Repudiation of Rights and Subalternity in Githahariharan's
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Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology ISSN No : 1006-7930 Repudiation of Rights and Subalternity in GithaHariharan’s The Ghosts of Vasu Master *Dr Sheeba S. Nair, Assistant Professor of English, SreeAyyappa College for Women, Chunkankadai,Affiliated to ManonmaniamSundaranar University, Tirunelveli *Dr. R. Janatha Kumari, Assistant Professor of English, SreeAyyappa College for Women, Chunkankadai, Affiliated to ManonmaniamSundaranar University, Tirunelveli. Abstract: The culturally diverse country like India experiences a breach in establishing equality due to the prevalence of so many behavioural patterns, beliefs and ideologies both social and political. This results in the culmination of some culture attaining hegemony over others and discriminating the people of these cultural practices and suppressing them. This is an issue of high social concern which the eminent diaspora writer Githa Hariharan addresses in her fiction The Ghosts of Vasu Master. This paper looks at different factors that accelerate the repudiation of rights including physical deformity. Besides remonstrating such discriminatory factors, this paper strives to highlight the need to establish equality in the society which is inevitable for the humanity to thrive in this global world. Key Words: Diaspora; Culture; Human rights; Subalternity; Normalcy; Feminism. Refutation of human rights is a global phenomenon which is increasing day by day especially in developing counties like India. India being a pluralistic country is known for its diverse cultural patterns. These cultural patterns are decided by different religions, languages, castes, community, class and creed. These classifications divide the people of India into various strata and there is constantly a cultural pull among the people belonging to these diverse groups. With the advent of Marxism in the nineteenth century “people have come to think of culture as being political. Culture is both a means of domination, of assuring the rule of one class or group over another and a means of resistance to such domination, a way of articulating oppositional points view to those in dominance” (Rivkin, Ryan 1025).There is a power play in which the affluent people try to occupy the center and there is also a tendency to drive the ‘others’ to the Volume XII, Issue V, 2020 Page No: 3142 Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology ISSN No : 1006-7930 periphery. The limitation may be enforced on them in the name of class, creed, religion, gender, economic disparity and so on. AsJamuna rightly avers, Any multi-cultural mosaic, even in India, often fails miserably because of the anti- accomodationist stance of the dominant community. Multiculturalism should be able to negate exclusionism of minorities through acceptance and accommodation; instead the dominant community often creates an ideology of power, thereby paving the way for the inevitability of disarticulated subalternity within the nation. (121) There are various factors that vie with one another in inflicting discrimination in the Indian soil. Among them, the Caste system in India plays a major role in suppressing the people and thereby denying them a dignified life which is their genuine right. People in India are generally discriminated in the name of caste.Caste is a social evil which is practiced even today in India and it has become a part of Indian culture. And “Caste is defined at birth” (Young 119).It is about two thousand years old. This system which is an integral part of Hinduism, divides the population into four major groups. The Brahmin (priestly caste) at the top, followed by the Kshatriya (warrior caste), then the Vaishya (commoners, usually known as trading and artisan castes), and at the bottom the Sudra (agricultural labourers) some of whom are beyond the pale of caste and are known as untouchables. The caste system is not only structural, but has a cultural dimension as well. (Khushu, Lahiri 112) The caste system which was introduced in the Indian society, to carry out the smooth running of its various institutions, slowly lost its motive, and used as a force to suppress the weak. They are called untouchables, the term which is replaced with ‘Dalits’. Volume XII, Issue V, 2020 Page No: 3143 Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology ISSN No : 1006-7930 A quarter of the Indian population is made up of such Dalita, as they call themselves (Dalit means ‘the oppressed” or ‘the broken’). They do the most menial jobs…. They have little access to education or health care, and are forced to suffer daily the indignities of being considered unclean and polluting the rest of the population…. At the same time, the upper castes exploit them economically, materially, and sexually, and subject them to constant mental and physical abuse. (Young 119) This being the cultural practice seen widely in India and it has been transmitted generation after generation socially committed writer Githa Hariharan remonstrates against this cultural discrimination. Hariharan registers in her novel The Ghosts of Vasu Master that people in India are discriminated in the name of caste and it is conveyed through Ganesan, the neighbour of Vasu Master’s father who sows the seeds of bigotry in the minds of other Brahmins. He avers, “with all these other people all over the place, you know (he coughed delicately), we Brahmins must keep together. Otherwise what’s the use of independence” (239). Hariharan announces her protest against such inequity in the name of caste through Vasu Master’s father who condemns such people which indeed gives a peep into the Indian society: “We live in a divided house and you talk of a bigger, bloodier share. Go if you want- go spread some more of the poison that is choking all of us” (239). And his questions, “who murdered Gandhi? Who is murdering his child?” (239), are highly stimulating and thought provoking and these evocative questions convey the bitter truth that such discriminations in the name of caste aggravate clashes and creates havoc in the society Hariharan teases the post-colonial Indian belief that oppressing others and denying them their human dignity is the best means of survival through her character Venkatesan, the Volume XII, Issue V, 2020 Page No: 3144 Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology ISSN No : 1006-7930 colleague of the protagonist of The Ghosts of Vasu Master. It is unfortunate that divine institutions like the educational systems that promote such discrimination. When Vasu Master behaved very kindly towards his students, his colleague Vengatesan rebukes him by asking him not to be so patient and kind with his boys for he feels that, “In a few years they will find out that there is very little kindness or patience in the world outside”, and so the teachers must equip their students to get accustomed to the behaviour. He continues that it “would be the kindest thing you can do for them” (207). Hariharan very artistically brings forth the truth that anything which goes below or above the ordinary is reprimanded by the majority and looked down upon by them in this modern world. As part of their eccentricity, they are renounced as minority and as a result, they become weaker and their needs are marginalized. The chapter entitled “The Sling in the Scorpion’s Tail” in the novel reveals symbolically how this weaker section of the society is crushed by the suppressive evil forces which the author calls as scorpions. However, the little fly Diamond who represents the weaker strata of society strives hard to eschew the evil effect of scorpions, but it could not succeed. The singularity of existence is not welcomed by the majority and it is also symbolically suggested through the hegemonic claim of the scorpion: “the astonishing variety of insects in Heart of Forest was unnatural; that the different colours of their glow hurt their eyes; that the forest had lived in perpetual darkness in its golden age a million years ago. Hariharan’s scorpion stands for that part of society which keeps discrimination alive. Hariharan too dabbles with the discrimination inflicted on individual in the name of impoverishment in The Ghosts of Vasu Master. It is “Another great divide one observes in the society [that creates]… the gulf between the rich and the poor or in the communistic terminology the divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. (Pinto 111). At the school in which Vasu Volume XII, Issue V, 2020 Page No: 3145 Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology ISSN No : 1006-7930 Master taught, the students are given three different grades of punishment. “The first and mildest sort was reserved for the sons of the very rich” (46). Hariharan adds that usually it was only the old rich families that would send their sons to the Convent and Bishop’s Boys School and Vasu Master’s school “got the rich shop keepers’ sons” and “The teachers were not expected to punish these boys”, they had to be sent only to the Head Master who “ would lecture to him on how he was the pride of PG and if he did not behave like a model pupil, who would the other less fortunate boys look up to” (46-47). The second degrees of the boys are put to work. They do dusting books, sweeping and to polish the schools’ furniture. “The third and most dire grade of punishment was reserved for… the poorest boys. Several of them were made to fail year after year.” (47). Through such writings, Hariharan demonstrates her condemnation against the Indian educational system which instead of enlightening and guiding the younger generation and leading them in the path of equality, instils discrimination in the young minds and paves the seed of marginalizing the weak. Her contempt gets revealed through Vasu Master: “I knew something of Veera Naidu’s tactics, for example, of luring pupils with rich fathers and squeezing the last few drops of blood from a poor boy’s family” (101).