Five Types of Cultural Studies

 Name – Hinaba Sarvaiya

Roll No.: 09

Enrollment No.: 4069206420210032

Paper no: 205

Paper name:(A) Cultural Studies 

Sem: 3 (Batch 2021- 2023)

Submitted to: Smt S.B. Gardi Department of English, M.K. Bhavnagar University

Introduction:-

Cultural studies, interdisciplinary field concerned with the role of social institutions in the shaping of culture. Cultural studies emerged in Britain in the late 1950s and subsequently spread internationally, notably to the United States and Australia. Originally identified with the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham (founded 1964) and with such scholars as Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall, and Raymond Williams, cultural studies later became a well-established field in many academic institutions, and it has since had broad influence in sociology, anthropology, historiography, literary criticism, philosophy, and art criticism. Among its central concerns are the place of race or ethnicity, class, and gender in the production of cultural knowledge.

Why need a Studies In Cultural?

The argument is that there is a need for cultural studies to engage critically exactly those social and political issues to which Piccone alludes, and to promote an understanding of both the enabling and constraining dimensions of culture. This suggests both the development of a critique and the production of cultural forms consonant with emancipatory interests. One important task for such a transformative critique is to identify the fissures in the ideologies of the dominant culture. In the absence of intellectuals who can critically analyze a society's contradictions, the dominant culture continues to reproduce its worst effects all the more efficiently. And, without a sphere for cultural critique, the resisting intellectual has no voice in public affairs.

They argue that attempts to cut across the arbitrary boundaries set by disciplines and to develop interdisciplinary programs--American or Canadian Studies, Women's Studies, Black Studies, etc.--have failed. 

Next, they argues that the traditional humanist rationale for the disciplinary study of culture is inappropriate in that it masks the role that members of a culture can play as agents in its formation. This leads us to argue for the necessity of a counter-disciplinary praxis. At this point, we introduce the notion of the resisting intellectual as an educational formation necessary to restore to academics their roles as intellectuals. The sections that follow sketch out some of the implications of our argument: a return of intellectuals from ivory-towered departments to the public sphere; and a movement away from individualist, esoteric research towards collective inquiries into social ills. The essay concludes by outlining conditions for the development of Cultural Studies.

Cultural Studies explores culture, power, and identity. In Cultural Studies, we analyze a wide variety of forms of cultural expression, such as TV, film, advertising, literature, art, and video games. As well, we study social and cultural practices, like shopping, cell phone use, and social justice movements. We are concerned with thinking about identity and social roles, including gender, sexuality, race, class, and nation. Cultural Studies research and teaching seeks to be self-critical, self-reflexive, and engaged. It challenges dominant or “normal” assumptions about who we are, in relation to others, and how.

“Culture has two aspects: the known meanings and directions, which its members are trained to; the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested. These are the ordinary processes of human societies and human minds, and we see through them the nature of a culture: that it is always both traditional and creative; that it has both the most ordinary common meanings and the finest individual meanings. We use the word culture in these two senses: to mean a whole way of life--the common meanings; to mean the arts and learning--the special processes of discovery and creative effort.” 

                  – Raymond Williams.

“To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn. That learning process comes easiest to those of us who teach who also believe that there is an aspect of our vocation that is sacred; who believe that our work is not merely to share information but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students.” 

                              – Bell Hooks.

Now let’s talk about Five Types of Cultural Studies.

Five Types of Cultural Studies :-

#British Cultural Materialism

#New Historicism

#American Multiculturalism

#Postmodernism and Popular Cultures

#Postcolonial Studies

Now let’s discuss all these types in detail.

(1) British Cultural Materialism :-

Cultural materialism began in earnest in the 1950s with the work of F. R. Leavis, heavily influenced by Matthew Arnold’s analyses of bourgeois culture.

Matthew Arnold sought to redline the “givens” of British culture. To appreciate the importance of this revision of “culture” we must situate it within the controlling myth of social and political reality of the British Empire upon which the sun never set, an ideology left over from the previous century. In modern Britain two trajectories for “Culture” developed one led back to the past and the feudal hierarchies that ordered community in the past; here, culture acted in its sacred function as a preserver of the past. Cultural materialism began in earnest in the 1950s with the work of F.R. Leavis sought to use the educational system to distribute literary knowledge and appreciation more widely and promoted the “great tradition “ of Shakespeare and Milton to improve the moral sensibilities of a wider range of readers than just the elite.

Cultural materialists also turned to the more humanized and even spiritual insights of the great students of Rabelais and Dostoevsky, Russian formalism Bakhtn, especially his amplification of the dialogic form of communal, individual and social.

Culture stand is referred to as ‘culture materialism in Britain and it. has a long tradition .In the late nineteenth century Mathew Arnold sought to redefine the ''givens of British culture Edward Burnet Tyler’s pioneering anthropological study of primitive culture or civilization taken in the widest anthropological sense is a complete whole whose 'includes knowledge ,belief 'or morals. Law custom and any other capacities’ and habits acquired by man as a manner of society.

(2) New Historicism :-

As a return to historical scholarship, new historicism concerns itself with extra literary matters– letters, diaries, films, paintings, medical treatises– looking to reveal opposing historical tensions in a text. New historicists seek “surprising coincidences” that may cross generic, historical, and cultural lines in borrowings of metaphor, ceremony, or popular culture. The new historicism rejects the periodization of history in favor of ordering history only through the interplay of forms of power.

New Historicism focuses on the way literature expresses-and sometimes disguises-power relations at work in the social context in which the literature was produced, often this involves making connections between a literary work and other kinds of texts. Literature is often shown to “negotiate” conflicting power interests. New historicism has made its biggest mark on literary studies of the Renaissance and Romantic periods and has revised motions of literature as privileged, apolitical writing. Much new historicism focuses on the marginalization of subjects such as those identified as witches, the insane, heretics, vagabonds, and political prisoners.

Laputa ''the where ''what did Jonathan swift mean when he gave that name to the flying island in the third voyage of Gulliver’s Travels? It is a question that has political reality of the British Empire upon which the sun never set an ideology left over from the previous century. In modern Britain two trajectories for cultural development one led back to the past and the feudal hierarchies that ordered community in past hear culture acted in its sacred function as preserver of the past.

(3) American Multiculturalism :-

As we discuss above that this American Multiculturalism have its different four types like,

-African American Writers

- Latina/o Writers

-American Indian Literatures

-Asian American Writers

African American Writers :-

African American writers is widely pursued in American literature criticism from the recovery of the eighteenth century poets such as Phillies wealthy to the experimental novel of Toni Morison, In Shadow and Act 1964novel Ralph Ellison Argue that any viable theatre of Negro American culture obligates us to fashion a more adequate theory of American culture as a what''.

Latina/o Writers :- 

Latina/o Writer Hispanic Mexican American, Puerto Rican Nuyarican Chicane may be Huizhou or Maya. Which names to use/ the choice after has political implications. We will use the term'' Latina/o to indicate a broad sense of Ethnicity among Spanish speaking people in the United States. Mexican American are the largest and most influential of Latina/o Ethnicities in the United states.

 American Indian Literatures :-

 In predominantly oral cultures, stalling passes and religious beliefs, moral values, political codes and practical lessons of everyday life .For American Indians stories are a source of strength in the face of centuries of silencing by Euro American.

Asian American Writers :- 

Asian American literature is written by people of Asian descent in the United States addressing the experience of living in a society that views them as alien. Asian immigrants were denied citizenship as late as the1950s.Edward said has written of Orientals, or the tendency to objectify and exoticism Asian, and their work has sought to respond to such stereotypes Asian American writer include Chinese Japanese , Korean Filipino, Vietnamese, Asian , Polynesian and many other peoples of as a the Indian subcontinent , and pacific.

The idea that American identity is vested in a commitment to core values expressed in the American Creed and the ideals of Exceptionalism raises a fundamental concern that has been the source of considerable debate. Can American identity be meaningfully established by a commitment to core values and ideals among a population that is becoming increasingly heterogeneous? Since the 1960s, scholars and political activists, recognizing that the “melting pot” concept fails to acknowledge that immigrant groups do not, and should not, entirely abandon their distinct identities, embraced multiculturalism and diversity. Racial and ethnic groups maintain many of their basic traits and cultural attributes, while at the same time their orientations change through marriage and interactions with other groups in society. The American Studies curriculum serves to illustrate this shift in attitude. The curriculum, which had for decades relied upon the “melting pot” metaphor as an organizing framework, began to employ the alternative notion of the “American mosaic.”

Multiculturalism, in the context of the “American mosaic,” celebrates the unique cultural heritage of racial and ethnic groups, some of whom seek to preserve their native languages and lifestyles. In a sense, individuals can be Americans and at the same time claim other identities, including those based on racial and ethnic heritage, gender, and sexual preference.

(4) Postmodernism and popular culture :-

Postmodernism and Popular Culture brings together eleven recent essays by Angela McRobbie in a collection which deals with the issues which have dominated cultural studies over the last ten years.

A key theme is the notion of post modernity as a space for social change and political potential. McRobbie explores everyday life as a site of immense social and psychic complexity to which she argues that cultural studies scholars must return through ethnic and empirical work; the sound of living voices and spoken language. She also argues for feminists working in the field to continue to question the place and meaning of feminist theory in a postmodern society. In addition, she examines the new youth cultures as images of social change and signs of profound social transformation. Bringing together complex ideas about cultural studies today in a lively and accessible format.

Postmodernism questions everything rationalist European philosophy held to be true. Postmodernism argues that it is all contingent and that most cultural constructions have served the function of empowering members of a dominant social group at the expense of “others.” Popular culture: there are four main types of popular culture analysis: production analysis, textual analysis, audience analysis, and historical analysis.

Postmodernism like poststructuralism and deconstruction is a critique of aesthetics of the preceding age, but besides more critique postmodernism celebrates the very act of dismembering tradition. Postmodernism question everything rationalist European philosophy held to be true, arguing that it is all counting and that most cultural constructions have served the function of empowering members of dominant social groups at the experience of others beginning in the mid1980. Postmodernism emerged in art.

As we discuss four types of American Multiculturalism here we have another two types of Postmodernism and Popular Culture.

1. Postmodernism

2. Popular Culture       

        

[1] Postmodernism :-

Postmodernism describes a range of conceptual frameworks and ideologies that are defined in opposition to those commonly attributed to modernism and modernist notions of knowledge and science, as, materialism, realism, positivism, formalism, structuralism, and reductionism. Postmodernist approaches are critical of the possibility of objective knowledge of the real world, and consider the ways in which social dynamics such as power and hierarchy affect human conceptualizations of the world to have important effects on the way knowledge is constructed and used. In contrast to the modernist paradigm, postmodernist thought often emphasises idealism, constructivism, relativism, pluralism and scepticism in its approaches to knowledge and understanding.

It is not a philosophical movement in itself, but rather, incorporates a number of philosophical and critical methods that can be considered ‘postmodern’; the most familiar include feminism and post-structuralism. Put another way, postmodernism is not a method of doing philosophy, but rather a way of approaching traditional ideas and practices in non-traditional ways that deviate from pre-established super structural modes. This has caused difficulties in defining what postmodernism actually means or should mean and therefore remains a complex and controversial concept, which continues to be debated. The idea of the postmodern gained momentum through to the 1950s before dominating literature, art and the intellectual scene of the 1960s.Postmodernism's origins are generally accepted as having been conceived in art around the end of the nineteenth century as a reaction to the stultifying legacy of modern art and continued to expand into other disciplines during the early twentieth century as a reaction against modernism in general.

[2] Popular culture : -

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are preferred by an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early 21st century. Heavily influenced by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of the society.

Popular culture is often viewed as being trivial and dumped-down in order to find consensual acceptance throughout the mainstream. As a result, it comes under heavy criticism from various non-mainstream sources (most notably religious groups and countercultural groups) which deem it superficial, consumerist, sensationalist, and corrupted

The term "popular culture" was coined in the 19th century or earlier to refer to the education and general "cult redness" of the lower classes, as was delivered in an address in England. The term began to assume the meaning of a culture of the lower classes separate from (and sometimes opposed to) "true education" towards the end of the century, a usage that became established by the antebellum period. The current meaning of the term, culture for mass consumption, especially originating in the United States, is established by the end of World War II the abbreviated form "pop culture" dates to the 1960s.

(5) Postcolonial Studies :-

Post colonialism refers to a historical phase undergone by the Third World countries after the decline of colonialism. Many Third World writers focus on both colonialism and the changes created in a postcolonial culture.

The critical nature of postcolonial theory entails destabilizing Western ways of thinking, therefore creating space for the subaltern or marginalized groups, to speak and produce alternatives to dominant discourse. Often, the term post colonialism is taken literally, to mean the period of time after colonialism. This however, is problematic because the ‘once-colonized world’ is full of “contradictions, of half-finished processes, of confusions, of hybridist, and liminalities” .In other words, it is important to accept the plural nature of the word post colonialism, as it does not simply refer to the period after the colonial era. By some definitions, post colonialism can also be seen as a continuation of colonialism, albeit through different or new relationships concerning power and the control/production of knowledge. Due to these similarities, it is debated whether to hyphenate post colonialism as to symbolize that we have fully moved beyond colonialism.

Post-colonialist thinkers recognize that many of the assumptions which underlie the "logic" of colonialism are still active forces today. Some postcolonial theorists make the argument that studying both dominant knowledge sets and marginalized ones as binary opposites perpetuates their existence as homogenous entities. Homi K. Bhabha feels the postcolonial world should valorise spaces of mixing; spaces where truth and authenticity move aside for ambiguity. This space of hybridist, he argues, offers the most profound challenge to colonialism. Critiques that Bhabha ignores Spaak’s stated usefulness of essentialism have been put forward. Reference is made to essentialisms' potential usefulness. An organized voice provides a more powerful challenge to dominant knowledge - whether in academia or active protests.

Post colonial refers to a historian phase undergone by third world countries after the decline of colonialism for the era, when countries in Asian Africa, Latina/o America, and the Caribbean separated from the European empires and were left to rebuild themselves. Many third words focus on both colonialism and the change that created a postcolonial culture.

Words:- 2,919

Works Citation:-

Giroux, Henry, et al. The Need for Cultural Studies, http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/Need.html. 

Guerin, Wilfred L. “A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature.” Google Books, Oxford University Press, https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Handbook_of_Critical_Approaches_to_Lit.html?id=AiXuAAAAMAAJ. 

Brief introduction of Ecocriticism.

 Name – Hinaba Sarvaiya

Roll No.: 09

Enrollment No.: 4069206420210032

Paper no: 204

Paper name: Contemporary Western Theories and Film Studies 

Sem: 3 (Batch 2021- 2023)

Submitted to: Smt S.B. Gardi Department of English, M.K. Bhavnagar University

Brief introduction of Ecocriticism.

What is ecocriticism?

Ecocriticism is the interdisciplinary study of the connections between literature and the environment. It draws on contributions from natural scientists, writers, literary critics, anthropologists and historians in examining the differences between nature and its cultural construction.  

Ecocriticism emerged in the 1960s with the start of the environmental movement and the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962, but really began to take off in the 1980s. So far, there have been two waves of ecocriticism: the first in the 1980s and the second in the 1990s. 

The first wave emphasized writing about nature as both a field of study and as a meaningful practice. It maintained the distinction between human and nature, but promoted the value of nature and the need to speak and stand up for nature. People believed it was the duty of the humanities and the natural sciences together to raise awareness and come up with solutions for the environmental and climate crisis. 

The second wave expanded upon the first, broadening the reaches of environmentalism. Ecocritics of this wave redefined the term environment to include both nature and urban areas and challenged the distinctions between human and non-human and nature and non-nature. This wave also led to the ecojustice movement by examining the way that the poorest and most oppressed members of a population fall victim to the most adverse effects of climate change and environmental degradation. 

What ecocritics do:-

1. They re-read major literary works from an ecocentric perspective, with particular attention to the representation of the natural world. 

2. They extend the applicability of a range of ecocentric concepts, using them of things other than the natural world -concepts such as growth and energy, balance and imbalance, symbiosis and mutuality, and sustainable or unsustainable uses of energy and resources. 

3. They give special canonical emphasis to writers who foreground nature as a major part of their subject matter, such as the American transcendentalists, the British Romantics, the poetry of John Clare, the work of Thomas Hardy and the Georgian poets of the early twentieth century. 

4. They extend the range of literary-critical practice by placing a new emphasis on relevant 'factual' writing, especially reflective topographical material such as essays, travel writing, memoirs, and regional literature. 

5. They turn away from the 'social constructivism' and 'linguistic determinism' of dominant literary theories (with their emphasis on the linguistic and social constructedness of the external world) and instead emphasise ecocentric values of meticulous observation, collective ethical responsibility, and the claims of the world beyond ourselves. 

Types of Ecocriticism:- 

Different types of ecocriticism include: pastoral, wilderness and ecofeminism. 

Pastoral, found primarily in British and American literature, focuses on the dichotomy between urban and rural life, often idealizing nature and rural life and demonizing urban life. There are three branches of pastoral ecocriticism: classical, romantic and American. 

Classical is characterized by nostalgia and nature as a place for human relaxation and reflection. 

Romanticism is characterized by portraying rural independence as desirable. 

America emphasizes agrarianism and represents land as a resource to be cultivated. 

Wilderness examines the ways in which the wilderness is constructed, valued and engaged with. There are two branches of wilderness ecocriticism: Old World and New World.

The Old World portrays the wilderness as a scary, threatening place beyond the borders of civilization and as a place of exile. 

New World portrays the wilderness as a place of sanctuary where one can find relaxation and reflection, similar to classical pastoral ecocriticism. 

Ecofeminism analyzes the connection between the domination of women and the domination of nature, usually by men. It draws parallels between women and nature, which is often seen as feminine, fertile and the property of men. Ecofeminism also includes other aspects of environmental justice, such as racial environmental justice. There are two branches of ecofeminism:

The first branch of ecofeminism embraces the idea that women are inherently closer to nature than men on a biological, spiritual and emotional level. This branch is often called radical ecofeminism because it reverses the domination of men over women and nature.

The second branch of ecofeminism contradicts the first, arguing that neither women nor men are more likely to connect with nature.

Poetry & Environment — The Emergence of Eco-Criticism:-

Nature and earth have always been an outlet for emotions offered to artists and writers as a vast expanse of indulgence as well as submergence. This magnified emotion of attachment, loss and immortality towards nature, has often been reflected and explored by the poets and novelists, which gave them the title of a ‘Romantic’. However, when this feeling drew attention from a critical faculty of intellectuals, it came to be known as Green Studies or Eco-Criticism.

The pioneer or the father of this theory in the USA, Cheryll Glotfelty, proposed that “eco-criticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment.” He also noted in the introduction to ‘The Eco-criticism Reader’, “just as feminist criticism examines language and literature form a gender-conscious perspective, and Marxist criticism brings an awareness of modes of production and economic class to its reading of texts, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts.”

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;-

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

- William Wordsworth

These words by Wordsworth elucidate with a sense of lament that the world we are all headed towards or are already living is too full of us human beings. He mourns over the furious race of urbanisation in the name of growth and development, claiming that we can’t escape the hectic hustle and bustle of everyday life to be able to stop, reflect and appreciate nature.

Emergence of Eco-Poetry

The dimensions of eco-poetics is quite widespread in terms of varying understandings and execution.

For some, eco-poetics is the making and study of pastoral poetry, or poetry of wilderness and deep ecology. The core principle of eco-criticism is deep ecology which pays equal importance to all organisms irrespective of their instrumental value. While some argue that this is of the kind that explores the human capacity for becoming animal, as well as humanity’s ethically challenged relation to other animals. It also argues to be poetry that confronts disasters and environmental injustices, including the difficulties and opportunities of urban environments. For yet others, eco-poetics is not a matter of theme, but of how certain poetic methods model ecological processes like complexity, non-linearity, feedback loops, and recycling.

Indian nature poets of the late twentieth century renegotiate the relationship of poetry to nature by seeking to avoid both nostalgia for a supposed poetic golden age when transparency and transcendence were available to the lyric poet, and the sense of irony which would call into question any articulation of a coherent self.

Bigger than earth, certainly,

higher than the sky,

more unfathomable than the waters

is this love for this man…

-Kurunthogai 3, Poet Thevakulathār, Kurinji thinai — What She said

This vastness of landscapes woven into a beautiful tapestry of love and emotion describe not just the unfathomable love for a man but also explores the depths of the overarching universe.

the river has water enough

to be poetic about

only once a year

and then it carries away…

-A.K. Ramanujan

Ramanujan’s distress for the unsung river which dries every summer is very poignant yet significant. He calls the river poetic with an abundance of water and flows only once a year before the natural reservoirs dry up due to human apathy and mindlessness of throwing away all sorts of garbage in it without giving a second thought to its pollution and other ill effects.

Whereas traditional form of Japanese poetry, known as haiku, focuses on one brief moment in time, employing a provocative colourful imagery, with a sudden moment of enlightenment and illumination.

An old silent pond…

A frog jumps into the pond, splash!

Silence again.

-Matsuo Basho

After killing a spider,

how lonely I feel

in the cold of night.

-Masaoka Shiki

These haiku poetry are a fragment of the writer’s thought in awareness and attention wrapped in a moment of silence and pause. It makes one think over important issues with a calming effect of that of a summer breeze. 

The yellow hornbill,

Returns home

In the hollow of a tree

A yellow hornbill in the Western Ghats of India makes its home in the tree’s hollow where the female roosts with her young ones. The thread of words, from home to hollow, is of from home to hollow, is of significance to me as one finds his home in emptiness and void, always to return to.

Eco-poetry as opposed to other art and literary forms :-

These poems in an ecological framework reflect the past and the present with a mirror of future in just a few lines. Poetic approaches provide a sense of respite but leave us with a troubled mind clouded with restlessness and nonacceptance. Eco poetry investigates — both theoretically and formally —the relationship between nature and culture, language and perception. Poetry, like any other form of art, feels fresh and new one can always come back to, and so is our nature and its ecology. Poetry doesn’t simply supplement the rational intellect, but provides inherently and sometimes incommensurable forms of insight. Because its meanings are neither quantitative nor verifiable, poetry may offer different, subtler and more complex expressions than the language of information and commerce. Through poetry, one can although document what is lost and what lies ahead; it also calls for an action to raise our voices and not let the bounty of nature remain captured in words and images, drowning in our misuse and derangement.

Words:- 1739

Works Citation:-

Agarwal, Priyanka. “Poetry & Environment - the Emergence of Eco-Criticism Up.” Medium, Medium, 19 Aug. 2019, https://medium.com/@agarwalpriyanka/poetry-environment-the-emergence-of-eco-criticism-d7098ee67b70. 

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "cultural studies". Encyclopedia Britannica, 26 Jul. 2015, https://www.britannica.com/topic/cultural-studies. Accessed 5 November 2022.

Howarth, William L. Ecocriticism. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. 

“Ecocriticism.” Climate in Arts and History, 30 June 2021, https://www.science.smith.edu/climatelit/ecocriticism/. 

Howarth, William L. Ecocriticism. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. 

Theme of Colonialism,Racism and Violence in The Wretched of The Earth novel by Franz Fanon.

Name – Hinaba Sarvaiya

Roll No.: 09

Enrollment No.: 4069206420210032

Paper no: 203

Paper name: The Postcolonial Studies 

Sem: 3 (Batch 2021- 2023)

Submitted to: Smt S.B. Gardi Department of English, M.K. Bhavnagar University

Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.

               -Frantz Fanon's

Frantz Fanon:- 

Born on the island of Martinique under French colonial rule, Frantz Omar Fanon (1925–1961) was one of the most important writers in black Atlantic theory in an age of anti-colonial liberation struggle. His work drew on a wide array of poetry, psychology, philosophy, and political theory, and its influence across the global South has been wide, deep, and enduring. In his lifetime, he published two key original works: Black Skin, White Masks (Peau noire, masques blancs) in 1952 and The Wretched of the Earth (Les damnés de la terre) in 1961. Collections of essays, A Dying Colonialism (L’an V de la révolution Algérienne 1959) and Toward the African Revolution (Pour la revolution Africaine), posthumously published in 1964, round out a portrait of a radical thinker in motion, moving from the Caribbean to Europe to North Africa to sub-Saharan Africa and transforming his thinking at each stop. The 2015 collection of his unpublished writings, Écrits sur l’aliénation et la liberté, will surely expand our understanding of the origins and intellectual context of Fanon’s thinking.

Fanon engaged the fundamental issues of his day: language, affect, sexuality, gender, race and racism, religion, social formation, time, and many others. His impact was immediate upon arrival in Algeria, where in 1953 he was appointed to a position in psychiatry at Bilda-Joinville Hospital. His participation in the Algerian revolutionary struggle shifted his thinking from theorizations of blackness to a wider, more ambitious theory of colonialism, anti-colonial struggle, and visions for a postcolonial culture and society. Fanon published in academic journals and revolutionary newspapers, translating his radical vision of anti-colonial struggle and decolonization for a variety of audiences and geographies, whether as a young academic in Paris, a member of the Algeria National Liberation Front (FLN), Ambassador to Ghana for the Algerian provisional government, or revolutionary participant at conferences across Africa. Following a diagnosis and short battle with leukemia, Fanon was transported to Bethesda, Maryland (arranged by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency) for treatment and died at the National Institute for Health facility on December 6, 1961.

Let's discuss about Colonialism, Racism and Violence in The Wretched of the Earth:-

 

Colonialism, Racism, and Violence:-

Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth is a critical look at colonialism, the practice of taking political control of another country with the intention of establishing a settlement and exploiting the people economically. Colonialism began in Europe around the 15th century, and it is still practiced today in some parts of the world. Fanon, a French West Indian from Martinique, a French colony located in the eastern Caribbean Sea, had a personal interest in colonialism, and his book focuses on the ways colonialism historically sought to oppress and subjugate much of the Third World through blatant racism and repeated violence. At the time Fanon wrote his book in 1961, many colonized nations were struggling for independence, and the damage of hundreds of years of racism and exploitation was acutely felt by many. The Wretched of the Earth serves as a sort of guidebook for understanding the colonized and their struggle, and in it, Fanon ultimately argues that colonialism, an inherently racist and violent practice, can only be overcome by using violence in return.

Fanon maintains that colonialism divides the world into light and dark—or in this case, black and white—in a process he refers to as Manichaeanism. Manichaeanism is a Persian religious practice from the 3rd century that is based on the basic conflict of light and dark, and, Fanon claims, it serves as the basis for the racist practice of colonialism. Since “the colonial world is a Manichaean world,” Fanon says, the colonized individual is seen as the “quintessence of evil” and is considered void of any morals or ethics. Manichaeanism assumes that light—the white settler—represents good, whereas dark—the black colonized individual—represents evil. To Fanon, colonialism is rooted in this basic racist belief. Based on the same Manichaean concept, the colonial world is likewise divided into the civilized and the savage. In keeping with the themes of light and dark, the white colonist is considered civilized, and the colonized is a savage. The colonized individual is “reduced to the state of an animal” and is referred to in “zoological terms.” Under the racist practice of colonialism, the colonized individual is completely dehumanized. According to Fanon, colonial countries are further divided into two separate “sectors”: the “colonist’s sector” and the “’native’ quarters.” The colonist’s sector is clean and well maintained; but the “native” quarters, which are crowded and neglected, are “disreputable place[s] inhabited by disreputable people.” At the very foundation of colonialism, Fanon thus argues, is a basic principle that seeks to separate and oppress people based on the color of their skin. 

In addition to a system of racism, Fanon argues that colonialism is also a system of violence, which seeks to control and oppress the colonized through violent means. From the beginning, Fanon claims that the colonial situation “was colored by violence and their cohabitation—or rather the exploitation of the colonized by the colonizer—continued at the point of the bayonet and under canon fire.” Colonial control was taken by violence and is maintained in much the same way. The colonized world—which again is separated into the colonizer and the colonized—is divided by military barracks and police stations. In a colonized country, Fanon says, “the spokesperson for the colonizer and regime of oppression, is the police officer or the soldier.” The mere presence of the dividing border between the worlds maintains order through intimidation and the threat of violence. Fanon argues that for the colonized, “all he has ever seen on his land is that he can be arrested, beaten, and starved with impunity.” Thus, Fanon implies, there is no end to the violence of colonialism—it doesn’t stop once power is established. Rather, violence is a constant presence that is front and center in lives of all colonized individuals. 

Fanon refers to the widespread violence in colonial countries as “atmospheric violence,” which he claims is perpetually “rippling under the skin.” To Fanon, this constant violence is proof that colonialism cannot be overcome through peaceful or passive means. The colonized masses, Fanon asserts, “intuitively believe that their liberation must be achieved and can only be achieved by force.” For the colonized, “violence is a cleansing force,” and it also rids them of the “inferiority complex” forced upon them by the racist ideology of colonialism. As a practice rooted in violence, Fanon thus argues that colonialism must be answered in kind.

Algeria:-

Fanon’s move to Algeria in 1953 marks an important turning point in his thought. He continues to write on anti-blackness in select essays and occasions, but Fanon’s shift is deep and meaningful. Whereas Black Skin, White Masks was concerned exclusively with the structure of an anti-black world and how that world bears on the body and psyche of the colonized, Fanon’s time in Algeria and later travels to sub-Saharan Africa broaden his analysis. Instead of a question of blackness, colonialism becomes for Fanon a larger, more general question of the oppressed in the global south. The Wretched of the Earth is the boldest and most important expression of this shift, but the time he spends analyzing Algeria on its own terms reveals Fanon’s increasing sensitivity to difference inside the colonial experience. Also, many of his most important writings in this period were published in French language newspapers across the continent of Africa, in particular the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) newspaper El Moudjahid (for which he served on the editorial board), which hosts some of his most interesting reflections. This shift in his thinking, as well as some of the later points of emphasis and theoretical transitions, bolster Ato Sekyi-Otu’s argument in Fanon’s Dialectic of Experience (1997) that Fanon’s work ought to be read as a series of political experiences or stages in and at the basis of an unfolding of a long, complex system of thought.

Three essays are of particular significance in this period: “Algeria’s European Minority” (“La minorité européenne d’Algérie”), “Algeria Unveiled” (“L’algérie se dévoile”), and “The Algerian Family” (“La famille algérienne”).

Fanon’s reflections in “Algeria’s European Minority” offer an important and insightful example of applying the anti-colonial dimensions of Black Skin, White Masks. The key anti-colonial insight in that text was how to measure—the imperial function of whiteness in the Black psyche—structures the world. Liberation, in Black Skin, White Masks, looks a lot like displacing measure in the name of the questioning subject. Measure, here, means simply the ideal or standard according to which “the human” is evaluated. Fanon’s argument in Black Skin, White Masks is that “the human”, an idea that comes from the European tradition, is a fundamentally racial idea deployed as a tool of alienation for the colonized.

Violence in The Wretched of the Earth:- 

Without question, the 1961 publication of The Wretched of the Earth (Les damnés de la terre) changed Fanon’s global profile as a thinker of anti-colonial struggle, revolutionary action, and post-colonial statecraft and imagination.

In many ways, Wretched is a fulfillment of the short, suggestive promissory notes on anti-colonial struggle found in the many essays, editorials, and letters written in the time following Black Skin, White Masks. Those occasional writings and major essays shift focus away from anti-Blackness as a core theme and toward a broader sense of the effects of colonialism on the psyche, cultural formation, and political organization. That shift in focus allows Fanon to think more broadly about the meaning and purpose of revolutionary struggle.

The opening chapter to Wretched is surely the most famous, in part because of the sheer power and provocation of its reflections, in part because it is the focus of Jean-Paul Sartre’s well-known Foreword. Fanon’s concern with violence is critical for understanding the trajectory of Wretched, which ambitiously moves from political agitation to cultural formation to postcolonial statecraft to global philosophical re-orientation. It all begins with violence.

Violence is important for Fanon as a precondition to liberation, something George Ciccariello-Maher in Decolonizing Dialectics (2017) links to a broader concern in Fanon with decolonizing methodology and revolutionary praxis. Violence as precondition operates in two directions: internal to the colony among the colonizers and external in the formative conflict between the colonized and the colonizer. Internal to the colony, Fanon breaks the colonized into three groups. First, there is the worker whose relationship to both the colonized and colonizer is organized around its capacity to work. This is a complicated relationship, one that is both a relation of dependency (material needs are supplied by the colonial system) and naturally revolutionary (exploited, yet also that upon which the colonizer depends). Second, there is the colonized intellectual, a compromised figure who plays a crucial role across the body of Wretched, whether in relation to cultural renewal or to political resistance. The colonized intellectual mediates the relation of the colonized for the colonizer, translating the terms of colonial life into the language, concepts, and thinkable politics of the colonial power. There is potential in the colonized intellectual, insofar as it is a figure whose epistemological roots cross with the life of the colonized masses, but any potential is compromised, if not outright obliterated by the role the intellectual plays: to aid and abet the colonizer. Third, there is the lumpen proletariat, a term borrowed from Karl Marx’s analysis of the dialectic’s remainder and translated into the conditions of colonialism. The colonial lumpen are disposable populations that provide nothing to the colonial system (displaced people, slum dwellers, subsistence farmers), and therefore, from the outside, remain the greatest threat to the system. In a certain sense, this is a formalization of Fanon’s earlier reflections on the role of the fellah in colonial Algeria—the group lying outside the system of urban colonial and anti-colonial struggle, a figure of purity and pure revolutionary power.

Words:- 2,088

Works Citation:-

Drabinski, John. “Frantz Fanon.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 14 Mar. 2019, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frantz-fanon/. 

FANON, FRANTZ. “Concerning Violence (the Wretched of the Earth).” On Violence, 2007, pp. 78–100., https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv120qr2d.9. 

Fanon, Frantz, et al. The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press, 2021.

PROBLEM OF COMMUNAL DIVIDE AND COMMUNAL TENSION IN FINAL SOLUTIONS:-

 Name – Hinaba Sarvaiya

Roll No.: 09

Enrollment No.: 4069206420210032

Paper no: 202

Paper name: Indian English Literature (Post- Independence)

Sem: 3 (Batch 2021- 2023)

Submitted to: Smt S.B. Gardi Department of English, M.K. Bhavnagar University

Introduction:-

Dattani’s Final Solutions is a three-act play which handles the theme of communal riots and forced resentments. It was first performed at Guru Nanak Bhavan, Bangalore on 10 July 1993. In India, the co-existence of multi-religions and multi-cultures has been a curious topic for the world. But the confrontations of Hindus and Muslims has been a dynamic issue more than the other religions to each other. Hindus and Muslims depict their own statement to prove their superiority and Dattani depicts this in Final Solutions. The play opens with two Muslim young boys Bobby and Javed seeking shelter in the house of the Hindu family of Ramnik Gandhi, from the chasing mob, during a hostile atmosphere and curfew followed by Hindu- Muslim riot in the city. With the entry of two Muslim young boys within the house, the familial drama begins. Here, the different religions, cultures, food habits, attitudes, resentments to each other, personal whims and psyches confront each other. Dattani takes the opportunity to move freely into the time and closely scrutinize all such riots in the past and their influences to shape the characters and communities. He tears open the tapestries of illusions of the characters and exposes the truth behind their social, cultural and religious patterns. The present study aims at the study of the problem of communal divide and communal riot in Indian society through the play Final Solutions.

About Author (Mahesh Dattani):-

Mahesh Dattani is considered as one of the best Indian playwrights and he writes his pieces in English. He is an actor, playwright and director. 

A Look at His Early Years:-

Mahesh Dattani was born on the 7th of August in 1958 in Bangalore, Karnataka. He was educated at Baldwin’s Boys High School and then went on to graduate from St.Joseph’s College, Bangalore. After graduation, he worked for a brief period as a copywriter for an advertising firm. In 1986, he wrote his first play, ‘Where There is a Will’.

Mahesh Dattani’s Works:-

After his first play, Mahesh Dattani began to concentrate on his writing and wrote more dramas like Final Solutions, Night Queen, Dance Like a Man, Tara, and Thirty Days. From 1995, he started working exclusively in theatre.

All his plays address social issues, not the very obvious ones, but the deep-seated prejudices and problems that the society is usually conditioned to turn away from. His plays deal with gender identity, gender discrimination, and communal tensions. The play ‘Tara’ deals with gender discrimination, ‘30 Days in September’ tackles the issue of child abuse head on, and ‘Final Solutions’ is about the lingering echoes of the partition.

It was Alyque Padamsee who first spotted and encouraged Mahesh Dattani’s talent and gave him the confidence to venture into a career in theatre. Dattani formed his own theatre group, Playpen, in 1984.

He is the only English playwright to be awarded the Sahitya Academy Award. He got this award in 1998. He also writes plays for BBC Radio and he was also one of the 21 playwrights chosen by BBC to write plays to commemorate Chaucer’s 600th anniversary in 2000.

PROBLEM OF COMMUNAL DIVIDE AND COMMUNAL TENSION IN FINAL SOLUTIONS:-

Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions focuses on the problem of communal disharmony between the Hindus and Muslims in India, especially during the period of the post- partition riots. The play starts with Daksha reading lines from her diary. The setting suggests that the period is late 1940’s. Daksha is the mother of the central character of the play Ramnik Gandhi. She shuttles between her two identities, namely that of a girl of fifteen and that of a matured lady who has witnessed forty years of freedom. The chorus chanting at the back sometimes assumes Hindu masks and sometimes Muslim ones. The words rendered by the chorus are clear indicators of the communal disharmony and its painful consequences that are soon to be experienced by the characters in the play. The masks have negative effects on the minds of the characters who wear them.

Final Solutions talks of the problems of cultural hegemony, how Hindus has to suffer at the hands of Muslim majority like the characters of Hardika and Daksha in Hussain’s hand, and how Muslim like Javed suffers in the set up of the major Hindu community. This all resulted in communal riots and culminated in disruption of the normal social life, and thus hampered the progress of nation. The locale of the play is Ramnik’s house and the central characters are his daughter Smita, wife Aruna and mother Hardika, besides himself and the two Muslim boys Bobby and Javed who entered into his house during communal tension occasioned by the attack on the Rath Yatra procession. In the beginning, Daksha recollects from her diary about the past when she was married at the age of fourteen. And now after forty years Daksha has become Hardika but her prejudice against the other community continues to be with her. Javed, as Bobby tells Ramnik, became a fanatic because he was ill-treated by persons of another faith and hired by the hooligans to spread communal violence. This creates the problem of communal divide in our country.

Dattani attempts a balancing act in tracing the malady of communal disharmony. The ground he treads is full of mines ready to explode, as this involves the fanatic elements within the Hindu and the Muslim communities. It is obvious to all that people are paid to create political instability and cause communal riots to fan distrust and suspicion that tear the social fabric. Inevitably the politicians exploit the susceptibilities of the two communities on sensitive issues. In the play, the chorus is an expedient device used brilliantly to provide the commentary on the way communal provocation instigates mindless mob violence. There is always someone to light the fire of violence. The play illustrates how the notions of pollution, food, kitchen habits and fear of contamination by touch become repeated instances of communal clashes. The characters in the play motivate us to think that angry outbursts lead to chain reaction. As long as the characters are on stage as individuals, they are fine; but behind the masks they represent the faceless, mindless mob, thirsting for blood. Anger and violence take their toll on both groups. The chorus with Hindu masks bursts with angry words. There are indications of political mischief and deliberate instigation. Nobody thinks the land belongs to all Indians. One community hates another. One community is in the majority, the other is in the minority. Consequently, the two communities are at loggerheads, living in an atmosphere of conflict and acrimony.

The mob in the play is symbolic of our hatred and paranoia. Each member of the mob is an individual yet they meld into one seething whole as soon as politicians play on their fears and anxieties. The fears and anxieties of the two communities can be traced to the partition. There is Muslim sensitivity to music being played near a mosque. There is Hindu sensitivity in matters of general Muslim food habits that go against vegetarianism. There are fears of contamination. Politicians exploit most of these things and hired goons to help them. Sooner voices like Bobby’s are drowned, ignored and brushed aside. Pent up feelings take a violent shape. Dattani exposes the fundamentalists and orthodox persons who use religion as a cover to realize their selfish interest. Religion is a mere ploy in their hands to further their interest in life and cherished their desired goal. Identity politics underlying the Hindu-Muslim tension in India has to be clearly grasped to explain the causes of communal riots as well as large scale killings that have taken place in recent years. There is a serious socio-political problem plaguing our nation today is the communal disharmony between Hindus and Muslims. Dattani, in this play, deals with the recurring rhetoric of hatred, aggression, the monetary and political exploitation of communal riots, the chauvinism and patriarchal mindset of the fundamentalist, in the context of India in the 1940s interspersed with the contemporary India.

The play is about a simple Hindu family which is suddenly faced with a lot of questions when two Muslim boys seek refuge in their house during the communal riots. Thus begins the quest for the truth of their beliefs by their father, mother, daughter and grandmother. The story is juxtaposed deftly between two time periods – the present and the past and finally throws light on the beliefs of even those who consider themselves very liberal. Daksha closes her diary and Hardika appears on the stage. Past and present is fused on stage through the figures of Daksha and Hardika. Ramnik Gandhi seems to be a very liberal-minded person towards the Hindu-Muslim relationships and does not like Hardika’s telling his daughter that “those people are all demons”. Aruna is a typical Gujarati house wife doing ‘pooja – path’ everyday, praying constantly “our Krishna will protect us”. She is a God-fearing woman and thinks that her Krishna will do everything smooth and peaceful one day. Her mother-in-law Hardika could not forget what was happened before forty years during partition and does not believe Muslims at all. She is an epitome of those hateful thoughts towards them, as any fanatic Hindu would be. The following lines spoken by Baa/Hardika clearly show her fears of both past days and the coming days, when the two Muslim boys come to Ramnik to take shelter while riots outside:

This time it wasn’t the people with the sticks and stones. It was those two boys running away who frightened me. Those two who were begging for their lives. Tomorrow they will hate us for it. They will hate us for protecting them. Asking for help makes them feel they are lower than us. I know! All those memories came back when I saw the pride in their eyes! I know their wretched pride! It had destroyed me before and I was afraid it would destroy my family again. They don’t want equality. They want to be superior. (P.172)

In Final Solutions, Dattani shows how the seed of riot is sowed and some vested groups reap its fruit. He also discusses the role of politician, police and public at the time of communal riot. The common people who live together for years, at the moment of riot, suddenly cease to recognize one another and become enemy on the ground of religion. They never realize that they are loser and politicians snatch the opportunity to gain power. This special community utilizes the opportunity to make a profit. Dattani demonstrates that the major cause of difference endangered by the two leading communities in our country is their sense of superiority. The Hindus always think that they are superior to the Muslims and the Muslims think the same. This causes a big chasm in their relation. The scarcity of religious tolerance is the leading factor for generating a breach in the society. The sentiment of two different groups can be traced in the chorus of the play Final Solutions:

Chorus 1 : The procession has passed through these lanes every year. For Forty years!

Chorus 2, 3 : How dare they ?

Chorus 1,2,3 : For forty years our chariot has moved through their mohallas.

Chorus 4,5 : Why did they ? Why did they today ?

Chorus 1 : How dare they?

Chorus 2,3 : They broke our Rath. They broke our chariot and felled our

Gods!

Chorus 1,2,3 : This is our land! How dare they ?

Chorus 1 : It is in their blood!

Chorus 2,3 :It is in their blood to destroy!

Chorus 4 : Why should they?

Chorus 5 : It could have been an accident.

Chorus 2 : The stone that hit our God was no accident!

Chorus 3 : The knife that slit the poojari’s stomach was no accident.

  In Final Solutions, communal riot breaks due to disturbance of procession. In most of the cases the matter of dispute is very simple. But due to involvement of some unsocial elements, it takes the shape of communalism and later on it is distorted and ultimate result is communal violence. During communal riots, mankind undergoes tremendous spiritual losses, during and after riot. Respect for life, dignity of humanity, love for truth and justice, fellow feeling and brotherhood are mercilessly butchered in riot. The propaganda, based on falsehood, has its hayday during riot. People lose not only their bodies but also their souls. It is a great catastrophe to humanity. As Bobby says:

A minor incident changed all that… We were playing cricket on our street… The postman… was in a hurry and asked Javed to hand the letter over to the owner. Javed took the letter… and opened the gate… a voice boomed, ‘What do you want?’ Javed holding out the letter… his usual firmness vanishing in a second. ‘Leave it on the wall’, the voice ordered. Javed backed away, really frightened… the man came out with a cloth… wiped the letter before picking it up, he then wiped the spot on the wall the letter was lying on and he wiped the gate! We all heard a prayer bell, ringing continuously. Not loud. But distinct … We’d heard the bell so often every day of our life that it didn’t mean anything… but at the moment… we all heard only the bell… The next day… I found… Someone had dropped pieces of meat and bones into his backyard. (P.200)

Final Solutions is a problem play, for it deals with the communal tension of our society. The violence perpetuated by the communal people in our society affects family life and that is dramatized in the characters of Smita, Ramnik Gandhi, Aruna, Bobby and Javed. The same character Daksha with two names (Daksha and Hardika) shows how the attitude of the same person to communal tension has changed over the years. Two Muslim boys, Bobby and Javed take shelter in Ramnik’s house during communal violence in the town. The dialogue between these two boys with the members of Ramnik’s family reveals the deep-rooted distrust between two communities. Aruna, Ramnik’s wife argues with her husband and daughter, Smita against giving them shelter in their house when Aruna forbids Bobby and Javed to touch the water with which she bathes the Gods. It shows the attitude of Aruna to her religion. The relationship among the members of Ramnik’s family is affected by the communal feelings prevalent in our society. But Dattani works out a solution by making people understand the evil inherent in such kind of communal hatred between two major communities in our country.

Conclusion:-

Final Solutions has a powerful contemporary resonance as the central issue of communalism is of the utmost concerns of our society. Presenting different shades of communalist attitudes prevalent among Hindus and Muslims, the play attempts to underline the stereotypes influencing the collective sensibility of one community against another. Moving from partition to the present day communal riots, Final Solutions examines the attitudes of three generations of a Gujrati business family. The events in the play unfold at a swift pace, weaving the post-independence partition riots, with the communal riots of today in a common strand.

Words:- 2,629

Works Citation:-

Foot, Peter J. The Final Solution. Fastprint Pub., 2011. 

Madur. “Behind the Curtains - Mahesh Dattani.” Karnataka.com, 28 June 2015, https://www.karnataka.com/personalities/mahesh-dattani/. 

Team, The Ashvamegh. “Communal Issues in Mahesh Dattani's Plays.” Ashvamegh Indian Journal of English Literature, 15 Jan. 2017, https://ashvamegh.net/communal-issues-in-mahesh-dattanis-plays/. 

 

Rabindra Nath Tagore’s Novel ‘Home and the World’: A Powerful Political Novel

 Name – Hinaba Sarvaiya

Roll No.: 09

Enrollment No.: 4069206420210032

Paper no: 201

Paper code: 22406

Paper name: Indian English Literature (Pre- Independence)

Sem.: 3 (Batch 2021- 2023)

Submitted to: Smt S.B. Gardi Department of English, M.K. Bhavnagar University

INTRODUCTION

The Home and the World (in the original Bengali, Ghare Baire) was one of the last (1984) in a long line of extraordinary films by the Bengali director Satyajit Ray, who died in April 1992. The film recapitulates many of the central themes in Ray's cinematic worldview as well as in that of the work of Rabindranath Tagore, Ray's frequent source of stories and inspiration. The Home and the World contains many echoes from Ray's earlier Charulata; both films are based on stories by Tagore. The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore. In this novel, Tagore brings about the nationalist topic related to the swadeshi movement which was popular in that era. Rabindranath Tagore, like Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, rejected Gandhi’s vision on modernity. Gandhi saw modernity as a threat for the nation and culture, yet Tagore saw it as a provider of the ideological basis for the critique of foreign domination.

Rabindra Nath Tagore’s Novel ‘Home and the World’: A Powerful Political Novel :-

The novel The Home and the World focuses on the narrative of three different characters: Nikhil, a wealthy landlord, Bimala, Nikhil’s wife, and Sandip, a radical nationalist leader. At the beginning of the novel, the story is told from Bimala’s point of view. In the novel, we can see that the narration is given alternately by those three main characters. This novel tells about how Bimala and Nikhil have so many different views of gender, relationship between husband and wife, education, freedom, and national identities. The conflict between this couple emerges after the arrival of Sandip. Bimala is impressed by his charisma and supports his view on nationalism and the swadeshi movement. This novel ends tragically, in which Nikhil is shot in the head.

Rabindranath Tagore’s The Home and the World (1915) is usually read in terms of an allegory, either on the historical event of partition of Bengal in 1905 or on the nationalist worship of Mother India around the turn of the twentieth century. Such allegorical readings are possible for obvious reasons: the novel is set at the time of the Swadeshi movement, which emerged as the radically nationalist response to the Act of Partition, engineered by the British colonial administration, at a time when “Vande Mataram” (a song composed by Tagore senior contemporary in Bengali literature, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay) had become a much used rallying cry among the nationalists. The Home and the World challenges the notion of India as an exclusive Hindu nation. It questions the validity of a nationalism that focuses on emotion rather than on economic self-sufficiency and social justice. It takes exception to the aggressive masculinity of the nationalist project. 

As an intense literary text, The Home and the World could be read in yet other ways, in terms of other allegories. This paper offers an alternative reading, inspired by comparing the novel with early twentieth century Vietnamese novels. The Home and the World is a novel that reads like an allegory on the failure of the Indian nationalist projects, circling around the issues of “Home” versus “World,” tradition versus modernity, created by the active involvement of the colonisers in the cultural, economic and administrative life of the colonised. It could be read as an allegory on the failure of Indian nationalism to accept tradition and modernity, home and the world, together. In addition, the novel offers an alternative nationalist project that could free India from its obsession with the colonising powers: true freedom of the nationalist imagination will be gained by going beyond every form of ideological prejudice and separation and by synthesising every conceivable value that could be useful for the development and maintenance of the nation. And as a concrete implementation of his alternative nationalist project, Tagore founded Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan in 1921. 

The Home and the World was published ten years after the vexing partition of Bengal and the beginning of the magic incantation of “Bande Mataram,” first in Bengali (1915), and then in English (1919). The Swadeshi movement, which emerged in the wake of the Partition, did not only mobilise Bengal but also spread throughout India as the “beginning of a truly national movement and a struggle between the men and methods that were to lead it” (Rege 39). “Bande Mataram” became the “war cry” of the opposition against the Partition; just like the Swadeshi movement, it spread “over the entire subcontinent” (Iyengar 366). Conflicts within the Indian Congress about the role and function of Swadeshi led to divisions within the movement: the extremists adopted the Swadeshi , claiming the superiority of the Indian economy, politics and arts while the moderates wanted to dedicate themselves to social reform. After a decade of challenging and fighting each other, the conflicting nationalist projects seemed to be neutralised when the so-called 1917 Declaration made India a more directly ruled colony in terms of administration and economy. However, once Mahatma Gandhi gained control over the Indian National Congress in the early 1920s, the movement of non-cooperation gained strong footholds all over India again; the ideas of Swadeshi were revived; the economic system was reorganised; and government schools and colleges were boycotted. By January 1921 when virtually all the colleges in Calcutta, the administrative and intellectual centre of Bengal, were closed, Tagore, unhappy with Gandhi’s “narrowness of aims,” complained in a letter to Charles Freer Andrews, a professor at Santiniketan, that the non-cooperation movement was opposed to his own notions of the nation which, in his opinion, should be based on cooperation: 

What irony of fate is this, which I should be preaching cooperation of cultures between East and West on this side of the sea just at the moment when the doctrine of Non-Cooperation is preached on the other side? 

Tagore argued that the radicalism of nationalist self-reliance, based on the principle of boycott, the central idea of the Swadeshi movement, “uprooted students” and “tempted them away from their career before any real provision was made”; his The Home and the World should be read as an alternative to the spirit of non-cooperation which was “electrical,” “the spirit of sacrifice [that] was in the very air we breathed”.

The Home and the World has not received especially kind treatment from the critics; perhaps most damning is George Lukacs's characterization of the novel as "a petit bourgeois yarn of the shoddiest kind." It is true the novel has its shortcomings: it gets dangerously close at times to political allegory, and its characters, especially the radical leader Sandip, are exaggerated and one-dimensional. At the same time, the novel has a staunch defender in Anita Desai, who, while admitting that it is too often weighed down with ponderous rhetoric, praises its "flashes of light and colour" and its "touches of tenderness and childishness."

Despite the literary shortcomings of 77K Home and the World, it is an important work for understanding Tagore's views on the dangers of political extremism. The novel focuses on the swadeshi movement in Bengal, which demanded an exclusive reliance on Indian-made goods, and a rejection of all foreign-made products. Tagore's representation of swadeshi typifies his attitude towards any sort of organized political activity as something over which one has little, if any, control. Swadeshi is described in The Home and the World as "a flood, breaking down the dykes and sweeping all our prudence and fear before it." 

The novel focuses on three characters, each of whom speaks in the first-person in recounting how they interact with one another. Nikhil is Bimala's husband; Sandip is Bimala's would-be lover. Nikhil epitomizes the unselfish, progressive husband who wishes to free his wife from the oppressiveness of a traditional Indian marriage. In contrast, Sandip is a man who thinks only of himself, and who reduces man-woman relationships to brazen sexuality; he is interested in "blunt things, bluntly put, without any finicking niceness" (85). Bimala is represented as an innocent who, at least initially, is completely subservient to her husband. But Bimala is also much more than this. She is referred to as Durga, the female goddess of creation and destruction, and as Shakli, the ultimate female principle underpinning reality. In being so described, she represents the beauty, vitality, and glory of Bengal.

The Home and the World is pivotal in Tagore's rejection of mass action as a force destructive to freedom and individuality. As well, the novel clearly anticipates his eventual rejection of nationalism as a frightening expression of this mass action. Finally, the book is important in laying the groundwork for Tagore's call for a new international order, which allows for the mutual interaction of all people. The message of The Home and the World is clear: to deny distinctiveness and individuality is to deny diversity, and to ignore the fundamental nature of the world. Political boundaries presume to limit and define a world that is fundamentally limitless and beyond definition. Political boundaries confirm exclusivity, and they hinder sharing and oneness in the face of difference.

Tagore is firmly rooted in the Indian philosophical tradition; he is concerned with darsana, with "seeing" truth. He views the human desire to define the world as a dogmatic assertion of ignorance. Virtually everything we do is an expression of this dogmatism, a manifestation of the ego-centeredness that drives it. So it is that in The Home and the World, Tagore issues a call to return to sanity. He recognizes that the pride that comes with nationhood can only lead to arrogance and to the repression of others. His message was true for his time, and it is still true today.

THE HOME AND THE WORLD: MAKING OF THE INDIAN POLITICAL NOVEL

With the rise of political consciousness in India, political ideas were put forth in the novels. So far, these were termed as social or historical novels. Indulekha, a significant Malayalam novel by Chandu Menon, is a typical example in this regard. Menon concluded his novel with a chapter containing conversation on the political situation of India after the first session of the Indian National Congress. In the preface to the novel, Chandu Menon admitted that inclusion of the last chapter was redundant but unavoidable. It happened so because of the political consciousness that was gradually gaining ground in public mind.  

Since the birth of Indian novels in the second half of the nineteenth century, national consciousness was reflected in the novels. Three distinctive ways of depicting national heroes or fleeting national awareness are discernible in the nineteenth century novels namely, historical novels, depicting national heroes, semi-historical novels depicting socio-political upheaval and satirical novels giving humorous portraits of pseudo-patriots. Rajsingha by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay exemplifies the first category. More examples of the type are Harinarayan Apte’s Marathi novel Rupe Nagarci Rajkanya and Ushakal, Chandi Charan Sen’s Jhansir Rani, Rajanikanta Bardoloi’s Assamese novel Manomati etc. As regards semi-historical novels depicting political upheaval in regional setting, there is a host of examples such as Anand Math by Bankim Chandra, Padum Kuani by Lakshminath Bezbarua, or V. Pattawardhan’s Hambir Rao ani putlibai (Marathi) etc. In the third category, we find a few satirical novels such as Model Bhagini by Jogendranath Basu or Khudiram by Indranath Banerjee and so on.  

If we minutely examine these three basic types of novels, we find three diverse motivations. In the first place, the writers of historical novel presented some role models of national heroes. In this way of presentation, role models are what may be called trickster heroes. All such heroes with their tricky as well as powerful means of defying their political opponents are portrayed as undaunted and invincible personalities. The portraits of Raj Singh, Jhansi Rani and Shivaji in various historical novels in Bengali, Marathi and other Indian languages are typical examples.  

Tagore took up a historical character, Raja Pratapaditya of Jassore (now in Bangladesh) as the central character of his novel Bou Thakuranir Hat. It was his avowed intention not to depict Pratapaditya as a national hero and hence there is no trace of a trickster hero in this novel Moreover, there is a note of sarcasm added to it. Pratap, as Tagore depicted him, was a loveless man blinded by his own might and folly. Pratap was a self-centred political character. This type of character is recast in The Home and the World’s as Sandip. Here the central character changes according to the need of the day, and one glimpses a political novel in the making.  

The Home and the World is a major political novel of considerable importance. It is not an exciting political novel like, for example, Sarat Chandra’s Pather Dabi. Sandip, the activist hero of this novel, cannot be compared with Sabyasachi, an extra-ordinary revolutionary hero of Pather Dabi. Sandip is unable to restrain his lust for money and woman. Of course he is gifted with flamboyance and casts a magic spell on his audience and thus wins the heart of Bimala, the heroine Nikhilesh, the husband of Bimala, accepts the challenge hurled upon him by his dear friend Sandip, and readily agrees to give Bimala the freedom to develop in her own way. Sandip wanted her to rebel against not only the foreign rule but also the domestic bond. Bimala stands confused between the two friends and for a time she seems to be on the verge of an emotional surrender to Sandip. Eventually, however, she gets disillusioned with Sandip. Her sense of value prevails and self-realization breaks the magic spell that Sandip cast over her. When Bimala returns to her patient and waiting husband, the spell has been over. Sandip stands exposed. He is no more a Swadeshi hero, but merely a villain with all his unbridled hedonistic activities, under the garb of patriotic postures.  

Tagore himself tried to offer an answer to these questions in a subtle manner. Tagore did not apply in The Home and the World the methods of creating a role model as available in Indian historical novels of the nineteenth century, though he had applied this in Bou Thakuranir Hat. Pratapaditya and Sandip are equally blinded by the selfish hedonistic impulse. Yet there is a mark of difference. Pratapaditya is apolitical, but Sandip is a deeply political man, an organizer and activist, who is quite involved in contemporary politics. Hence, the novel is very much related to the political atmosphere that prevailed in the country during the first decade of the twentieth century.

CONCLUSION

There are three distinctive views on nationalism presented in this novel through the key characters, Nikhil, Bimala and Sandip. Nikhil represents the moderate view on nationalism. He represents the ideology of Rabindranath Tagore. He carries the most perception of the nation in Tagore’s point of view. On the other hand, Sandip represents the extreme nationalist view. Between these two distinctive views, Bimalarepresents the dilemmatic view on nationalism. Tagore also depicts India in the form of a woman, Bimala. Bimala is portrayed as the physiological and psychological resemblance of the nation. This novel reveals several aspects of the conflict of ideologies including the conflict of gender and nationalism.

This novel represents Tagore’s perspective in seeing the effect of swadeshi to India. Furthermore, we can conclude that this novel reveals the ideological conflicts which are happening in the society as the result of modernization and British colonization. This revelation can be seen in the way Tagore contrasts the views of western ideology and eastern ideology through the characters Nikhil, Sandip and Bimala. It signifies that ideological conflicts could happen everywhere, even in the inside of a house.

Words:- 2,661

Works Citation:-

Rani, Bindu. “A Research on Rabindranath Tagore’s Novel ‘Home and the World’: A Powerful Political Novel .” Rabindranath Tagore’s Novel ‘Home and the World’: A Powerful Political Novel . 

Tagore , Surendranath, translator. The Home and The World. Macmillan &Co. Limited , 1921.