough
frame” into which “someone has squeezed/a living space.” C eiling beams
are balanced precariously, and nails protrude from the walls. Yet, even munotes.in

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66 while on the surface this is a dangerous living situation, there’s also
something “miraculous” about it.
Running through the poem is a sense that all life is fragile, and that its
existence in any shape or form is a kind of miracle. Despite having very
little to their name, the occupants of this house make a life for themselves.
The poet thus suggests that the life thus made is but bound to be
celebrated. The resourcefulne ss of the person who lives in this space is
then symbolized by the “eggs in a wire basket.” These, too, represent life
and are, of course, extremely fragile. Like the house itself, it would not
take much to break these eggs. But they are not broken, and in stead are
waiting there to be used in cooking, to play a part in the occupant’s
existence.The scope of the poem thus shifts from a particular occupant or
even just Mumbai slums to the entirety of humanity. Crowded onto planet
Earth, the human population it self is “hung out over the dark edge / of a
slanted universe.” For all its technological advancement, complexity of
thought, and instinctive resourcefulness, humanity too is like a bunch of
eggs suspended in a precarious situation. All life, then, is perch ed on a
structure both dangerous and miraculous.Finally, the poem ends with faith.
Nothing is flat
(…)
thrust off the vertical.
In these lines of ‘ Living Space’ , the focus remains at first on the structure
being the blame rather than the residents of the home. Dharker solidifies
the helplessness that the occupants of the living space experience by
considering that the root of their issues lies within the structural integrity
or the lack thereof.She then begins describing the details of the home
which she eases the readers into. She begins this transformation by still
building on the notion of structure —things that would be done to combat
the poor structure, like “Beams balanced crookedly”. It is a step -by-step
process, and now that she has discussed what m ight be the most visible
means of fighting that structural battle, she introduces the more trivial
parts of the home.
“Nails clutch at open seams.” The people living in the home are
desperately holding to the idea that things will improve, that they
are grasping desperately at the potential of a future that is better than
where they currently stand. In the midst of this disarray, there is hope.
That concept is reflected again in the last two lines of the arrangement
since the setup “leans dangerously toward s the miraculous.” Figuratively,
the statement reflects the notion that something brighter can happen in the
days to come, but it takes that notion a step further. Literally, the line
could be interpreted as sarcastic awe as to how the building still holds
ground. The poor state of the home is not just something that can be
overcome with ease. It is also something that can be used as inspiration to
aspire for more. This idea is evident in the verb choice for “leans” since
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Prescribed Poems Of Imtiaz
Dharker -I
67 miraculous.” The current state “leans…towards” the future, as in the
situation can provide the motivation to overcome and strive for something
better.
Lines 10 -22
Into this rough frame,
(…)
the bright, thin walls of faith.
All of this information is presented in one sentence hints that whatever the
topic of this sentence is, it is exciting enough to Dharker to be presented in
a rushed format, as she can hardly get the words out quickly enough.
Whatever is presented in this se ries of lines then is the culmination of
‘Living Space’ .
Beyond the children’s reaction, the final lines of the poem make their
search for goodness seem as though it concerns more than their own
dreams and happiness. The final words of the poem are “as if they were
the bright, thin walls of faith.” The article choice of “the” in that
statement is vastly important since it shows that this is a specific title
given to specific people. They are not being described as just any of
the “walls,” but rather “the…wa lls.” Out of all of the people in the home
or neighbourhood, these have somehow earned that title, and if they alone
are the keepers of this name, they alone are the ones who can carry
this “faith.” Even the adjectives listed before the noun, “walls,” matter
because they almost disagree with one another. These children
are “bright,” which is positive. In the darkness, they can shine. But they
are also “thin,” and that idea can be taken to mean that they are fragile,
that they could break. The entire situati on is unstable, like the house, but
the possibilities for a better future will always exist in the midst of that
darkness, so long as the “bright, thin walls of faith” still shine and look
for better things.
This overall message could be taken as a stateme nt toward poverty in
general as well. People in these states could be in hardships, but
possibilities can still prevail against the dimness.
With that in mind, Dharker has created a poem that uses such simplicity of
wording and circumstance to offer comme ntary on something much larger
than one broken -down home. ‘Living Space’ is about bigger ideas, like life
and hope. “Living Space,” then, is really about the remarkable ability and
resilience of humanity to create homes in all places and conditions —and
breathe life into these homes.
In “At the Lahore Karhai” vocalises Dharker’s experiences of family tour
that she calls ‘a pilgrimage across the city’ where they enjoy food but do
not consume beer as they are Muslim. The religious rigors do not allow
them to c onsume alcohol. Further she elaborates the roadside dhaba where
the truck -drivers halt for food. Dharker considers herself as ‘we’re munotes.in

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68 truckers of another kind’ that are moving on the way of life looking for the
food of their home. Similarly, she observes ho w a Sindhi refugee with his
beautiful wife who prays each day to Krishna,
the keeper of her kitchen and her life. On this Lahore runway she also
observes an English young man with confident English girls who represent
Western free culture. Being a Muslim s he has experienced the pangs of
Partition wherein she says ‘This winter we have learnt to wear our past
like summer clothes.’ Further, the poet enumerates delicacies like ‘tarka
dal’, ‘karhaighosht’ and ‘gajjar halwa’ with the warm ‘naan’. These food
items highlight the culture and ethnicity of the fam ily. While eating she
remembers Kartar, Rohini, Robert, Ayesha, Sangam and herself enjoying
food in the past. The political decision has divided them as she says,
‘bound together by the bread we break, shar ing out our continent.’ It is the
food and memories that binds them in past and in present too. The
concluding lines comically underline the multi -culti of the modern
generation where Dharker says, ‘Other days, we may preferChinese.’
The poem begins on a h appy note as the group of six friends get into a car
and set off for lunch at the ‘Lahore Karhai’, a restaurant in Wembley,
London. The poet immediately underscores the sanctity of the visit by
addressing it as a‘pilgrimage’: a journey undertaken to connec t with a
higher being or their inner selves.
They reach the restaurant just as lunch has begun to be served. Note the
line: ‘No beer, we’re Muslim.’ Their request for beer is turned down by
the staff but they are happy with the morning sun and the old clas sic film -
song playing in the background. The song ‘Yaadnajaaye’, is from a
popular Hindi film, sung by Mohammad Rafi in 1963, roughly translated,
mean ‘memories refuse to leave.’ The significance cannot be missed as the
memory of their homeland, the longin g for Indian/ Pakistani food and
music that brings the group to this restaurant. The music echoes their
sentiments.
The ambience of the restaurant reminds the speaker of the dhabas that dot
the Grand Trunk Road – an ancient route that starts in Bangladesh and
runs east -west through India and into Pakistan –and are the lifeline of
truck drivers and travellers. The poet dwells on the common historical
inheritance of these countries in the Asian subcontinent.Away from home,
they are hungry and tired, seeking t he taste of home -cooked food. Observe
how the poet uses a word implying strong physical desire to describe their
hunger: ‘full of lust for real food/ just like home.’ The comparison is
carried over into the next paragraph; if the restaurant has morphed int o a
dhaba then this group of friends are like the truckers: miles away from
home, rootless and restless, separated by both distance and time:
The poet then identifies her friends by nationality. The ‘Lahore runaway’
is a reference to herself. Imtiaz Dharke r was born in Lahore but spent most
of her life in Britain and India. Then there is the Sindhi refugee and his
wife, and two young girls from Bombay, India. The group has a
cosmopolitan composition and also includes a young Englishman. It is not
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69 New Jersey.’ The boundaries between nations become blurred, and it
seems the poet is conscious of the South Asian, regional identity of this
group. The group comprises both Hindus and Muslims; as well as a British
national; truly indicative of a unified global culture. It is indicative of a
certain degree of cultural assimilation with the host country that there is an
Englishman in the midst of the other immigrants. He is ‘too young to be
flavoured by the Raj’, suggests that he in untouched by any form of racial
prejudice. He does not relate to his friends as a colonizer as he was born
after the end of British rule in 1947.
Though dislocated from their homeland, the immigrants are on their way
to be coming truly global citizens; embracing new cultures while retaining
an ethnic identity. The summer clothes are a metaphor for the home and
culture they have left behind.The poet shifts her attention to the food on
the table that acts as a metaphor for fam ilial ties. As explained earlier, the
poet uses food as an implicit extended metaphor for her ethnic roots. In the
following lines, she uses specific Indian / Pakistani dishes to affectionately
remember her relatives:
Yes, a great day.
A feast! We swoop
on a whole family of dishes.
The tarka dal is Auntie Hameeda
the karhaighosht is Khala Ameena
the gajjar halva is Appa Rasheeda.
The warm naan is you.
Within this stanza, Imtiaz Dharker has used no less than five metaphors.
The dishes are perhaps those which their aunts cooked for them, back
home in Pakistan; food that was an expression of love, a vector for
reinforcing interpersonal relations. Families in the Indian subcontinent
maintain ties with almost every member of their extended family; cousins,
uncles and aunts. This distinct cultural practice is evoked in the fond
remembrance of relatives back home. As the poet say:
bound together by the bread we break,
sharing out our continent.
These
are ways of remembering.
Food is not only a way to stay connected to home; it also forges
relationships in the present. When the light falls on the people in the
restaurant it makes the poet realize that they are ‘bound together’ by the
food they eat, sharing a common culinary legacy. The last stanza comes as
something o f a surprise :
Other days, we may prefer
Chinese.
There is no sense of conflict with the host society and these Asian
immigrants have learnt to enjoy other, foreign cultures existing in Britian;
one of the most multi - cultural societies in the world. They seem to have
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70 as though their nostalgia assimilates together. Unlike the Indian
community in ‘Indian Movie, New Jersey’, who share a deep anxiety and
a sense of failure to integra te with the host society; the immigrants in ‘At
the Lahore Karhai’ have come to terms with life in a foreign land and
embraced multiculturalism. At the same time, there is perhaps a subtle
suggestion that for the immigrant, her/his culture has been reduced to the
same status as other exotic cuisines, such as Chinese, which they consume
as a break from their everyday monotony. The lived culture they left
behind is now experienced through rose coloured glasses on an occasional
weekend outing. The taste of foo d, lovingly cooked by mothers/ aunts
each day is now sought in restaurants or is replaced easily altogether by
food from other cultures.
‘The Choice’ is a poem about the choices of parents and family members
in making a child grow with a specific identity . The compulsions, fixities
and restrictions of family, gender, space, community and religion make a
child grow wherein the instructors pass away before the child learns to
think and choose for themselves. The poet satirizes the cultural nuances of
manmade and spoon -fed choices. The second part of the poem paints a
picture of the mother sharing her kitten -like child’s growing pains,
wherein within the blink of an eye the child grows up to alienate the lap
that they once found comfort in. While once the moth er feared her own
strength could harm the child “for love leers close to violence”, the mother
now hurts at the idea of the child physically and emotionally outgrowing
the once familiar confines of the mother’s lap. The mother, hence, warns
the child to fl ee her lap until they’re both safe.
The third part of the poem highlights not only the anxiety an overbearing
parenthood bestows upon a child but also the sudden realization of broken
“shackles”. Where the poet once cowered under the fear of her mother’s
watchful eye, when she broke free of the same, the magnitude of freedom
that followed her since seemed to burden her similarly. Thus, when
moving through continents when the poet comes upon a lonesome,
darkened window panes, she sees in herself her mother, burdened
similarly by freedom.
The poem “Minority” is an eight stanza poem that gives another
perspective to the word “minority” – contrary to popular belief . The author
uses the literary techniques of imagery, structure, and tone to create a
criticism of what people generalize to be a foreigner. A sense of belonging
is a fundamental human need. But what is it like to never feel that you
truly belong, to feel like nothing more than a stranger, outcast or even an
alien? These words are used in this poem by I mtiaz Dharker to portray
someone who feels like “a foreigner everywhere”.
Symbolically, the poem highlights the minority status of the poet who
moves from place to place but finds no “home”. She remains a minority,
an alien, in every space, even those once familiar to her now ring hollow.
The poet thus chronicles her emotions:
“the reception of an image
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71 that signals, in their midst,
an alien.”
She then finds comfort in her pen continuously scratching over paper for
“A page d oesn’t fight back,” thus outlining the universal and all -
encompassing reach that venting emotions on a piece of papers has. The
poet confesses that through these scratches she hopes to etch these
emotions of alienation into the readers’ mind albeit through multiple
familiar scenarios warring for acknowledgement in hopes that some day
when the reader comes across a stranger, they may notice the human in
them instead of a minority.
The poem “They'll say she must be from another country,” by Imtiaz
Dharker explores the challenges of expectations in the day -to-day life of a
non-native from the natives . It highlights the identity crises of a diaspora
subject in an international space. Throughout the poem, the poet explores
scenarios and cues where her methods and approaches lead to her being
alienated as a non -native in whichever country she goes to. She finds
herself being alienated over the way she speaks with the stresses on her
syllables misplaced, the way she dresses and the things that amuse her in
her nativ e country as well as diasporic space. Her choices and nature are
constantly pointed and singled out as though being different were the bane
of her existence.
In the final stanzas of the poem, the poet wishfully speaks of a country
where she could be allowe d to embrace the things that make her different:
a space that she could share with people similarly isolated and deemed
“freaks” by society. The space that she speaks of, thus, isn’t a country at
all but is rather a space wherein borders between countries crack and
cultures and influences mix happily. Herein, the poet says, that with an
atmosphere of mutual respect, she would happily claim that she is from
another country.
An anguished god surveys a world stricken by fundamentalism in this
powerful poem – “Postcards from God (1)” - by a writer whose cultural
experience spans three countries: Pakistan, the country of her birth, and
Britain and India, her countries of adoption. The speaker of the poem,
God, sets up anonymously for a verse that highlights the same confusion
and loneliness as would befall a traveller who revisits his home eons after
he last saw it. The speaker says that He does not speak often, if at all
simply to ask for directions to which He gets a jumble of words wherein
one has to read into what has not been said to interpret what was said. The
speaker claims not to find any familiar landmarks that He once knew of
rendering the place strange.
However, as He finds himself a postcard, the speaker though begins to
write cannot think of a recip ient, or an address that He might not have
misplaced. Yet, as He begins to write He realises that he needs not to write
for the recipient but for Himself, as a proof and reassurance to Himself
that He, God, was here.
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72 9
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE PRESCRIBED
POEMS OF IMTIAZ DHARKER -II
Part II
Unit Structure:
9.0 Objectives
9.1 About Meena Kandasamy
9.2 Analysis of Kandasamy’sPoems
9.0 OBJECTIVES
1. To study prescribed poems of Meena Kandasamy
2. To trace her contributions to Indian poetry
9.1 MEENA KANDASAMY
Meena Kandasamy was born in 1984 in a Tamil family. Both her parents
are university professors, they named their child as Illavenil. She adopted
the name Meena for her writings. She is a fiction writer and activist, her
works are centred always on demanding for female's equal position in the
society just as men, and she even works as the anti – caste, annihilation
movement of the contemporary Indian milieu. Her poetry is about a
female's own self and her body in ways which i s not allowed in
mainstream politics.
9.2 ANALYSIS OF KANDASAMY’S POEMS
Her work has been published in anthologies and journals that
include Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poetry, The Little
Magazine, Kavya Bharati , Indian Literature, Poetry International
Web , Muse India , Quarterly Literary Review, Outlook , Tehelka and The
New Indian Express . She was also invited to participate in
the International Wr iting Program at the University of Iowa in 2009.. Two
years later, Meena was made the Charles Wallace India Trust Fellow at
the University of Kent .[12] She was a featured poet at the City of Asylum
Jazz Poetry Concert held in Pittsburgh , the 14th Poetry Africa
International Festival (2010), Durban and the DSC Jaipur Literature
Festival (2011). She co -authored AYYANKALI: A Dal it leader of
Organic Protest, a biography of Ayyankali , a dalit leader in Kerala . Meena
was shortlisted among 21 short fiction women writers aged less than 40
from South Asia for an anthology published by Zubaan , New Delhi. In
2014, she published a novel about the Kilvenmani massacre titled The
Gypsy Goddess, influenced by the figure of Kurathi Amman, her munotes.in

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73 "ancestral goddess". From January 2013, she began working on a book
titled Caste and the City of Nine Gates, her first non -fiction work.
Awards: Hermann Kesten Prize (2022) by PEN Centre Germany . She
represented India at the University of Iowa 's International Writing
Program and was a Charles Wallace India Trust Fellow at the University
of Kent , Canterbury , United Kingdom. She writes columns for platforms
like Outlook India ] and The Hindu.
In a harrowing account, Meena Kandasamy through her poem “Apologies
for Living” highlights the subaltern identities and struggle of women who
are branded and colonised indifferently by men. Being born in a D alit
family, Kandasamy experiences double marginalisation in her own
country. The poem speaks of the manner in which the world ruthlessly
treats not just women but mere girls who expect the security of a womb
from a society full of “bottom -patting -and-breast-pinching”
This society not only robs the speaker of her security but also from her
ability to think as she locks herself away like a princess awaiting death.
The speaker thus highlights the systemic muting of women at a
psychological level. The speaker thus dares not dream of freedom but
instead yearns for solitude and darkness where nothing holds her back, not
even her own memories. In the hopes of this solitude and the freedom
within, the speaker finds herself running into the arms of the night, where
a light shone at the end of the tunnel, instead, she finds that the once
comforting moon is no different than the brutal world. Kandasamy thus
evokes the helplessness of a woman as she fails to outrun her fate.
It is interesting to note that Meena Kandasam y’s poetry is not limited to
female experiences but rather she speaks for the entire community that has
been cornered by the dominant sections of the society. The poems in
Touch , not only highlight the pathetic plight of the dalits caught in the web
of cas te but also questions the meaningless distinction between the
touchables and untouchables as it becomes evident in one of her powerful
poems, “Advaita: The Ultimate Question” . The sacred scriptures and
preaching of the Brahmans cannot answer her sarcastic question.
Therefore, she dares to leave the question unanswered to underline the fact
that despite the talks about Atman, Brahman and Advaita, the practice of
untouchability exists and persists even to this day. When Atman and
Brahman are equal and same, t he distinction between Upper castes and
outcastes sounds absurd.
The structure of the poem is a testament to the genius of Kandasamy. The
gap between the two words that persists through all of the lines except the
last evokes the image of the rift between a once whole. The structure also
stands as an ode to the dual standards of the present structure of the
society wherein it might seem like the distance between the uppercastes
and the outcastes is unbridgeable and yet, one question:
Can My Untouchable Atma n And Your Brahmin Atman Ever Be One ?
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74 Kandasamy’s “Inheritance” vocalises the inheritance of loss and debates
the legitimacy of the very concept of “dharma” as is taken at face value.
The poem shines light not simply over the plight of the dalits but instead
spells out their predicament where they are promised the world but are
denied even the most basic forms of justice. To exemplify this,
Kandasamy narrates of a settlement that was promised all sorts of facilities
only for th em to be given naught but disappointment. No unsettled in a
resettlement, the settlers are alienated not only physically but also
financially.
To this, Kandasamy then brings up the ideology of “dharma”: a term
defined by few and understood by fewer yet. Sh e exemplifies that even
with the concept being beyond the understanding of most, it is used as a
scapegoat for all the ills that one encounters in life. She questions the
legitimacy of this dharma:
“All your life, you blame things you don't understand on the word no one
has ever understood.
You realize he is a bastard, an illegitimate son. Justice is Dharma. Dharma
is a bastard. So you know Justice is. . .”
Thus, Kandasamy re -establishes the concept of “dharma” in a much less
virtuous light claiming it to b e blotted and blemished, marred with
scandals. To a certain extent, Kandasamy resembles the poetics of
NamdevDhasal, a celebrated Marathi poet who expresses his anger against
the social system.
Though titled after a rather modern nomenclature of a part of eye-
cosmetics, “Mascara” chronicles the experiences of an entire sect of
marginalised and alienated women under the title of “devdasis”. Although
their name suggests a direct link between the gods and these women,
Kandasamy retells their plight as feeling forsaken by society and the gods
alike. The subject of the poem, although not a devdasi, identifies with their
plight as she dons mascara, the black colour of which is the same as the
dreams of a life she has long buried.
The subject of the poem feels equa l parts soiled and powerful where on
one hand she has to sacrifice a part of her independence and consent for
her body, on the other hand she shares a cosmetic, a war paint as so many
of the women she identifies with. While superficialities associated with
her are hard to get rid of, she dons the same mascara as Kali – the
destructive aspect of the otherwise nurturing and motherly Shakti. The
poem thus brings forth a discourse about the exploitation of women under
religious pretexts by the patriarchal socie ty. Kandasamy thus also sheds
light on the matriarchal links often found between devdasis where in the
absence of a man, the women support each other and often become their
own safe havens:
“Somewhere Long Ago in an untraceable mangled matrilineal family t ree
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75 In “Touch” Meena Kandasamy begins her poem by questioning upper
caste that if they ever tried meditation to keep their mind literally blank
while meditating and says that the fist hindrance that you came a cross in
this procedure was from your own touch.In the second stanza she again
says about how upper caste people try to transcend from bodily levels to
the spiritual level to experience a different realm by awakening your
kundalini, she again contradicts b y saying that that one which hindered
you from doing was your own sensual touch.In the third and fourth stanza
she describes the basicity of touch, how touch is so basics that it taste
could be described as touch (as we feel the taste of food when our t aste
buds touch the food we eat). She again channelises touch as something
which can turn a hopeless person filled with enormous amount of hope a
lonely person filled with joy and make you a person which you were never
before. She adds that feeling your sk in was perhaps the first thing that you
sensed when you were born.In the fifth stanza she ends by saying that
touch which transcends to experience a different realm when mixed with
caste caters undeserving hate for the lower caste section of our society. In
“Touch” Meena Kandasamy focuses on the sufferings, frustration,
humiliation, suppression, anguish and revolt of the ill -fated marginalized
sections of our society . Even gods and sages divide human beings into the
rich and the poor, upper caste and untouc hables, and spread hatred among
human beings.
Kandasamy, thus, highlights the inevitability of touch as the first language
of human beings. She centralizes senses as a universal tongue,
experiencing, translating and acknowledging which is next to impossibl e.
Hence, in an effort to nullify the borders, physical, social or psychological,
that divide humanity, she advices “touch” to be the perfect medium,
directly challenging and contesting the very concept of “untouchability.”


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76 10
CRITICAL STUDY OF NICHOLAS
VAN HEAR’S ESSAY “MOVING OUT,
COMING IN, GOING BACK, MOVINGON,
STAYING PUT” (NEO -DIASPORA)
Unit Structure:
10.0 Objectives
10.1 Study of Nicholas Van Hear’s Essay“Moving out, Coming in,
Going back, Movingon, Staying put” (Neo -Diaspora)
10.0 OBJECTIVES
1. To study the essay of Nicholas Van Hear
2. To understand the concept of Neo -Diaspora through his essay
10.1 STUDY OFNICHOLAS VAN HEAR’S ESSAY
“MOVING OUT, COMING IN, GOING BACK,
MOVINGON, STAYING PUT” (NEO -DIASPORA)
Diaspora narrative sunfold ground forsocio -cultural tenets of Indian
Diasporacommunities which provide space for important socio -cultural
studies. The proposed studyaims to analyze several issues and problems
related to Indian Diaspora; especially with the problems of culture, space
andidentity.Also, it will bring tothe lighthow the differentfemale Diaspora
writers epitomize their experiences and existence in Diaspora community.
Itillustrates how Diaspora struggles to carve out an identity of its own both
in hostlan d andhomeland.
The word ‘Diaspora’ comes from the ancient Greekword ‘diaspeirein’
meaning dispersing or scattering of seeds at the time of sowing.
Etymologically, the word with it spolitical connotative weight, drawn
from Greek meaning ‘to disperse’, sign ifies a forcible, induced or
voluntary movement of the people or ethnic population from their
traditional ethnic homelands into the other parts of the world. The second
and widely known expression of Diaspora is associated with the Jews,
who were forced in to exile to Babylonia. The wordalso denotes the
movement of the Jews away from their homeland to live and work in other
countries. In 1993 edition of Shorter Oxford Dictionary , the word
Diaspora refers to personsliving outside their traditional homeland.
Human civilization records number of huge massmigrations of the same
ethnic communities. In this context, David Pendery in his essay,“Identity
Development and Cultural Production in the Chinese Diaspora to the
United States,1850 -2004:New Perspectives” (2008 ) states: munotes.in

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Movingon, Staying Put” (Neo -Diaspora)
77 The Chinese can be termed as 'Sojourners', the Jewish as 'displaced people'
and the Blacks as 'bondsmen'. Their home land identities can be takenas
nationalistic -mythic, autochthonous and mythic respectively. The initial
newland identity of the C hinese is that of aliens, of the Jewish, as
strangers and of the Black sassubalterns. (Pendery203)
The scattering of people from their home country to the rest of the world is
generally termed as Diaspora. Initially, Diaspora was confined to forced
exile. In the age of technological advancements, the term ‘Diaspora’ has
lostitsoriginal connot ation, yet simultaneously it has also emergedin
another form wider than the former. Presently, scientific advancements,
industrialization, globalization and advanced means of transportation have
facilitate dhuman migration in search of better lifestyle and sophistication.
Diasporaisan emotional and psychological state of strutting between two
geographical, political, physical, social, ethnic and cultural states. It dea ls
mainly with the cultural, linguistic and ethnic struggle of Diaspora
subjects between regression and progression, dislocation and relocation.
Every expatriate looks towards the host country of his/ her settlement for
acceptance and simultaneously yearns for his/her imaginary homeland
which he/ she develops by his/ her physical visits or/ and virtual
transgression. Diaspora brings forth many difficulties for the expatriate in
a new land of his/ her hope. These problems do not occur randomly and
instantly. Immigrant goes through the following stages:
Stage -I Rejection by the hostcommunity, cultural conflict,
discrimination
Stage -II rethinking of homeland, nostalgia, memories of the past
and of the homeland, home sickness, alienation,
ghettoism, feeling of insecurity, ethnoscape, sense of
unbelonging and dislocation
Stage - III cultural assimilation, hybridity, cultural conflict, attempts of reconciliation between home and exile
Stage -IV identity crisis, dilemma, in betweenness, alienation, nowhereness, qu est foridentity, loss of homeland

The a for ementioned predicaments that expatriate suffers are not discrete
but uphold a‘cause and effect’ rapport. For instance, refutation by the host
community becomes the cause for nostalgia, rethinking of homeland, and
alienation, while identity crisis, dilemma, hybridity, split personality serve
as the result of cultural assimilation. Sub sequently, there is a galaxy of
writers who have contributed towards the Diaspora Studies. To name a
few Staurt Hall, Avatar Brah, Homi K. Bhabha, Safran Williams, Salman
Rusdie, Robin Cohen, Jana Evans Braziel, and many more scholars have
elaborated the concept of Diaspora literature.
The concept of Neo Diaspora exemplifies the consideration of new and
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78 neoliberalism that generate cultural, political, social and economic
adversities for the people and gradually initiate their migrationor
dispersion from their homeland to another country. Neo Diaspora too
retains the same driving forces of traditional Diaspora, for instance
cultural, political, social and economic causes, which putmig ration of
people into effect. It also account semigrants’ self-consciousness,
rethinking of homeland, attempts of reconciliation and assimil ation with
thehost culture. Neo Diaspora significantly deviates from the traditional
notion of Diaspora interms of circumstances that create inadequacies or
adversities for the people in the homelandand further necessitate their
migration to other countrie s. Neo Diaspora scholars not only examine the
after maths of Diaspora but also critically investigate the structure of
migration.
Nicholas Van Hear examines the notion of Diaspora in the postmodern
context and claim storede fine its nature accordingly. Heconcen trates on
the fundamental units of Diaspora that are migration and emigrants. For
Van Hear, the traditional concept of Diaspora specifies limited types of
emigrants for instance, expellees, indentured labourers, traders, refugees
and few more. The causes and purposes of their dislocation determine the
types of emigrants here. However, in the postmodern era of globalization,
the necessities of migration have turned out, there by, he believes to
redefine the notion of migration according to the emerging opportunities
for the emigrantsa broad. Apart from the a fore saide migrants,
globalization and technological developments in the era have introduced
many other reasons for migrants to migrate. In his scholarly essay
“Moving out, coming in, going back, mo vingon, staying put”, Nicholas
Van Hear states, “The term migrant encompasses diverse types of
transient people – among them permanent emigrants and settlers,
temporary contract workers, professionals, business and trader migrants,
students, refugees and a sylum -seekers, and cross border commuters.”
(Van Hear 40 -41) Van Hear while reframing the concept of Diaspora
observes only two kinds of movement namely outward movement, a
movement of transientpeople from their homeland to other places, and
return movemen t, a movement back to their homelands after a residence of
certain period of time in a foreign land, evident in traditional notion of
Diaspora. Scholars and thinkers too have only concentrated on these types
of movements in their studies. In his essay, Van Hear disaggregates
migration into five types of movements namely, ‘outward movement’, ‘in
ward movement’, ‘return movement’, ‘on ward movement’ and ‘stagnant
movement’ taking into account the situations of choice and compulsion
before the emigrants. Heela borates these movements as:
A simple disaggregation of migratory movements might come up with five
essential components. All migrations involve some kind of outward
movement, from a place of origin or residence to some other place. This
movement necessari ly involves some kind of inward movement as a
concomitant – people leaving a place must arrive at some other place,
even ifonly temporarily. Subsequently there might be a return to the place
of originor previous residence; this like wise involves inward movement
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Coming In, Going Back,
Movingon, Staying Put” (Neo -Diaspora)
79 might be onward movement to some other place; this must also involve
inward movement. In addition to these four essential components of
movement, account must be taken of another component –non-movement,
orstayingput –for almost all migrations involve leaving behind a portion of
the community or population. (Van Hear41)
The title of Van Hear’s essay states the five diverse movements
anticipated in the act of migration. According to hi m, alongside outward
and return movement, emigrantal so under takestwo other types of
movements which are advisable to be studied to understand the trajectory
of migration. Inward movement denotes emigrant’s arrival into the land of
settlement which can be either hostl and orhomel and. If it is hostl and,
inward movement determines the settlement in the adopted land, onward
movement or return movement of the immigrant. Onward movement is a
movement undertaken by the emigrantfor a better or safer place to se ttle
down. It covers the third country resettlement or Diaspora formation. The
last component of migrationnamely, ‘stayingput’ that Van Hearintroduces
in the essay is not an active movement and precisely does not refer to
emigrant. The stayingput significa ntly deals with emigrant’s household
members who do not migrate due to several reasons but assist their
counter part, who moves outward, significantly during the initial phaseof
his/her stay in the foreign land. Thus, though they do not migrate, they
suppo rt the process of migration.
Gradually, Nicholas Van Hear proposes that migrations are not entirely
voluntary orinvoluntary; however there are at least some sorts of choices
in involuntary migration while few compulsions behind every voluntary
migration. Van Hear, thus, considers them over lapping and puts forth a
new framework of diverse types of movements of the emigrants into inter
national spaces. In order to reconstruct the new framework of migration,
headopts Richmond’ sconcepts of‘ proactivemigrant’ and
‘reactivemigrant’.The proactive migrantis a person who is endowed with
all kinds of choices to determine and design his/ her migration while
reactive migrant is one who is constrained by the situation and has
absolutely little orsometime fewer choices in the account to determine the
migration. These are the two extreme states of choices and coercion
sinmigration that emigrant comes around. However, Richmond observes,
in some cases, choices partially available to emigrant. Richmond in his
book Global Apa rtheid: Refugees, Racism, and the New World Order
(1994) states:
Be tween the two extreme of proactive and reactive migrantsarealarge
proportion of people crossing state boundaries who combine
characteristics, responding to economic, social and political p ressures over
which they havelittle control, but exercising a limited degree of choice of
the selection of destinations and the timing of their movements.
(Richmond 61)
Thus, Van Hear recasts the conventional model of voluntary and
involuntary migrations’ in to new framework of emigrant sembracing
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80 into consideration the five kinds of movements. The following table
exclusively gives access to the Nicholas Van Hear’s new framework of
migration. Hestates:
Force and choice in five components of migration
voluntary
migration more
choice more
options less choice
fewer options involuntary migration
little choice few
options

Proactive migrants reactive migran ts
Outward Touristsvisitors s
tudents
professional
transients
business
travellers economic/
labour
migrantsrural -
urban
migrant santicipa
tory refugees
people induced
to move Refugees expellees
internally displaced
people development
displacement disaster
displacement
Inward primary migrant
new comers
family reunion/
formation visitors, students
or tourists
whose ekasylum Asylum seekers
refuge seekers
Return Returning
migrants and
refugees
voluntary
repatriates
voluntary
returne
esrepatriates
long-settled
abroad Returning
migrants and
refugees mixture
of compulsion,
inducement and
choice deported or expelled
migrants refugees
subject to refoulement
forced returnees
repatriates long -
settled abroad
Onward Resettlement is
persal by
strategy Third country
resettl ement of
refugees Scattering forced
dispersal
stayingput Stayers by
choice
Household
dispersal
strategy people confined
to safehavens
safe countries,
safeareas Stayers of necessity
containment
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Critical Study of Nicholas Van Hear’s Essay “Moving Out,
Coming In, Going Back,
Movingon, Staying Put” (Neo -Diaspora)
81 Thus, Nicholas Van Hear in this essay explicates the concept of Diaspora
at micro level by tracing each minute act of the Diaspora subjects in the
host nation. Instead of just following the concepts as they are set by the
earlier critics, Nicholas Van Hear dissects it and opens the avenues for
critics, writers, res earchers and students to evaluate the movements of a
Diaspora subject at micro level.
References:
1. Van Hear, Nicholas. “Moving out, coming in, going back, moving on,
stayingput”, Neo Diasporas: The Mass Exodus, Dispersal and
Regrouping of Migrant Communit ies. London: UCL Press,1998. Web.
2. Richmond, A. Global Apartheid: Refugees, Racism, and the New
World Order. Ontario : Oxford University Press, 1994. Print.
3. Pendery, David. “Identity Development and Cultural Production in the
Chinese Diaspora to the United States, 1850 -2004: New Perspectives”,
Asian Ethnicity.Vol.9,Issue3, October 2008, p. 201 – 218. Print.

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