COLONIALISM, CULTURAL DOMINANCE AND CULTURAL CONFLICT: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CHINUA ACHEBE AND RAJA RAO

THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF Doctor of Philosophy IN ENGLISH

By MOMTAJUL ISLAM

UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF Chairperson

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY ALIGARH (INDIA) 2017 Department of English Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh CHAIRPERSON Phone No. 0091-571-2700920-922 Extension No.: 1426 Residence: (0571) 2720588 Mobile: +91 9837326553 E-mail: [email protected]

Certificate

This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis entitled Colonialism, Cultural

Dominance and Cultural Conflict: A Comparative Study of Chinua Achebe and

Raja Rao submitted by Momtajul Islam for the award of the degree of Doctor of

Philosophy (Ph. D.) in English is, to the best of my knowledge, an independent and original peace of research work, carried out under my supervision. This research work has not been submitted, in part or full, to any university/institution for any degree.

Chairperson

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

So long is the process of research that it is not always easy to remember all who help in getting the work see the light of the day. I may forget some to mention here but that in no way suggest that I am less indebted to them for their help and cooperation during the pursuit of my research. To start with, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Seemin Hassan, Chairperson, Department of English, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, for her supervision. She has always been there for any kind of cooperation whenever I needed. I would put on record my gratefulness for her being a constant source of inspiration and support. I would like to thank her for her critical insight. Words fail me to thank Prof. Mohammad Asim Siddiqui. His inputs were too valuable to find mention in a few words. He remained a source of encouragement and unending support. It has been an honor for me to get his regular advice and insight on my work. I feel highly indebted to him. It would be a failure on my part not to acknowledge Dr. Aysha Munira. Apart from being a teacher, friend and guide, she remained a pillar of strength for me, making me realize that the pursuit of knowledge is an ongoing process and that it should never end. To acknowledge her and not to mention Dr. Sohail Ahmed would be a little unfair. He, as a friend, provided me with his suggestions whenever I needed any. My sincere respect to my teachers, namely, Prof. Asif Shuja (Rtd), late Prof. Murthy Duraisamy, Prof. Sami Rafiq and Dr. Akbar Joseph who shaped my interest and motivated me to pursue research. I would like to acknowledge the unconditional support of my very dear friend Dr. Taj Mohammad while reading the manuscripts. His promptness in giving his valuable feedback on my writing has helped me make my research work pertinent and lucid. My friend Meraj Ahmed has also been supportive during my research. I would like to pay my sincere thanks to my family members, especially my parents and my brother. It would not have been possible without their prayers and never-ending support. Furthermore, I have always found my brother standing by my side in difficult times. I’m also thankful to Sana Rehman, my sister-in-law, for supporting me whenever I needed her. I would like to recognize the support of my uncle Dr. M. A. Rashid (mama), who has been a ceaseless source of inspiration throughout my life. How can I ever forget to give credit to my wife Sumayya Rehman and our two little daughters, Manal and Madiha, for keeping me in a state of mind, necessary for serious research? Their presence, their patience helped me overcome all anxieties and fears which come with all the good things in life. I would also like to thank those friends, seniors and relatives who have supported me through thick and thin. My friends and colleagues at the English Language Institute (ELI), King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, deserve my thanks for their moral support. I would specially like to mention Mr. Stephene Ambrose, Mrs. Shantha Nair, Dr. Ibrar Alam Ansari and Mr. Fayaz Alam Ahmed. They did come up with their ideas and thoughts at different points of time during my research. I am thankful to the staff members of Maulana Azad library, Aligarh Muslim University. I would like to thank Mr. Suhail Ahmed and Mr. Khan Mohammad Parvez (Department of English, AM.U.) for their friendly attitude and consistent cooperation. Lastly, I would like to mention Dr. Madihur Rehman Suhaib (Rtd.) for being a wonderful teacher, guide and supervisor, especially at a time when research was a new field to me, when marching ahead required direction. I express my immense gratitude to him.

Momtajul Islam

Abstract

The thesis entitled, Colonialism, Cultural Dominance and Cultural Conflict: A Comparative Study of Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao, is divided into six chapters, chapter one and chapter six being the introduction and conclusion respectively. As represented in the works of Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao, two celebrated writers in English from Nigeria and India, this study focuses on the subjugation and victimization of common people of Africa and India during the colonial rule.

Introduction The thesis is an extensive analysis of colonial and postcolonial works of these two writers. It also attempts to study how socio-cultural issues of Africa and India of colonial and postcolonial periods have been mirrored in these texts. Both the authors have drawn in plenty from the historical happenings of Africa and India in the period of colonization and also from the events when the colonizers left these colonies. However, the novels and short stories which are discussed here, cannot be considered historical in true sense of the word. The unsteady socio-political history of the native countries of Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao had been marked by colonial invasions, power tussles, mass uprisings, armed revolts, cultural dominance of the colonizers and the native elite classes alike during colonialism. Such events had direct impact on the fabric of socio-cultural setups of these colonies, which are echoed efficiently in these novels and short stories. Colonial history stands testimony to the fact that the problems associated with marginalization and oppression of common people have been responsible for the disintegration of indigenous native culture and identity. A brief examination of colonial history of Africa and India exposes that weakening of common people and their culture led to ultimate chaos and degeneration of native cultural identity and society. A brief historical account of foreign annexation of Africa and India, and its far-reaching impact on the native people and culture is given in this chapter after explaining the terms like, ‘colonialism’ and ‘postcolonialism’, and examining their impact on native societies. Advent of colonization derailed the social, cultural, religious and ethnic identities in these colonies. The native societies were self-reliant and self-contained before colonial powers encroached these lands. Their age-old systems of cultural norms, social hierarchies, class divisions and collective

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relationships ensured smooth operation of the social systems in the colonies. However, they received a blow and were stymied in their evolution and progress with the colonial intrusion. Such a profound experience of social change, identity crisis of individuals, cultural clash and cultural hegemony could not but find a reflection in the works of writers concerned. The research work focusses on their selected works.

Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period The title of the second chapter is ‘Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period’ and Achebe’s three novels of colonial period called, Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease are analyzed here. This chapter examines how Achebe identifies colonial invasion in Africa and it also reflects on the cultural hegemony of external rulers in these novels. Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease are set in the colonial era and are read as the representation of colonial rule, cultural conflict and cultural hegemony in Africa. It is evident that cultural dominance of the colonizers is propagated through the means of violence and oppression in native societies. The novel Things Fall Apart is a depiction and narration of the colonial clashes that took place in the nineteenth century when Igbo people of Eastern Nigeria confronted the White Christian missionaries for the first time. This novel is studied to explore what happens when Western colonial powers come to Igbo land in the form of trading organizations and then as White missionaries with the pretext of enlightening the native society and its people. The native ethics of the protagonist Okonkwo and his society constantly struggle to survive when challenged by the Western invasion. But ultimately, the native society fails to sustain. Okonkwo’s suicide symbolically represents self-destructive trends in the culture and society of Igbo people when faced with the cultural domination of the colonizers. The colonial rule completely suppresses the Igbo culture and social traditions and increasingly starts replacing all kinds of native uniqueness and way of life. In Arrow of God the ethnic philosophy and traditions of the native people of Igbo land slowly disappear when the colonial alternatives are imposed by the colonial forces. Ezeulu, the protagonist in Arrow of God, aspires to control both his tribe, and the influence of Western invaders and their culture on his society. But he fails in his attempt. Ezeulu’s tragedy in Arrow of God cannot simply be declared a personal disaster.

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The tragedy of Obi Okonkwo, the hero of No Longer at Ease, authenticates how colonial hegemony often leads the youth of Africa to eventual disorientation and failure. He is lost in the process of shifting from native Nigerian social norms and culture to the alien but apparently mesmerizing lifestyle of the Europeans. That is why he finds it immensely challenging to realize an ethnic individuality of self while meandering on the crossroads of native and Western cultures. The violent clash between the native people and the Christian missionaries was an outcome of missionary incursion in Africa. This conflict is discussed as one of the major themes in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. However, these three novels document the colonial hunger of establishing Christianity as the supreme religion and Western culture as the dominant one in Africa during colonial period. Achebe paints Christianity as a dividing power in Igbo society. Achebe’s novels of colonial period also emphasize that the foreign power implements the ‘divide and rule’ strategy whenever required to colonize African people. Therefore, Christian missionary activities are responsible to a significant extent for the eradication of the communal way of life that had conventionally kept the Igbo communities united. No Longer at Ease describes the social condition of the natives once the colonial administration establishes itself in the Igbo land. Eventually local populace finds itself in an unequal relationship with the colonial dominance that threatens their ethnic and racial identity. However, the clash is not only about the strained relationship between the natives and the colonizers in these three novels. Colonial rulers and their influence further antagonize a section of natives who convert to Christianity against their own people. The fight, in terms of cultural and spiritual existence, is rather between the native people who try to save their erstwhile religion and culture, and the new converts to Christianity from the Igbo society. This new native middle class was primarily a creation of the missionary enterprise and the colonial government to serve their colonial interest of draining the native resources and wealth to make their mother countries prosperous. The native communities are generally represented as a homogenous and shapeless crowd without any evident individuality by the Western writers. Achebe wishes to break this stereotype and presents native people, their culture and societies with all their complexities and individualism. He attempts to rewrite the colonial encounter from an African perspective using the colonial language and narrative.

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Raja Rao’s Fiction: The Colonial Period Chapter three examines how Raja Rao in Kanthapura and the short story “The Cow of the Barricades” perceives colonial rule in India and how Indians raise a socio- political resistance to colonization and cultural hegemony. The peaceful Indian rural set up that has been self-reliant to a large extent before getting disturbed by colonial intrusion, is depicted in Kanthapura in the traditional manner of storytelling. The acts of cruelty and vindictiveness of the colonial government to overpower resistance from the local people are issues of thematic preoccupation in this novel. It is also observed in this masterpiece of Rao that even women are not spared when it comes to colonial cruelty. Hence, it would not be an overstatement to say that this novel documents an important episode in the history of Indian freedom struggle, taking place in a rural area in South India under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy. "The Cow of the Barricades” is a short story that talks about Gandhian philosophy of life, or what Gandhi considered as social evils, prevalent in Indian society, like casteism, child marriage and ban of widow remarriage. This is a tale of a myth-like cow which aids ‘satyagrahis’ (Gandhian freedom fighters) to initiate a non- violent drive against the colonial rule in India. The story represents Raja Rao’s perceptions of Indian freedom struggle in the light of socio-political resistance of Indian common people against Western dominance. Kanthapura is a fictional representation of the economic exploitation of the colonies by the European rulers and how people put up a courageous struggle against the oppressive and exploitative mechanism of these alien forces. The short stories in The Cow of the Barricades and Other Stories draw readers’ attention to the rampant social ills in India, which can be eradicated only through social revolutions, as suggested by the author. One of the issues that Raja Rao is concerned with is the fact that majority of colonized people accept the ‘greatness’ of Western culture during colonial rule in India. This is a noticeable example of colonial hegemony when the colonized people accept that they deserve to be reigned since they are inferior to the rulers- socially, culturally and economically. There are two layers of cultural hegemony in Kanthapura: one is the hegemony of the colonizers’ culture and the second, the hegemony of the upper caste and class over the untouchables and the underdogs. The domination of the colonizers’ culture was resented by one and all, except a selected few who were hand-in-glove

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with the foreign rulers. But the hegemony of the Brahmins against non-Brahmins, including Muslims did not become a mass movement in India. Although, there had been an acute caste-based inequality among local people in the indigenous society, the common people surrendered all their differences and united with all in the freedom struggle against the colonial power on demand of Mahatma Gandhi. The supreme success of Gandhian approach was that people came together and put up a nonviolent form of freedom struggle against the powerful colonizers. Struggle against cultural hegemony is a thematic thread that runs through Kanthapura along the lines of freedom struggle. It is, in fact, a resistance to social disparities, discriminations and the hierarchized organization of Indian society. Raja Rao’s fiction covers both colonial and postcolonial period in Indian. He has been a prolific writer, like Chinua Achebe, writing during colonial and postcolonial times. Raja Rao was greatly influenced by Mahatma Gandhi during the freedom struggle of India. Therefore, his novels and short stories of colonial period highlight the Gandhian movement to free India from the colonial oppression. Raja Rao perceives colonial invasion in India as detrimental to the social, economic and political growth of India as a nation. He recognizes that colonialism can be held accountable for most of the evils present in Indian society. In addition to draining wealth from India to England, colonialism has left indelible marks on the psychology of the colonized. Cultural hegemony of the colonizers has reduced the natives to mere nonentities and assaulted their self-esteem, which has made them lose faith in themselves. Colonized people even lost their sense of belonging to the native society and also their faith in their native cultural values. The colonial mechanism of governance was established in India to serve their economic interests. The colonizers barely cared for the well-being of people, and commonly gave free access to the landlords to exploit the common masses, so that they could continue receiving revenues on a regular basis. The cultural practices of the rulers in India were based on caste and class conflict, and hierarchy among people. The fight for freedom of India, as represented in the selected novel and short story, takes the form of a movement to free Hinduism from all evils that came from other cultures around it.

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Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction The title of the fourth chapter of this thesis is ‘Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction’. This chapter analyzes Achebe’s perception of postcolonial African society in general and its fictional representation in particular in his postcolonial novel A Man of the People. The new social middle class that was established in the colonies, could speak and interact in English language. They assumed more power within the native communities. Such people had different attitudes in two different phases of colonialism, that is, colonial and postcolonial Africa. On one hand, resentment against colonialism was largely voiced by this middle class during the time of colonial rule. On the other hand, the same social class had occupied the power vacuum that was created after the departure of the colonial government. Hence, such native people substituted the ‘White’ masters in the same power positions, keeping intact the master-slave narrative. This is illustrated by Chinua Achebe in A Man of the People, as discussed in chapter four of the present thesis. Achebe was upset with the attitude of his countrymen after Nigeria gained independence. He was surprised by the level of corruption, deceitfulness and pretence of native politicians who governed the postcolonial Africa in general and Nigeria in particular. Colonialism ended, but the colonial consciousness did not discontinue after independence. In A Man of the People, the postcolonial predicament of identity crisis gets clear in the analogy that native politicians always identify themselves with the Whites and treat other Black men as their slaves; but these same people go fuming when they are represented in a different and subdued vein by the Whites. If his novels of colonial period depict the reality of colonial dominance and cultural hegemony and how colonizers perpetuate their rules in Africa, his postcolonial novels illustrate the sad truth of native social life after independence in African countries. A Man of the People portrays the postcolonial socio-political scenario in an imaginary country of Africa. Achebe believes that postcolonial native identity is just a new version of the erstwhile colonial Africa. Because, the novel presents the notion that nothing much has changed in native people’s lives, except the ruling faces. The Whites have been replaced by the powerful and corrupt native politicians, with equal powers to perpetrate violence upon common people if they oppose the new rulers. A Man of the People highlights the devastating influence that colonialism has left on the consciousness of native people of the colonies. Achebe also suggests a solution to this social menace. He believes that mass revolutions

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against corrupt native politicians and governments are the best way out to eradicate this social evil, as happens towards the end of this novel. The central character in this novel, namely, Odili remains one of the main faces of the mass revolution against the native governance that takes place in this novel. However, as unfolded in this novel, he has his own share of flaws, which in real life may hinder the progress of a social uprising, which is based on the principle of equality for all native men and women alike.

Raja Rao’s Postcolonial Fiction The novels The Serpent and the Rope, Comrade Kirillov and The Cat and Shakespeare: A Tale of India are studied and discussed in the light of postcolonial effects in Indian societies. Rao’s vision of culture, cultural conflict and cultural hegemony in post-independent Indian identity are analyzed in this chapter. Some important questions are discussed in details in this chapter to find out the impacts of colonization after the British colonizers left India. How has Rao interpreted the conflict between Indian culture and Western culture, the first being the culture of the colonized while the second, the culture of the conqueror? What happens when these cultures confront each other? What is the condition of common people when the colonial culture displays hegemonic arrogance as regard to their native culture? The examination discovers that Raja Rao’s vision of Indian culture is chiefly coloured by the conventional Hindu way of life of mythical India. Raja Rao is all for the restoration of so-called glorious Hindu traditions of the past in postcolonial identity of Indian democracy. In these three novels Raja Rao has also given glimpses of the postcolonial social setup in India. It appears that Rao believes that post-independent India is engulfed with hybridity, alterity, ambivalence, moral and ideological conflicts, and such other postcolonial issues, which are residues of colonial past. Like Chinua Achebe, Raja Rao is also sceptical of post-independent identity of erstwhile colonies. But his viewpoint is that India has primarily suffered in the postcolonial age, because Indian people have not accepted the path shown by Mahatma Gandhi and the path that has been also glorified in ancient Indian philosophical traditions, like Advaita Vedanta and Vishishta Advaita of Ramanuja.

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The Serpent and the Rope epitomises a postcolonial Indian society where native populace is in sheer confusion as they have not yet come out of the inertia of the colonial period. Even after the departure of the colonial rulers, the common people are still subjugated by the Western but seemingly attractive culture that has left its farfetched impact on indigenous identity. The Cat and Shakespeare has a humorous overtone and most of the actions of the protagonist Govindan Nair are entertaining and funny. But the postcolonial predicament and ambivalence of India’s new democratic identity is hidden under the cover of humor. This is not the kind of democracy freedom fighters like, Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh and Lokmanya Tilak had envisioned. Raja Rao also does not identify the ambivalence of Govindan Nair with his own idea of post-independent India. Comrade Kirillov is a good example of the postcolonial dilemma of identity crisis. The central character Padmanabha Iyer cannot cease to be Padmanabha Iyer, a staunch Brahmin, and at the same time he cannot reconcile with the fact of being comrade Kirillov, a communist and atheist. The novel is a good satire on Indian diasporic communities, living in foreign lands who are lost in the process of keeping both the indigenous native idealism and newly found Western way of life alive at the same time in the postcolonial setup. The concluding chapter has highlighted different layers of cultural conflict, cultural dominance and impact of colonialism, as analyzed and examined in the earlier chapters in the writings of Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao. A comparative study of these two writers has also been undertaken to clarify the point of views about colonialism, cultural dominance and cultural conflict. Both Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao have come up with almost parallel depictions of the effect of cultural conflicts, cultural hegemony and political dominance of the colonizers in their fictional works, despite differences in their race, county, religion and language. Colonial domination is a major theme in the writings of both these writers. Cultural hegemony is described in unique ways in their novels and short stories, and yet their methods have resonances of each other’s approach. Raja Rao believes in the greatness of ancient Indian traditions, mythology and Gandhian ideologies to fight against evil forces. Likewise, Achebe also believes in the importance of Africa’s native way of life, traditions, values and community living.

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Chinua Achebe stresses on social reconstruction through education and awareness in the postcolonial African identity. Raja Rao also desires to rebuild Indian society through instruction and self-evaluation. Through their novels and short stories, both the writers ignite hope for the future after the exit of colonial powers. Thus, keeping in mind all the similarities and differences in the styles and attitudes of Raja Rao and Chinua Achebe in dealing with the colonial and postcolonial era in their fictional works, it would not be an overstatement to say that colonial experiences have provided the thematic meeting grounds to the two writers who represent two entirely unique socio-cultural settings.

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1-25

CHAPTER II CHINUA ACHEBE’S NOVELS: THE COLONIAL PERIOD 26-66

CHAPTER III RAJA RAO’S NOVELS: THE COLONIAL PERIOD 67-110

CHAPTER IV CHINUA ACHEBE’S POSTCOLONIAL FICTION 111-150

CHAPTER V RAJA RAO’S POSTCOLONIAL FICTION 151-191

CHAPTER VI CONCLUSION 192-202

BIBLIOGRAPHY 203-217

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Chapter-1 Introduction

Since the term ‘colonialism’ is related to the word ‘colony’, it is generally seen in connection with the political developments of the colonized regions. But its effect and influence are much broader and more widespread than its mere political implications. Colonialism has not only influenced history, politics and literature, but also the culture and identity of the countries that were colonized. However, it has also impacted the colonizers to a certain extent. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), colonialism is “the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically” (qtd. in Loomba 7). The word ‘colonialism’ comes from the “Roman ‘colonia’ which meant ‘farm’ or ‘settlement’, and referred to Romans who settled in other lands but still retained their citizenship” (Loomba 7). It is described as: a settlement in a new country… a body of people who settled in a new locality, forming a community subject to or connected with their parent state; the community so formed, consisting of the original settlers and their descendants and successors, as long as the connection with the parent state is kept up. (qtd. in Loomba 7) The invasion of colonial powers changed the fabric of cultural ethics and influenced the religious beliefs of the native people, as these colonial powers portrayed themselves as god-like figures and thus superior to the people of these colonies. The domination over other people’s culture, land and wealth turned out to be one of the major characteristics of colonialism. The powerful countries first entered the less powerful countries, controlled their societies, used their resources and transported their wealth to their motherlands to enrich their wealth and power, and show their dominance to the socio-cultural settings of the natives. Osterhammel gives the following definition of colonialism: Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous (or forcibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule. (16) Ronald Horvath states, “…it seems generally, if not universally, agreed that

1 Chapter-1 Introduction colonialism is a form of domination – the control by individuals or groups over the territory and/or behavior of other individuals or groups” (47). Colonizers not only imposed their cultures, customs and religions on the natives, but also exploited them at various levels including biased trade relations, exploitation of their natural resources and properties and extensive practice of slave trade. Albert Memmi in his book The Colonizer and the Colonized, defines the colonizer as a person who enforces his culture, socio- economic and educational systems on another in total ignorance of the latter’s culture. In the process of colonization the colonizer becomes “an illegitimately privileged usurper” (Memmi 9). This study shall mainly focus on Africa and the Indian sub-continent as they share a history of colonial dominance and cultural struggle against that dominance in one form or the other. The all-pervasive colonial rules practiced different forms of repressions and sought to modify the socio-cultural fabric of the colonized societies to suit the perceptions, needs and requirements of the colonizers. Efforts were made at establishing cultural hegemony to prove the superiority of the cultures and the way of life of these masters with a view to carve resistance and achieve willing subjugation of the colonies. But it gradually generated resentment and defiance at various levels, social as well as cultural. One of the main reasons for such cultural resistance was to maintain the cultural ethics and cultural purity of the native soils. In his book The Wretched of the Earth Frantz Fanon primarily talks about the need of reclaiming one’s own past that was exploited by the colonizers when they invaded native lands. The resentment was at times expressed as overt political action against the colonial dominance; but even when it was not so apparent, it worked as an undercurrent that helped in the growth of the social consciousness among the colonized communities. The process of colonization also helped in the emergence of a separate class of natives who were employed and utilized as pawns of colonial masters and helped them administer the colonies according to their desires and interests. This section of people developed the feeling in them that they were somehow superior to the people of their native lands and belonged to a higher class, as they could speak the languages of the colonizers. Fanon in his book Black Skin White Masks points out that this section of the colonized people felt being “elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother country’s cultural standards” (9). He further illustrates the colonized mindset of this class in the following example:

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He becomes whiter as he renounces his blackness, his jungle. In the French colonial army, and particularly in the Senegalese regiments, the black officers serve first of all as interpreters. They are used to convey the master’s orders to their fellows, and they too enjoy a certain position of honor. (9) This certain position and honor worked as an undercurrent that helped in the burial of the local cultural originality to make the languages and cultures of the colonizers essential parts of the way of life of this newly emerged class of the natives. In Indian sub-continent, especially in Bengal, a ‘babu’ class was created that replaced its own cultural ethnicity and language with that of the colonizers and considered themselves as the cultural elites in their societies. They believed in their superiority to the other members of their societies as they could speak the colonizer’s language and communicate better with them. They accepted alien cultures and practices of the colonial rulers as fundamental parts of their lives out of these beliefs. Colonizers have always used language and literature in terms of religion, culture and politics, as very effective devices to expedite the process of ‘colonization’. Edward Said’s Orientalism expands the scope of the postcolonial studies by questioning the Eurocentric universalism that attempts to establish the Western superiority over the East. Said observes and illustrates that the East is treated as the ‘Other’ in the hegemonic discourse of Orientalism. The Orient, according to Edward Said, features in Western mind as a “sort of surrogate and underground self” (3). He further observes that the Orient is characterized by qualities such as, decadence, laziness, stupidity, sensuality and effeminacy by the Orientalist, which they think, are contrary to the qualities the Occident possesses. The people in the East are seen as homogeneous and monolithic. The individual differences and the unique traits of different peoples in the East are not recognized. Said also points out that orientalists have tried to exoticize the Orient. Many postcolonial and modern critics also reiterate Said’s observation. For example, Krishnaswamy, Varghese and Mishra continue to reaffirm Said’s legacy and point out how the West has recurrently pictured the Orient as “exotic and mystical with magic, maharajas and snake charmers” (91). The colonized people were projected as subordinate others in all forms of writing and records, produced by the Europeans. Be it knowledge, wisdom, science, technology, literary criticism or modernization, they are all projected as universal. But actually, such projections are largely Eurocentric, because all of these are based on

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White Eurocentric norms and their practices. “The critical questioning and rejection of this norm of universalism mark the beginning of ‘post-colonial’ criticism” (Krishnaswamy, Varghese and Mishra 91). Postcolonial studies interpret the relationship between the occidental countries and their colonies from a different point of view that is not influenced by the Eurocentric perspective of the colonies. Young is of the view that, … postcolonialism offers you a way of seeing things differently, a language and a politics in which your interests come first, not last. Postcolonialism claims the right of all people on this earth to the same material and cultural well-being. The reality, though, is that the world today is a world of inequality, and much of the difference falls across the broad division between people of the west and those of the non-west. This division between the rest and the west was made fairly absolute in the 19th century by the expansion of the European empires, as a result of which nine-tenths of the entire land surface of the globe was controlled by European, or European- derived, powers. Colonial and imperial rule was legitimized by anthropological theories which increasingly portrayed the peoples of the colonized world as inferior, childlike, or feminine, incapable of looking after themselves (despite having done so perfectly well for millennia) and requiring the paternal rule of the west for their own best interests. The basis of such anthropological theories was the concept of race. In simple terms, the west/non-west relation was thought of in terms of whites versus the non-white races. White culture was (and remains) the basis for ideas of legitimate government, law, economics, science, language, music, art, literature – in a word, civilization. (2) M. H. Abrams defined colonial and postcolonial studies as “The critical analysis of the history, culture, literature, and modes of discourse that are specific to the former colonies of England, Spain, France, and other European imperial powers” (236). The geopolitical regions where such studies focus and emphasize at length are mainly the African and Asian territories. But the study of South America and the Caribbean islands cannot be neglected when it comes to colonial and postcolonial analysis. Abrams further mentions some researchers who:

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…extend the scope of such analysis also to the discourse and cultural productions of such countries as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, which achieved independence much earlier than the Third World countries. Postcolonial studies sometimes en-compass also aspects of British literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, viewed through a perspective that reveals the extent to which the social and economic life represented in the literature was tacitly underwritten by colonial exploitation. (236) Postcolonialism as a critique was developed during the late 1980s. Postcolonial studies analyze the impact of colonial rules after the colonial countries got independence from the colonial powers. The clash of cultures and identity crisis were some of the major problems the ex-colonies had to grapple with as residues of the colonial periods. As mentioned earlier, when colonizers came to these countries, they not only captured their lands but also influenced and changed major parts of native traditional practices and cultural identities. They considered native cultures and identities as inferior ones and constantly substituted them with that of their own. The effect of such changes became a huge challenge when these countries got independence, as many native people felt the immediate urge to regain their lost cultures and traditions. But they could not get rid of the Western way of life all of a sudden. They were neither able to go back to the cultural ethics and purity of the time before the advent of colonial powers, nor could they manage to create and develop a completely new political and cultural ethos to replace the legacy of the colonizers. Although both Africa and the Indian-subcontinent experienced these imbalanced and hegemonic relationships between colonial rulers and indigenous people of these colonies, the colonial relationships were more complex than they appeared. McLeod in his introduction to The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial Studies points out that both ‘colonizers’ and the ‘colonized’ were products of colonial establishment and they shared, “new kinds of identities, inseparable from each other…” (3). The aspects of colonialism were quite varied and diverse from one region to another, but certainly colonialism “locked the original inhabitants and the newcomers into the most complex and traumatic relationships in human history” (Loomba 7-8) everywhere.

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A Brief History of Colonization in Africa: Establishment of colonies in Africa was driven by European hunger for African resources. The slave trade was not new to Africa when European imperial powers entered this land. Africans sold other Africans as slaves to the Arabs for centuries. The slave trade between Africa and Europe started in the 16th century. In this century, African slaves were transported to Europe across the Atlantic. The Portuguese started exploring the African coast in the 15th century for natural resources. They reached the river Congo in 1445. In the 16th century, the Portuguese established their first colonies in Angola and Mozambique while the Dutch founded a colony in South Africa in 1652 (Lambert, “A Brief History of Africa”). While Europeans and Africans had established associations in a variety of settings for centuries, the eighteenth century scripts a major turning point in European approaches toward Africa. It marks the beginning of the real colonial period in African history. Many European nations wanted to stop slave trade by the 19th century. For instance, Britain banned slave trade in 1807 (Walvin). On the contrary, most of the African continent was colonized by the late 19th century. Following are some of the historical facts of colonization from this period. England took over the Dutch colony in South Africa in 1814. 1830 witnessed the French invasion in north Algeria. Germans captured Namibia, Togo and Cameroon in 1884 and Tanzania in 1885. The Democratic Republic of Congo was colonized by Belgium in 1885. In 1912, the French colonial power captured Morocco before invading Madagascar in 1896. Also, in 1912 Italy took control of Libya. The British Empire controlled Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Uganda, Egypt and Kenya in the early 20th century (Lambert, “A Brief History of Africa”). The Western colonial powers colonized the majority of the African countries, except Liberia and Ethiopia by the early 20th century. Seven Western countries— France, Britain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain, had colonized much of African continent by 1900 (Iweriebor). Britain ruled the largest part of this continent- from Cairo to Cape Town. Britain implemented the “divide and rule” strategy to help maintain British rule in these colonies by manipulating the cultural, ethnic and linguistic differences between the peoples of different parts of Africa, especially the northern and the southern part of it. The French ruled the Western and Eastern part of

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Africa, including Madagascar. The Belgian colonizers controlled the Congo region, Rwanda and Urundi. The history of the European colonization in the Congo region is considered by many critics as a bloody mark in the African history. The Congo was a region of rich natural resources and it attracted the attention of King Leopold II of Belgium. He spotted the Congo basin in the central Africa as “a slice of this magnificent African cake” in 1875 (qtd. in Ewans 168). However, the king gained international recognition of this colony in 1885, which was “some eighty times the size of Belgium” (Ewans 168). Much of the native culture was destroyed and millions of Congolese people were killed by Belgian colonial rulers. According to historian Adam Hochschild, the “killing in the Congo was of genocidal proportion” (2). Hands of those Congolese who refused to comply with the rubber harvesting demands, were cut off (Hochschild 215). All the other men were forced to work as slaves to maximize the rubber harvest. The women of this region were raped and otherwise brutalized. Approximately eight to ten million Africans died by 1920 as victims of King Leopold’s ‘rubber-terror’ (Lezer). Many of such atrocities in African territory found their direct or indirect references in the colonial and postcolonial writings from this region. After the implementation of the British anti-slavery policy, the trading of palm oil (a treasured native product) was given priority to replace the dependency on revenue, earned from the slave trade in this region. However, The British government started undertaking a more direct participation in the administration and governance of its secured lands in Africa from 1849. The British imperial power started the process of colonization of Nigeria in approximately 1850 and it was accomplished by nearly 1905. Representatives of British trading companies used the means of negotiation to stop slave trade in this territory initially, but afterwards armed forces were slowly introduced to colonize this region. A consul, based in Fernando Po, is appointed to take responsibility for the Bights of Biafra and Benin. He undertakes direct negotiations with the king of Lagos, the principal port from which slaves are shipped. When these break down, in 1851, Lagos is attacked and captured by a British force. (“History of Nigeria”) This scripts the first direct involvement of the British government in the administration and governance of Nigeria from 1851. The British colonial power

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replaced the king of Lagos with another member from the same royal family. The new king promised to discontinue slave trade and stop human sacrifice, which was in practice in this region before colonial invasion. But Lagos was occupied in 1861 by the British force under the pretext that the new Lagos king and his successor utterly failed to abolish the existing slave trade and human sacrifice from native social setup. It was eventually declared a British colony. The second half of the 19th century witnessed the measured merging of British commercial affairs and direct British governmental control in this region in one unified body. In 1879, George Goldie persuades the British trading enterprises on the Niger to merge their interests in a single United African Company, later granted a charter as the Royal Niger Company. In 1893 the delta region is organized as the Niger Coast Protectorate. In 1897 the campaign against unacceptable local practices reaches a climax in Benin - notorious by this time both for slave trading and for human sacrifice. The members of a British delegation to the oba of Benin are massacred in this year. In the reprisals Benin City is partly burnt by British troops. (“History of Nigeria”) Violence was thus one of leading means that the British colonial force implemented frequently to bring the entire region under its control by the end of this century. The Niger region was a vast area and it became quite challenging for the new colonial force to manage and govern this huge territory. The administrative difficulty led the colonial government to bring the upriver regions, which were initially controlled by the Royal Niger Company, under the central control. The contract of the Royal Niger Company was canceled in 1900 by the government in Britain. England commenced direct governance of the region between the coast to Sokoto and Bornu in the north of Nigeria from this time. “Given the existing degree of British involvement, this entire area has been readily accepted at the Berlin conference in 1884 as falling to Britain in the scramble for Africa” (“History of Nigeria”). The British colonial force governed Nigeria for approximately sixty years and numerous reclassifications of different areas of Nigeria were carried out for administrative purposes during this colonial period. The colonial power found it very problematic to unify the country as a single state.

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In the beginning of the colonial era, the Niger Coast Protectorate was stretched farther and officially named Southern Nigeria, with Lagos being its seat of government. The rulers in the north of Nigeria, namely the emir of Kano and the sultan of Sokoto, did not allow the British colonial rule to enter this part of Nigeria in the early years of colonial period. The British government appointed Mr. Frederick Lugard as the high commissioner and commander-in-chief of the Protectorate of northern Nigeria to successfully implement the colonial rule in this region. Lugard was not new to this colonial experience. He earlier played a very important role in the Royal Niger Company and commanded company’s army in 1894 to counter French claims on Borgu (a border area between Nigeria and Dahomey). As a high commissioner and commander-in-chief, he did not disappoint the British colonial power. Lugard efficaciously controlled the rulers of Kano and Sokoto between 1903 and 1906, and conclusively eliminated slave trade that was popular among the rulers of this region. Lugard applied a few policies to pacify the ruling community of northern Nigeria after the advent of colonization in this area. For example, he ensured that the existing rulers were not replaced overnight from these states and each territory had a native chief if willing to implement the orders of the colonial rulers undisputedly. Lugard then gave these rulers considerable power to administer these native lands that ultimately fulfilled the colonial motive of controlling these colonies using the native resources and power at the later stage of colonial period. Finally, “in 1912 Lugard is appointed governor of both northern and southern Nigeria and is given the task of merging them. He does so by 1914, when the entire region becomes the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria” (“History of Nigeria”). Territorial conquests were further driven by economic motives to manage these colonies directly, replacing the older systems of informal controls through trade relations. This new form of direct imperialism increasingly made colonial rule in Africa a painful experience for the natives, as socio-cultural eradication, violence and exploitation became recurrently used colonial means of directly governing the colonies to maximize economic benefits. As discussed, the principle reason behind the European invasion in Africa was mainly economic, as the European countries felt the urge to find an assured source of raw materials for their industries. They also needed guaranteed marketplaces and lucrative investment outlets. The industries in

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Europe produced more than what was consumed by Europeans. Unused goods remained in surplus as the working masses didn’t earn enough to buy them. Industrialists and bankers didn’t want to reduce the production or the price of their products. They rather tried to find new markets for their products. They found the answer in Africa. The European imperialist push into Africa was motivated by three main factors, economic, political, and social. It developed in the nineteenth century following the collapse of the profitability of the slave trade, its abolition and suppression, as well as the expansion of the European capitalist Industrial Revolution. The imperatives of capitalist industrialization—including the demand for assured sources of raw materials, the search for guaranteed markets and profitable investment outlets—spurred the European scramble and the partition and eventual conquest of Africa. Thus the primary motivation for European intrusion was economic. (Iweriebor) European colonial forces realized that Africa would not only provide them with new markets for their products, but different regions of Africa could also be huge sources for the required raw materials. The European industries influenced their respective governments to turn to Africa to find new colonies to find an answer to their small markets and limited resources. As capitalist industries grew, gradual increase in socio-economic problems like poverty, homelessness, redundancy and social dislocation from rural areas became very evident in major European countries. The power struggle within Europe was an added pressure that the European countries experienced. Acquiring colonies and transferring ‘surplus population’ to these colonies was one way to find solution to such newly developed problems (Iweriebor). He fittingly sums up some major reasons behind acquiring colonies in a very comprehensive manner: Thus it was the interplay of these economic, political, and social factors and forces that led to the scramble for Africa and the frenzied attempts by European commercial, military, and political agents to declare and establish a stake in different parts of the continent through inter-imperialist commercial competition, the declaration of exclusive claims to particular territories for trade, the imposition of tariffs against other European traders, and claims to

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exclusive control of waterways and commercial routes in different parts of Africa. (Iweriebor) This sense of competition in terms of dominance and power among these European colonial powers steered the European ‘Scramble’ for African land at the end of the 19th century (Parker and Rathbone 93). The last quarter of 19th century witnessed a steady European inroad into African territory that stepped up the impetuous rush for territorial conquest by the European colonial powers. These colonial powers included European states like Britain, France, Portugal (with the history of being a colonial power dated as early as in the 16th century), Italy, Germany, and, “as a private colonial entrepreneur, the King Leopold of Belgium” (Parker and Rathbone 93). Spain, the declining imperial power of Europe, also colonized a limited numbers of small African regions in the late 19th century. These European states shared common commercial interests and with their long coastlines they believed that securing African territories would consequently help them establish their imperial dominance over rest of the European powers. The struggle for power and dominance among these European rivals was largely determined by the number of colonial territories each colonial powers secured outside Europe. Parker and Rathbone document that the reason for colonial invasion was not merely the European rivalry for dominance of power or the urge to civilize the so-called backward people. The principal objective always remained unchanged and that was the possibility of discovering potentially lucrative sources of plenteous commercial benefits: But at a time of economic downturn, rising tensions in established commercial relations on the coast, and growing knowledge of the interior, the allure of potential wealth to be secured by the forceful ‘opening up’ of the continent played a crucial role in convincing European statesmen to acquiesce to the increasingly shrill demands of small groups of imperial enthusiasts and opportunists. The speculative nature of conquest is clear, with the desire to exclude rivals from potentially lucrative regions often being more important than the protection of established interests. But there was also a strong collaborative strain in the European carve-up of Africa. The opening up of the continent was regarded as an ennobling ‘mission’, not just to trade with, but through doing so to civilize a backward, benighted people. Imperialist rhetoric was a heady

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mix of self-interest, racial arrogance, and missionary zeal – similar in many ways to that of the earlier anti-slave trade campaign. (96) Subsequent exploitation and undermining of the moral, religious and cultural values of the African people by the Christian missionaries left a permanent European imprint on the continent. The early twentieth century marks a change in the outlook to colonialism and imperialism in Europe. Christian missionaries established many schools in these colonies, which helped in educating an increasing number of Africans. Education made them more self-aware, and eventually developed in them the urge to make their native lands free from the European colonizers. The sense of resistance continued to be stronger and motivated them to get independence as soon as possible. The African struggle for independence became unstoppable and by the 1950s and 1960s most of the African nations got their independence from their respective colonial rulers. 1960 witnessed the independence of 17 countries from this continent. However, Mozambique and Angola did not get independence until 1975 (Tim Lambert). The Belgian colonial officials and army found it gradually difficult to control the Congolese resentment against them. Several violent and bloody clashes took place during the 1950s and 1960s. The Congo got independence on 30th June 1960 from Belgium. During the second half of the 20th century, a native African governmental structure was gradually established in Nigeria under the guidance of colonial force. A federal prime minister was appointed in Nigeria in 1957. The gradual process of shifting the political control of the Niger territory from the colonial government to the native administration also marked its beginning in the same year when the Western and Eastern regions were permitted to establish the internal self-government. The same policy was followed in the Northern region later in 1959, too. The modern-day Nigeria continued to be a part of the British colonial empire until 1960 when it gained its independence from the Great Britain. Chinua Achebe is one of the most famous and widely read English writers of African origin who rejected Eurocentric perception of the colonized Africa and its culture as shown in writings of the European writers. Through his writings he has depicted the colonies from a native’s perspective. In addition to Achebe, there are also some other notable writers of Africa who contributed immensely to change the world’s understanding of Africa from the lands of only ivory, and masses who needed

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to be civilized, to the lands of cultural diversity and individual people. Amos Tutuola (The Palm-Wine Drinkard), Wole Soyinka (Death and the King’s Horseman), Camara Laye (The Radiance of the King), Dinaw Mengestu (The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears and How to Read the Air), Abraham Verghese (Cutting for Stone), Mariama Bâ (So Long a Letter), Buchi Emecheta (In the Ditch and Second-Class Citizen), Ngugi Wa Thiong’o (The River Between, A Grain of Wheat and Weep not, Child) etc., are some of the major African writers who deserve a mention (Parekh and Jagne).

A Brief History of Colonization in India: Colonial invasion in India is described as the domination of superior weaponry, army and political power in general. The principle objective was how to considerably increase economic wealth of the colonizers. Dirks is right in his observation that "Colonialism is made possible because it is sustained and strengthened by cultural technologies of rule that is established on foreign shores by the British ruler" (7). Colonialism in India was not only about establishing a profitable colony and governing the colonized Indians, it was also about controlling the minds of the colonized people. It would be sensible to have a brief look at some important historical facts of the colonial India. The Macedonian army of Alexander the Great was the first European power which came to India in 327–326 BC. Later, sailors from Rome came to India through the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea, and established a trade relation between the Roman Empire and various Indian states. But they never pursued any trading settlements or tried to conquer any part of Indian Territory. India earned a good name in Europe for its production of spices and a successful spice trade relation was established between India and Europe. This spice trade gradually acquired a very significant importance in world economy of that time and played a pivotal role of being the main temptation that engendered the European exploration of Indian Territory. Towards the late 15th century the Mughal Empire started losing its hold in India. The weakening of this Empire caused a void into which the colonial rulers moved. European countries started exploring Indian coast in the 16th century. They started conquering small bases along the coastline. The year 1502 marks the beginning of the colonial period in India when the Portuguese Empire established the

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first European trading point at Kollam, Kerala. The first Europeans to reach India by sea were the Portuguese who arrived in 1498 and began importing spices from India. They formed a base at Goa in 1510. In addition to the trade aspect, another major characteristic of Portuguese colonization was the effort to establish and spread Christianity in the colonies. They promoted Evangelism and Catholicism in their colonies before The English and Dutch took over the Portuguese in the 17th century (Lambert, “A Brief History of India”). Vasco da Gama entered in Calicut seaport near the end of the 15th century and acquired a license to trade in the city from ‘Saamoothiri Rajah’, the local Hindu ruler. The Netherlands, Portugal and France colonized different areas in India before the “East India Company” was established by the British in 1756. India had precious natural and economic resources, such as textiles and mineral ores that the Europe looked at with coveting eyes to exploit. Moreover, it was both a significant source of cheap labour and a potential large market for British goods. They first entered India as European traders. In the 17th century, the English imperial force began to establish secure bases on the east coast of Indian subcontinent. “Fort St George is begun at Madras in 1640 and is completed in 1644. Calcutta is eventually selected, in 1690, as the best site for a trading station in the Ganges delta; it is fortified, as Fort William, in 1696” (“History of India - The Subcontinent” 6). The British securely established three English presidencies of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay by the end of the 17th century. England and France began to interfere in Indian politics and struggled for supremacy in different parts of India in the late 18th century “partly through proxy Indian rulers but also by direct military intervention” (The History of Colonial India). The year 1746 witnessed the first battle between European countries on Indian soil when a French force captured Madras from the British. In the south of India, where Aurangzeb lived his last few years trying to implement royal control, British and French militaries marched against each other in shifting associations with local rulers. By the late 18th century, India was considered to be a place of importance by the European powers in general and by Britain in particular. Both the French colonial force and the English East India Companies extended military assistance in dynastic power struggles within powerful Indian states to enhance their commercial benefits.

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Assisting a native candidate to the throne unlocked a new region of influence- a new market for the colonial products. The death in 1748 of the Moghul viceroy in Hyderabad is followed by French and English backing for rival sons of the dead ruler. Soon the two European nations are also fighting on opposite sides in a war of succession in the Carnatic (the coastal strip north and south of Madras). The French candidate succeeds in Hyderabad, and the English favourite prevails in the Carnatic. But the most striking event in either campaign is a dramatic intervention by Robert Clive in 1751. With 200 British and 300 Indian soldiers he seizes Arcot (the capital of the Carnatic) and holds it through a seven-week siege. (“History of India - The Subcontinent” 7) Clive’s strategies and his success in sequentially conquering a battle against a French and Indian force won the throne for his candidate. It further jeopardized the reputation of the French army in Indian eyes. Before the intervention of Robert Clive in 1751, the French colonial power enjoyed a superior position in India and the British imperialists always came second to them at that time. However, the British and French colonial powers continued to be rivals in India, especially in the south for the rest of the 18th century. But this rivalry changed considerably in the north and the British colonizers gained dominance over the French in this part of India. The British colonizers initially faced a disaster in 1756, when the British settlement was overpowered by the then Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daula. It is a popular belief that the Nawab of Bengal locked some of the British prisoners overnight on 20th of June, 1756 in a dark cell of Fort William in Calcutta (now Kolkata). All of the prisoners except one were allegedly died in that dark cell. However, there are no concrete historical proofs or details of what exactly happened that night, but since that time this infamous incident has been referred to by the British as the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’ (“History of India - The Subcontinent” 7). Nonetheless, Robert Clive did not wait long to revert. To regain power in Calcutta, he again cruised for Bengal from Madras in October 1756. He led the army of the British East India Company to the Battle of Plassey in 1757 against Siraj-Ud- Daula, the Nawab of Bengal and won it. Clive took control of the Bengal region indirectly by making his loyalist Mir Jafar the ruler of Bengal. He was broadly considered as a mere puppet in the hand of British colonizers (Lambert, “A Brief

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History of India”). The dominance of French colonizers started declining after the defeat of the king of Mysore, Tipu Sultan in 1799 at the hand of British colonial power. After the defeat of this king, the British power began to expand their territory in Indian subcontinent very speedily in the early 19th century. By the middle of the 19th century British took control of almost all of India- directly or indirectly. The British colonizers gradually captured and managed to govern most parts of India including the major cities like Calcutta, Madras and Bombay before India got its independence in 1947. The most treasured and populated parts of India were included in British India and were directly controlled by the British Empire by the end of 19th century. It was termed as “the brightest jewel in the British crown” by Benjamin Disraeli, the British prime minister from 1874 to 1881 (“Why Did the British Call India the Jewel in the Crown?”). India was indeed the brightest jewel in the British colonial Empire because India was rich in cotton, silk, spices, indigo, gold and other produces when the colonial powers invaded this subcontinent. India was both prosperous and affluent before the colonial intrusion. Western merchants who came to India substantially amplified their personal assets and possessions. The pepper, an Indian spice, which was very famous and valued in India, was referred to as the ‘black gold’ in the colonial India. As its principal overseas territory, India was the most significant colony of the British Empire. After a numerous numbers of violent and non-violent incidents of resistance by the Indians, India finally got its independence from England on 15th August, 1947. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, eminently known as Mahatma Gandhi worldwide, was the pioneer of India’s non-violent resistance and struggle against the colonial rulers to gain independence from the British Empire. Raja Rao was deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and his use of non-violence as means of resistance against the British colonization. The thematic structures of most of his novels and short stories imprint the influence of Gandhian ideology. Similar to their policies in Africa, the British colonizers also applied the ‘divide and rule’ policy in India to better govern the Indian masses. Such divisions were put into practice and made quite clear between different Indian social and religious class systems, castes and major religions. The British were few in numbers and they needed these sorts of imperialistic policies to smoothly administer their authority and strategies so that they could fulfill the colonial ambitions of ruling

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Indian masses and their resources. There are innumerable references of this British policy of ‘divide and rule’ in the colonial history of India. It would be worthwhile to cite here, what the Governor-General Lord Canning wrote to a British administrator during the rebellion of 1857, the first organized resistance against the British army by Indian soldiers who worked for the same British army: As we must rule 150 millions of people by a handful (more or less small) of Englishmen, let us do it in the manner best calculated to leave them divided (as in religion and national feeling they already are) and to inspire them with the greatest possible awe of our power and with the least possible suspicion of our motives. (qtd. in Hardy 72) In addition to the divide and rule strategy, the psychological brainwashing of those people from a privileged stratum within Indian society who were cleverly trained into becoming typical British subjects, was a very significant trait of British colonial power in India. This English-educated section of Indian society was shrewdly invigorated to engross the British values and notions in themselves in place of their local traditions and way of life; because such section of people would be favorable to the British occupation of India- furthering British ambitions of looting India's physical wealth and exploiting its labour resources (“British Education in India”). Thomas Macaulay, in 1835 expressed the purposes of British colonial domination most succinctly: "We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, words and intellect" (qtd. in Hannerz 297). This newly created Indian social class, ‘English’ in all sense except ‘blood and colour’, were made to believe that they were much superior to the rest of Indian people, as they could speak the language of the colonizers and embrace their culture. The colonial force used these people very cleverly to smoothly run the colonial administration in the Indian subcontinent. The British colonizers required a class of intellectuals, submissive and obedient in their outlook towards the British, but full of abhorrence towards their fellow citizens. It was important for the colonizers to stress the negative aspects of the Indian culture and tradition, and therefore expunge or put out of sight the positives. The colonial force consciously tried to ascertain a mindset among Indians that India did not have any praiseworthy pre-colonial civilization to be acknowledged. This section

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of people were to be taught that they belonged to an intensely conservative and fatalist society - inherently inclined to illogical superstitions and numinous belief systems. Colonizers created an elite Indian class who were conditioned not to acknowledge the fact that India had a rich history of civilization of its own and that its contribution in the field of philosophy and science might have influenced European scholars or the European renaissance. India and its people were pictured as if they did not have any concept of nation, national spirits, culture or history. If they had any cultural or social structure at all, it had been created by invaders - because Indians themselves lacked the productive vigor to accomplish anything worthy by themselves. But the British, on the contrary, were presented as the torchbearer of modernity - they were the forerunners of all that was rational, systematic, exact and scientific in the world. With their distinct administrative skills and vigorous enthusiasm, the British would elevate India from the trap of caste system and religious intolerance. These and other such notions were constantly filled in the thoughts of the young Indians who received education in the British schools during the colonial period. The economic situation in India deteriorated after various European colonial powers invaded this country. Especially British colonialism left the greatest impact on Indian economy during colonial period. India’s share of world economy was much higher when the British colonizers first reached Indian shores in comparison to the time when British rulers left India in the middle of the 20th century. The reason is that India had been governed for the benefit of Britain and not to civilize or educate the native people of India, unlike the European perception to Indian colonization. The industrial revolution in Britain was largely premised upon the deindustrialization of India. The plight of handloom weavers of India who were famed across the world for the production and export of fine ‘muslin’ lightweight clothes would be an apt example in this regard. British rulers came and imposed tariffs and duties on their clothing products. They started taking the raw materials from India and shipping back the manufactured clothes from Britain that flooded the world market. As a result, the weavers in India became beggars and India found itself to be an importer of finished clothes from being a world famous exporter of the same. By the end of 19th century, British colonizers made India the world’s biggest purchasers of British goods that were manufactured in Britain from the raw materials of India. Between fifteen and twenty-nine millions Indians died during British colonial periods in several British

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induced famines (Tharoor). Starvation, violence and discrimination were some of the harsh realities of the colonial experience in India. Unlike European perceptions, railways and roads were built in India to serve the British interest and not the native people of India. They were designed to bring the raw materials to various ports to be shipped to Britain and thus the access of Indian people to these facilities were just incidental. The incidents of racial violence, loots, massacres, bloodsheds, multifaceted oppressions, transportation of Indian wealth and resources became very prominent and frequent features of British colonialism in India. The undermining of social traditions, property rights and of authority structures of Indian societies was all done in the interest of British colonization. The fact cannot be denied that many of the problems in postcolonial India, including the persistent racial, ethnic and religious tensions are the direct consequences of Indian colonial experiences (Tharoor). Like Chinua Achebe, the impact of colonization, cultural dominance and conflicts is also vividly reflected in the writings of Raja Rao. The theme of East-West conflicts in his major writings depicts the true sway of colonization and its legacy on Indian people and society. Mulk Raj Anand (Coolie, Untouchable, Two Leaves and a Bud, Across the Black Waters, The Village, The Sword and the Sickle, The Big Heart etc.), R.K. Narayan (The Bachelor of Arts, Swami and Friends, The English Teacher, The Dark Room, etc.), Salman Rushdie (Grimus, The Satanic Verses, Midnight's Children, The Moor's Last Sigh, Shame, etc.), Anita Desai (Cry, The Peacock, The Peacock Garden, Voices in the City, Bye-Bye, Blackbird, In Custody, Where Shall We Go This Summer? etc.), Nayantara Sahgal (Prison and Chocolate Cake, Rich Like Us, Plans for Departure, Lesser Breeds etc.), Amitav Gosh (The Shadow Lines, The Calcutta Chromosome, Sea of Poppies etc.), Vikram Seth (A Suitable Boy) are some of the many Indian writers in English of colonial and postcolonial period in India who deserve a mention. Such a profound experience of cultural conflict and cultural hegemony could not but find an echo in the literature of the times. It will be worthwhile to undertake a study of selected literary texts from the two geo-political regions and see how the colonial experience is reflected therein. Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao as the two most representative of the writers lend themselves easily for such a comparative study. Chinualomagu (Albert) Achebe was born on November 16, 1930, in Ogidi, in eastern Nigeria, a huge Igbo village near the banks of the Niger River. His father

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worked as an instructor and catechist for the Church Missionary Society and was one of the first individuals of this territory to convert to the new European religion, that is, Christianity. As a boy he got educated at the Church Missionary Society's school where he was taught to admire everything that was Western and to discard things that essentially belonged to local native societies. But gradually the beauty in traditional African culture fascinated Achebe immensely. Achebe found himself in a strong association with his people’s traditional world. He rejected his Christian name ‘Albert’ while studying medicine at University College, Ibadan (later the University of Ibadan) and started using his Igbo name ‘Chinualomagu’ that was further shortened to Chinua and it suggests, “God will fight for me”. He changed his scheduled study of medicine to the study of liberal arts, including history, religion and English and received his B.A. degree in 1953. During his University education, Achebe started writing short stories and essays, some of which focused on the struggle between the traditional African culture and the newly invaded Western cultural and religious norms. This subject of cultural conflict becomes the pivotal point in most of his later works. Still today, Chinua Achebe is the most widely read African writer around the world. He questions the misrepresentation of the native Africans and their lives in Western literature and media through his writings. He also explores numerous consequences of centuries of colonialism and cultural dominance on the African soils. His reputation as an exceptional African novelist rests securely on his five novels – Things Fall Apart (1958), No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987), besides scores of books of short stories, essays and poetry. His debut novel Things Fall Apart became enormously successful and now it is studied as a literary classic in different parts of the world. On March 21, 2013 Chinua Achebe left this world at the age of 82, in Boston, Massachusetts, while serving as the professor of Africana Studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Raja Rao was born in a well-known Brahman family on November 8, 1908, at Hassan, Mysore in southern India and passed away on July 8, 2006, in Austin, Texas, the United States of America. Rao earned his B.A. degree in 1929 from the Nizam College in Hyderabad where his father also taught Kannada language. He then went to France on a scholarship to study literature and history at the University of

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Montpellier and the Sorbonne. On his return to India in 1939, he worked as an editor of a journal. He joined the Indian freedom movement and got himself involved in Quit India Movement in 1942. His earlier novels and some of his short stories echo his involvement in the nationalist movement. The main plot of his first novel in English Kanthapura (1938) is the Indian independence movement. After spending few years in India and France after World War II, he finally settled down in Texas and joined the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 1966. He became professor emeritus there in 1980. Rao’s experience of colonial India's struggle for independence is illustrated vividly in Kanthapura through its implication of Gandhi's passive resistance movement against the British colonial rule and the setting in this novel is a village in the southern part of pre-independent India. He celebrates Indian customs, history, philosophy and religion also through his other writings as a reflection of his nationalism. Sometimes his reference to the religious and mythic roots of India in his fiction is a deliberate attempt to offer a comparison to the Western thoughts of depicting India as a land of magic and enchantment. Kanthapura (1938), The Serpent and the Rope (1960), The Cat and Shakespeare: A Tale of India (1965), Comrade Kirillov (1976), The Chessmaster and His Moves (1988) and The Cow of the Barricades and Other Stories (1947), are some of his remarkable works which have enriched the English literature of postcolonial period. His style is fundamentally Indian and aims at carving out an Indian identity through a genre that is essentially Western (Aprajita 10). His novels also reflect his attempt to resurrect the values of ancient Indian civilization that suffered incalculable loss by the advent and the domination of Western culture during the colonial period in India. Both Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao were deeply concerned with the effects of colonial rule as a form of cultural dominance upon the consciousness of the respective peoples. Their interest goes beyond the immediate context of colonial rule and they are equally concerned with the residues of the Raj. The first three novels of Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease are set in the colonial times, whereas A Man of the People has postcolonial Nigeria as its social background. Similarly in the case of Raja Rao, Kanthapura and the story The Cow of the Barricades are set in the colonial India whereas The Serpent and the Rope,

21 Chapter-1 Introduction

Comrade Kirillov and The Cat and Shakespeare: A Tale of India are set in the postcolonial India. Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao study the effects of colonial dominance as well as the effects of the struggles against cultural dominance with great sensitivity. Their understanding of the subject goes beyond mere jingoism and political sloganeering. They are also not oblivious of the fact that cultural dominance is not just a matter of political rule, but has psychological and historical aspects, too. The proposed study, Colonialism, Cultural Dominance and Cultural Conflict: A Comparative Study of Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao shall focus upon the responses of the two writers to the cultural dominance of their societies, the conflict arising out of this dominance and the psychological and historical implications of it. This proposed thesis is divided in the following chapters. This introduction chapter is followed by Chapter two. The second chapter is titled as ‘Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period’ and it shall deal with Achebe’s three novels namely, Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease. Effort is made to analyze how Achebe perceives colonial rule in Africa and cultural hegemony in these novels. Chapter three, titled ‘Raja Rao’s Fiction: The Colonial Period’, shall attempt to examine Rao’s perception of colonial rule in India and socio-political resistance to cultural hegemony in Kanthapura and the story “The Cow of the Barricade”. The fourth chapter of this thesis entitled ‘Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction’ shall mainly focus on Achebe’s perception of postcolonial African society in his novel A Man of the People. The fifth chapter ‘Raja Rao’s Postcolonial fiction’ shall read the novels The Serpent and the Rope, Comrade Kirillov and The Cat and Shakespeare: A Tale of India under the light of postcolonial effect in Indian societies. Efforts shall be made to analyze Rao’s vision of culture, cultural conflict and cultural hegemony. The concluding chapter shall highlight the range of cultural conflict, cultural dominance and the impact of colonialism as discussed and analyzed in the earlier chapters in the writings of Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao.

22 Chapter-1 Introduction

Works Cited Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. Noida: Harcourt Asia PTE, 2000. Print. Aprajita. "The Art of Story-telling in Raja Rao’s Kanthapura." Ed. Vishwanath Bite. The Criterion: An International Journal in English 5.6 (2014): 10-13. Web. 6 Sept. 2015. . "British Education in India." History of British Rule and Colonization in India. Vedic Knowledge Online, n.d. Web. 05 Sept. 2015. . Dirks, Nicholas B. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2001. Print. Ewans, Martin. "Belgium and the Colonial Experience." Journal of Contemporary European Studies 11.2 (2003): 167-180. Http://condor.depaul.edu. Carfax Publishing. Web. 3 Sept. 2015. . Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann. London: Pluto, 1986. Print. ---. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. New York: Grove, 1965. Print. Hannerz, Ulf. Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning. New York: Columbia UP, 1992. Print. Hardy, Peter. The Muslims of British India. London: Cambridge UP, 1972. Print. "History of India - The Subcontinent." History World. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2016. rack=pthc>. "History of Nigeria." History World. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Aug. 2016. . Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Print.

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Horvath, Ronald J. "Definition of Colonialism." Current Anthropology 13.1 (Feb. 1972): 45-57. Print. Iweriebor, Ehiedu E. G. "The Colonization of Africa." Africana Age. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Web. 31 Aug. 2015. . Jezer, Marty. "A Brief History of Colonialism in Congo." N.p., 2 Feb. 2001. Web. 03 Sept. 2015. . Krishnaswamy, N., John Varghese, and Sunita Mishra. Contemporary Literary Theory. New Delhi: Macmillan India, 2001. Print. Lambert, Tim. "A Brief History of Africa." Http://www.localhistories.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Sept. 2015. . ---. "A Brief History of India." Http://www.localhistories.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Sept. 2015. . Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. Second ed. London: Routledge, 1998. Print. McLeod, John, ed. The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial Studies. New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2007. Print. Memmi, Albert. The Colonizer and the Colonized. Boston: Beacon, 1965. Print. Osterhammel, Jürgen. Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2005. Print. Parekh, Pushpa Naidu, and Siga Fatima Jagne. Postcolonial African Writers: A Bio- bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1998. Print. Parker, John, and Richard Rathbone. African History: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Print. Tharoor, Shashi. "Britain Does Owe Reparations." OxfordUnion, 14 July 2015. Web. 05 Sept. 2015. . "The History of Colonial India." YouTube, 30 May 2015. Web. 04 Sept. 2015. . Walvin, James. "Abolishing the Slave Trade." Http://www.history.ac.uk. History in Focus, n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2015. .

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"Why Did the British Call India the Jewel in the Crown?" Http://www.answers.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Sept. 2015. . Young, Robert J C. Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. Print.

25 CHAPTER II

CHINUA ACHEBE’S NOVELS: THE COLONIAL PERIOD

Chapter-2 Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period

Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe, famously known as ‘African trilogy’ are closely linked with the colonial development in Africa at the beginning of 20th century and the end of 19th century. These three novels are analyzed in this chapter in the light of cultural hegemony and colonial rule in Africa. Emphasis is given on how colonialism and cultural dominance perpetuate themselves through oppression and violence in native societies as depicted in these novels in the background of colonial period in Africa. Achebe’s novels principally center on the theme of colonial encounters and cultural conflicts between the traditional African societies and that of the colonial masters. They also represent a documentation of eastern Nigerian life and social condition in predominantly two different phases – the pre-colonial and colonial Nigeria. Achebe’s passionate hunger to dig deep into African tradition in his writings has set him apart as a novelist from the rest. Pallavi fittingly observes that Achebe “writes about Igbo life as an insider and dispassionately mirrors the strengths and weaknesses of the Igbo traditional society” (118) in his novels. The novel Things Fall Apart narrates the colonial encounters that took place in the nineteenth century when Igbo people of eastern Nigeria came in direct contact with White Christian missionaries for the first time. It is a book that explores what happens when colonizers arrive in Igbo land first in the form of political power and then in the form of White missionaries and churches. The main plot of this novel revolves around the values that define the hero Okonkwo’s society and how these values, which Okonkwo has always struggled to sustain, collapse when confronted with the Western invasion. “The cultural hero who had defeated Amalinze the Cat in the first paragraph makes a regressive journey into exile and ultimate death” (Gikandi x). The novel Arrow of God elaborates how the native Igbo ethnic philosophy and traditions gradually fades away to pave the way for the Western alternatives imposed by the colonial forces. Achebe here tries to present the colonial encounter from an African viewpoint by using the language and narrative of the British colonial force. In Arrow of God Ezeulu, the chief priest of god Ulu of Umuaro village, wishes that the people of his clan will become his ardent followers and that he will earn reverence of the British colonial administrators. But he fails severely in the process and his wish to control both his clan and the impact of British colonizers on his society bring his

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ultimate downfall in this novel. An individual’s wish ends up being merely a yearning against the will of his social institution. Mordaunt appositely puts forward the view that this novel “shows that men cannot fight societies' will and that the latter can bring a man to insanity” (153). Although, Ezeulu’s catastrophe in Arrow of God is not merely a personal tragedy, it is rather an unmitigated suppression of the Igbo social norms and traditions as the colonial influence steadily engulfs all strata of native identity and way of life. Obi Okonkwo, the hero of No Longer at Ease, is lost in the transition from native Igbo culture and customs to the new and seemingly fascinating Western way of life. Obi from this novel is the grandson of the main protagonist Okonkwo from Things Fall Apart. But he is a sharp contrast to his grandfather Okonkwo who always held his traditional beliefs above the colonial norms. But Obi, unlike his grandfather, is a product of Western education and subsequently succumbs to failure as he could neither leave his socio-cultural Igbo identity completely nor could he embrace and maintain the European customs and traditions. Obi’s tragedy showcases how colonial encounter has more often than not led the new generation of young Nigerians to ultimate letdowns. Abukar writes, The novel registers the clash of ideologies between the indigenous culture and the imperial culture; and to Achebe’s credit, the novel depicts from an African perspective the internal struggle of the indigenous culture and identity to survive under the imposing and usurping weight of colonial modernization and education” (1-2). In addition to this novel, Achebe has shown his fineness in externalizing the internal conflict of his central characters in other two novels, too, namely, Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease. To analyze colonialism, cultural dominance and cultural conflict, and how colonial rules affected the people of Igbo as perceived by Chinua Achebe in these three novels Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease, one needs to reflect on the historical background of the colonial encounters in the Igbo region of Africa. Europeans first penetrated the Igbo land in 1830 (Ohadike xxxiv). Britain was the pioneer of slave trade in Africa for many years. But, after finding out that this was no longer much beneficial to them, the British traders and agents of government tried to bring a closure to it by the early 19th century. They wanted to substitute this trade

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Chapter-2 Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period

with the invasion of various resourceful regions of Africa to collect and export wealth and natural resources to England. They foresaw that African natural resources and wealth could be hugely profitable to them in comparison to slave trade. The closure of slave trade was not initiated to bring any good to the African people. It was rather a political move to penetrate this land and control it, so that they could transport natural resources in place of human resources from this region. They presented the idea of invading Africa to improve and enlighten the social, religious, cultural and economic conditions of the Igbo communities of these regions. This was merely a sort of veil to justify their move of establishing colonies in these areas. It was fundamentally a political and economic move to enrich the economy of their own country and establish a strong position among the European powers. After experiencing the success of trade relations, Britain and private organizations sent further expeditions along the bank of the Niger River to establish contacts with local Africans to further strengthen their profits in these trades. Later on, Christian missionaries joined such expeditions to spread Christianity among the native people.

Trade relation and Subsequent Colonial Encounter Initially, it was the European demand of palm oil and African fascination for the European goods that established a friendly trade relationship between these two continents. But this progressive relationship eventually failed when the European imposed economic control on the price of goods from both the regions. The charm of palm oil started losing its impact in Europe after 1875. It resulted into huge collapse in the price of palm oil. But Europeans did not reduce the price of their European goods in this region. The situation saw the deviation of flow of money in this trade from both ways to only one way and that was to Europeans, as they did not compromise with the price of their products. This aspect can be analyzed in detail in the context of Things Fall Apart. The reference to such trade relations is given in Chapter 21 of this novel. The Igbo people are offered good price initially for the production of palm oil and kernel and such a price rise for these products have never happened before in this region. Mr Brown, the White missionary, has built “a trading store and for the first time palm-oil and kernel became things of great price, and much 28

Chapter-2 Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period

money flowed into Umuofia” (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 126). The White people tried to influence the Igbo to become financially dependent on the White men’s economic set up in this part of Africa. This economic colonization appears to be a well thought-out plan. Because the colonizers anticipated that once the natives could be forced to concentrate their farming mainly on products like palm oil and kernel, they had to be fully dependent on the market demand to sell their products; and the market here was essentially Europe. It can be noticed in the colonial history of this land that the colonizers gradually reduced the buying price of these products and the Africans had no option but to sell their products according to the price set by the colonial masters. Instances of such colonial dominance were very noticeable and prevalent during the British colonial period in Igbo region. The implementation of this colonial approach can be spotted in this novel, too. The initial good price is offered to encourage the Igbo to produce only those products, which the White man would buy and import to England. But these new trading activities affect the economic structure of the self-contained Umuofian clan (Achebe, Things Fall Apart ch. 21). Moreover, when European traders refused to pay several tolls and duties that they used to pay earlier to the local African chiefs for their protection, the situation turned out to be quite strained between these two communities. It eventually led to widespread looting and attacks on many European trading vessels and posts. Bloodshed and violation became very common during this period, which is often described as “gunboat diplomacy” (Ohadike xli). The frequency of violence gave the British government the reason to send military assistance to their traders along the Niger River. Captain Burr, who was authorized by the British war office, bombarded the town of Onitsha in October, 1879 for two days and his men smashed almost every object of this region with sophisticated war machineries. The warriors of Onitsha had no option but to crumble, as they were no match to this better armed British force (Ohadike xli). Such military invasions became very common during the colonial period and British army destroyed several towns along the Niger River. They justified these actions by terming them defensive measures to protect the lives and possessions of their traders and Christian missionaries in this region. This was how the British government and traders started controlling all strata of native social settings in these

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Chapter-2 Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period

towns. It was the precedent of the start of indirect colonization of the Igbo people - their society, economy, religion and their authority on their own people. Chapter 15 of Things Fall Apart refers to the first physical encounter between the Igbo and British. This encounter between the Igbo society and White people has not turned out to be very pleasant and there are reasons for it. Okonkwo, the main character of this novel, goes to his mother’s village to serve his seven years of exile after accidentally killing a fellow clansman. Obierika, Okonkwo’s good friend and a sympathizer, pays a visit to Okonkwo in his mother’s village one year after Okonkwo has left his native village. He comes here to give Okonkwo his profit from the sale of his yams. Obierika also informs him that an entire village by the name of Abane has been wiped away as a result of a deadly encounter with the colonizers. On one fine day people of Abane see a White man approaching their village, riding on an iron horse, which is basically an African reference to a bicycle. The Oracle of this village suggests that this White man can be dangerous and shall ultimately destroy the whole clan. They eventually kill the White man after consulting the Oracle. However, the Oracle has not asked them to kill him. It merely warns them about the danger that the White man may create. Later, White people come in large number and kill almost everyone in this village by shooting them on a busy market day. Uchendu, Okonkwo’s uncle in Mbanta village, points out that the killing of an unknown man is an act of foolishness. Okonkwo reiterates his uncle’s views in this regard. Now Obierika fears that other villages of Umuofia are going to face the same fate sooner or later (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 100). The fierce move by the colonizers in reprisal of the killing of their own fellow man in Abane cannot be justified, as they essentially exterminate the entire village for the killing of one man. Achebe here very noticeably tries to expose the domineering and cruel traits of the White people who do not perceive the native Igbo people at individual levels. The colonizers are effectually “ruthless and efficient” (Jha 18). These European colonizers consider these people as a uniformed mass and that is why they kill the mass as a whole instead of punishing those few individuals who killed the White man. This incident marks the beginning of a strained relationship between the White people and natives.

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Chapter-2 Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period

There is another instance from Chapter 24 in Things fall Apart. Okonkwo, with other five clansmen, is released from the prison once the fine has been paid. But he could not bear the insult he had received in the prison. He decides to continue resistance to save his ancestral religion and society from the gradual intrusion of colonial force in every strata of Igbo society. He is even ready to wage war against the White men alone if his village people settle for a peaceful solution for the insult of imprisoning six village elites by the colonizers (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 141). After killing the court messenger, as narrated in chapter 24, Okonkwo realizes that his esteemed and cherished Umuofia village is on the verge of surrendering its cultural and religious identity to the colonial force. Things have started falling apart for Igbo society in general and for Okonkwo in particular. His realization forces him to take the extreme decision of committing suicide. He could not bear the sight of the Umuofia, surrendering its values, ethics, customs and courageousness to the colonial outsiders (Achebe, Things Fall Apart ch. 25). “The following day, when men arrive to arrest him, they find he has preferred the shameful course of hanging himself, rather than submit to the White man’s justice” (Walder 14). Gikandi analyzes how colonial intrusion in Okonkwo’s life and society expedites his (Okonkwo) tragic fall as well as that of his very dear Igbo society. Indeed, there is a close relationship in the novel between Okonkwo’s individual crisis - of authority and power – and the crisis of his community, which increasingly finds it defining characters (including notions of wealth, marriage worship, language and history) undermined and transplanted by the new colonial order. (x) Okonkwo does not fail only because of his personal flaws as an individual, but the catastrophic fall of his character is somehow preordained, as the colonial domination in his society has dislocated the native ethics and customs that sustained him. Examples of conflicts between the Westerners and Africans are found in Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease, too. Conflicts and repeated clashes between these two communities seemed to be inexorable. Such conflicts were not only restricted between the natives and the colonizers. These eventually affected the unity within the Igbo social settings. “It is evident from Achebe's fiction that the encounter with the aggressive and

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Chapter-2 Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period

technologically advanced west in the form of colonial authority forms the corpus of his fiction generating intense conflicts within African societies” (Pallavi 118).

Missionary Invasion and Religious Colonization The missionary factor further paved the way for formal colonization by conquering Igbo land later on. Christian missionaries came in larger number and ventured further inside the mainland of Igbo region, unlike the British traders who limited their business activities along the bank of river Niger. More than the objective of spreading enlightenment among this pagan native people, the missionaries immensely helped in indoctrinating the imperial ambition and domination of the British over the Igbo people. The agents of Church Missionary Society (CMS) first arrived at the town of Onitsha in 1857 and later established their missionary posts in several Igbo towns like Alenso and Asaba (Ohadike xli). Two different Roman Catholic Societies namely, The Holy Ghost Fathers and the priests of The Société des Mission Africains (SMA) later joined the CMS in Onitsha and Asaba areas (Ohadike xliii). As can be seen in Chapter 16 of Things Fall Apart, the Christian missionaries have been slowly able to convert a handful of natives to Christianity. They have started this religious colonization very cautiously. They initially approach those Igbo people who are not very successful in their society. Such people are convinced easily, because they are told that they will be given equal positions like all other Christians. In local language, these people are termed as efulefu, which means worthless and empty men (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 101). Missionaries promise to fill the emptiness of their social status if they are converted into Christianity. Missionaries use the Christian hymns to touch the “silent and dusty chords in the heart of an Igbo man” (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 103). Some other people are also influenced by the advent of Christianity in this region for varied reasons. Here is another reference from Chapter 17 of this novel. The local people’s beliefs in the power of their local gods and ancestral spirits is heavily shaken when even after a gap of seven weeks nothing happens to the Christian missionaries and the converts who enter the nearby cursed forest according to native beliefs and start living there. They expect all missionaries to die in a span of four days once they enter this deadly forest, which they believe is

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inhabited by evil spirits and sinister forces. But nothing of that sort happens which puzzles the village people immensely. Missionaries’ survival in the evil forest after building a church there, noticeably influences the locals to believe in the power of this new religion. The first three converts from this village are the outcomes of this influence. The number of converts starts increasing as the faith in local religion has begun weakening significantly. The mother whose twin children have always been thrown in the forest to die converts into Christianity, as she considers this new religion a savior of her twins (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 107). People like her, outcastes of the native society and those without titles are the early converts who have been suffering from time immemorial because of native social customs and practices. These people are not happy with prejudiced practices in the Igbo society, and find solace and acceptance in this new religion, which says all men are equal. The best example of this is the eldest son of Okonkwo named Nwoye in Things Fall Apart and Isaac Okonkwo in No Longer at Ease. He could neither accept the killing of Ikemefuna by his father to exalt local practices, nor could he accept the custom of leaving twins in the forest to die (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 104). Nwoye becomes a convert and later leaves his family as he considers Christianity a more rational and generous religion. The religious flaws of the Igbo society initially helped Christianity make a great appeal to the downtrodden section of Igbo. It is worth mentioning Jha’s observation here to support this argument that Achebe “…makes the reader aware of the sad and cruel fact of how exactly the political and religious supremacy of the Whites became more firmly established mainly because of the divisions and dissentions among the local people themselves” (24). Missionaries did not only exploit the local religion and practices, but they also had a graver impact on social customs and traditions of these natives. Primarily, Christian missionaries tried all sorts of things to convert the Igbo people into the new religion. But most of the natives turned a blind eye towards these religious encroachments in the beginning. These missionaries initiated religious colonization by preaching how Christianity considers all people as sons of God who is the Creator of the universe and all men and women in it. They tried to influence the

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Chapter-2 Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period

local people by pointing out how heathen people like them would suffer in hell after death. These missionaries portrayed themselves as the messengers of Christianity, sent by God to protect the natives from the fire of hell. It can be noticed here how these missionaries constantly tried to show their superiority of religion and culture over that of the Igbo people. It was a calculatedly thought-out plan to criticize the local practices to create doubts in the minds of the Igbo people. Such doubts in Igbo mindset further helped missionaries colonize the Igbo land religiously and culturally. The missionaries also promise to provide bicycles to the converts as a form of bribery to convert them (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 102). This shows the deliberation of the missionaries to colonize this land by any means. The use of religion for colonization was initiated by attacking the religious institutions of the colonized nation or region and finding fault with them. Christianity was subsequently presented as a superior faith in contrast to native religious practices. Here is a reference from Things Fall Apart for such observation. The church in Mbanta gradually becomes stronger (Achebe, Things Fall Apart Ch. 18), though the local people think that the church and their people are a separate entity. Initially, they seldom interfere with the life of village people. But slowly the missionaries try to influence these village people by confronting some of the native religious beliefs and practices. They try to prove that the local gods do not exist, or lack enough power. They even try to burn the shrines of these gods (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 110). Christian missionaries and their native followers intentionally attack the venerable religious beliefs of Igbo society, as majority of them do not appear to be tolerant to other’s faith. This religious stubbornness is one of the tools of the colonizers to morally and psychologically enslave the clueless people of Igbo. Their native traditions are declared invalid and their beliefs outdated. This notably instigates hatred between the missionaries and local people. Some of the converts are also beaten in the village while trying to burn the shrines of the local gods (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 110). The vicious conflict between the local Igbo people and the Christian missionaries was an aftermath of missionary invasion further inland the Niger River and runs as one of the major motifs at the backdrop of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God.

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In Arrow of God, the missionaries step in to manipulate the situation, created after the chief priest Ezeulu’s refusal to announce the day of yam festival. Subsequently these missionaries take all advantages of a situation in the Igbo society that has already worsened. The missionaries encourage the Igbo to refuse Ezeulu’s verdict on harvesting new yam and come to the god of Christians with their offerings, so that they could start harvesting the new yam. So the news spread that anyone who did not want to wait and see all his harvest ruined could take his offering to the god of the Christians who claimed to have power to protect such a person from the anger of Ulu. Such a story at other times might have been treated with laughter. But there was no more laughter left in the people. (Achebe, Arrow of God 218) Ezeulu's egotism has triggered destruction, not only of himself and his community but also of the native religious and social uniqueness. In addition to the primary colonial motif of exporting wealth and resources from the colonies, the colonizers including the missionaries came to this land with the secondary objective of demolishing the existing Igbo customs and religious beliefs, and converting them to Christianity and all these three novels are testimonies of this colonial hunger. The Igbo people did not directly go into clashes with the agents of Christian missionaries at the early stage of colonization, as the Igbo culture taught them to respect the spiritual views of other communities. “The Igbo usually listened patiently to the Christians and expected the missionaries to pay equal attention to their own viewpoints” (Ohadike xliii). Achebe narrates such instance in Chapter 21 of Things Fall Apart. The mutual respect for each other’s culture and religion is not all lost between the natives and the European settlers. The healthy interaction between ‘Akunna’, the elite village man and Mr Brown, the first White missionary in Umuofia is worth mentioning here from this chapter. Mr Brown calls on Akunna in his obi frequently and they peacefully discuss various aspects of both religions and cultures. Though, they repeatedly point out how one’s religion is more logical than the others, but they do not force each other to change their faiths. “Neither of them succeeded in converting the other but they learnt more about their different beliefs” (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 126). Such mutual respect for each other should have been the

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collective practice. It could have helped both the outsiders and the natives of this place to survive and live peacefully as neighbors. Achebe depicts Christianity as counter-productive in his novels, which acts as a dividing power in native society. But it is observed that the novelist does not precisely illustrate the conflict between conventional cultural norms and modernity. For example, Isaac Okonkwo in No Longer at Ease converts to Christianity for individual causes. His conversion is prompted because of his disillusionment with his father Okonkwo’s (Achebe, Things Fall Apart) cultural practices, as it led to the killing of his adopted brother Ikemefuna. According to Achebe’s logic, Isaac in No Longer at Ease, after converting to Christianity, comes in direct confrontation with his fellow non-Christian community people who Achebe describes as heathens. He is subsequently considered a blinded new convert who is mystified with the White man’s religion by his fellow Igbo. The novelist blames Christianity for the abolition of the shared and harmonious lifestyle that has traditionally kept the natives in strong kinship. It can be assumed from the novel that before the advent of Christianity it was a normal practice for an Igbo to feed any child of the village as his own. However, after coming of the Christianity in this region when, “a neighbor [offered] a piece of yam to Obi...He shook his head like his older and wiser sisters, and then said: ‘we don’t eat heathen food” (Achebe, No Longer at Ease 46-47). There is no hesitation to accept the fact that Christianity dramatically transformed Igbo social structure, but Achebe’s interpretation of this transformation of native society is a bit too presumptuous. In the colonial conflict many elements including religion were adopted and reinvented by the people who take them on. Although imported from the colonizing country, Christianity cannot be simply termed as an encroaching malice that led people to fight against each other. As discusses on numerous occasions in this thesis, religion has not been the only reason for the destruction of the colonized people and their cultures. It would be sensible to present here Pratten’s criticism on religious invasion. He points out that social turmoil and communication gap between the elder generation and the Nigerian youth initiated the conversion ordeal in colonial Nigeria. Pre- colonial native community structure comprised of "societies" in which individuals were inducted into distinct societies at certain phases of their lives. The society of

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elders formed a group that exercised legal and exclusive power in village governance. However, the younger generation along with the relegated people in each society, for example the mothers of twins, denied to be a part this social structure and chose the available substitute of Christianity. “Colonialism and Christianity had created a rift between youth and elders and between varied bases of political authority” (Pratten 93). Christianity offered an alternative model to the natives who were not contented anymore with the old traditions and cultural norms.

Native weaknesses and Cultural Othering The weaknesses in their own culture and society, for example, their firm belief in the existence of supernatural powers in Igbo society and religion also made it easy for missionaries to convince the oppressed natives and spread Christianity in this region. Igbo community had its own spiritual crises and flaws much before the encroachment of the colonialists. The invaders only made use of such native crisis and flaws in imposing its customs and beliefs upon the colonized community. The killing of Ikemefuna (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 43) shows that Achebe does not glamorize the African past blindly and he questions its moral complexities and dualities from time to time in his writings. Gikandi believes that Achebe defines the Igbo culture and social practices by “ambivalence” and not as an “unquestioned authority” (xii). Achebe frequently presents limitations of Igbo society and his narrative is a conscious effort to tell readers that all was not well with the indigenous tradition of Igbo land. Achebe in his essay “Role of the Writer in a New Nation” acknowledges, “We cannot pretend that our past was one long, technicolour idyll. We have to admit that like other people's past ours had its good as well as its bad sides” (qtd. in Vempala 35). Anthony Daniels in an article in Spector points out that Achebe does not shy away from narrating the follies of Igbo society in his novels, too. “In spare prose of great elegance, without any technical distractions, he has been able to illuminate two emotionally irreconcilable facets of modern African life: the humiliations visited on Africans by colonialism, and the utter moral worthlessness of what replaced colonial rule” (31). Achebe neither idealizes the Igbo-life of the pre-colonial past, nor does he portray the contemporary colonial era as nasty and disappointing.

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No Longer at Ease narrates the cultural ‘othering’ of native people caused by the colonial invasion in Nigeria. The natives in Achebe’s tale are confronted by colonial way of life and they are somehow conscious of their position as objectified others in the eyes of colonial masters. Thus the people of Nigeria find themselves in an uneven association with the English hegemony that intimidates their cultural individuality. Once the British administration is in charge, it becomes excruciatingly evident that “greatness has changed its tune. Titles are no longer great, neither are barns or large numbers of wives and children. Greatness is now in the things of the White man. And so we too have changed our tune” (Achebe, No Longer at Ease 43). Achebe distinguishes two distinct worlds present in the colonial Africa- the White man’s world and that of the native. Through his novels Achebe tries to put forward his firm belief that the Igbo native has to navigate between these two worlds in order to stay relevant in his own society unlike the British who function from the superior hegemonic position. The novel No Longer at Ease is essentially about how Nigerians navigate the colonial space while concurrently being aware of their new identity as colonial cultural others in Western eyes. The main premise of Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease revolves around the numerous concerns of individual and cultural identity that ethnic people must contend with under European rule to survive in the colonial turmoil. Africa’s best-known novelist scrutinizes the colonial confrontation from the native African perspective. How has Obi’s allegiance to his European education helped him or put him in turmoil at the crossroads of native and European cultural encounter? Does a native African, in spite of social advancement, have any genuine support in a colonial backdrop? Through the protagonist Obi Okonkwo, a European educated African with strong connections to Igbo village life, the Nigerian mêlée to reconcile the Western and native world is presented. And through Obi’s encounter with the African colonial setting after his return from England, one can unearth the idea of self in relation to Igbo society as a community. In fact, his European education has triggered Obi to consider his own community people backward. He falsely maintains that corruption is an intrinsic part in the native culture and the old ignorant Igbos do not consider such practices immoral. He believes, “To him (the uneducated) the bribe is natural” (Achebe, No

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Longer at Ease 16). His views imply his adopted English predisposition to reject his fellow Black people based on constricted suppositions. In Obi Okonkwo, Achebe identifies Frantz Fanon’s petty bourgeois native middle class (Fanon 150-153) who, abhorring the native culture, tries to control over the rest of what he recognizes as the intellectually reduced populace. But later Obi realizes that he is still an outsider in the White Christian society, although he is a European educated Christian. That has been the plight of these newly created hybrid native people. According to Abukar, Achebe juxtaposes Obi with the Eurocentric invention of the uneducated, backward African. The protagonist sees his education abroad as the saving grace that spares him from the disgraceful state of bribery and corruption. Obi’s concept of the Old African is the same literary trope that Conrad and Cary, amongst countless English authors, have used to other Africans as savages. (10) Achebe vows to confront this representation of the Africans as ‘savages’ in the writings of Western authors by using the narrative and language of colonial powers.

Some Progressive Aspects of Colonization Initially everything was not so dark and gloomy between the colonizers and the colonized when the British first entered to the African continent. The fiery encounters between these two entirely different sets of communities did not start from the day one. Numerous examples can be found in these three novels, which show that in the early phase of colonial invasion there are curiosities in both these peoples and exchange of ideas take place to understand each other better. In Arrow of God Ezeulu sends his son to the missionaries to understand and know more about this foreign religion and language. Ezeulu comes into conflict with his people for his role in leading his son to the Christian missionaries in the region. He is no doubt fascinated by the power of the White man; especially when the latter uses firearms to quash the civil war between Okperi and Ezeulu’s village Umuaro. He sends his son to these missionaries to find out if there is something worthwhile in the White man's religion and lifestyle that can be assimilated in local society. He tells his son “It was I who sent you to join those people because of my friendship to the White man, Wintabota. He asked me to send one of my children to learn the ways of his people and I agreed

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Chapter-2 Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period to send you” (Achebe, Arrow of God 13). Achebe gives another instance in Chapter 4 of the positive approach that Ezeulu has initially shown towards the colonial invasion to learn from the wisdom and culture of foreign societies. The place where the Christians built their place of worship was not far from Ezeulu’s compound. As he sat in his obi thinking of the Festival of the Pumpkin Leaves, he heard their bell: GOME, GOME, GOME, GOME, GOME. His mind turned from the festival to the new religion. He was not sure what to make of it. At first he had thought that since the white man had come with great power and conquest it was necessary that some people should learn the ways of his own deity. That was why he had agreed to send his son, Oduche, to learn the new ritual. He also wanted him to learn the white man’s wisdom, for Ezeulu knew from what he saw of Wintabota and the stories he heard about his people that the white man was very wise. (Achebe, Arrow of God 43) But now, after observing the increasingly demeaning attitude of his missionary going son to the native culture and religion, Ezeulu cannot stay that positive about the colonial religion and its people anymore as he used to be in the beginning. “But now Ezeulu was becoming afraid that the new religion was like a leper. Allow him a handshake and he wants an embrace. Ezeulu had already spoken strongly to his son who was becoming more strange every day” (Achebe, Arrow of God 43). It is because of the peaceful exchange of ideas that helps Mr Brown believe that violence could not be the means to settle down in this region and he comes to “…the conclusion that a frontal attack on it would not succeed” (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 128). He tries to influence the natives by means of education and to bring them closure to colonial establishment. He believes that “…leaders of the land in the future would be men and women who had learnt to read and write” (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 128). According to some apologist of colonization this progressive approach to colonization in terms of providing quality education becomes successful in Umuofia, as number of students in the Christian schools starts increasing with passing time. But were such developmental works meant merely to help the local people progress? Or were there some hidden agendas of the colonial institutions under the pretense of such progressive works? Many critics are of the opinion that English schools were set up in

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Chapter-2 Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period this region primarily to prepare a section of native people who can help the colonizers administer this colony efficiently. Rodney illustrates this motif of the colonizers in the following lines: The main purpose of colonial school system was to train Africans to participate in the domination and exploitation of the continent as a whole…Colonial education was education for subordination, exploitation, the creation of mental confusion and the development of underdevelopment.” (263) Other critics also support and reiterate Rodney’s observation: European powers did not establish colonial states to carry out a programme of political development or changes but to erect efficient and effective administrative states for purposes of economic exploitation and every machinery was put in motion in ensuring that they realize their aim. In realizing their aim, Africa was on the receiving end. (Nwanosike and Liverpool 626)

Religious Intolerance The violent zeal to prove one’s supremacy over the other suppresses the initial peaceful cultural interaction that is discussed earlier between Akunna and Mr Brown of Things Fall Apart. Mr Brown’s successor appears to prefer cultural dominance instead of mutual cultural respect (Achebe, Things Fall Apart ch. 22). The result is a violent colonial clash between these two communities as witnessed in last few chapters of this novel. James smith, the successor of Mr Brown, is not a man who respects other’s religion and culture. For him Igbo religion and customs represent darkness, and the Christians being the children of light must put an end to such religions and customs. His approach is violent in comparison to Mr Brown’s non- violent way of dealing with the natives and their faith. Mr Smith’s ideology inspires the overzealous converts to a great deal and they resort to violent conflicts with the local clan. It is the result of Mr Smith’s stubborn guideline that instigates Enoch, a fanatical convert, to infuriate the whole Umuofian clan against the Christian community there. Enoch unmasks an Egwugwu, the masked ancestral spirit of Umuofia. This action is considered to be the greatest crime, a man could commit in

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Chapter-2 Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period the Igbo land (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 130). Enoch is not an outsider but a native who is converted into Christianity recently. He stands in direct confrontation with clan which was once his own. Enoch’s zealotry is in fact a product of the religious fanaticism that the new converts have imbibed from Mr. Smith. It is the effect of this religious domination by the colonizers that spread wrath and violence among the new converts and traditional Igbo people, as very frequently seen in Things Fall Apart. In Arrow of God, John Goodcountry, the native missionary who speaks the language of colonizers as if it is his mother tongue, motivates the new Igbo Christian converts to fight the so-called bad customs and practices present in the Igbo society, destroy the shrines of local religion and kill the sacred animals which are revered in Igbo land. It visibly means that these new converts are coached by the colonial setups to fight with their own people who were once their family before the colonial advancement in their land. “If we are Christians, we must be ready to die for the faith,” he said. “You must be ready to kill the python as the people of the rivers killed the iguana. You address the python as Father. It is nothing but a snake, the snake that deceived our first mother, Eve. If you are afraid to kill it do not count yourself a Christian” (Achebe, Arrow of God 48). Such conflicts are created more to meet the broader colonial objectives of ruling the land peacefully and extracting wealth from here than to spread the light of Christianity and educate these native people.

Resistance by Ostracizing The rise in number of converts and increasing power of Christian establishment in the Igbo region intensify the conflict between the two communities from bad to worse. For example, in Chapter 18, one of the new converts kills the royal python, the most revered animal in Mbanta (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 112). The native religious beliefs forbid the killing of Royal pythons. The new converts are also responsible to a significant extent for the increase in intolerance between these two communities. The new converts often mock at the local gods or try to violate some sacred traditions of the clan (Achebe, Things Fall Apart ch. 18). Such incidents only help in mounting tension between the Christians and the people of Mbanta, and thus

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upsetting the precarious balance between the church and the clan. This incident has almost incited these two communities to go into war, but finally they decide to ostracize the Christian people from their society. This is an example of religious, social and non-violent forms of resistance by the Igbo from the people of the new faith. As a result of this banishment, the village people do not allow any Christians to come inside their clan. They are also asked not to use the village resources like, water, red earth, market place, to name a few. This sort of resistance from the Western culture and religion gradually becomes quite direct and is patronized by the village elders. In this same chapter the elders of Mbanta village warn young generation to stay away from this religion, as they believe that Christianity is an “abominable religion” (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 118).

Different Layers of Conflicts and Hostility against Each Other The social and cultural struggle has not been purely confined to the White men and native Igbo people in this novel. Colonizers and their practices further foster people to turn into enemies against their own people. Although the European colonizers had to suffer because of the violence and bloodshed, they were only few in numbers. But the majority of victims were the natives –be it new converts or the traditional Igbo. The violent event of Enoch’s unmasking of the egwugwu (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 130) and the subsequent destruction of his house and the community church by local people are the results of lack of respect for each other’s beliefs and customs. The shift from initial non-violent colonial encounter to the consequent vicious clashes between the colonizers and the colonized is reiterated in Walder’s word: When Okonkwo returns, he finds that a court, mission-school and hospital have been established by a missionary who accepts that a head-on clash with Igbo ways will be fruitless. His mission is to convert people into Christianity by helping them with facilities like schools and hospitals. But this man is replaced by a narrow-minded type, who allows one of his more enthusiastic converts to commit the unpardonable crime of unmasking an egwugwu during a traditional ceremony, with inevitably explosive results: the mission-church is

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burnt down, several leading citizens, including Okonkwo are detained, and the community fined heavily. (13). The struggle, in terms of cultural and religious survival, is rather between those indigenous Igbo people who are keeping the native religion and practices alive, and the new Igbo Christians, from their own Igbo society. The new converts are given power by the White colonizers to dominate other native Igbo people who were once their family and friends. The Igbo people have to save their cultural identity more from the local new converts than from the very few colonial outsiders. The colonial rulers implemented the ‘divide and conquer’ policy whenever required to colonize the African people. This Igbo land is not an exception. In Arrow of God the pride of the people of Umuaro is severely damage by the fact that the colonial administration forces them to work without getting paid, while the people of the adjacent region, Okperi (their foe) are compensated. This act arises many questions among the men of Umuaro. Following is the illustration of this incident. …This white man thinks we are foolish; so we shall ask him one question. This was the question I had wanted to ask him this morning but he would not listen. We have a saying that a man may refuse to do what is asked of him but he may not refuse to be asked, but it seems the white man does not have that kind of saying where he comes from. Anyhow the question which we shall beg Unachukwu to ask him is why we are not paid for working on his road. I have heard that throughout Olu and Igbo, wherever people do this kind of work the white man pays them. Why should our own be different?" … ‘The message is not complete,’ said Nwoye Udora. ‘It is not enough to ask him why we are not paid. He knows why and we know why. He knows that in Okperi those who do this kind of work are paid. Therefore the question you should ask him is this: Others are paid for this work; why are we not paid? Or is our own different? It is important to ask whether our own is different." This was agreed and the meeting broke up. ‘Your words were very good,’ someone said to Nwoye Udora as they left the market place. ‘Perhaps the white man will tell us whether we killed his father or his mother.’ (Achebe, Arrow of God 87-88)

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The men of Umuaro do not understand why they are not paid for their work for road construction while men from their rival village Okperi got payments for the same work. But, as can be seen in the final question of the above passage, they also wonder if the colonizing force is doing it as an act of vengeance. But some veiled colonial motives behind such acts by the colonizers cannot be overruled, which were to divide natives and rule their land. Besides, these sorts of incidents could only instigate hatred and retribution among the men of these two villages, namely, Umuaro and Okperi, who do not enjoy good relation anymore. This kind of instability among native peoples only helped the colonial objectives of ruling the native masses with more ease and the colonial rulers understood this aspect very well during the era of colonization. Such instances can also be found in the fictions of Raja Rao, which are dealt in detail in other chapters of this thesis. The violent clash between two native villages Umuaro and Okperi has been prompted because of the invasion and interference of colonial administration and Christian missionaries with local Igbo socio-cultural settings. Achebe narrates the episode and indicates the role of British government and missionaries: Those guns have a long and interesting history. The people of Okperi and their neighbours, Umuaro, are great enemies. Or they were before I came into the story. A big savage war had broken out between them over a piece of land. This feud was made worse by the fact that Okperi welcomed missionaries and government while Umuaro, on the other hand, has remained backward. (Achebe, Arrow of God 37-38) The introduction of Christianity also worked as an element to divide the unity of the Igbo, so that the colonizers could rule and conquer without much difficulty. The novel Arrow of God emphasizes more on Ezeulu’s personal sufferings and inner conflicts than various sorts of conflict prevalent in and around his native society after the advent of colonial administrators. Ezeulu is the chief priest of the most powerful god called Ulu of Umuaro village and, therefore, he enjoys a special prominence in his society. It is not easy to study him in depth by separating him from his cultural and social identity, as he embodies African Igbo nativity exclusively and is a true ambassador of it. Ezeulu represents his Igbo culture and it cannot be annulled that he genuinely suffers because of the struggle between him and his opponents in his

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community. This novel details the clash between Ezeulu's spiritual power and the materialistic powers of some of his rivals from his society who do not want Ezeulu to enjoy religious authority. Even the colonial setup of this region experiences a different kind of conflict. The frustration of the colonial administrator of this region Mr. Winterbotom with the higher colonial administration finds frequent mentions in this novel. One of them is worth noting here. Captain T.K. Winterbottom stared at the memorandum before him with irritation and a certain amount of contempt. It came from the Lieutenant- Governor through the Resident through the Senior District Officer to him, the last two adding each his own comment before passing the buck down the line. Captain Winterbottom was particularly angry at the tone of the Senior District Officer's minute. It as virtually a reprimand for what he was pleased to describe as Winterbottom's stonewalling on the issue of the appointment of Paramount Chiefs. Perhaps if this minute had been written by any other person Captain Winterbottom would not have minded so much; but Watkinson had been his junior by three years and had been promoted over him. ‘Any fool can be promoted,’ Winterbottom always told himself and his assistant, ‘provided he does nothing but try. Those of us who have a job to do have no time to try.’ (Achebe, Arrow of God 56) The colonial pride that Winterbottom enjoys is offended as he was neglected by his administration for promotion and another White man who used to work under him has got the promotion. He used to enjoy the superior position in the office over this White man who now reprimands him as his superior. Such conflicts between colonial representatives who work in native regions and those who work inside the comfort of office rooms are not very rarely depicted. Winterbottom further criticizes his higher authorities as can be seen in the following lines. “The great tragedy of British colonial administration was that the man on the spot who knew his African and knew what he was talking about, found himself being constantly overruled by starred-eyed fellows at headquarters” (Achebe, Arrow of God 58). But, as mentioned previously, this novel does not chiefly focus on inter-clan or colonial conflict; rather it is more about Ezeulu’s struggle with himself- the inner

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Chapter-2 Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period religious tussle within himself. And all the external forces that affect his life are actually the objectifications of what is going on inside him. With such an opulent and multifaceted story, it is easy for the Western readers to get mystified with the forest of cultural padding and thus oversight the theme of the narrative. It cannot be refuted that there appears to be a predominant presence of village settings, but such settings are cleverly used to express and portray the characteristic traits of the principal figure of the Arrow of God.

Colonization of the Native Judicial System It was not merely confined to religious or cultural colonization anymore. After establishing their colonies in these regions, the agents of British imperial government aimed at replacing the indigenous institutions with new legal structures that would suit their way of governance. They controlled the local police and also replaced the traditional judiciary systems with that of their own. Such changes contradicted the existing native norms radically and the Igbo could not immediately adjust themselves with the new social systems. The colonial force had slowly started controlling other facets of the Igbo society and Things Fall Apart presents glimpses of this relatively new endeavor of the colonizers. They have started what can be termed as judicial colonization in Umuofia and eventually hang an Igbo man for killing a missionary (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 110). They essentially consider Igbo society as primitive and evil. And they term their mission as an encounter between “light and darkness” (Ohadike xliii). In Chapter 3 of Arrow of God there is a reference to British Judicial practice in this land when two native villages were fighting over the ownership of a piece of land. Captain Winterbottom narrates: I went into the question of the ownership of the piece of land which was the remote cause of all the unrest and found without any shade of doubt that it belonged to Okperi. I should mention that every witness who testified before me—from both sides without exception—perjured themselves” (Achebe, Arrow of God 38-39). Here Winterbottom, as a representative of colonial administration, essentially delivers a prejudiced judgment in favour of Okperi village, because it has welcomed the

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colonial force and the missionaries in its land while the people of Umuaro village have not done the same yet. Although the colonial rulers brought their British judicial system to Nigeria, they misused their so-called nondiscriminatory European judiciary to suit the requirements and benefits of colonial objectives. Achebe cites such references of colonial judiciary systems in his colonial fictions. Chapter 20 of Things Fall Apart further illustrates this aspect vividly. Many things have changed in Umuofia during Okonkwo’s years in exile. It is not the same clan anymore. The advent of colonial force is not any longer limited to Christian missionaries. The colonial force has begun going deep into the social settings of Umuofian people. There are many recently converted Christians in Umuofia now. The colonial force imposes social dominance over the heathen Igbo people with the help of these new converts. In addition to building the church and converting natives, the White men bring English governance in this region by establishing a court to judge natives who confront the Europeans or the new converts. They have built a prison and put people captive there who offend them. Even successful and men of titles from Umuofia are not spared, unlike the usual customs of local Igbo society. These men of titles meet such fates as a consequence of social colonization, imposed by the White men (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 123). Another example of judicial encroachment is narrated when Okonkwo faces colonial judiciary in this region. “Okonkwo’s punishment for manslaughter in Achebe’s novel- would now be tried by strangers” (Ohadike xlvii), instead of being judged by the lineage and village elders, as it used to be before the invasion of British rules. They tried to protest against such decisions, but generally their protests could not bring much outcome, as such protests resulted into vindictive expeditions. As in Arrow of God, Ezeulu’s denial to represent his folks and act as a spokesperson for his people brings him into conflict with the colonial administration. The colonial representative Winterbottom imprisons Ezeulu simply because of his refusal to act as a puppet of colonial government by accepting the role of the paramount chief. There is no doubt in the fact that the British in their motherland had an established system of governance, which was believed to be based on rationalism and not idealism like the Igbo. The District Commissioner in Chapter 23 says, “We have a court of law where we judge cases and administer justice just as it is done in my own

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country under a great queen” (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 137). The traditional practices of judiciary in the Igbo region are presented to be a misfit for the modern society. Moreover, elders who control native judicial system are not always unbiased, as mention by Obi Okonkwo on a few occasions in No Longer at Ease. Sometimes, their own whims and fancies or their own interests motivate their legal decisions. Some of these weaknesses in Igbo judicial system provided colonizers the excuse to replace the local institution of judiciary, which was expected to be welcomed by the oppressive and downtrodden section of the native society. But the colonial judicial system that the British brought in Africa was fundamentally prejudiced and oppressive. It frequently took sides of colonizers when there had been legal cases between the White men and the natives. Chapter 23 of Things Fall Apart describes how the British manipulates colonial justice system in the Igbo land to safeguard the colonial outsiders and their new Igbo followers. In this Chapter of this novel, the District Commissioner makes a false promise of hearing both sides of the story after the destruction of the church. But he ultimately ignores clan leaders’ narration and jails them immediately (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 137). Colonial rulers usually justified such verdicts because they felt that they were doing great service to the humanity by enlightening the Igbo from darkness. This sort of justification is reflected in District Commissioner’s word, “We have brought a peaceful administration to you and your people so that you may be happy” (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 137).

Cultural Conflict and Cultural Hegemony among the Native Society and its People The destruction of church in Umuofia is not the result of a clash between the White men and local people; it is rather sparked by the actions of Enoch, a converted clansman (Achebe, Things Fall Apart ch. 21). This cultural crisis is echoed in Obierika’s voice while talking to Okonkwo. Obierika very subtly preserves the crux of this struggle of saving their culture from their own people in the following line: …our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you think that we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us? The white man is very clever. He came quietly peaceably 49

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with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart. (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 124-125) This sort of social dilemma is again witnessed in Chapter 24 of Things Fall Apart. There are now many new converts from their own clan. Okika, a village elder, rightly admits that they may have to “shed the blood” of their own clansmen (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 144) if the village decides to go to war against the colonizers. This dilemma and conflict inside the Igbo society is a result of the colonial encroachment in the self-sustaining lifestyle of the Igbo. The novel Arrow of God opens with Ezeulu’s fear of slowly losing his eyesight. But he feels that in future “he would have to rely on someone else’s eyes as his grandfather had done when his sight failed” (Achebe, Arrow of God 1). The allusion here suggests that this sightlessness is a hazard to his survival in the society, because if he fails to mark the movement of the moon, his religious authority will be questioned. It may further put his political accountability in danger in his society. The conventional customs and principles have, up till then, altered themselves to the changing situations. This transition has happened because the villages have, as a whole, decided as one voice what to do in order to face the changing situations. Ezeulu’s own greediness comes in direct conflict with his role as the chief priest that he has to execute in his society. It is because of this huge responsibility, given to him by his society, he should not indulge himself in individual benefits and wishes. It is only when Ezeulu decides and follows his own will, he crosses the limits laid there by his own society of which he is an integral part. His insistence to stay as an individualist in a collective social setting sets him apart. This is the fundamental conflict between him and the rest of the society and all other conflicts arise to justify and support this basic inner conflict so that the narrative could run smoothly. At the end of this novel he finds himself chasing his individual will and actions in the world of confusion and insanity, created after the invasion of the Igbo land by the colonizers. Ezeulu’s conflict is multifaceted. On the one hand, he has to fight against the impending European culture and religion. On the other hand, he has to safeguard his

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exclusive position of being the chief priest of the village god Ulu, against reactionary powers within his clan. Nwaka, Ezeulu’s rival and a principal supporter of Ezidemili, the chief priest of the god Idemili who was displaced by Ulu, represents the reactionary powers in his society. This rivalry between Ezeulu and Nwaka promotes internal division in the tribe (Killam 61). His society could not accept what he says at the assembly of the elders regarding the impending war between Umuaro and Okperi village over a piece of land. He fails to get the support of his own people who later side with Nwaka and his outburst of Ezeulu's speech gains the approval of the village people. “Nwaka inevitably becomes the voice of the tribe since the chief priest's words no longer carry any weight” (Mordaunt 159). One must understand that the route of "décollage" of the Igbo society is not only due to entrance of the colonial powers. The early elements of the collapse lie much innate within the native society itself. Ezeulu’s society has witnessed the tiff between Ezeulu's god Ulu and other older deities much before the advent of colonial force in this region. The people of Igbo land discard gods if they fail to earn their right of subsistence within the community. An instance of this Igbo outlook is found in the relationship between Ezeulu and his half-brother. Okeke Onenyi always maintained that the cause for the cold relation between him and the present Ezeulu, his half- brother, was Ezulu’s avoidance of dividing religious control between them. "He forgets," states Okeke Onenyi, "that the knowledge of herbs and anwansi is something inscribed in the lines of a man's palm. He thinks that our father deliberately took it from him and gave it to me. Has he heard me complaining that the priesthood went to him?” (Achebe, Arrow of God 148). Ezeulu cannot take action according to his wish and desire. His role is very controlled within his society. The kinds of action that he can take are specific in range within his social setting. One incident from Arrow of God is worth mentioning here. When Ezeulu refuses to decide the day of the Yam festival, the elder people of his society advices him: ‘No, you are Umuaro,’ said Ezeulu. ‘Yes, we are Umuaro. Therefore listen to what I am going to say. Umuaro is now asking you to go and eat those remaining yams today and name the day of the harvest. Do you hear me well? I said go and eat those yams today, not

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tomorrow; and if Ulu says we have committed an abomination let it be on the heads of the ten of us here.’ (Achebe, Arrow of God 210) It is not as much as the inner dilemma that causes Ezeulu’s ultimate ordeal, it is rather his refusal to accept the voice of the people that brings him to this ordeal. Cook pertinently observes that this the novel "searches into the limits of individual power in a system controlled by tradition," (18). It is Ezeulu’s internal breaking up of mental and psychological limits caused by external forces that forced him to lose control over his household and society alike. The ultimate destruction of the principal character of this novel is brilliantly summarized in the following lines: So in the end only Umuaro and its leaders saw the final outcome. To them the issue was simple. Their god had taken sides with them against his headstrong and ambitious priest and thus upheld the wisdom of their ancestors - that no man however great was greater than his people; that no one ever won judgement against his clan. (Achebe, Arrow of God 232) Ezeulu's egotism has triggered destruction, not only of himself and his people but also of the native religious and social uniqueness. Ezeulu’s absence from the village because of his imprisonment by the colonial administration provides him a chance to get even with his village opponents by not announcing the right day for the harvest of yams. It is through the conflict of the native people with the colonial powers that Ezeulu clashes with his enemies in the society, but that conflict was already present there, even confined, before these occurrences. In his exile away from his society Ezeulu has the time to think of Umuaro as one unreceptive entity. But after coming back to his compound he could no longer comprehend the matter on simple terms. All these people who had left what they were doing or where they were going to say welcome to him could not be called enemies. Some of them—like Anosi—might be people of little consequence, ineffectual, perhaps fond of gossip and sometimes given to malice; but they were different from the enemy he had seen in his dream at Okperi. (Achebe, Arrow of God 188) Ezeulu's strategy to take revenge with the people of Umuaro for their lack of backing in his struggle with the colonial administration does not result from an internal conflict between his spiritual and earthly side. This plan is relatively the simple

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repercussion of his detention and the lack of support by his kinsman that push him to go against the wish of society to announce the day of Yam festival. “After a long period of silent preparation Ezeulu finally revealed that he intended to hit Umuaro at its most vulnerable point - the Feast of the New Yam” (Achebe, Arrow of God 204). Mordaunt’s observation in Ezeulu’s refusal to eat the sacred yam is worth citing here, “The apex of his conflict is reached when he refuses to eat the holy yams, thus bringing his vengeance upon all his people; even the innocent, those who are helpless, have to suffer” (158). The destiny of Ezeulu is a tragic one. Tragic in the sense that he is not allowed to live his life according to his own wishes and desires. The community sets out his life and it is the community who governs the behavior of Ulu. Whether he likes it are not, the god is the creation of his society and power is given to the people of this society to abandon their god again if needs be. Once Ezeulu ignores this, he is doomed to face a tragic end. “Paradoxically," as Palmer fittingly explains, "Ezeulu, who should have been the champion of his people's faith, becomes the agent of destruction” (98).

Colonial Supremacy and Perception of Enlightenment It was not easy for the colonizers to interact and mingle with the native people informally, as it was against the principal colonial objective of the Europeans to rule these people and their society as masters. It was, that is why, against their position and status quo to mingle with the natives even if they wished to. Achebe illustrates the deep and firm sense of supremacy of the colonial outsiders over the African natives through the character of the Captain Winterbottom in Arrow of God. It would be worthy to mention here one of the conversations between Winterbottom and his servant John to prove this aspect of colonial pride: …He let the dust blow into his eyes and for once envied the native children running around naked and singing to the coming rain. ‘What are they saying?’ he asked John, who is now carrying in the deck- chairs. ‘Dem talk say make rain come quick quick.’

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Four other children ran in from the direction of the boys’ quarters to join the rest on Winterbottom’s lawn which was the only space big enough for their play. ‘Are all these your pickin, john?’ There was something like envy in his voice. (Achebe, Arrow of God 31-32) Winterbottom could not help but envy his servant, as his servant can easily enjoy interactions with these native kids, but he cannot do the same as he represents the colonial administration. The colonial administrators did not establish any other forms of relations with the colonized but that of the oppressors and the oppressed. Achebe also portrays the District Commissioner in Things Fall Apart as an agent of colonial beliefs and outlooks towards Black Africans. The Commissioner is planning to write a book on his experience as a messenger of light in African native darkness. The Commissioner thinks that he is sent as a compassionate emissary of the so-called civilized Western world for the ‘primitive’ natives. He takes immense pride in himself as he thinks that he is a pioneer in bringing “civilization to the different parts of Africa” (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 147). The title that he has decided for his book is very colonial in nature- The Pacification of Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 148). His perception of the Igbo as primitive is a reflection of British views in general. Umuofia had a complex system of society, customs, religion, medicine and judiciary, and the native people were contented with such lifestyle. All these fell apart after the advent of British colonial force in this part of the world. Alimi observes that Things Fall Apart is a symbolic narration of “disintegration, breaking into pieces, disorderliness and disruption” (121) of conventional Igbo ethnicity that suffers at the hand of the Western invasion in Umuofia along with its new religion. It is nevertheless incongruous that colonizers’ techniques of ‘pacification’ are usually accomplished through violence and suppression as depicted in this novel. It is in fact the very implementation of such techniques of accomplishing British colonial objectives that appears to be primitive in nature. Colonizers penetrated their colonies and controlled every stratum of native way of life through domination and violence to essentially ease the process of utilization and exportation of the natural and human resources of the colonized populace. Jean Paul Sartre, the French philosopher and

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Chapter-2 Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period writer, in his introduction to The Colonizer and the Colonized fittingly reasons that “Oppression means, first of all the oppressor’s hatred for the oppressed” that generates a “petrified ideology that devotes itself to regarding human beings as talking beasts” (qtd. in Memmi xxxvii). Achebe in Things Fall Apart intends to awaken his people and infuse the “sense of identity with their past and pride in it” (Vempala 44). This novel, according to Vempala, …was also intended to make the rest of the world know about Africa’s rich culture and heritage. The book puts across, in convincing and authentic fictional terms, that the African societies had a great culture of their own… The novel unfolds the systematic process of destruction wrought upon the African societies by the anarchic forces in the native and alien cultures alike. (44)

The New Middle Class, the Identity Crisis of the Native Converts and Concept of Hybridity A new class among the natives emerged who were employed by the colonialists to help enforce their policies on the natives of Africa. In Things Fall Apart, the court messengers are the representatives of this social class (Things Fall Apart 137) and they enjoy a better financial and social status, but often indulge into corruption. The District commissioner announces that the village should pay two hundred bags of cowries as compensation to release the clan leaders from the prison (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 137). But the court messengers add fifty more bags of cowries to the fine that they would keep to themselves. Achebe in one of his essays reiterates the existence of such superior class in colonial Africa from his personal experience. When I was growing up I remember we tended to look down on the others. We were called "the people of the church" or "the association of God." The others we called, with the conceit appropriate to followers of the true religion, the heathen or even "the people of nothing… We lived at the crossroads of cultures. (Achebe, “Named for Victoria” 119) These people were trained by the colonizers to look down upon the fellow native people and their practices, and to romanticize everything that was Western. 55

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In Arrow of God this native middle class are shown as the most powerful among the Igbo who exploit other native people and can go to any extent for their personal benefits. In Chapter 5 of this novel Chief James Ikedi, a representative of colonial administration, teams up with a native road overseer, a representative of newly emerged native middle class, for road construction through Umuaro village. This overseer forcefully starts taking money from the villagers to keep their compounds away from the road construction. He later demolishes the compounds of three villagers who are slow in paying the demanded money (Achebe, Arrow of God 59). The native villagers are helpless in front of this representative of the native middle class. This middle class was fundamentally the creation of the colonial forces to make their administration smooth and stress-free in this native land. Even the Westerner Winterbottom finds it surprising how a man could destroy his fellow countrymen and their houses just because he was not able to extract some illegal money from them. But what excuse could one offer for a man who was their blood brother and chief? Captain Winterbottom could only put it down to cruelty of a kind which Africa alone produced. It was this elemental cruelty in the psychological makeup of the native that the starry-eyed European found so difficult to understand. (Achebe, Arrow of God 59) The British colonizers created a powerful and cruel section among the local Igbo. The people of the new social class believed that they were more privileged than the rest of the people in their society since they worked under the colonial government. “This was what British administration was doing among the Ibos, making a dozen mushroom kings grow where there was none before” (Achebe, Arrow of God 60). The colonial administration tried to apply a different form of governance called Indirect Rule to acquire more control over the natives and their land. The British government wanted to assign paramount chiefs or priests who should act on behalf of the colonial administration. It was a cautious political measure implemented to convince the Africans as well as to beat the linguistic, social and cultural obstacles. So, the responsibility of these pawn priests in each districts were to function as negotiators between the colonial masters and the natives. But such priests were not allowed to implement anything more than the White man’s agenda. Ezeulu has been

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chosen by Winterbottom to be the paramount chief of the colonial administration because Ezeulu has maintained his support for the colonial government during the Okperi-Umuaro land dispute. The colonial administrator is least bothered to investigate whether Ezeulu is the appropriate choice for this job. Even Ezeulu's authority in his society of being the chief priest does not make significant difference to the colonial administration. Clearly, his authority is not of much interest to the British. Their main and only concern is to execute their colonial duties smoothly for colonial benefits. The commonality of the Igbo village people means nothing to them providing the natives do not fight with each other and thus jeopardize the benefits of the colonial establishments in Europe. Marx aptly states “Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make under circumstances chosen by themselves but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past” (qtd. in Fälth 10). One cannot fully shrug off his/her social and religious practices all of a sudden after accepting a new set of customs or faiths. The result is often a person’s implicit mental conflict at an unconscious level. In Things Fall Apart the osu or the outcasts approach the missionaries, so that could be also converted to Christianity. Initially, other local converts could not accept them as their fellow Christians (Achebe, Things Fall Apart 111). Although the early converts have changed their religious faith, but they are yet to completely dismiss their inbuilt Igbo beliefs of considering the outcasts unacceptable in the native society. The cultural residues of their former social identities come here in direct confrontation with their new and apparently open social and religious identities that they are now a part of. The socio-cultural impact of colonization not only influenced the native people and society, but also formed a generation that believed in mimicry and assimilation of Western culture. The shrewd divisive and political strategies used by the colonial powers were the actual causes behind the creation of a ‘hybrid’ generation in this region that ethnically lacked a unifying ideology and attitude, and thus suffered from rootlessness. In Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God Achebe tactfully represents how Christian missionaries use varied means to convert the natives into Christianity in the Igbo land. Was the impact of this invasion only limited to religious conflict among the native people? The answer is no, as this invasion

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disturbed the entire cultural and social balance of the native society to a great extent, too. A hybrid class was created among the new converts who belonged neither to their new Christian identity nor to their indigenous religion and its cultural setup. They represented that unique section of their society, which was native in colour and blood, but Western and Christian in education, philosophy and in attitude to their lifestyle. These converts occasionally denounced some of the cultural practices and conventions of the native society. But at times, even after changing the religious identity and studying the new religion, certain native values, beliefs and rituals, went across from generations to generations and prevailed in their mental framework. When issues regarding such values and beliefs emerged, their native attitude and spirit also rose up. They tussled between their new identity and past residues, and eventually found themselves in no man’s land. After accepting Christianity the natives tried to mimic the Western way of life and their culture. The transition to the new religion was not smooth and a sudden deviation from the indigenous traditions was a natural aftermath. But, as mentioned earlier, some inborn character traits of the new converts lingered on and they could not determine where they belonged to and what they were. This is an extreme example of cultural hybridity, which was an after-effect of the missionary invasion in this native land. The word 'hybrid' as put forward by theorists like Homi Bhabha, refers to the theory of hybridity, which is an important notion in post-colonial theory. Bhabha defines, Hybridity is the sign of the productivity of colonial power, its shifting forces and fixities; it is the name for the strategic reversal of the process of domination through disavowal (that is, the production of discriminatory identities that secure the ‘pure’ and original identity of authority) … It displays the necessary deformation and displacement of all sites of discrimination and domination. It unsettles the mimetic or narcissistic demands of colonial power but reimplicates its identifications in strategies of subversion that turn the gaze of the discriminated back upon the eye of power. For the colonial hybrid is the articulation of the ambivalent space where the rite of power is enacted on the site of desire, making its objects at once

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disciplinary and disseminatory —or, in my mixed metaphor, a negative transparency. (159-160) It refers to the assimilation (or, intermingling) of the colonizing masters and the colonized subjects in terms of cultural practices and signs. The assimilation and integration of cultural practices, the synthesis of cultures, can be perceived as positive, inspiring, and dynamic, but it can also be oppressive. Achebe presents several instances in the novel Arrow of God of such hybridized behaviour of the new converts when they could not help but defend native rituals. One such example is Moses Unachukwu, the respected native member of the Umuaro church. He debates and eventually announces revolt against the White missionary Mr.Goodcountry. He counters the catechist’s proposition that the native Christians should strike down the royal python, which is revered immensely in the Igbo religion and among its people. He asks Mr. Goodcountry not to interfere with the locally revered royal python, as its significance in the native religion still exists in his mental make-up. Ezeulu asks his church going son Oduche to acquire the acumen of the White men. He sees a White man writing with his left hand in the White man’s office. “The first thought that came to Ezeulu on seeing him was to wonder whether any black man could ever achieve the same mastery over book as to write it with the left hand” (Achebe, Arrow of God 174). He asks his son to learn how to write using the left hand. Generally in colonial Africa those natives who worked for the White men and came closer to them tried to mimic their Western conducts and by doing so, considered themselves privileged than the other fellow natives. In No Longer at Ease the hero Obi Okonkwo, the grandson of the protagonist Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart, is a perfect example of this hybridity. Like Achebe, Obi dwells on the crossroads of Western and indigenous cultures and finds it quite difficult to accomplish a cultural identity of his own. When he comes back from England after completing his education, his father Isaac Okonkwo enquires if he managed to read Bible during his stay in England. Obi did not read it but he lies to his father and tells him that he read it occasionally. It is interesting to see how such foreign educated natives, like Obi in this case, change their standpoints when any issues or incidents regarding their personal lives turns up.

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The hero Obi enjoys a passionate love affair with Clara (Achebe, No Longer at Ease). Although he does not believe in god, he represents the native Christians who are products of Western education system. Since his parents are also Christians and ardently follow Christian practices, he is very confident that they will accept his love affair and easily grant him permission to marry her. But Clara is an osu, a sect of marginalized people in the native culture. The people of Igbo land considered osus as outcasts who were forced to stay away from native social and cultural practices from generations to generations. But Christianity includes even osus in their religion and tries to bring them to the fore. Obi’s father Isaac Okonkwo, being a devoted Christian and catechist is an expert of Christian scholarship and well experienced in the principles of the new religion. When he is in the company of other non-Christian natives, he preaches the doctrines of Christianity and discusses them boastfully. He refuses to practice the native social custom of breaking a cola nut as an offering to the Igbo idol to mark his son Obi’s return from England. “'This is a Christian house,' replied Obi's father…'Kola nut is eaten here,' replied Mr Okonkwo, 'but not sacrificed to idols'” (Achebe, No Longer at Ease 41). But the same Isaac refrains from practicing all those so-called liberating practices that Christianity has taught him when it comes down to allowing his son marrying Clara, an osu girl, and maintains a viewpoint that is embedded in Igbo indigenous culture. As discussed earlier, osus had been devalued from time immemorial as outcasts in the indigenous society. And Isaac cannot let his son marry a girl who is an outcast. The president of the Umuofia Progressive Union and even Obi’s friend Joseph reiterate the same attitude like his father: 'You cannot marry the girl,' he said quite simply. 'Eh?' 'I said you cannot marry the girl.' 'But why, Father?' 'Why? I shall tell you why. But first tell me this. Did you find out or try to find out anything about this girl?' 'Yes.' 'What did you find out?' 'That they are osu.'

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'You mean to tell me that you knew, and you ask me why?' 'I don't think it matters. We are Christians.' This had some effect, nothing startling though. Only a little pause and a slightly softer tone. 'We are Christians,' he said. 'But that is no reason to marry an osu.' 'The Bible says that in Christ there are no bond or free.' 'My son,' said Okonkwo, 'I understand what you say. But this thing is deeper than you think.' (Achebe, No Longer at Ease 106) The problem is not that simple as observed by Isaac, because it is deeply rooted in the social and cultural upbringing of the native people. Though Obi does not follow Christianity, he uses the Christian doctrines when it comes down to personal issues. He uses expressions like, “the light of the Gospel” (Achebe, No Longer at Ease 106) to support his case when his desire of marriage with the osu girl is out rightly overruled by his Igbo parents. He tries to prove that Christianity has the light of civilization in Nigeria and has liberated Africans from heathen darkness (Achebe, No Longer at Ease ch. 14). Such forms of complexities in individualities and conflict of identities were the byproducts of hybrid culture, which had put the new generation of Africa in a grave cultural and intellectual turmoil. To put in Mr. Anand P, a research scholar’s word, the representatives of this hybrid culture- … adapt themselves to the necessities and the opportunities of more or less oppressive or invasive cultural impositions, live into alien cultural patterns through their own structures of understanding, thus producing something familiar but new. The assimilation and adaptation of cultural practices, the cross-fertilization of cultures, can be seen as positive, enriching, and dynamic, as well as oppressive. (461) He further touches upon the crisis of individuality of this Hybrid natives: A new generation thus turned their back towards native cultural systems and endorsed the new religion. Nigerians who still possess the indigenous clan oriented division are either Christians or Muslims – but at heart neither of these – ‘spiritually cut off’ from its roots, its religion reduced to rites without philosophy set in a materialist society – mere Hybrids. (462)

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It can be concluded that these three novels, Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No longer at Ease, are Chinua Achebe’s conscious effort to present African culture and social identity from an African perspective. The colonized people were depicted by the Western writers as a mass and not individuals, as objects of someone else’s narratives before Achebe presents contrasting pictures of native cultures and societies in his novels. Things Fall Apart is a rejection of Western assumption of African people and reclamation of their identity by telling the stories of these marginalized people during colonial rule. Walder very rightly says that this novel is a “…deliberate step towards overturning the assumptions of cultural and racial inferiority imposed by the colonizers and accepted by the colonized, a step towards showing that the African words, their languages, their ways of life, have their own integrity” (11). Captain Winterbottom in Arrow of God perceives Africa as a land of darkness all around. It is nothing but the “old land of waking nightmares” (Achebe, Arrow of God 31) to him. Achebe, therefore, presents Igbo culture and history by negating the given cultural history of Africa in Western writings and closely inspecting the established European colonialist texts on Africa. The numerous instances of celebration of local cultures and practices, predominantly in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, are illustrated to show the Western world that African people are not simply the primitive chaos or mysteries as depicted in Western literature. For example, Marlow in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness depicts the village life in Congo as: …a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy… It was unearthly, and the men were--No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it--this suspicion of their not being inhuman. (37) Edward Said further explains in his acclaimed book Orientalism this narrow mindset of the European writers in the way they have treated non-Western characters and societies in their writings. He says that the West draws the picture of the Orient (third world countries) to suit their desires and perceptions:

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Additionally, the imaginative examination of things oriental was based more or less exclusively upon a sovereign Western consciousness out of whose unchallenged centrality an Oriental world emerged, first according to general ideas about who or what was an Oriental, then according to a detailed logic governed not simply by empirical reality but by batteries of desires, repressions, investments, and projections. (7) Achebe tries to break this stereotype in these novels by celebrating Igbo culture as an individual identity and Igbo people as humans. A conscious effort is made in Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease to show the world that his people’s past was not one extended night of primitiveness and barbarism, in need of the authoritarian control and governance of the enlightened West. Rather, these novels record how self-dependent and self-reliant native Africans and African identity are browbeaten and subjugated through various layers of conflicts with the Western colonial force and its cultural invasion under the shroud of enlightenment from so- called ‘primitive darkness’.

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Works Cited Abukar, Ilyas Omar. "Re/inventing Africa: Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease, and the Question of Representing." (n.d.): n. pag. The Pennsylvania State University. Web. 14 Mar. 2016. . Achebe, Chinua. Arrow of God. London: Penguin, 2010. Print. ---. "Named for Victoria." Morning Yet on Creation Day: Essays. Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1975. 115-124. Print. ---. No Longer at Ease. London: Penguin, 2010. Print. ---. Things Fall Apart. Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 1996. Print. Alimi, S. A. "A Study of the Use of Proverbs as a Literary Device in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God." International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences 2.3 (2012): 121-127. Web. 22 Nov. 2015. . Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London & New York: Routledge, 1994. Print. Bhardwaj, Pallavi, Dr. "Representation of Post Independent Africa: A Man of the People." The International Journal of Humanities & Social Studies 2.12 (2014): 118-126. Web. 4 July 2016. . Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton, 1988. Print. Cook, David. African Literature: A Critical View. Bristol: Longman, 1977. Print. Daniels, Anthony. "Succumbing to an Inferior Complexity." The Spectator Archive. The Spectator, 25 Sept. 1987. Web. 20 Nov. 2015. . Fälth, Sebastian. "Social Class and Status in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby." Diss. Halmstad U, 2013. 23 Nov. 2013. Web. 22 Jan. 2016. .

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Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. New York: Grove, 1965. Print. Gikandi, Simon. "China Achebe and the Invention of African Literature." Things Fall Apart. By Chinua Achebe. Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 1996. ix-xvii. Print. Jha, Jai Ram. The Novels of Chinua Achebe: A Colonial Encounter. Jaipur: Aadi Publications, 2013. Print. Killam, G. D. The Writings of Chinua Achebe. London: Heinemann Educational, 1977. Print. Mordaunt, Owen G. "Conflict and its Manifestations in Achebe's "Arrow of God"" Afrika Focus 5 (1989): 153-165. Web. 3 Mar. 2016. . Nwanosike, Oba F., and Liverpool Eboh Onyije. "Colonialism and Education." Proceedings of the 2011 International Conference on Teaching, Learning and Change (2011): 624-631. Http://www.hrmars.com. International Association for Teaching and Learning, 2011. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. Ohadike, Don C. "Igbo Culture and History." Things Fall Apart. By Chinua Achebe. Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 1996. xix-lix. Print. P, Anand, Mr. "Representation of the Cultural Impact of Colonization in Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease." International Journal of English Language, Literature and Humanities II.V (2014): 456-63. Web. 16 Apr. 2016. . Palmer, Eustace. The Growth of the African Novel. London: Heinemann, 1979. Print. Pratten, David. The Man-leopard Murders: History and Society in Colonial Nigeria. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2007. Print. Rodney, Walter. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Harare: Zimbabwe Pub. House, 1981. Print. Said, Edward W. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. Gurgaon: Penguin India Pvt., 2001. Print.

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Sartre, Jean Paul. Introduction. The Colonizer and the Colonized. By Albert Memmi. Boston: Beacon, 1969. xxvii-xxvi. Print. Vempala, Jaya Lakshmi Rao. Culture and Anarchy in the Novels of Chinua Achebe. Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 2003. Print. Walder, Dennis. Post-colonial Literatures in English: History, Language, Theory. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1998. Print.

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CHAPTER III

RAJA RAO’S NOVELS: THE COLONIAL PERIOD Chpater-3 Raja Rao’s Fiction: The Colonial Period

Raja Rao (1908-2006), perhaps the most influential Indian writer in English, has left an indelible mark upon the Indian literary scene, and upon the writings of many of his contemporaries and the next generation of writers. Raja Rao’s contribution to Indian literature in English can be compared to Munshi Premchand’s contribution in Hindi/Urdu literature. Raja Rao was a pioneer of Indian writing in English and among his contemporaries like, R.K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, and Kamala Markandaya, Sarojini Naidu, he is was deeply attached to the rural setting he uses in his fictional works. His literary works spring from the realities of rural life, but his stories connect smoothly to the realities in the entire length and breadth of India. C.D. Narasimhaiah, in his introduction to Kanthapura, observes: When it comes to style, the breath-takingly long sentences, and repetitions of names and words, while sometimes necessary to build up the tempo of the commotion in Kanthapura, can also sound highly mannered and they do. But the author has enough stylistic devices to suit a wide range of emotional and mental states. In fact, an outstanding contribution of Raja Rao to Indian writing in English is to have struck new paths for a sensibility which is essentially Indian. (xviii) Raja Rao has been active in the literary activities during the colonial as well as postcolonial days in India. The most prominent of his works during the colonial period are Kanthapura and a collection of short stories titled “The Cow of the Barricades and Other Stories”. Kanthapura relates the story of Indian freedom movement that gained momentum under the guidance of Mahatma Gandhi. “The Cow of the Barricades” is a short story in his short story collection that narrates the way Indian masses were driven by their newly generated faith in national identity and how that faith could be tapped by Mahatma Gandhi to mobilize the masses to rise up in resistance to cultural and political hegemony of the British. Raja Rao’s prominent postcolonial novels are The Serpent and the Rope, The Cat and Shakespeare, Comrade Kirillov, and The Chessmaster and His Moves. In the present chapter Raja Rao’s novels of colonial period are analyzed with a view to examine his perception of colonial rule in India and the socio-political resistance to cultural hegemony that people of India were aroused to. Thus, the novel Kanthapura (published in 1938) and the sort story “The Cow of the Barricades” (published in 1947) are subjected to critical analysis here.

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Kanthapura: in Brief Kanthapura is Raja Rao’s debut novel. The novel was published in the pre- independence days, in 1938, during the heydays of high colonialism. But, at the same time Indian freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Bhagat Singh and Chandrasekhar Azad, to name only the prominent few, was also at its peak and it was well understood that sooner or later India will win freedom. So, the novel is a valuable document as a recorded history of the Indian freedom struggle, albeit in a fictional form. The village of Kanthapura is the microcosm of India and the struggle of the residents of the village of Kanthapura allegorizes the freedom struggle of the people of India under the leadership of Gandhi. Kanthapura is the story of a small village Kanthapura located in the foothills of steep mountains that face the cool Arabian seas in the province of Kara in south India. The story is narrated by Achakka, an old lady from the same village. As usual with Indian villages, the village life is extremely traditional, farther from modern living, and typically divided on caste lines, dominated by caste Hindus. The domination of upper castes, especially the Brahmans, is visible even in the structure of the village. The central living space is occupied by Brahmin families while the margins are left for the Sudras and pariah community people, for instance, potters and weavers. But still, it is depicted that the villagers are united owing to long-standing customs and traditions, and in the village gatherings and festivities all castes and communities take part with equal enthusiasm. The village goddess is Kenchamma who is believed to protect the village from evils and ills. The central character in the novel is a Brahmin boy named Moorthy. He is an educated young man with a progressive outlook. The village temple where all ceremonies and festivities are celebrated making it the centre of village life came into being due to Moorthy’s efforts. Once he discovered a half-buried ‘lingam’ in the backyard of the narrator’s house; he consecrated it, installed it with proper ceremonies and then a temple was built at the place, called Kanthapurishwari’s temple. Moorthy was also greatly interested in Hari-katha, the traditional form of storytelling, particularly excerpted from the ancient Hindu epics, Puranas, philosophical treatises and oral histories. A famous Hari-katha man called Jayaramachar was well-known for

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his erudition, and funny and interesting narrative style. One day Moorthy invites him to the village to collect money for the expenses from all the families in the village. Jayaramachar narrated the Hari-katha, but he interspersed the story with instances from the life of Gandhi and his ideals. The story of Shiva-Parvati became the story of colonized India! He was arrested on the charges of sedition and political propaganda. It seems since Moorthy was influenced by the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi, he deliberately arranged this Hari-katha to inspire the people of his village to be prepared for the freedom struggle. Soon Moorthy leaves the village for the city. Now the hitherto sleepy village turns into a vibrant action spot. Moorthy has familiarized himself with the ideas and ideals of Gandhi and now follows him in letter and spirit. On a call from Mahatma Gandhi he discards foreign goods, particularly clothes, quits his university education and puts on home-spun khadi clothes. He brings pamphlets and related literature on Gandhian philosophy to his village; he also fights against casteism and untouchability in his village and mingles with the pariahs, drinks milk given by an untouchable woman to him. He explains to village women the theory of ‘drain of wealth.’ Bhatta, the moneylender of the village, alienates himself from all this since Gandhian philosophy went against his self-interest. He represents the Indian capitalist class. Moorthy’s ideas infuriated the village priest, who in turn tells all this to the Swami, a supporter of the foreign government. Ultimately, Moorthy is excommunicated from the village. Hearing this, Moorthy’s mother Narsamma is heartbroken and almost committed suicide by running away from home at night and falling unconscious by the river side. Sensing the increasing support for Gandhi and increasing unrest among the villagers, the government appoints there a police constable named Bade Khan to monitor the activities of the people. An outsider in the village, Bade Khan looks for a house in Kanthapura but none is ready to offer him a shelter since he is an appointee of the government. Even the village headman, Patel Range Gowda, a government appointee, also refused him any kind of help. Khan is furious at this and turns an enemy of the villagers and he vows revenge. At this point he is supported by the coffee planter Mr. Skeffington, an Englishman, at his Estate. He is given a hut there. Moorthy has started living with Rangamma, an educated widow in his village who is also well-versed in Gandhian philosophy and also takes part in the freedom struggle. There lives a Brahmin family at Skeffington Coffee Estate. The family head

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is interested in creating awareness among the coolies of the estate on Gandhian freedom movement. So, he invites Moorthy to the Estate. But, Bade Khan takes offence to this and when Moorthy turns up there and insists on visiting the coolies, there ensues a scuffle and Bade Khan hits him. The pariah coolies stand with Moorthy and they hit Bade Khan and the maistri. Moorthy evaluates this situation and finds he has succeeded in creating an atmosphere of non-violent struggle espoused by Gandhi, but feels unhappy and sad at the turn of events because policeman Bade Khan has been beaten up. Pariah Rachanna, who works at Skeffington Coffee Estate, has played a role in beating Bade Khan. He, along with his family members, is thrown out of the Estate. Moorthy does not give up and eventually he becomes a staunch ally of Gandhi putting up a tough fight against injustice, social inequality and foreign rule in India. Along Gandhian lines, Moorthy observed a three-day fast taking moral responsibility for the violence that took place at Skeffington Estate, and he comes out as a victorious, strong and spiritually elevated soul. Soon, a unit of Congress Working Committee is formed in the village and the most active Gandhi supporters like, Rachanna, Rangamma, Range Gowda and Seenu (son of the narrator Achakka) were elected as office bearers of the Committee. They take an oath to follow Gandhian philosophy and way of life, but there are problems too in their path. Moorthy is arrested for provoking the villagers to commit violence. Rangamma and Rachanna come forward to get bail for him, but he refuses. He is put behind bars - three months rigorous imprisonment. He is aware that this act of the government is a precautionary measure against further mobilization of the village people in support of the Gandhian movement under his leadership. To his great satisfaction, the women of Kanthapura take charge of the freedom movement in the village in his absence. Rangamma takes active part in forming the Women’s Volunteer Corps in the village and instills nationalism among women citing the examples of the lives of great women heroic figures, like, Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi, Sarojini Naidu, Kamaladevi and famous Rajput princesses who fought with their husbands. Later, when Moorthy is released from the prison, people throng his house, and he is as strong as he was before his prison days. Moorthy now organizes Dandi March. To root out the evils of drinking among the poor, Boranna’s toddy grove is picketed. The village Kanthapura turns into a battle ground and satyagrahis

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are arrested. Police goes brutal with women too and people are deeply distressed witnessing brutality against women. At last, Kanthapura is deserted by its residents who moves to another place called Kashipur and Kanthapura is taken over by people arrived from Bombay.

Raja Rao’s Perception of the Colonial Rule in India Raja Rao’s fiction is primarily concerned with colonialism and post- colonialism in India. He has been a prolific writer writing, like Chinua Achebe, in both the socio-political phases in India. Raja Rao was very much influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, therefore, his colonial era novels and short stories are focused on the Gandhian movement to free India from the colonial yoke. At the same time, Raja Rao, being a Brahmin, was highly interested in ancient Indian Hindu philosophy too. He presents a very interesting combination of ancient Indian philosophy with the thoughts of modernity, emancipation movements and individual deliverance. Colonialism, from Raja Rao’s point of view, has been detrimental to the social, economic and political growth of India as a nation. He realizes, as is clear from his fictional works, that colonialism was responsible for most of the ills present in Indian society at the time of writing his novels. Apart from draining wealth from India to England, colonialism was damaging Indian men’s psyche too. Colonial cultural hegemony reduced the colonial subjects to mere nonentities. It eroded their self- esteem and they lost faith in themselves. Colonized subjects even lost their sense of place and no longer had faith in their potentials and capabilities and in their cultural values. There is an interesting observation made by Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin in this regard, that is, the colonized subjects were losing their sense of place and identity during colonial India. Thousands of ex-colonial subjects are settled now in their former colonizing countries, like, France and UK. Bhabha explores the dilemma of new diasporic community further as an aftermath of colonization and cultural inequalities. It is commonly observed, and noted in diaspora writing too, that these people suffer from identity crisis too much, as regard to their home culture since they find it difficult to leave ‘home’ and equally difficult not to be affected by the culture of their ‘new home’ (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin 7; Bhabha xxii). This identity crisis was visible in India during the colonial era and has been more pronounced in

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the postcolonial era. Colonialism presented a culture of superiority and forced the idea upon the colonial subjects. Since the colonial power was technologically superior, it was easier for them to rub this idea into the skins of their subjects. Raja Rao does see a few positive aspects of the impact the presence of the British government had left in India, for instance, people’s awakening to girls’ education, introduction of India to the technical age and its effects on the world, etc. But, those were only the inevitable fringe benefits India got, and possibly in a fast changing world scenario India might have got those benefits even if the country wouldn’t have been colonized, as did Japan, China and a few other nations. Colonialism has proved to be a seriously damaging enterprise in India bleeding the country almost to death. In Kanthapura and in “The Cow of the Barricades” one can very clearly see how Raja Rao perceives India under colonial rule. For clarity of understanding, Raja Rao’s perception of India in colonial period has been summed up under a few heads, as follows: A. Drain of Wealth Raja Rao was a staunch follower of Gandhian thought and there is no doubt about it. His ideology is fairly evident the way he presents Gandhian ideals packed in the narratives of his writings. His famous novel Kanthapura and the short story “The Cow of the Barricades” are discussed here to analyze this point. Gandhi believes in Dadabhai Naoroji’s theory of the ‘Drain of Wealth’ and to counter this drain he launched his swadeshi movement. The theory of ‘Drain of Wealth’ is ascribed to Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) as he discusses these ideas in Poverty and Un-British Rule in India. His work is focused on bringing the attention of the British government (He was a Liberal Party MP in the UK House of Commons in the British parliament between 1892 and 1895) towards the ill-effects of colonial rule in India, mainly on Indian economy as wealth from India was being drained into England through a smooth system of economic exploitation. Naoroji estimated the net national profit of India at that time when he was a Member of Parliament. This helped him calculate how much wealth was flowing annually from India to Britain. His work was purely concerned with economics in an attempt to prove that Britain was a burden on Indian economy, and that was one of the reasons behind the wide-spread poverty in India. As discussed by

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Kozicki in his review of Dadabhai Naoroji and The Drain Theory, Naoroji gave six factors responsible for the flow of wealth from India: 1. First, India was governed by a foreign government. 2. Second, India did not attract foreign immigrant who might have brought their capital as well as labour for her economic growth. 3. Third, India was paying for Britain’s civil administration on Indian soil as well as for the occupational army in India 4. Fourth, India was also paying for the building of the empire within India and out of her borders as well. 5. Fifth, India was open to free trade which resulted in offering high paying jobs to foreign personnel, thus opening a way to exploit Indian economy. 6. Lastly, since the principal income earners were not Indians, they were prone to buy properties outside India or leave the country with their money. (729) According to Naoroji’s estimate, there was roughly 200 to 300 million pounds loss of revenue to Britain for which there were no chances of return (Chandrasekaran 326). It was pure and simple vampirism of the colonial power and Britain’s actions were monstrous. Although, Naoroji believed that Britain brought some services to India, like railways, for which it deserved some tribute, he mentioned that money for such services was already being drained out of the country as, for instance, the money earned by railways did not belong to India and it was not being spent on any services in India. Such revenues did not bring any direct profit to the country ("Dadabhai Navroji"). For such services, other countries were paying off foreign investment, whereas, despite the fact that railways were earning profits for Britain, Indians were paying for the services rendered. There were other gateways too, for such type of drain of wealth. For example, British workers earned wages that were never equivalent to the work they did here. British government encouraged its subjects to take up lucrative jobs in India and the government allowed them to take a large part of their income back to home. There was an imbalance of trade as well, that is, Indian goods were undervalued and so purchased cheaply, while goods coming from Britain were sold at exorbitant prices. As Kozicki elaborates, East India Company was buying raw materials from India with the money drained from India to export to Britain and then the products produced in

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Britain were imported to sell at higher prices, adding further dimension to exploitation opened up through free trade (728-729). Gandhi urged the people to use only home-made goods so that the cottage industries that were dying because of industrialization in England could be revived, and the hungry and the poor of India could earn their livelihood in a respectable manner. He encouraged people to boycott not only foreign goods, like clothes coming from Britain manufactured in Manchester, but also to spin at home and to wear only made in India attires, called khadi clothes. To encourage people to spin, the Congress Working Committee distributed free spinning wheels to people and provided free cotton for the first month. The Committee would buy the threads spun by people and provide them yarns. This scheme is aptly explained to his village people by the protagonist Moorthy in Kanthapura by Raja Rao: …the Congress is giving away free spinning-wheels. Will you spin sister? You see, you have nothing to do in the afternoons after the vessels are washed and the water drawn, and if you spin just one hour a day, you can have a bodice- cloth of any colour or breadth you like, one bodice-cloth per month, and a sari every six months. And during the first month, the cotton is given free. (23) To the question ‘And why should the Congress give it free?’ Moorthy is happy to answer: Because millions and millions of yards of foreign cloth come to this country, and everything foreign makes us poor and pollutes us. To wear cloth spun and woven with your own God-given hands is sacred, says the Mahatma. And it gives work to the workless, and work to the lazy. And if you don’t need the cloth sister – well, you can say, “Give it away to the poor,” and we will give it to the poor. Our country is being bled to death by foreigners. We have to protect our Mother. (Rao, Kanthapura 24) And there is a question raised by Nanjamma that why Brahmins should spin since there is no dearth of weavers in the village to work for them. Moorthy responds, “Yes, sister. But they buy foreign yarn, and foreign yarn is bought with our money, and all this money goes across the oceans. Our gold should be in our country. And our cotton should be in our country” (Rao, Kanthapura 24). Gandhi not only boycotted foreign goods but also foreign education. As Gandhi saw it, colonial education was as detrimental to Indian culture as was drain of

74 Chpater-3 Raja Rao’s Fiction: The Colonial Period wealth to economic growth. Macaulay’s “Minute on Indian Education” of 1835 set the objectives of education in India in precise terms, “to form a class of interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect” (qtd. in McLeod 141). Gandhi understood that people educated in this manner would be rather a threat to Indian culture since they would criticize Hindu customs and traditions without judging their merits or demerits. Moorthy got inspired by Gandhi’s call to boycott the Western goods and Western Education. He sacrificed his university education and his mother’s dream to see him in a great official capacity in Indian Civil Services, a brilliant boy as he was. B. Cultural Hegemony Resistance to cultural hegemony in Kanthapura is a bit sensitive and debatable issue because there are two layers of cultural hegemony in the novel. One, the hegemony of the culture brought to the Indian soil by the colonizers and posited as much superior to Indian culture. The rulers proved it to be superior to Indian culture to justify their presence in India and to continue exploitation of the masses. This hegemony is subject to resistance by one and all, except a selected few who are hand- in-glove with the foreign rulers. To resist the cultural hegemony of the foreign rulers and to make it a mass movement, the author has taken the help of faith as the common masses in India believed in the mythical glory of ancient Indian culture, in the greatness of their heroes, in the stories of good men who fought against evils and came out victorious, in the narrative of seamless and uninterrupted continuity of the heroic past of India up to the present times where some relics, some memories of the heroic deeds of the mythical figures were believed to be still present in every village. Raja Rao resorts to Indian mythology and history, so that the masses could identify themselves with the mythical heroes and feel themselves as their direct descendants and thus feel proud in fighting for the sake of a great culture of which they have been a significant part. Second, there is hegemony of the culture of the Brahmins against the culture of non-Brahmins. Non-Brahmins here include not only the Muslims whose culture is different from the Hindus and Hindus keep themselves away from it calling Muslims as mlechas (untouchables,) but also untouchables within the fold of Hinduism. This observation of hegemonic setup in the indigenous society may be a little objectionable

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to some scholars and they may argue that there does not exist such a distinction in Indian culture. But to prove this point, it would be worthwhile to refer to a few textual evidences of such a distinction in Kanthapura, albeit very subtle distinctions. The untouchables in this novel are seen to be culturally different from the rest of the caste Hindus characterized in the novel, although they are said to be within the fold of Hinduism. There are only a few characteristics that define them as Hindus. They worship the Hindu Goddess Kenchamma, worshipped by other villagers including the Brahmins. They speak the same language as other caste Hindus do in the village, albeit they are miles away from Sanskrit, the language of Hindu scriptures. But there are numerous characteristics that belie the points of similarity of cultures, especially the characteristics of material aspect of culture. They wish to enter Hindu temples but they are not permitted. Their food habits are said to be contrary to mainstream Hindu culture. Their marriages are devoid of the usual Hindu rituals. For instance, Bade Khan, the policeman just took one of the pariah women as his wife, without bothering to follow any rituals, and she had no objection. They commonly drink liquor which is almost not allowed in mainstream Hindu culture. This cultural imbalance was later exploited by the foreign force to smoothly run their colonies. Mainstream Hinduism is strongly proved to be much superior to the cultural practices followed by these people. And, as is the case with the cultural hegemony of the rulers, caste Hindus, who had been ruling the lives of these people before the foreign rulers intervened, prove the mainstream Hindu culture to be much superior to the culture of the untouchables in order to justify their dominance over them, to go on enjoying the fruits of their labour. The point is, the untouchables strongly feel the hegemony of the mainstream Hindu culture in their lives since it is this hegemony that prepares the grounds for their oppression, and they wish from the depths of their hearts that this hegemony should also come to an end. The culture of the foreign rulers is exactly like the mainstream Hindu culture, based on capitalist exploitation, hierarchy and social distinctions, so the untouchables have no hope for any support from them. But Mahatma Gandhi’s ideals of a casteless, egalitarian and just society have given them some hope that their centuries old oppression may come to an end soon, and Gandhians proclaim equality from their platforms. The untouchables have no

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voice as such, but their enthusiasm to take very active part in the Gandhian movement is indicative of their strong faith in Mahatma. Some conscientious Hindus inspired by Mahatma Gandhi like, Moorthy, Range Gowda, advocate Shankar and advocate Ranganna are also with them. Seeing such a positive attitude towards them, pariahs like Rachanna and their women are prepared to do whatever the Congress orders them do. The untouchables in the novel suffer the greatest loss of lives as they are the softest targets for the police brutality. And ultimately, when their men die, pariah women burn their own houses and the houses of others too, and Kanthapura is no more their village. C. Death of Indian Economy The theory of ‘Drain of Wealth’ is closely related to the death, or rather destruction, of Indian economy by the colonial rule in the country. Indian economy in the pre-colonial days has been primarily agricultural economy. Most of India was comprised of villages where people were engaged in self-sustaining mutually cooperative economic activities, like, farming, spinning, weaving, oil extraction, gardening, making clay pots, iron work, gold work, carpentry, and so on. Colonialism brought about the destruction of these cottage industries as England was an industrialized country and the capitalist economy needed raw materials for production and markets for the finished products. India was converted into a source of raw materials and a market for their finished goods. There were no buyers for the home- grown products and people were forced to abandon their ancestral professions because it could not provide enough to sustain. Kanthapura does not discuss this mechanism of destruction of village life directly, but there are indirect hints that Gandhi wished to revive cottage industries because he wanted the villages to be the centers of life in India as they ever had been. D. Destruction of Traditional Cultural Values Colonialism has been detrimental to not only Indian economy but also to Indian cultural values, and this is obvious in Kanthapura. Indian cultural values like, simple commune life, honesty, reverence for elders, compassion, truth, asceticism, spiritualism, and fraternity are the cherished values. Villages in India were ideal settings for life and all these values were easily traceable in day-to-day lives of people. People in the cities also followed good cultural values in life. Mahatma Gandhi didn’t invent anything new in Indian life; he just made a serious attempt to

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revive the cultural values that have been part and parcel of the lives of Indian populace. Advocate Sankar in Kanthapura does not accept any cases founded on lies and deceit. He himself lives an extremely simple life and encourages others also to do the same: ‘Your son Sankar, he is a saint,’ and when he walked the main bazaar, they used to say, ‘Look there, there goes the Ascetic advocate.’ People sometimes looked at his khadi coat and his rough yarn turban and laughed at this ‘walking advocate,’ and others said, ‘No, no, he follows the principles of the Mahatma,’ – And what, pray, are the principles of the Mahatma?’ – ‘Why, don’t you know Sankar does not take a single false case, and before he takes a client he says to him, “Swear before me you are not the criminal!” (Rao, Kanthapura 138-139) Sankar follows Gandhian principles to the extent of fanaticism: And he says he was a fanatic, too, in his dress, you know, sister. When he went to a marriage party he used to say, ‘Everyone must be in khadi or I will not go,’ and they said, ‘Oh, one must have a nice Dharmawar sari for the bride; she cannot look like a street sweeper,’ and he would say, ‘Well, have your Dharmawar saris and send your money to Italian yarn-makers and German colour manufacturers and let our pariahs and peasants starve.’ (Rao, Kanthapura 142) But after colonialism has taken over, people like advocate Sankar are not many. People have taken to dishonesty, deceit, greed and exploitation. Bhatta is a good example of a colonial mindset. He owns half of the lands in Kanthapura and wants more. He exploits the poor pariahs to extract cheap labour from them; he gives money to people on a high interest rate and he has no scruples about poor people’s lives. Bhatta is a symbol of deterioration of Indian cultural values under the impact of colonialism since he has no compassion, no truthfulness, no honesty and he has extreme greed in his character. E. Policy of Maintaining Status Quo Raja Rao, in his colonial fictions, perceives colonialism as a system that maintains the status quo in the Indian society. The world around is changing fast, social realities are changing fast, people’s preferences, needs and requirements are changing fast, but the colonial masters in India are impervious to all these changes.

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They would never neglect the needs of a social change back home, but since maintaining status quo in India suits their interests very well, they would support the rotten political and social fabric of India. Things have changed in Russia drastically, things have changed in England and everything is changing at a rapid pace in America, but India is maintained politically and socially as it had been over the ages. Princely states are pampered because they are in collusion with the British; social hierarchies are untouched because it fits very well with the system of exploitation the British government needs in India and no political institutions worth the name are introduced in India by the British. Not much attention has been paid to public education since they need illiterate people, and whatever efforts have been made they are oriented towards producing a colonially educated class that serves a link between the government and the toiling illiterate masses. Raja Rao highlights this point very subtly in Kanthapura. He contrasts the changed life in Russia and the life poor people have in India through a news item in a paper Rangamma subscribes to. And this is the reason Mahatma Gandhi has urged the people of India to boycott even foreign education because it produces a class of people who serve the interest of the British.

Socio-Political Resistance to Cultural Hegemony in Kanthapura The sleepy village of Kanthapura is awakened into a resistance movement by the efforts of Moorthy, a university student inspired by Gandhi. There are two forms of resistance in the village to the cultural hegemony of the rulers. On the one side are the people like, Waterfall Venkamma and Bhatta who cling to old customs and traditions, like, child marriage, no to widow remarriage, no education for girls, men’s dominance in women’s lives, no equality between caste Hindus and untouchables, and the like. The culture of the rulers has brought some changes in the existing social life patterns and traditional practices like, child marriage, no education for girls, etc. have started giving way to modernity and progress. So, these people resist the hegemonising influence of the new culture in their own ways, exaggerating the greatness of the culture in the name of Puritanism and projecting themselves as the guardians of their culture protecting it from pollution. Bhatta relates the story of city- educated girls that they are polluted because they are of marriageable age but

79 Chpater-3 Raja Rao’s Fiction: The Colonial Period unmarried and mix with young boys. And in this connection he tells that one Hindu girl married a Muslim boy, totally unacceptable to anyone: Do you know, in the city they already have grown-up girls, fit enough to be mothers of two or three children, going to the Universities? And they talk to this boy and that boy; and what they do amongst themselves, heaven only knows. And one, too, I heard, went and married a Mohomedan. Really, aunt, that is horrible!’ ‘That is horrible,’ repeats Satamma. ‘After all, my son, it is the Kaliyuga- floods, and as the sastras say, there will be the confusion of castes and the pollution of progeny. We can’t help it, perhaps…’ (Rao, Kanthapura 39) On the other end are the people, like most of the people in Moorthy’s Gandhi brigade, who are opposed to such puritanical forms of Indian culture because they find it stagnant and ridden with evils and suppressive tendencies. They feel that the time demands a change in the culture, and that a vibrant culture should be more inclusive and more tolerant of differing views. They realize that puritanical tendencies in a culture give way to oppression and exploitation. They visualize that the mainstream Hindu culture suffers from these suppressive notions in it and, rather, the culture has developed a few dehumanizing tendencies in it. They resent that the culture that is claimed to be great propagates inequality between men, suppresses women, encourages child marriage, forbids widow remarriage, forbids girls’ education and encourages beliefs in superstitions. They say no to all these and go for a radical change. They respect the progressive aspects of the rulers’ culture and adopt them. But they also realize that foreign rule in India is founded upon economic exploitation and that poverty in India is because of the foreign rule. The British were hypocrites because they were double faced – they followed the principles of equality and social justice in their own country and there were well-founded social and political institutions in place in their own countries to safeguard the interests of the majority of people, but the same people had entirely different standards for the people of India. Whatever system was established in India by the British that was established to serve their ultimate economic interests. They hardly cared for the well-being of people, and generally gave free hands to the landlords to exploit the common masses so that they received a regular inflow of revenue for themselves. The culture of the rulers was

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based on capitalism, class conflicts and hierarchy among people. These people who were opposed to the stagnant Indian culture rejected the foreign rule too. They believed that economic exploitation of people was inhuman, whether that exploitation was carried out through Brahmin and untouchable conflict or through establishing a capitalist colonial machinery. They strongly believed that this should also change and to see that change come into effect, the foreign rule must come to end. Thus, their resistance has both social as well as political aspects to it. They become part of a Movement that put up a stiff resistance to the political domination of India, but they also put up an equally strong resistance to the prevalent social evils in the then Indian society. Just this one point was enough to win them the support of the Indian masses. C.D. Narasimhaiah also notes the same point in this regard: Kanthapura is no political novel any more than is Gandhi’s Movement a mere political movement. It pictures vividly, truthfully and touchingly the story of the resurgence of India under Gandhi’s leadership; its religious character, its economic and social concerns, its political ideals precisely in the way Gandhi tried to spiritualize politics, the capacity for sacrifice of a people in response to the call of one like Gandhi – not the spectacular sacrifice of the few chosen ones who later became India’s rulers, but the officially unchronicled, little, nameless, unremembered acts of courage and sacrifice of peasants and farmer hands, students and lawyers, women and old men… (qtd. in Komalesha 81) The greatness of Indian culture is that, as visualized by Raja Rao, the Indian masses are conscientious and if they realize the importance of a cause, they go for it. There has been a tradition of compassion, tolerance, coexistence and mutual cooperation among Indian people, and therefore it would not be difficult to mobilize them along same lines. Moorthy, Rangamma, Ranganna and Sankar all are Brahmins, but when it comes to the ideas of compassion, tolerance and human equality they are the first ones to jump headlong into the struggle to bring greater changes in the society. Raja Rao is a visionary in this respect. The role of the major characters in Kanthapura in awakening (or discouraging) the people of their sleepy village to rise up in resistance to the foreign rule and the cultural hegemony of the foreigners can be summed up as follows: Rangamma: She is a Brahmin lady. She is an educated widow. She subscribes to a few newspapers and she is well-versed in ancient Indian scriptures too. She is

81 Chpater-3 Raja Rao’s Fiction: The Colonial Period well aware of the latest developments in the world. Her resistance may owe to her widowhood, but her education and her awareness on current affairs is also a great factor for her support to Gandhian thought. She is influenced by the Russian revolution as well. But the time is not ripe for her to accept equality for all. Moorthy is instrumental in her accepting Gandhian satyagrah. Moorthy: He is a Brahmin boy going for university education. To him Gandhi’s views are spiritual in nature and his own experience in being in close contact with Gandhian has been a spiritual experience. Gandhi’s thoughts have touched his heart and mind and he starts believing in equality among human beings. Towards the end of the novel Moorthy seems to be influenced by a more pragmatic Jawaharlal Nehru, though. Moorthy organizes Congress Working Committee meetings in Kanthapura. He is the one who distributes spinning-wheels to the village people, urges them to spin, and explains the theory of ‘drain of wealth’ to them in their own idiom. He organizes the resistance movement, inducts pariahs in the party activities, goes to jail several times and instructs people to follow the ideals of Gandhi, especially non-violence. Bhatta: A typical landlord, Bhatta is all for the foreign rule since the system has given him economic prosperity. Equality for all may bring his downfall in two ways: (i) He will lose cheap labour that is available to him because of landless pariahs and untouchables. He is an Indian version of Skeffington Coffee Estate as regards to the exploitation of the poor and (ii) equality for all means he has to share his lands with the landless. Bhatta may be taken to represent the capitalist class in pre- independence India who were left free by the British to exploit the poor masses, and to whom their economic interests were more important than nationalism or resistance to foreign rule. Hindu religion, as interpreted traditionally in support of caste divisions and social distinctions, suits his interests very well as it maintains status quo in society keeping the pariahs, untouchables and other lowers caste people to the lowest rung in society as landless labourers. Patel Range Gowda: He is a representative of the Government, but his traditional right in the village is diminishing because of Government’s intrusion in his authority, so he takes sides with the Gandhians. He may represent some of the princely states in India which were against British rule because they lost their traditional authority over people, so, they wanted a change in the political atmosphere

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of the country hoping that after independence they can once again regain power. His return to Kanthapura after the socio-political upheaval there to retrieve his buried jewels is a symbolic return of the princely states in the hope of retrieving their buried authority and past glory and rule over people. Surprisingly, the Congress Party acknowledges his authority and he is given a minor leadership role. Ratna: She is a young widow and surely it is her widowhood that prompts her to fight against the social injustice perpetrated upon women in the name of widowhood. Gandhian thought has given her hope for better days, if not for herself, for the next generation to come. Raja Rao is all for widow remarriage. His short stories ‘Javni’ and ‘Akkayya’ raise the issue of the pathetic condition of widows in India. Ratna is an active member of the resistance movement and in absence of Rangamma she takes care of the women’s wing of volunteers. Ratna has a soft corner for Moorthy. After the political upheaval in Kanthapura, Ratna leaves for Bombay. Sankar: Sankar is an advocate and a staunch supporter of the Gandhian movement. He is a widower and follows Gandhian ideals in his daily life too. He represents the intellectual class in India who were inspired by Gandhi for a social change. He puts on only khadi, encourages other also to do the same and he never takes a false case. Rachanna: He is a pariah coolie who has come to Skeffington Coffee Estate along with other coolies. He comes under Moorthy’s influence and Gandhism. Naturally, the ideas of equality of men, social justice and a casteless society attracted him to Gandhism very much. He is already a have-not, so he has nothing to lose but his fetters in the freedom struggle. Bade Khan: He is a typical representative of the brutal police force, used by the British, to safeguard their interests in India. He is the policeman posted to monitor political activities in Kanthapura. He is a loyal supporter of the British government. People of Kanthapura hate him for both the reasons, being a Muslim (there are occasions when he is referred to as a “bearded monkey,” as if having a beard is a sin; beard is a symbol of Islam among Hindus, though Sikhs also wear a beard.) and being a cruel representative of the government. Interestingly, he can easily mix up with pariahs and untouchables, because as he moves into Skeffington Coffee Estates, he takes a lonely woman from among the pariah coolies as his wife.

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Kanthapura is primarily a story of people’s organized resistance garnered by Gandhi to political domination of India by the British. But since Gandhi realized that such an organized resistance to an all-powerful enemy like Great Britain was not possible without a mass movement, he converted his small step into a huge socio- political resistance to European cultural dominance and hegemony in general. The reasons for this are simple to grasp. The Indian elite class, that is, the erstwhile rulers, petty kings and princely states, were in full support of the foreign rule in lieu of their interests being safeguarded by the British, so it was futile to expect any support from them in the freedom struggle. There existed no middle class in those days; therefore, the class which remained to seek help from was the toiling moiling masses who were deeply attached to whatever cultural forms they had in their lives, without realizing whether it may be good or bad for them. It was easy to move them along their cultural values, traditions and customs, mobilizing them to revive the so-called glorious ancient Indian culture, resulting in a strong opposition to an onslaught on their cultural forms cherished by them. But again, there existed divisions in India based on caste, religion and region. It was easy for the British to weaken such a movement in a country already divided along so many narratives, where Brahmins would not allow the pariahs and other Sudra castes into their homes and temples, where Hindus (including the pariahs and other untouchables) would not readily mix with Muslims as they viewed them as intruders in India. Influential Brahmins (represented by the all-powerful but invisible Swami) were appeased by the government, so they would not go against its policies. There is a very interesting incident in the novel around this feeling. Advocate Sankar and advocate Ranganna organize a public awareness meeting on behalf of Moorthy and they speak to people about government atrocities, charkha, ahimsa and Hindu- Moslem unity. Their speeches are disrupted by someone shouting, ‘And what about the untouchables?’ and Sankar says, ‘Of course, we are for them – why, has not the Mahatma adopted an untouchable?’ and somebody cries out again, ‘Ah, our religion is going to be desecrated by you youngsters!’ and Sankar says, ‘Brother, if you have anything to say, please come up to the platform,’ and the man says, ‘And you will allow me to speak?’ and Sankar says, ‘We have no enemies.’ (Rao, Kanthapura 126)

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Now, it is very enticing to see how the appearance of the man coming to the platform is described: …and the man is seen coming from the other end of the maidan, a lean, tall man in durbar turban and filigree shawl, and he wears gold-cased rudrakshi beads at his neck and the man goes up the platform and says: ‘Brothers, you have all heard the injurious attacks against the Government and the Police and many other things. I am a toothless old man and I have seen many a change pass before me, and may I say this: All this is very good, but if the white men shall leave us tomorrow it will not be Ram-rajya we shall have, but the rule of the ten-headed Ravana...’ (Rao, Kanthapura 126) He goes on counting the acts of charity of the British government: ‘What did we have, pray, before the British came – disorder, corruption, and egoism, disorder, corruption and egoism I say’ – he continued, though there were many shouts and booings against him – ‘and the British came and they came to protect us, our bones and our dharma…’ (Rao, Kanthapura 126) The most perplexing comment he makes is that he visualizes Lord Krishna incarnated as the British Government and comes to India to protect the eternal Hindu dharma from pollution. He is not even ashamed at the fact that the British colonizers have come from across the seas and such people are called mlechas in the same Hindu scriptures. He says: I say dharma and I mean it. For hath not the Lord said in the Gita, ‘Whensoever there is ignorance and corruption I come, for I,’ says Krishna, ‘am the defender of dharma,’ and the British came to protect our dharma. And the great Queen Victoria said it when she put the crown of our sacred country on her head and became our Beloved Sovereign. And when she died – may she have a serene journey through the other worlds! – and when she died – you are too young to know, but ask of your grandfathers how many a camphor was lit before the temple gods, and how many a sacrificial fire was created, and how many a voice did rise up to the heavens in incantation…Tell me did she not protect it better than any Mohomedan prince had ever done? (Rao, Kanthapura 126-127) He uses a common strategy on such occasions, that is, frightening people with a dark future ahead if they overthrew the British Government: “When the British rule

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disappears there will be neither Brahmin nor pariah, vaisya nor sudra – nay, neither Mohomedan nor Christian, and our eternal dharma will be squashed like a louse in a child’s hair” (Rao, Kanthapura 127). People gathered there, the Gandhi supporters, take him to task since they know he was a Swami’s man, the same Swami who has been instrumental in excommunicating Moorthy in his village: But before he has stopped somebody says, ‘So you are a Swami’s man?’ and the old man says, ‘And of course I am, and I have the honour to be.’ – ‘And the Swami has just received twelve hundred acres of wet land from the government. Do you know that?’ says a youngster. – ‘Of course, and pray what else should he do if he is offered a Rajadakshina, a royal gift?’ – and the youngster says, ‘So the Swami is a Government man?’ – and the old man says, ‘The Swami is neither for the Government nor against it, but he is for all who respect the ancient ways of our race, and not for all this Gandhi and Gindhi who cannot pronounce even a gayatri, and who say there is neither caste nor creed and we are all equal to one another, while the Swami…’ – And somebody cries out, ‘Do you know the Swami has been received by the Governor?’ – and Sankar rises up and says, ‘No interruption, please!’ – and the old man answers, ‘And of course, but why not? And do not the dharma sastras say the King is the protector of faith? And I cry out “Long live George the Fifth, Emperor!” ’ and he hobbled down the platform. (Rao, Kanthapura 127-128) Under the given circumstances Gandhi had to invent an altogether different social narrative for the India masses, a narrative that was capable of answering the feelings of and taking along the larger segments of the Indian population with him. The narrative of equality and social justice to the suppressed masses of India is significantly striking in the novel. Isn’t it strangely enticing that every time there arises an occasion to enthuse the people around Moorthy in the name of Mahatma Gandhi, it is Rachanna, the pariah, who takes the lead in shouting ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai’? Following excerpt is a worthy instance: And then men rush from this street and that street, and the police Inspector seeing this hesitates before coming down, and Rachanna barks out again, ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!’ And the police inspector shouts, ‘Arrest that swine!’

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and when they come to arrest him, everybody gets round him and says, ‘No, we’ll not give him up.’ (Rao, Kanthapura 120) This is not just a stray incident in the novel; this happens at least ten times in the whole text. This narrative preaches equality for all, social justice for all and love for one and all and is based on non-violence and truth. Such narratives had existed in India but they had failed to take along very large segments of the Indian masses. For instances, Gautam the Buddha and Mahavir (the propounder of Jainism) had preached the same philosophy of life, but Buddhism lost the struggle on the soil of its birth and Jainism became so puritanical that for the masses it was not possible to follow its tenets whose daily lives involved at least minimum violence. But Gandhi was successful in bringing the ideas of non-violence, social justice and equality for all to the common masses again and thus cementing the gaps between communities. He could not depend upon the ideas enshrined in Vedic Hinduism as the system was founded on casteist social divisions, too much ridden with hierarchy and inequality; nor could he take any support from the glorified history of India since however gloried they may be, Indian histories are always stories of violence glorified. European colonialism was largely founded upon a culture of violence, large-scale slavery, hierarchy and distinctions among people. Thus, the idea of social justice and equality was highly attractive to the already suffering masses of India, suffering all kinds of atrocities for millennia. To conclude, resistance to cultural hegemony, the thread that runs through Kanthapura along the lines of freedom struggle, is in fact a resistance to social inequalities, social injustices and the hierarchized organization of Indian society. The struggle of the masses was not only a struggle to free India from the foreign rule, but also a struggle to free themselves of centuries of bondage within their country itself. Raja Rao articulates this reality very well in Kanthapura. Raja Rao believes in equality and social justice for all. Moorthy says: “And I have come to realize bit by bit, and bit by bit, when I was in prison that as long as there will be iron gates and barbed wires round the Skeffington Coffee Estate, and city cars that can roll up the Bebbur Mound, and gas-lights and coolie cars, there will always be pariahs and poverty. Ratna, things must change.” (Rao, Kanthapura 257)

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“The Cow of the Barricades”: The Story The Cow of the Barricades and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Raja Rao. There are seven stories in this book: ‘Javni,’ ‘Akkayya,’ ‘A Client,’ ‘The Cow of the Barricades,’ ‘Narsiga,’ ‘The True Story of Kanakapala’ and ‘India – A Fable.’ ‘Akkayya’ is the story of a widow. Child marriages were rampant in India at the time this story was written and for some or the other reasons there were many child widows in Indian society, traditionally not allowed to remarry. ‘Akkayya’ is a pathetic story of one such widow who suffers without knowing what pleasures of human life are. ‘Javni’ also tells the story of a widow, from the low caste community. The sufferings that can spring from such a horrible life – a life of poverty and helplessness, combined with widowhood, are well articulated in this story. ‘Narsiga’ is the story of Gandhi’s widespread influence among Indian masses, in every village, even among children. Narsiga is a simple rustic shepherd boy whose “father had died of cholera, his mother of famine, and one sultry afternoon, a thin tall woman, angry and effusive, turned up and calling herself his aunt carted him away into a distant village” (Rao, Collected Stories 5). But the readers are touched by his exuberance despite his sufferings and his enthusiasm for life. He is very moved by Gandhian ideals. Raja Rao paints here the story of India’s struggle for freedom and the role of Gandhi in it. Beloved master at the local Ashram here is a metaphor for Mahatma Gandhi. The simple boy Narsiga is so bewitched by the personality of Gandhi that to him he is God. The description given by him is as follows: Auntie said, there was a big, big man called Gandhiji… ‘An old man- a bewitching man, a saint, you know! He had come from village to village and I have beheld him too,’… ‘He looks beautiful as the morning sun, and he wears only a little loincloth like a pariah. And they say he is for us pariahs, like the Master is for us pariahs. They say he works for the pariahs as the Master works for us. They say he loves the pariahs, as the Master loves us. He is a great man. They say he is an incarnation of God, that is why everybody touches his feet, even brahmins, my son. You will touch his feet too, some day,’ auntie had assured him. ‘When you touch his feet you feel as though the body has sunk to the earth, and you are nothing but a mere ant before an elephant. (Rao, Collected Stories 11)

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Narsiga is portrayed living in the imaginary world of childhood fears and phobias, demons and fairies, gods and goddesses and he is in impressionable age. As he lost his mother in early childhood, he finds it difficult to imagine his motherland as his mother. Perhaps, Raja Rao is making an attempt here to portray the feelings of his countrymen to imagine a new reality in their lives with which they had lost touch, like Narsiga’s mother. The boy sings ‘Vande Mataram’ and knows that the song is a hymn in praise of the motherland. Still it is difficult for him to identify himself with the idea. Exactly same was the condition of the multitudes of Indians who had never experienced anything like ‘motherland’ before. Narsiga is a typical representative of rural India and his pathetic condition in life is the miseries of millions and millions of Indians who were metaphorically orphaned like him and when there appeared a great personality like Gandhi on the Indian horizon who could connect with them coming down to their level, he became their God. Raja Rao has expressed this realism in Indian people’s lives very touchingly and in a realistic manner, using only a few symbols. “The Cow of the Barricades” is the story of a myth-like cow that helps Gandhian freedom fighters, satyagrahis, to initiate a non-violent movement against the foreign rule in India. This story is taken up for analysis in this chapter as the story represents Raja Rao’s thoughts on Indian freedom struggle related to socio-political resistance of the Indian masses against cultural hegemony of the West. The story portrays people’s faith in their traditions and in Mahatma Gandhi, though Mahatma Gandhi is not overtly present in the story, neither is he referred to directly. Gandhi is present in the story covertly, in the form of a holy man called ‘Master.’ The Master represents Gandhi’s ideology and his call for non-violent struggle against the foreign rule in India. Another significant character in the story is the cow called ‘Gauri’ who comes to nibble at the hair of the Master every Tuesday. And the cow has also nibbled at the hair of the Mahatma: “There was only one other person whose hair she had nibbled. She had nibbled at the hair of the Mahatma. For the Mahatma loved all creatures, the speechful and the mute” (Rao, Collected Stories 86).

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Socio-Political Resistance to Cultural Hegemony in “The Cow of the Barricades” “The Cow of the Barricades” is a simple but meaningful story. There are only two main characters in the story – The Master who lives at a shrine on Suryanarayana Street, and Gauri, the cow. Gauri comes to visit ‘The Master’ every Tuesday at his shrine. This cow is a strange creature as she comes to visit only the Master who gives her food and then she disappears. She leaves the street without halting anywhere and without paying any attention to people who gather at the shrine to have a look at her. It is only the Master who may have the knowledge of her whereabouts afterwards. As usual, people associate her with divine power, equate her to goddess Lakshmi, and start gathering at the shrine every Tuesday in anticipation of her arrival and to get blessed by her appearance and even to fulfill their various wishes. For instance, students would come wishing for good marks, widows for purity in their lives, the issueless to be blessed with children and young girls seeking handsome husbands. Tuesday becomes a ceremonial day at Suryanarayana street as there gathers a huge procession of men and women at the Master’s shrine. The backdrop of the story is the time when Indian freedom struggle was at its peak and Mahatma Gandhi had become a household symbol as the messiah of freedom, non-violence and peace. The residents of the city in this story also join the freedom struggle. The Master advises them not to buy foreign goods- especially clothes, to refuse to pay taxes and to stop serving the government of the Englishmen. In preparation of preventing any attacks by the troops, the workmen build barricades around the city. But the Master is against this strategy. He says: “No barricades in the name of the Mahatma, for much blood will be spilt” (Rao, Collected Stories 87). Also, later in this story he echoes Gandhian ideology: “No, there shall be no battle, brothers” (Rao, Collected Stories 88). The city is about to be assaulted by the British troops and at that moment Gauri, the cow appears from somewhere and climbs up the barricades. In fact, people do not heed the advice of the Master for non-violence much and they are ready there with pickaxes, scythes, spades, crowbars, swords, stolen rifles and all kinds of weaponry they could lay their hands upon to have a show-down with the military on the other side of the barricades. Although people are ready to fight, yet they remain confused. When they see Gauri approaching the barricades they

90 Chpater-3 Raja Rao’s Fiction: The Colonial Period expect that she will save the situation and with high expectations they start cheering her up with ‘Vande Mataram.’ Even the police force present at the scene is confused and puzzled to the appearance of the cow: But when they saw the cow and its looks and the tear, clear as a drop of the Ganges, they shouted out, ‘Victory to the Mahatma! Mahatma Gandhi ki Jai’ and joined up with the crowd. But their Chief, the Red- man, saw this and fired a shot. It went through Gauri’s head, and she fell, a vehicle of God among lowly men. (Rao, Collected Stories 90)

Raja Rao conveys the success of the magic of the Mahatma to change the hearts of people, as he believed, through non-violence and love. The policemen who has come there to assault people are so moved seeing the holy cow that they shout, Mahatma Gandhi ki jai (Rao, Collected Stories 90). The event represents a symbolic change of heart of the Indian people in the service of the foreign government at the call of the Mahatma. The crowd gathered there is jubilant and in sheer frenzy people start chanting Vande Mataram (Rao, Collected Stories 90). The army chief gets into a rage at this and fires a shot, killing Gauri on the spot. Peace is restored after this incident. There grows a legend around the cow and she is worshipped as a Goddess. A statue is erected in her memory, and the Master declares that, “Gauri is waiting in the Middle Heavens to be born. She will be reborn when India sorrows again before she is free” (Rao, Collected Stories 91). “The Cow of the Barricades” is a story set in the India of 1930s when the national scene was predominantly affected by Gandhian struggle for Indian independence advocating non-violence and peace. Indian nation was taking shape and Indians had started looking towards their country as a sacred space, and nationalistic feelings were solidified, sometimes taking support from mythological thinking, for example, looking at one’s country as mother-land, which in India became Bharat Mata (Mother India). In general too, cows are considered as sacred animals among Hindus, “mother cow” (gau mata) as they are called and worshipped as life-sustaining creatures, Gauri, the cow taking a bullet and saving numerous lives was to naturally strengthen people’s faith in the animal as well as in their mother land. The cow not only becomes a martyr laying her life for the cause of her people, but she also acquires the force of a tangible power capable of freeing her people as peace restores

91 Chpater-3 Raja Rao’s Fiction: The Colonial Period to the city after her martyrdom. By association too, the cow is used as a metaphor for Mother India whereas the follower of non-violence, the Master, is a metaphor for Mahatma Gandhi. Though Raja Rao may not have full faith in the success of Mahatma Gandhi’s politics, as in Kanthapura towards the end Moorthy leans more towards Jawaharlal Nehru and in “The Cow of the Barricades” too, he expresses similar concerns voiced through the master, as follows: “The Mahatma may be all wrong about politics, but he is right about the fullness of love in all creatures- the speechful and the mute” (Rao, Collected Stories 91). And yet there is no better writer than Raja Rao to convey the philosophy of Gandhi through his realistic fictional works. Raja Rao has devoted his fiction to extensively bring out the success stories based on Mahatma Gandhi’s ideals, like for instance, the devotion and work of satyagrahis like, Moorthy, Rangamma, Range Gowda, Rachanna, and Seenu, are lauded in many ways. The mindset of people like, Waterfall Venkamma and Bhatta start changing and many people who are seeped in orthodoxy before, for example, Ranganna (the narrator in Kanthapura), Achakka and Satamma - do not believe in it now and gradually social evils like, caste system and untouchability are leaving ground and giving way to equality and social justice.

Raja Rao’s Perception of Socio-Political Resistance to Cultural Hegemony in Kanthapura and “The Cow of the Barricades” Raja Rao’s perception of the colonized Indian masses is that of a people united in faith. He strongly believes that Indian masses can easily be moved by religious sentiments. Religious and mythical sentiments are so interwoven with the lives of one and all (especially Hindus) that the people tend to forget their other differences in view of a threat on their cultural values. It is obvious that Indian masses are divided on caste and class lines, and yet a mythic-religious symbol is capable of bringing all under one banner. The symbol of cow is a strong symbol giving the Indian struggle for freedom a mythical shape and colour. For the common masses it is easy to associate themselves with a fight launched for the destruction and uprooting of a foreign rule that has acquired the proportions of a demoniac figure, like Ravana, torturing the gods and the devout, and the masses seeing themselves as the army of

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Rama. The struggle for India’s independence, as depicted in the fictions of Rao, is not a political struggle, rather it is more like a religious struggle- a dharma yuddha in which people are fighting against evil for the protection of and to reinstate virtue. It is interesting to note here how the similar ideology, that is, whenever there is ignorance, predominance of evil and destruction of dharma (that is, righteous behaviour) on the Indian soil, God incarnates Himself on Indian soil to protect the virtuous and to destroy the evil can be employed by people belonging to different camps.

Mythic Past Overshadowing the Present Raja Rao inherits a Brahmin culture and all his fictional works too inherit the same. He easily invokes various Hindu scriptures and ‘brahminical’ texts (texts on Hindu practices and ideologies) to unify people. Raja Rao believes in ancient Indian traditions but without ritualism in there. To him rituals are symbolic representations of some other reality, a kind signs. For instance, the ritualistic holy thread is a symbolic instrument of the reminder of one’s sacred oaths. Since man is prone to forget the resolutions he may have made, the holy thread around his neck functions as a continual reminder of his resolutions. A case in point is Moorthy’s resolution to remain bound to the oath he takes before his mother: “…when Narsamma said, ‘You are a grown-up boy, Moorthy, and if you don’t marry now, you will take to evil ways,’ Moorthy, deferential as ever, said, ‘No, mother. I swear upon my holy thread I shall keep pure and noble and will bring no evil to my ancestors’” (Rao, Kanthapura 50). In his writings, the struggle for the independence of India takes the form of a struggle to free Hinduism from ill influences of other cultures around it. Thus, it follows that it is not that the holy thread is confined for the use of only Brahmins; anyone, irrespective of caste and creed who wishes to be reminded of his or her resolution can put on a thread around his neck. And isn’t it interesting to note that in Coleridge’s poem “Rime of the Ancient Mariner" the sailors hang the dead albatross around the neck of the guilty mariner as a constant reminder of his sin? Moorthy in Kanthapura is Raja Rao incarnate. Moorthy’s adversaries, like, Bhatta, Venkamma and other Brahmins, take him wrong, thinking he is against ‘brahminism’ or typical mainstream Hinduism. He is, like Mahatma Gandhi, rather a social reformer who wishes to make Hinduisms still stronger by purging it of the

93 Chpater-3 Raja Rao’s Fiction: The Colonial Period prevalent evils. What they celebrate to unify the village people are the typical Hindu festivals. For example: Then came Postmaster Suryanarayana and said, ‘Brother, why not start a Sankara-Jayanthi? I have the texts. We shall read the Sankara-Vijaya every day and somebody will offer a dinner for each day of the month.’ ‘Let the first be mine,’ said Bhatta. ‘The Second mine,’ said Agent Nanjundia. ‘The third must be mine,’ insisted Pandit Venkateshia. ‘And the fourth and the fifth are mine,’ said Rangamma. ‘And if there is no one coming forward for the other days, let it always be mine,’ she said. (Rao, Kanthapura 10) There is nothing wrong in it, but the examples they take to support their struggle for independence are all from Hindu mythic past in which all those against whom the battles for the protection of dharma are fought are evil villains bent upon destroying the age old Hindu civilization, for example, Ravana, Hirnakashyapu and the like. There are stories from the Ramayana, from the Puranas, from Mahabharata and from other epics and scriptures. The behaviour of those villains is interesting to note. They eat flesh; they drink alcohol; they do not follow the usual Hindu rituals; they do not believe in the mainstream idea of God, and so on. If one looks at these traits closely, those are the very characteristics of the untouchables and the pariahs. Untouchables and pariahs are shunned for they indulge in such nefarious activities. Thus, one of the significant messages from Kanthapura is that the struggle launched for the freedom of India was also a struggle to free Hinduism from the so-called bad influences. A comparative look at Kanthapura and “The Cow of the Barricades” reveals the same phenomenon. In Kanthapura, an agent of the Swami, a Government’s man, argues that British rule established in India is good for Hindu dharma since the Sovereign Queen of England has protected “Our dharma” better than anyone else has done during all the eras of non-Hindu rule in India. And he gives example of Mohommedan princes who always failed to protect Hinduism. Therefore, to him British rule in India was like reincarnation of Lord Krishna to protect virtue and destroy evil. On the other hand, the similar ideology was used by the followers of Gandhi who saw in him an incarnation of God and the struggle for independence as a holy war. A lawyer called Ranganna tells the crowd a story that he was called by the

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Swami, the self-styled protector of the Hindu dharma, and instructed by him to dissociate his people from the pariah business. The Swami says: For some time there has been too much of this pariah business. We are brahmins and not pariahs. When the pariahs will have worn out their karma, and will have risen in the waters of purification, nobody will prevent them from becoming brahmins, even sages, in their next lives. But this Gandhi, who is no doubt a fine person, is meddling with dharma sastras, the writ laws of the ancient sages, and I am not for it. (Rao, Kanthapura 129) To which the advocate responds: “Swamiji,” I said, “how can you accept the help of a foreign Government? Do not the dharma sastras themselves call the foreigners mlechas, untouchables?” and the Swami said, “Governments are sent by the Divine Will and we may not question it,” and he added, “And I may say the Government has promised to help us morally and materially,…” (Rao, Kanthapura 130) Raja Rao has succeeded in conveying the clever strategy used by all the nationalists at that time to use the traditions and customs of India to mobilize the masses, adapting the stories and myths of the past to modern times. The cow in “The Cow of the Barricades” symbolizes the ongoing synthesis between carrying on with traditions since the masses believed in them, and adapting them to modern times as is the need of the time. Raja Rao has been realistic in the portrayal of this fact. In his portrayal of the socio-political resistance to cultural hegemony in “The Cow of the Barricade” too he is realistic. The Master and Gauri, the Cow, became the symbols of Indian culture, the Master standing for non-violence and the cow representing the life- sustaining elements in Indian culture. The Government that comes with its army to assault the city represents the culture of violence and annexation. As a token of resistance to such a culture, the Master forbids his followers to resort to violence and blood-spilling. And, to the utter satisfaction of the people, Master’s strategy of non- violence carries the day, and strengthens people’s faith in it. The incident proves the superiority of the strategy adopted by the Master, the tactics of non-violence that spring from the fountain source of Indian culture, thus effectively resisting the cultural hegemony of the intruders. But there are a few disturbing questions too, as regards to the killing of the sacred cow, which Raja Rao leaves unanswered, or may be the time was not ripe to

95 Chpater-3 Raja Rao’s Fiction: The Colonial Period answer them. Some of such questions are as follows: If the cow (of the barricades) is the symbol of Mother India, the land of brahminism and the mythical India of the Vedas, Puranas, Upanishads and ancient Indian philosophy, then a new India without brahminical myths and mythological imagery should emerge after the killing of the cow by the British. But did it happen? Who appropriated that new India and why? Have the stark social and religious division between the higher caste and lower caste Hindus disappear with the arrival of nationalist movement in Indian rural setup during the British colonial period? Unfortunately, the caste system and its multifaceted impacts on the marginalized people of the society are still largely prevalent in modern India. Kamalakar, a teacher at a college in Maharashtra (India) has an interesting observation in this regard. Commenting on Moorthy’s politics, he says in his blog: His politics aims at assimilating the lower castes into the nationalist movement. This may also operate as a move towards containment. For example, the discourse of nationalism meets the discourse of religion at different levels in the novel. While Bhatta, Swami and their followers (who have often material motives such as Venkamma) resist Gandhism in the name of religion, in Kanthapura, the nationalists increasingly employ the religious discourse and customs and symbols for nationalist purposes. Religious resources are mobilized for the politicisation of the people. But the customs, rituals and symbols that become tools of nationalist mobilization are primarily Brahminic: arthi, puja, conches, bells, Vedanta, bhajan, etc. They do not include the cultural practices of the lower castes though their participation is prominent. (Kamalakar) It can be added here that Raja Rao leaves a hint in his novels about the probable appropriation of the nationalist discourse, in this way completing the appropriation of the nation as well. The rituals, customs and symbols used as tools of mass mobilization in Kanthapura became the tools of mass mobilization in India as an emerging nation, and those symbols serve the purpose of only a few.

Gandhian Movement and the Idea of Nationalism Gandhian movement was a nationalistic movement, which needed to take along one and all irrespective of caste, creed, region, language, gender, and other

96 Chpater-3 Raja Rao’s Fiction: The Colonial Period affinities creating hindrances in bringing the people of India together to fight the strong demon of colonialism. People did come together, but the issues of caste, creed, religion, gender, language and region rose their ugly heads together, and the people who came to fight colonialism in the hope that their centuries of oppression would come to end if they followed Gandhian ideals felt betrayed as India reverted back to the same mythological paradigm that had kept them out of the mainstream. The situation is the same as witnessed in Achebe’s A Man of the People. In Achebe’s novel people of Nigeria fights against the colonial rule in the hope that they will have better day, but no, they are betrayed by the elites who replace the British and take the exact position that is of their colonial masters. It would also be pertinent to ask at this juncture what Raja Rao’s perception of India has been before colonialism as represented in his fictions. Did India exist before the British arrival in India? What was India before colonialism? What was India before Gandhi’s intervention? What is India during the British raj? Brahminism and colonialism: do they go hand in glove? What is nationalism to Gandhi? Is nationalism invented by Gandhi a threat to brahminism as well as colonialism? India in Raja Rao’s fiction is not the India that people imagine it to be in the pre-colonial days. Though there appears to be a seamless continuity of the past into the present in his works, still he reveals there was a rupture at some point in time and India of the past was lost to the present Indians. Indians had plunged into an abyss of caste, creed and regionalism a long before the colonial intrusion in this subcontinent. The system developed afterwards was such that those who were reaping the fruits of legendary Indian affluence were only a few while the common populace was a miserable ‘wretched of the earth,’ as says Fanon. During the freedom struggle movement the same narrative was being woven by some vested interests in which the untouchables would remain untouchables. A new nation was being invented in which, again, the untouchables and the downtrodden had no place and position other than being subservient to caste Hindus. Even Muslims had no place in it – they were projected as outside intruders, marauders and plunderers of Mother India. There are four prominent Muslim characters in Kanthapura, and all four of them are painted in black. Bade Khan is a policeman working for the British and beating up the Gandhi brigade black and blue; Moti Khan is another policeman thrashing the Gandhians as they picket Boranna’s toddy grove; Rahman Khan is the third Muslim who is a

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dishonest guy trying to cheat someone, and there is a fourth Muslim, an Afghan man who tried to kill Gandhi. Raja Rao’s fictions depict India in many ways – through people’s love for each other, compassion towards all creatures and spirituality in the lives of characters of his novels. But there is yet another India that has enslaved a large part of its population and in India of the future that India wishes to continue the same narrative. Gandhi is against that and Raja Rao is also against that thought pattern. But, it is distressing to note that in Raja Rao a strain of support for brahminical tradition with all the symbols, rituals and customs are resurrected. But this may be just a depiction of the reality, not an expression of his endorsement of the view. Mulk Raj Anand, in comparison, does not endorse brahminism when he writes on Gandhi’s influence on the psyche of the India masses. His Untouchable (1935) and Coolie (1936) are just realistic portrayal of the lives of the miserable people. Even Gandhi was aware of the dangers of the freedom struggle being usurped by the mainstream Hindu nationalists, as writes Thomas Bonnici, “He knew the dangerous path he was treading, especially with a nation composed of Hindus and Muslims, each group vying for power and dominance.” (3). Brahminism was obviously hand-in-glove with the British raj as brahminism had no problem with their economic or social policies of the colonial force, but brahminism has problems with Gandhi’s pro-pariah policies. Although Raja Rao denounces the anti-pariah stand of the Swami, he spears to be for a revival of Hinduism, even brahminism in India as is clear from his use of brahminical symbols and metaphors in Kanthapura and “The Cow of the Barricades” and other stories. Bhatta, the Brahmin landlord and a moneylender who owns more than half of Kanthapura’s lands now resents the increasing influence of Gandhian philosophy, as it threatens his livelihood. He presents his arguments in opposition to Gandhian thinking wrapped up in the mythical greatness of Indian culture and tries to win the brahmin community to his cause taking shelter of caste and clan ‘superiority’, and the fear of a casteless society. He rents and raves: What is this Gandhi business? Nothing but weaving coarse hand-made cloth, not fit for a mop, and bellowing out bhajans and bhajans, and mixing with the pariahs. Pariahs now come to the temple door and tomorrow they would like to be in the heart of it. They will one day put themselves in the place of the brahmins and begin to teach the Vedas. I heard only the other day that in the

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Mysore Sanskrit College some pariahs sought admission. Why? Our Beadle Timmayya will come one of these days to ask my daughter in marriage! Why shouldn’t he?” (Rao, Kanthapura 38) To Bhatta’s rent and raving about caste pollution and pariahs taking over bs, Rangamma responds as follows: “I don’t think we need fear that, Bhattare? The pariahs could always come as far as the temple door, couldn’t they? And across the Mysore border, in Belur, they can even enter the temple once a year…” (Rao, Kanthapura 38). Incidentally, it is interesting to note that Mahatma Gandhi is called Rashtrapita (in English to be translated as the ‘Father of the nation’). ‘Father of the Nation’ is a title given to a man considered to be the driving force behind the foundation of a nation. It was the great Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose who used the term for Mahatma Gandhi, in a radio address from Singapore in 1944 (Raj). Later, it was recognized by the Indian government. When Gandhi was assassinated, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, in a radio address to the nation, had announced that the Father of the Nation “is no more”. It is important to briefly look at the historical background of this hugely popular title of Mahatma Gandhi as he is stilled proudly recognized in India as the ‘Father of the Nation’. Dr. Savsita Singh provides the following information on this issue in his blog on Mahatma Gandhi: Much before the Constitution of Free India conferred the title of the Father of the Nation upon the Mahatma, it was Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose who first addressed him as such in his condolence message to the Mahatma on the demise of Kasturba. Ba and Bapu had been interned at Aga Khan Palace, Pune in the wake of the Quit India Movement. It was while serving the prison term Kasturba passed away on 22 February, 1944. Concerned about Gandhiji, Netaji sent the following message to the Mahatma on Azad Hind Radio, Rangoon on 4th June, 1944: “…Nobody would be more happy than ourselves if by any chance our countrymen at home should succeed in liberating themselves through their own efforts or by any chance, the British Government accepts your “Quit India” resolution and gives effect to it. We are, however, proceeding on the assumption that neither of the above is possible and that a

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struggle is inevitable. Father of our Nation in this holy war for India's liberation, we ask for your blessings and good wishes." The above message also proves beyond any doubt Netaji's 'reverence and warm feelings towards Gandhiji whom he had addressed as The Father of the Nation'. There have been many queries as to how could Gandhi be called ‘the Father’ of an ancient civilization like ours. No one is questioning the antiquity of this ancient land. But India or ‘Bharat’, as we known today that has emerged out of an old civilization is a recent phenomenon. This multicultural multi-ethnic country became a Nation-State owing allegiance to one Constitution, one flag and one Government only on 15 August, 1947. So it seemed to a vast millions of Indians, and who saw a Father figure in him and whose 'Bapu' he was. (Singh) The relevant question to ask at this juncture is: what is the meaning of ‘nation’ here? If Gandhi was the father of the nation, does not it follow that the ‘nation’ as perceived today and which was begot by Gandhi did not exist prior to Gandhi? If it did, how could he beget it? What is at stake here is the mythical continuity of the ‘nation,’ the theory of comingling of the past and the present or the present seen existing as it was in the past and thus reshaping itself as a nation in its present form. The new India which should have emerged abolishing caste, creed, religion, region, gender discriminations, and of course, poverty – the worst curse – was usurped by a few vested interests. Has there been a revival of the age-old mythical symbols against which Raja Rao warns us in his works? What is the role of Bade Khan the policeman in Kanthapura? Is he only a representative of the Raj? Does he represent Muslims of India? Why does a bad character who beats up the followers of Gandhi happen to be Muslim? Bade Khan is presented in a typically hateful form, so terrible that women of the village are ready to pounce upon him and uproot his beard from his face: …Moorthy cries out, ‘No beatings, sisters. No beatings in the name of the Mahatma.’ But the women are fierce and they will tear the beard from Bade Khan’s face. Gangadhar and Vasudev go up to the pillars of the gate and cry, ‘Calm! Calm!’ Bade Khan, spitting and licking, says he will have every one of

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them arrested, and as the maistri whips the coolies up the Estate path, Vasudev leads Moorthy away down to Kanthapura and spends the night there. (Rao, Kanthapura 85) The question is: Does Bade Khan represent Muslim support to the British rule, because after the First War of Independence the British were angry with the Muslims and started sidelining them. But then Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-1898) became instrumental in bringing the Muslims close to the British and took the Muslim community on the road to modernization, English education, and thus the British made peace with Muslims (Rahman). Therefore, is it assumed that Muslims supported the Raj? What is raja Rao’s perception in this regard? Another incident with yet another Muslim policeman, Moti Khan, can also be discussed here in this context: …and the Police inspector says, ‘Moti Khan, you’d better try,’ and as he is trying to go up the other policemen fall on us again, and we rush to this side and that, while somebody pulls down Moti Khan and the man on the top spits down on him, and a wave of laughter whirls up the toddy grove. (Rao, Kanthapura 186) The scene here is that Moorthy and his women brigades are picketing Boranna’s toddy grove and the police trying to push coolies to drink. These questions related to Raja Rao’s stance towards Muslim characters in his fiction and the role of Muslims in the freedom struggle of India in general are difficult to answer because in Raja Rao’s works there are only very few Muslim characters. And a research study cannot be based on speculations. Raja Rao’s fiction, particularly his colonial novel Kanthapura and the short story “The Cow of the Barricades” can be interpreted to have three prominent strains: i) Full support for Gandhian philosophy of life, ii) Revival of ancient Indian traditions, especially, Hinduism, to counter European cultural hegemony, but with accommodating the modern realities of India in which there is no scope for class and caste distinctions, and iii) Advocating Russian-style socialism based on the ideals of equality, fraternity and social justice. Comrade Kirillov presents a god example in support of this ideal; The Serpent and the Rope is a befitting example for revival of ancient India and Kanthapura, “The Cow of the Barricades” and The Cat and Shakespeare are good examples of his ideas concerned with Gandhian philosophy of life. In this sense, most of his works may be termed as postcolonial literature since

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they visualize a post-independent Indian scenario. Sociopolitical resistance to cultural hegemony, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, is narrated in Kanthapura and “The Cow of the Barricades”, but Indian socio-political life is at the heart of all of his works.

The Hegemony of Religion and Culture of the Elite Upper Class in the Native Society Raja Rao paints a very bleak picture of the life of common labourers in India. There is an instance when maistri, the man who brings coolies to work at coffee estate of Hunter Sahib, repeats the working conditions put before them by the Sahib: “The Sahib says that if you work well you will get sweets and if you work badly you will get beaten – that is the law of the place.’ And they all rose up like one rock and fell on the ground saying, ‘You are a dispenser of good, O Maharaja, we are the lickers of your feet…’” (Rao, Kanthapura 67). Raja Rao paints this picture to make a case for India’s freedom struggle from the foreign rule that was responsible for such a pathetic condition of people. Cultural hegemony destroys people’s self-respect and hunger completes the downfall. But, the coolies were not coolies only during the British era; they had been outcastes even much before that. So, when people’s resistance to cultural hegemony in Raja Rao’s fiction is studied, the following questions should also be discussed: Whose cultural hegemony is being referred to? Is it the cultural hegemony of the colonizers or the cultural hegemony within Indian social sphere like, brahminism vs non-brahminism? It is not that the collies, who were ready to lick the feet of the Colonial master, were doing this for the first time during the British Raj. These poor people have been made to lick the feet of their masters for centuries and centuries, much before the arrival of the White man in the Indian subcontinent. The White man could do this because that is what he has seen in India. Centuries of oppression had left people tongue-tied, in fact, they were not even aware that they could speak too. The mainstream Hindu nationalists were fighting only a single battle – against their foreign masters, but the people who were not part of the mainstream Hindu culture were fighting double battles – against the colonial masters who indirectly oppressed them and against the Indian masters who directly oppressed them. These battle lines are clearly drawn in Kanthapura, though in “The Cow of the Barricades” they are not so obvious.

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Of course, the novel Kanthapura tells the story of a secret collusion between brahminism and colonial forces as is revealed by the tall lean old man who speaks at the platform raised by advocates Sankar and Ranganna in order to educate people on colonial hegemony in India, and by Ranganna himself who relates his visit to the Swami. The concept of nationalism to Brahmins is entirely different from Gandhi’s nationalism. India is not a nation to the Brahmins; it is just a piece of land where different kinds of people live and the Brahmins are superior to all of them. So, any place where they lose their superior status is not for them, and any ruler who recognizes their superior status is their ruler, irrespective of the fact where the ruler has come from. Gandhi’s nationalism encompasses the entire length and breadth of India and all the people who live here irrespective of their caste, creed or region. India is for Indians, to Gandhi. To Brahmins, anti-untouchable movement of Gandhi is more dangerous than cultural hegemony of the British. It is Bhatta who has been instrumental in the excommunication of Moorthy, because he has made a case against Moorthy to the influential Swami sitting in Mysore and working for the colonizers: The Swami is worried over this pariah movement and he wants to crush it in its seed, before its cactus-roots have spread far and wide. You are a Bhatta and your voice is not a sparrow voice in your village, and you should speak to your people and organize a brahmin party. Otherwise brahminism is as good as kitchen ashes. The Mahatma is a good man and a simple man. But he is making too much of these carcass-eating pariahs. Today it will be the pariahs, tomorrow it will be the Mohomedans, and the day after the Europeans …. We must stop this. (Rao, Kanthapura 40) Bhatta communicates the news of possible excommunication of Moorthy to his mother Narsamma if he continues with his pariah business. Bhatta also tells her how Moorthy himself reacted to this situation: And Moorthy says, “Let the Swami do what he likes. I will go and do more and more pariah work. I will go and eat with them if necessary. Why not? Are they not men like us. And the Swami, who is he? A self-chosen fool. He may be learned in the Vedas and all that. But he has no heart. He has no thinking power”. (Rao, Kanthapura 59)

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Gandhi’s views and brahminism do not go together. Moorthy’s mother Narsamma pronounces a curse upon Gandhi when she hears of her son’s excommunication by the all-powerful Swami because Moorthy associates himself with pariahs under the influence of Gandhi. She says, “Oh, this Gandhi! Would he were destroyed!”(Rao, Kanthapura 61). To Raja Rao, the struggle of the common masses of India to oppose colonial hegemony was a collective struggle of the people of India, and in the process they reinvented a new reality for themselves and their lives. But the struggle of some sections of India opposing the cultural hegemony of the elite upper classes of India was not and could never become a collective and strong struggle or mass movement, and that’s the reason it didn’t achieve much success. The influence of socialism on the views of Raja Rao is quite discernible in his writings. He speaks of Russia in the following manner: … the country beyond Kabul and Bukhara and Lahore, the country of the hammer and sickle and electricity… and there in that country there were women who worked like men, night and day, and when they felt tired, they went and spent their holiday in a palace …and mind you, she said that there all men are equal – everyone equal to every other – and there were neither the rich nor the poor…. (Rao, Kanthapura 42-43). But India is not ready for such a revolution in the society: Pariah Ramakka, who heard of it one day, said, ‘So in that country pariahs and brahmins are the same, and there are no people to give paddy to be husked and no people to do it – strange country, Mother.’ But Rangamma simple said, ‘My paper says nothing about that,’ and continued measuring the unhusked rice…’ (Rao, Kanthapura 43; emphasis added) Even Moorthy, the protagonist and the greatest champion of the downtrodden is not fully prepared for a sudden change. Although he drinks the milk offered to him by pariah Rachanna’s wife Lingamma, yet he is not mentally at peace with himself. As he goes back to Rangamma’s house, he seeks her permission whether to enter the house or not and she advises him to use the back yard entrance, wash himself and put on fresh clothes. Rangamma says: ‘Maybe you’d better change your holy thread,’ but Moorthy says, ‘Now that I must go there every day, I cannot change my holy thread every day, can I?’

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and Rangamma says only, ‘I shall at least give you a little Ganges water, and you can take a spoonful of it each time you’ve touched them, can’t you?’ So Moorthy says, ‘As you will,’ and taking the Ganges water he feels a fresher breath flowing through him, and lest anyone should ask about his new adventure, he goes to the riverside after dinner to sit and think and pray. After all a brahmin is a brahmin, sister! (Rao, Kanthapura 104-105) Moorthy does not change his holy thread, but the reason he offers for his decision is surprising: “Now that I must go there every day, I cannot change my holy thread every day, can I?” He does not say that since he believes in equality between men and men, the holy thread which is a symbol of his identity as a Brahmin and thus a symbol of his superior status, he is neither going to change nor going to replace it when the thread wears out. Also, he neither says that he is ready to put away the thread since it identifies him as superior and different from the rest of men. He goes on following the other Hindu, or rather, brahminical rituals, some of which do not advocate equality among all humans. All the Congress meetings take off with bhajans (Hindu religious songs), and other religious chanting, despite his knowledge that the majority of his followers are pariah people who could not be part of those activities. Raja Rao seems to endorse the patronizing attitude of the mainstream Hindu nationalists emphasizing in the process that the mainstream Hindu culture is the right and the best culture for India. People’s resistance to the cultural hegemony of the colonial rulers is brought out by Raja Rao in a fine narrative style. He tells the story in a traditional storytelling manner as he himself says in the “Foreword” to the novel: This was and still is the ordinary style of our story-telling. I have tried to follow it myself in this story. It may have been told of an evening, when as the dusk falls, and through the sudden quiet, lights leap up in house after house, and stretching her bedding on the veranda, a grand-mother might have told you, newcomer, the sad tale of her village. (Kanthapura vi) The narrative is not just another tale told by the grandmother; rather it is the narrative of Gandhi’s adventures. How Gandhi organized an army of helpless people to fight a mighty empire. The narrative is also the narrative of Gandhi inspiring people to

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follow the ultimate truth in their lives, and of course they did. The narrative is also the narrative of the victory of truth over falsehood. Moorthy, the protagonist, becomes a seeker of truth in life. Because, to him the struggle for India’s freedom was not a mere political struggle; it was also a struggle to realize the ultimate truth, the truth of mankind. After Moorthy is arrested and put behind bars, he refuses to avail a bail because he is seeking truth, nothing else. A conversation between Sadhu Narayana and Moorthy is worth mentioning here: …And there is in you the hunger of God, and may He protect you always. But Ranganna comes and tells me, ‘I cannot change his heart. You are a religious man, go and speak to him,’ and I came to see you. I have neither hair nor home, and I have come to tell you, this is not just. Defend one must against evil; if not, where is renouncement, continence, austerity, and the control of breath?’ To which Moorthy says, ‘You are a holy man, Sadhuji, and I touch your feet in reverence. But if Truth needs a defence, God Himself would need one, for as the Mahatma says, Truth is God, and I want no soul to come between me and truth.’ (Rao, Kanthapura 124) In this process Moorthy also learns to be all-inclusive, to give place to one and all in the affairs of the Congress Working Committee. As he suggests names of people for the Committee, he point to the pariahs: And Moorthy then turns towards the pariahs and says, ‘One among you!’ and then there is such a silence that a moving ant could be heard, and then Moorthy says, ‘Come, Rachanna, you have suffered much, and you shall be a member,’ and Rachanna says, ‘As you will, learned master!’” (Rao, Kanthapura 108). Kanthapura is the story of Mahatma Gandhi’s efforts to unify India into one nation. Raja Rao has added a new dimension to it – the dimension of narrativity. As Kanthapura is a narrative of the preparation of the common masses to fight a decisive battle in a non-violent manner, “The Cow of the Barricades” narrates the success of this strategy on a larger scale, as was never witnessed by anyone during the history of mankind. As discussed in the foregoing pages in this chapter, history of mankind is the story of violence glorified. Gandhi meditated upon something better as he was influenced by the ideas of love in all the world religions, and he came up with the theory of a non-violent resistance to colonial force. He believed in the change of heart

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of people; in such a thought there is no concept of an enemy; people are just misguided by their ego and other misplaced factors as is stressed in ancient India philosophy of Advaita Vedanta. Raja Rao was greatly influenced by the views of Mahatma Gandhi since he himself was a good scholar of Advaita Vedanta. His ideas in this regard are very subtly expressed in his postcolonial novel, The Serpent and the Rope. To conclude, this present chapter has analyzed Raja Rao’s perception of colonialism in India as well as his depiction of the socio-political resistance of the Indian masses to cultural hegemony of the foreign rulers in Kanthapura and “The Cow of the Barricades.” The analysis of the novel and the short story reveals that Raja Rao has been a staunch follower of Mahatma Gandhi since in both these colonial fictions. He depicts Mahatma Gandhi in various representation, Moorthy in Kanthapura and the Master in “The Cow of the Barricades.” Mahatma Gandhi’s ideals, especially non-violence, truth, swadeshi, equality, social justice and universal brotherhood have been portrayed in the lives of his protagonists and people are shown to follow them as essential principles in their lives. Raja Rao perceives colonial rule in India as highly detrimental to her social, economic and political growth. Colonial rule is associated with mass poverty in India owing to drain of India’s wealth to England, death of Indian cottage industries, export of raw material from India and import of finished goods at exorbitant prices. Colonial rule is also responsible for cultural hegemony of the rulers leading to low self-image of the colonized, destruction of traditional cultural values and maintaining status quo in Indian society. Also, another layer of culture hegemony among different sections people in the pre- colonial Indian society that had been oppressing the lower caste Hindus, was present long before the British colonial power came to this land, and it is analyzed at length in this chapter. Another aspect of Raja Rao’s representation of Indian resistance to cultural hegemony in Kanthapura and “The Cow of the Barricades” is that he has showed the Indian masses in a single unified colour standing in one file against the empire. There may be differences of colour, caste, creed and regions among the masses, but on the call of Mahatma Gandhi, they put away all their differences and joined hands in the struggle. The greatest victory of the people was that they regained their consciousness, their self-respect and they learned to be strong without any weapons

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with them. It also shows the victory of faith – Indian people were victorious because they had faith in the powers of Mahatma Gandhi and his principles; they had unquestioned faith in the powers of non-violence, compassion, love, Truth and simplicity in life. Though there are some disturbing questions too as regards to nation and its new narration by different camps of nationalists in India at the time. Raja Rao appears to support the mainstream Hindu nationalism in his works since he employs the typical Hindu symbols in his fictional works. For example, cow is a sacred animal for the Hindus and Raja Rao uses the symbol as a metaphor for Mother India. He uses some more signs and symbols coming from the same narrative, for instance, the Master in “The Cow of the Barricade” living in his Ashram far from the madding crowd is a well-known symbol of Hindu ascetic life style. All other rituals, signs, scriptures and epics are also picked up from Hindu mythology in Kanthapura. All this is done by Moorthy despite the fact that a large number of his followers were untouchables and pariahs who were either not allowed to practice these rituals or they were not at all aware of the fact they could also practice these rituals. There is a mass movement gathering up in Kanthapura in the form of socio- political resistance to the foreign rule. Mahatma Gandhi encouraged people to oppose the foreign rule in a non-violent matter, resorting to giving up the use of foreign goods and reviving Indian cottage industries. In Kanthapura the experiment on these lines is partly successful as there is some violence from people as they are not used to fight non-violently. In “The Cow of the Barricades” a similar experiment is depicted to be successful as after the violent shooting of the cow, peace is restored in the city and the police personnel came to assault the city also shout slogans in support of Mahatma Gandhi. But, towards the end in Kanthapura Raja Rao shows some disillusionment with Gandhian politics and leans towards Jawaharlal Nehru as a more pragmatic politician capable of winning freedom for India.

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Works Cited Anand, Mulk Raj. Coolie. 1936. New Delhi: Penguin, 1993. Print. ---. Untouchable. 1935. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1990. Print. Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. "Introduction to the Second Edition." Introduction. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2006. 5-8. Print. Bhabha, Homi K. Preface. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge Classics, 2004. ix-xxv. Print. Bonnici, Thomas. "The Contemporary Post-colonial Novel in English." Acta Scientiarum. Human and Social Sciences 26.1 (2004): 1-22. Web. 25 May 2016. . Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Rime of the Ancient Mariner: And Select Poems. Ed. Frederick H. Sykes. N.p.: Foating, 1908. Print. Chandrasekaran, Balakrishnan. "India." Ed. Vincent Barnett. The Routledge Handbook of the History of Global Economic Thought. New York: Routledge, 2015. 323-336. Print. "Dadabhai Navroji." Revolvy. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Aug. 2016. . Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. New York: Grove, 1965. Print. Kamalakar. "Raja Rao’s Kanthapura, Nationalism and Caste." Web log post. Wordpress. Sotosay, 2 Nov. 2009. Web. 07 June 2016. . Komalesha, H. S. Issues of Identity in Indian English Fiction: A Close Reading of Canonical Indian English Novels. Bern: Peter Lang, 2008. Print. Kozicki, Richard P. "Dadabhai Naoroji and The Drain Theory. By Ganguli B. N." The Journal of Asian Studies 26.4 (1967): 728-729. Web. 20 May 2016.

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york-asia-publishing-house-1965-ix-152-pp-index- 600/DC4B04F4136E30291F86526B1328CD39>. McLeod, John. Beginning Postcolonialism. New Delhi: Viva Private Limited, 2012. Print. Naoroji, Dadabhai. Poverty and Un-British Rule in India. Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1962. Print. Narasimhaiah, C. D. Introduction. Kanthapura. By Raja Rao. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 1974. vii-xviii. Print. Rahman, Syed Ziaur, Ed. The Glowing Legend of Sir Syed – A Centennial Tribute. Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim U, 1998. Print. Raj, T.V. Antony. "Who Conferred the Title of 'Father of the Nation' on Mahatma Gandhi?" Gandhi Smriti. Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti, n.d. Web. 02 Aug. 2016. . Rao, Raja. Collected Stories. Gurgaon: Penguin India, 2014. Print. ---. Kanthapura. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1974. Print. ---. The Cow of the Barricades and Other Stories. London: Oxford UP, 1947. Print. Singh, Savsita, Dr. "Mahatma Gandhi: Father of the Nation." N.p., n.d. Web. 07 June 2016. .

110 CHAPTER IV

CHINUA ACHEBE’S POSTCOLONIAL FICTION

Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

In colonial and postcolonial writings from the continent of Africa, Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) has been a very influential signature, described by Nadine Gordimer as “gloriously gifted with the magic of an ebullient, generous, great talent” (1). He was born and brought up in Nigeria and spent most of his lifetime there till 1994 when he was forced to flee the country by a repressive regime because they threatened to imprison him for his subversive writings, radical political stance and activism. Apart from teaching at the University of Nigeria, his teaching career spans the University of Massachusetts, University of Connecticut and Brown University. He was a poet, novelist, professor and critic of high worth. Achebe’s writing is mainly focused on the impact of colonialism on the culture, traditions and living conditions of the people of his country in particular, but also on the lives of the people of Africa in general. He celebrates the strong storytelling tradition of Africans in his writings, using a similar narrative technique, style, proverbs and close-knit tribal cultural ties in his novels. Things Fall Apart is the best example of this style of storytelling. But, Achebe was frustrated too with the behaviour of his countrymen after Nigeria got independence. He was shocked at the corruption, dishonesty and deceit of the country’s politicians. His postcolonial works deal with this devastating influence colonialism had left on the psyche of his people. Chinua Achebe is a realist. He may be considered as a leader of the major realist writers from the continent of Africa who gave a thoroughly new direction to African literature written in English, especially through their life-like representation of the socio-political environment of the continent and the aspirations as well frustrations of their people. Achebe, in particular, appears to be, as visualized by Carroll, constantly nostalgic about the “rediscovery of Africa’s past” (11, 26). All of his work is a testimony to the continual struggle of his people to make adjustments with the past and the present, or to put it in the words of Ngũgĩ Wa Thiongʼo, “to sensitively register his encounter with history, his people’s history” (39). Achebe himself states this fact in his collection of essays in Morning Yet that his mission has been to help the “society regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of the years of denigration and self-abasement” (qtd. in Gikandi). Achebe has been very upset that the White man has obliterated the past history of his people and therefore they do not know anything about the glorious history of African more than what the White man gave them. That’s why projecting local history has been one of his 111 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

conscious efforts in his novels. In his own words from the essay "The Novelist as Teacher", “I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past with all its imperfection was not one long night of savagery from which the first European acting on God’s behalf delivered them” (qtd. in Gorlier 51). Achebe’s novels – Things Fall Apart (1959), Arrow of God (1964), No Longer at Ease (1960), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987) are examples of his perception of the postcolonial African society and its struggle to create its own identity different from the colonial era. In this chapter a comprehensive attempt is made to trace, through one of his postcolonial novels A Man of the People, Chinua Achebe’s perception of the postcolonial African society, its difficulties, and the struggle it has to go through to create its own identity different from the colonial era, and most importantly, its failure in doing so. A Man of the People dramatizes the struggle of an individual against the political stalwarts in his country. Though the protagonist loses the battle in the end since he does not get enough support of his people, his struggle ignites a revolution in the country. The novel also highlights the neo-colonial influence that British and American business ventures continue to exert on the fragile economy of the country, and the story ultimately ends in a military coup d'état giving the required respite to people from a decade of misrule.

A Man of the People in Brief A Man of the People is Chinua Achebe’s fourth novel and his second most popular fictional work after Things Fall Apart, but in this novel Achebe has gone for an entirely different theme from Things Fall Apart. The novel was first published in 1966, six years after Nigeria got its independence from the British colonial rule. But, surprisingly, the acute sense of Achebe to smell the political atmosphere in Nigeria is just astonishing as the novel foreshadows the events to take place in his country the very same year. The fictional military coup he depicts or rather predicts in A Man of the People, really took place, raising even doubts among the army officers that perhaps Achebe had foreknowledge of the things to come. Nigeria became independent on the 1st of October 1960 and became a republic on the same date in 1963. On 16 January 1966, in a military coup d'état Major Kaduna Chukwuma

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Nzeogwu came to power dismissing the nascent democracy in Nigeria (Omotosho 28). Later ‘the most senior military man by that time, Major General Thomas Aguiyi Ironsi’ (Omotosho 28), took control of this land. Soon the country fell in the grip of civil war which continued for three years. Then Ironsi was killed in a counter-coup and the country witnessed another mutiny which helped a young northern military leader named Gen. Yakubu Gowon take control of the region. The Military rule continued till 1970 (Dickovick 127). Although the novel is set in an unnamed state in Africa (the major setting of the events is a small town called ‘Anata’ and the capital city is called ‘Bori,’ but they do not refer to any particular nation state), yet it is obvious, through the postcolonial political developments in the country and the storyline in A Man of the People, that Achebe is writing of Nigeria. It is equally true that the narrative and characterization in A Man of the People holds good for most African states since most of them have toed the similar policy lines and suffered the same fates as did Nigeria. The protagonist in the novel, Odili Samalu, is a school teacher at Anata Grammar School, aspiring to go to England for higher education on a scholarship programme. His former teacher, referred to as Mr. M. A. Nanga, MP, and also as ‘Chief Nanga,’ is Minister of Culture of the country. He visits their school and recognizes Odili and invites him very warmly to come to the capital city. Odili and his colleague as well as friend Andrew Kadibe, make fun of him, “Just think of such a cultureless man going abroad and calling himself Minister of Culture. Ridiculous. This is why the outside world laughs at us” (Achebe, A Man of the People 23). And when Chief Nanga infuriates Odili by having sex with his girlfriend Elsie, the Chief offers him, “…If you like I can bring you six girls this evening. You go do the thing sotay you go beg say you no want again. Ha, ha, ha, ha!” (Achebe, A Man of the People 74). To this Odili responds, “What a country!” I said. “You call yourself Minister of Culture. God help us.” And I spat; not a full spit but a token, albeit unmistakable, one” (Achebe, A Man of the People 74). The minister has also promised Odili all help for his higher education, has urged him to stay at his home in the capital city and he has assured him to arrange for his scholarship abroad. What is clear from the attitude of the minister Chief Nanga, portrayed in the beginning of the novel during his visit to Odili’s school, Odili does not like the man since he thinks he is one of the gang of MPs who are responsible in 113 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

bringing the country down the slope of inflation and introduced bad policies, and still Odili wants to make the most of the opportunity. After the Minister’s visit, his views about the man have undergone a change and he has started liking him. There are two more other reasons too, that make him decide to stay with the Minister, one of them being his attraction for a beautiful girl, Edna, who came to the school along with the Minister’s entourage, and the second being Elsie, his girlfriend from his university days. Elsie works as a nurse in the capital city now. After reaching the capital city, he comes to know that Edna is going to be the Minister’s second wife. Chief Nanga’s wife goes to her village Anata to spend a few days with her parents, and this gives Odili an opportunity to bring Elsie to the house of Chief Nanga with a clear intention to spend the night with her. But to his dismay, she is raped by Chief Nanga, or maybe she sleeps with him on her own accord. This incident enrages Odili, but Chief Nanga is surprised as to what makes Odili angry at such a normal affair. Odili confronts Chief Nanga and challenges him: “Look here, Mr Nanga, respect yourself. Don't provoke me any more unless you want our names to come out in the newspapers today.” Even to myself I sounded strange. Chief Nanga was really taken aback, especially when I called him mister. “You have won today,” I continued, “but watch it, I will have the last laugh. I never forget” (Achebe, A Man of the People 73). He decides that he will seduce Edna to take revenge against the Chief. The first step towards taking revenge against the Chief would be to remove Chief Nanga from his position and replace him, and ultimately to replace the current ruling party. So, Odili gets involved in raising a new political party with the help of his friend Maxwell Kulamo. The members of his party strongly believe that they will be able to provide a more honest, effective and reliable government. Kulamo makes the following speech to the crowd gathered at Odili’s house to explain how the hopes of better governance in the postcolonial period is destroyed in the hands of a few corrupt politicians who run the country now: “They want to share out the wealth of the country between them. That is why you must reject both; that is why we have now formed the C.P.C. as a party of the ordinary people like yourselves.… Once upon a time a hunter killed some big game at night. He searched for it in vain and at last he decided to go home 114 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

and await daylight. At the first light of morning he returned to the forest full of expectation. And what do you think he found? He saw two vultures fighting over what still remained of the carcass. In great anger he loaded his gun and shot the two dirty uneatable birds. You may say that he was foolish to waste his bullets on them but I say no. He was angry and he wanted to wipe out the dirty thieves fighting over another man’s inheritance. That hunter is yourselves. Yes, you and you and you. And the two vultures – P.O.P. and P.A.P. …” There was loud applause. (Achebe, A Man of the People 125-126) The analogy that the speaker draws here is pertinent to expound the postcolonial scenario in Nigeria. Two vultures here represent the corrupt politicians who are looting the wealth of the homeland; however, the true beneficiaries in the post- independent Nigeria should have been the common people who are represented in this analogy by the hunter. Kulamo tries to instill the sentiment among the native crowds that it is their duty to uproot such menaces like these corrupt politicians from their society, so that they could welcome a better tomorrow for one and all. This conflict between the politicians and the youth of the native society also reiterates the sort dominance of one section of the native society over the rest- the hegemonic relationships between different sections of natives as witnessed from the beginning of postcolonial African identity. Odili is gradually becoming more and more opposed to the Chief and at this point, he decides to run for office to take Chief Nanga’s position. But, in this political process Odili realizes that his countrymen are not just corrupt, they are cynical too. Almost all the people believe that politicians are there to take bribes and make themselves rich every day. Odili learns the disgusting fact of the psyche of his people that they are primarily interested in their share in the booty of loot heaped up by corrupt officials. In a shocking turn of events, he is offered money by Chief Nanga as a payment to withdraw his candidature from the election, and at this crucial juncture of his political campaign he has to make several moral decisions. He not only out rightly rejects the offer but also insults Chief Nanga calling him a “Bush man” (Achebe, A Man of the People 120) at his face. He makes serious attempts to convince people that the present government is lying and stealing from the people, but none cares for his rhetoric. He is rather shocked when Max tells him he should have accepted the money from Nanga and should have used it for party activities. Max 115 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

himself have accepted a thousand pounds from Chief Koko, whereas he still continues party campaign. Odili feels that it is a dangerous move, a threat for the life of Max. His village and his family, especially his father, suffer for his actions and he is also threatened and bullied in course of his election campaign. This laidback attitude of the commoners in the native society, as witnessed in this novel, also existed largely among the natives after the colonial powers left the African continent in the 20th century. Such attitude and ignorance of the masses have always been detrimental in the progress of a nascent democracy, like Nigeria in this context. And, as could be found from the postcolonial history of Africa, this lack of awareness and poor attitude towards corruption in general have been one of the reasons why a country like Nigeria did not progress quick enough after the colonizers left them. During the colonial period the colonizers were extracting the native wealth and natural resources to their motherlands, whereas in postcolonial African scenario the colonizers were replaced by the corrupt native politicians. The main difference was that the native wealth was sent to these politicians’ homes now which used to be the colonizers’ countries previously. The overall economic condition of the native society remained the same in colonial and immediate postcolonial period after independence. In the midst of all this happening, Odili feels he loves Edna genuinely. It is not just because he wishes to take revenge from Chief Nanga, but Edna tells him that she is obliged to marry Chief Nanga because her family is under debt and financial pressure. Chief Nanga has given money to her family, and because of that her father is exerting pressure upon her to marry him. Such incident from this novel states the fact that how common people of Africa and their weaknesses were exploited by the dominant section of native society, represented in this narrative by the corrupt politicians of Nigeria, for personal covetous profits in the post-independent Africa. The rulers of the natives continued to be the same after the Europeans left the country- only their skin colour changed. In another twist of events, Odili attends the election rally secretly where Chief Nanga is going to launch his election campaign. But he is recognized and betrayed by the outlawed trader, Josiah, to the Chief who then beats him up severely, to death almost. At that moment the police people posted there, actually the party thugs in police uniform, turn and quietly leave the place. He recuperates at the hospital and now things start changing in his personal life. Edna stands by him through his 116 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

recuperation period, and his family finally makes arrangements for his marriage to her. Things are changing fast in the country too. Eventually, Chief Nanga’s party wins the elections, but there is utter chaos and total unrest in the country in its aftermath, leading to a military coup d'état and imposition of martial law with the dismissal of the constitution of the country and arrest of all political leaders. Chief Nanga was arrested trying to escape in a canoe dressed as a fisherman. Now the same people who have supported the overthrown elected government that was in power come forward to criticize it and say how terrible and corrupt the government officials have been. Odili’s friend Max is killed by one of the officials of the previous government, Chief Koko, but his girlfriend Eunice shoots Chief Koko on the spot. Odili is very sad over his friend’s death, but at the same time he reflects that in such a corrupt country to die in an honourable manner is the best option. In a country where people cannot be moved to action by truth, a person like Max ‘died a good death’ because his life inspires “someone to come forward and shoot your murderer in the chest – without asking to be paid” (Achebe, A Man of the People 150). This also reflects Achebe’s outlook at all the chaos and corruption in postcolonial Africa. He is optimistic that all the elements of darkness in his country are going to vanish soon and he expects the new light of dawn to shield his country from all the preexistent negativities. He foresees that this light of hope is going to be brought by some sort of military coup and exactly same thing happened in Nigeria the year A Man of the People is written, as discussed earlier.

A Man of the People: A Portrait of the Postcolonial African Society As discussed previously, in A Man of the People Chinua Achebe reflects upon the condition of African societies in the aftermath of post-colonialism in Africa. The readers invariably get the feeling that Achebe believes that African post-colonialism is an altered version of colonialism; the colonizers have left the country but colonialism is still there. And it is not that now colonialism is strictly imposed by the native elite; but the sad truth is that postcolonial African governments are still run by the former colonizers and their allies to derive the maximum material benefits from their resources. While in the heydays of colonialism, the colonizers ruled the countries being physically present there through appointing local people to help them run the

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administration, while after their independence the same colonizers indirectly appointed heads of states who functioned like puppets in their hands for a few pieces of silver. They exploited the common masses for the benefit of the former colonizers, exactly like the local people appointed by the colonizers were exploiting the common masses for the benefit of their White masters. Now they pushed their expensive products into the markets of poor countries and took cheap raw materials from them, thus, making double profit. To carry out this one-sided trade, they threw a few pieces of silver to the hungry politicians of the poor countries. Just a few examples from the novel will suffice to prove the point. The trading company named ‘British Amalgamated’ (Achebe, A Man of the People 101) conducts extremely large and varied business with the unnamed country in the novel. The company bribes Chief Nanga to get a road construction contract in the country worth millions of pounds, and in lieu of this favour the company supplied him six luxury buses that would run on this road, generating good personal revenue for the minister. Then there is this story in the newspaper Daily Matchet: …Chief Nanga, who had himself held the portfolio of Foreign Trade until two years ago, had been guilty of the same practice and had built out of his gains three blocks of seven-storey luxury flats at three hundred thousand pounds each in the name of his wife and that these flats were immediately leased by British Amalgamated at fourteen hundred a month each. (Achebe, A Man of the People 101) The same British Amalgamated pays out four hundred thousand pounds to the ruling party called People's Organization Party(P.O.P) whose corrupt politicians are well-known, to fight the election, and Max informs Odili that, “…we also know that the Americans have been even more generous, although we don’t have the figures as yet” (Achebe, A Man of the People 128). When Odili appears to be a threat to Chief Nanga, he wants to buy him. He comes to his father’s house with an offer of the British scholarship desired by him initially and two hundred pounds in currency. About the funds Odili’s party Common People’s Convention (C.P.C.) is getting, he drops a hint that the money comes from foreign countries. It is not surprising that there are several foreign interests, competing with each other for the slice of cake in the newly emerged democracy:

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“We know where that money is coming from,” continued Nanga. “Don’t think we don’t know. We will deal with them after the election. They think they can come here and give money to irresponsible people to overthrow a duly constituted government. We will show them. As for you my brother you can eat what has entered your hand….Your good friend Maxwell Kulamo has more sense than you. He has already taken his money and agreed to step down for Chief Koko.” (Achebe, A Man of the People 119-120) Thus, nothing has changed in the erstwhile colony. Only the skin colour of the masters has changed, and yet those black masters also run errands for their invisible White masters and in lieu of their favours they themselves live a luxurious life at the expense of the tax payers. In the following pages some of the factors and evidences that corroborate this feeling of the author are looked at.

The Hegemonic Misrepresentation of Africa, Native Weaknesses and the Role of Politicians in Postcolonial Africa: Chinua Achebe feels that the culture and the identity of Africans is still being underwritten and Africans are still represented as noble savages, and the numerous so- called ‘African intellectuals’ themselves play a leading role in this game of the Whites. Whites, typically represented by Americans in the novel (in fact, the neo- colonialist agenda is now run by American imperialists for the exploitation of the natural resources of Africa) claim to help and represent Africa to the world in a good light and they study them as subjects of their scientific study, as did Joseph Conrad. But it is obvious that the Western writers can never accord the Africans an equal status, not even the status of an equal human being. Africans, to them, are still lacking in civilization, and therefore, need the help of the progressive White civilization. One classic example of this tendency is noted in Joseph Conrad. In Heart of Darkness it is Joseph Conrad who masquerades as Marlow, and in Lord Jim again it is the narrator’s personality that plays a crucial role. Conrad is considered a great champion of the cause of the Africans, advocating their freedom from the colonial rule. His representation of the reality of Africa in Heart of Darkness is touted as a great turning point towards a change of attitude of the Whites towards slavery. Chinua Achebe, however, opines that Conrad was a racist White man at heart, that he could never

119 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction stand the sight of a black man without feeling disgust. Achebe’s particular reference is to Conrad’s excessive use of the word ‘black’ in Heart of Darkness and his other novels set in Africa: Certainly Conrad had a problem with niggers. His inordinate love of that word itself should be of interest to psychoanalysts. Sometimes his fixation on blackness is equally interesting as when he gives us this brief description: A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms… as though we might expect a black figure striding along on black legs to have white arms! (Achebe, "An Image of Africa." 125) So, the Western sympathizers of the colonized people are pretenders to a certain extent as they have never treated the natives as individuals. There are several instances in A Man of the People indicating this bitter truth, but two instances are worth taking a special note of. The one is the visit of Jean and John at Chief Nanga’s house, and John talks to Odili. Their conversation runs as follows: “America may not be perfect,” he was saying, “but don’t forget that we are the only powerful country in the entire history of the world, the only one, which had to power to conquer the others and didn’t do it.” I must have looked more surprised than I felt. The claim did not as yet strike me with its full weight. I am thinking that this unique act of magnanimity must have happened in a small corner of the world long ago. “Yes,” said John, “in 1945 we could have subdued Russia by placing one atom bomb on Moscow and another on Leningrad. But we didn’t. Why? Well, don’t ask me. I don’t know. Perhaps we are naïve. We still believe in such outdated concepts like freedom, like letting every man run his show. Americans have never wished to be involved in anyone else’s show….” (45- 46) While, on the contrary, the author hints, that the opposite is the only truth. The other incident is Odili’s conversation with some White men and women at the party thrown by Jean and John. The reference is to an art piece put up at a public square in Bori, the capital city. People from different walks of life have liked as well as criticized the art and the artists’ sense and understanding of their own culture. The Englishman criticizes the piece saying it lacks something or other. 120 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

“I was pleased the other day,” he said, “as I drove past it to see one very old woman in uncontrollable rage shaking her fists at the sculpture…” “Now that’s very interesting,” said someone. “Well, it’s more than that,” said the other. “You see this old woman, quite an illiterate pagan, who most probably worshipped this very god herself; unlike our friend rained in European art schools; this old lady is in a position to know…” “Quite.” It was then I had my flash of insight. “Did you say she was shaking her fist?” I asked. “In that case you got her meaning all wrong. Shaking the fist in our society is a sign of great honour and respect; it means that you attribute power to the person or object.” (Achebe, A Man of the People 50-51) This demolition of the ideas of the White art critic helps the reputation of Odili soar quite high and he gets the attention of one and all at the party, particularly the American couple. They “…wanted to know whether I had trained in Britain, what I had read at the University, what I taught at the Anata Grammar School, had I been to the United States, what did I think of America? etc. etc” (Achebe, A Man of the People 51). The implications are so clear that they cannot be missed. Nigerians trained in Nigeria cannot make sense of their art creations. It is, as projected in this comment by the American couple, only through training in Britain and at British universities that they get some sense of their own culture. Britain has given them the sense of their own culture, also the sense of what human civilization is, but, left to their own devices. They have been savages, they are savages and they would remain savages. Odili’s identification with the British intellectuals is so pleasing to his hosts that the hostess, Jean, drools over him and when all the other guests leaves, they have sex before his departure back home. Otherwise, he is looked down upon as an unwanted guest, as Jean and John have invited only Chief Nanga. But since he is busy elsewhere, he instead sends Odili to attend their party. Odili can easily sense sarcasm in the words of Jean at his unwanted presence in the party, as if he were a gatecrasher: “If you ask him if he is coming to dinner he says I will try.”

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“How sweet!” said a middle-aged woman, I think British, matching her words with a gentle sideways tilt of the head in my direction. “I just love pidgin English.” “I will try,” Jean continued, “can mean a whole lot of things. It may mean that he won’t come – like tonight – or that he might turn up with three other people.” “How intriguing,” said the other woman again. And it was only then I began to suspect she was being sarcastic.” (Achebe, A Man of the People 50) Achebe’s postcolonial novels in this sense can be interpreted as a strong critique of the suffering of his people for reasons they may not be aware of, as well as a critique of the postcolonial construct which directly invites the reader to rewrite the past, to write back to the empire and to keep the colonial narrative go on so that the common people realize the high value they had paid for their independence. Achebe is not just an interesting storyteller, but a storyteller with a definite purpose. His fictional works have brought to light the hegemonic misrepresentation of African people, their culture, obliteration of African history and the dominant narrative of Africa that existed in the pre-colonial days- in the colonial discourse. Achebe also delves deep into the politics of knowledge, power of knowledge and the power of representation. He has himself put his own knowledge of his culture and of his people to use in the critique of Euro-centric perception of the world, to critique the grand narrative of modernity. It is not to say that Achebe is against the idea of modernity or modernization of Africa, but his idea of modernity takes along the age-old tradition of brotherhood, love, respect, and humanitarian attitude that avoid the ruthless exploitation of people as well as of the natural resources of the land. Thus, storytelling in Achebe does not achieve only aesthetic satisfaction but the other side of it is always revolutionary challenging all kinds of authority, whether of the West or of African people. Odili Samalu in A Man of the People challenges the White man’s narrative of a helpless Africa, but at the same time he finds faults with his own people too. To him, all the blames of the present ills in post-independent African nations cannot be just shifted to colonialism. Similar is the opinion of some of the influential critics of the time, especially the authorities on Achebe’s writings. They believe that Chinua Achebe does not put the entire blame for the failure of the political system in his country on colonialism. 122 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

Achebe’s intentions are not to just castigate colonialism in an attempt to shift all the blame of all ills in his nation on it. He advocates for introspection and through the constructive intervention of the intellectuals in the country he wishes to highlight the faults and fissures within the national fabric. A good example of such intellectual intervention from A Man of the People is the attempt of the disgruntled youth, like, Maxwell Kulamo, Eunice, Joe, Odili, an unnamed trade unionist, a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher and a newspaper journalist to forge a new political party to fight rampant corruption in politics and in public life. It is true that cultural and social conflicts in A Man of the People have colonial legacy since prolonged slavery and abjection have engendered political, moral, cultural and social decay in the country. So, is not it the responsibility of the politicians to take the nation towards progress in the post-independent scenario? And if they fail to deliver, isn’t it the responsibility of the national intelligentsia to bring them to their senses? Onyemaechi Udumukwu views the treachery of the politicians as the “negation of the hopes of independence” (472). Udumukwu says: It is not as if history has remained immutable from the colonial era to the new dispensation. There has been a transition from one historical phase to another. But the irony is that even though the old colonial order has been replaced by the new, the nascent political system in Africa has proved incapable of guaranteeing the satisfaction of needs (473). In a sense, A Man of the People is a sort of sequel to Achebe’s earlier colonial novel Things Fall Apart. The first novel tells the story of the disintegration of African countries and their indigenous cultures under the hammering impact of colonialism and how colonialism ruined that beautiful, close-knit, self-sustaining tribal culture of Africa where simple, honest, and sincere people lived with dignity and self-respect, having enough food and drink for all. From European standards Africa was a poor continent. But from Africans’ own standards, Africa was never poor because none went to bed on a hungry stomach there, even without a ruthless exploitation of the nature because the nature was worshipped by the Africans as a mother. This story is like the story of the Holocaust – the Holocaust of a culture, along with genocide and mass slavery. But the story does not end there. The story is incomplete just with the narration of what happened in Africa after the arrival of the colonizers. The story of the Holocaust survivors also needs to be listened to. A Man of the People is the story 123 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

of the Holocaust survival. What happened in Africa after the colonizers left the continent is narrated in A Man of the People, and that’s why the novel is a sequel to Things Fall Apart. It is the continuation of the same story after a long hiatus, in a different context. The context has changed because colonialism has changed the people of Africa. Disintegration of the ancient culture, tribal brotherhood, kinship and cultural affinities have wreaked havoc on some people’s thought patterns. They are no more the same simple, honest and sincere people who lived with dignity in comparatively poor conditions. People of African countries, especially some people like, Chief Nanga and Chief Koko, have lost the old model of simple living and acquired the ways of their colonial masters- the ways of deceit, treachery, dishonesty, luxury and exploitation of their own countrymen. A Man of the People is the other half of the story that was in Things Fall Apart, and therefore, it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that A Man of the People as another story of colonialism makes the circle full.

Nation and Narration in Achebe As mentioned earlier too, Chinua Achebe’s fictional works are not just stories; they are the means of weaving a fabric of African nation and their national pride, not confined in narrow boundaries. The notion of African cultural identity is crucial to Achebe and Achebe’s fictional narratives take the reader on a journey through Africa and see through his/her own eyes the conditions prevalent in post-independence Africa, though in a narrow sense he writes only of Nigeria. The readers also feel being guided by a teacher as he draws their attention to the homework, that is, to realize the problems and difficulties of people in postcolonial situations. This is one of the reasons that any critics have maintained that Chinua Achebe provides alternative ways of narrating the nation. Many of the postcolonial writers engage themselves in the construction and contestation of the nation in a major way. Their notion of the nation has been generated by the anti-imperialist struggles when the idea of a solid, single-boundary nation in most of the postcolonial countries came into being and took a tangible shape. To most of such writers, Chinua Achebe being one of them, the notions of ‘nation’ goes beyond the political meanings of it. The idea came from the West, but it

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embraced the entire cultural construct since it encompasses other national concerns too, like, race, religion, linguistic affinities, ethnic ties, tribal affinities, ancestral inheritance, geographical region, and even imperialism. It is important here to briefly discuss the idea of ‘imperialism’ and ‘colonialism’ as put in by said in Culture and Imperialism. ‘Colonialism’ and ‘imperialism’ are often used as reciprocal, and in this chapter too, they are used in the same manner. Said has used the terms ‘imperialism’ to explain “the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory;” (8). The argument in this context is that the outlook of White characters, like John, Jean and Elsie, depicted in A Man of the People, is that of speaking from the vantage point of this “dominating metropolitan center.” This conclusion is derived from their conversations, intentions and dealings with the Nigerians directly as well as indirectly, though such instances are just nominal in this novel. The point is that though these people exhibit much liberalism in their expressed ideas as regard to equality, racial tolerance and social justice, they fail in their fair representation of the erstwhile colonial subjects, of the so-called ‘uncivilized aboriginal people’ of the colonies, and that representation appears to be deliberate. The complete enterprise of colonization was founded and justified upon the concept of ‘representation’. The so-called ‘civilizing mission of the empire’ was essential to justify their presence in the colonies, and which still justifies the presence of numerous aid agencies and UN missions in the erstwhile colonies. It would not be improper to quote Edward Said again who says that, “almost all colonial schemes begin with an assumption of native backwardness and general inadequacy to be independent, ‘equal’ and fit” (Said 96). The problem to be noted here is that it is possible to have liberal and egalitarian views as regard to people and culture at home. Unfamiliar cultures and people are always alien and it is hard to find examples when someone gladly accommodates the idea that aliens can also be treated the same. Thus, a nation is not a product of a few years of struggle, but a narrative legacy of continuous flow of the past into the present. Chinua Achebe has achieved great success in presenting the continuity of the narrative of the nation, in terms of the lives of people, and not just states, through his works like, Things Fall Apart, Anthills of the Savannah and A Man of the People. His works encompass the idea of Negritude and Pan-Africanism, the concept that are essential to grasp the idea of ‘nation’ in African contexts. Ania Loomba makes the point clear that ‘nation’ “… takes on 125 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

another meaning, a sense of shared culture and subjectivity and divisions of nations as political entities” (176). Both the movements, that is, Negritude and Pan-Africanism, were aimed at articulating pan-national racial solidarity and demand for the end of White supremacy and imperialist domination of the world. Both the movements celebrated blackness in a positive way ‘as a distinct racial-cultural way of being’ (Loomba 176). Achebe’s works too are aimed at articulating the similar Pan-African consciousness, not just confined to one postcolonial nation, as has been mentioned in the beginning of this chapter. Negritude has been an important phase in the development of African consciousness all through the world, in the USA, The UK, France, Canada, and of course, in the continent of Africa. The Movement took off in Paris with the assertion of pride in African culture and cultural values by African students in the 1930s. They aimed at contesting the inferior status Africa and the Africans have been accorded in colonial discourses prevalent in the narratives of travelers, writers, historians and missionaries in Europe. It is assumed that Pan-Africanism was inspired by the success of Harlem Renaissance that promoted the richness and values of African cultural identity and thus numerous writers and narrators of African origin in the US were recognized as geniuses. The small movement started by a small number of students in Paris took everyone by surprise as it associated itself with the Sub-Saharan African nation’s struggle for independence and in that attempt stressed upon the unity of all Africans, wherever they may be. It also made serious efforts to unite the entire African continent in order to promote cooperation among its nations. Although the movement did not achieve what it aimed, yet it has been a successful step towards raising the black consciousness, and writers like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Frantz Fanon took up the cause further. The discussion on Negritude and Pan-Africanism would be incomplete without taking into consideration the ideas of Frantz Fanon. Fanon was the first to set the stage for the development of political consciousness among the colonized. His The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin White Mask are phenomenal works towards raising the black consciousness, especially to fight for their rights. The concept of a “national literature” was proposed by Fanon that would engage in the formation of national consciousness. The same idea has been taken up by Achebe too, or at least the influence of such an idea is clearly visible in his writings. All of his novels are 126 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

focused on the formation of a national consciousness in his people. In A Man of the People, he stresses upon the idea of a nation that the people of that unnamed nation should have; regional and tribal affinities should be kept aside in such a situation. Fanon’s national literature would also be committed to the struggle for national liberation. Is an echo of the same idea found in Achebe’s literature too? The answer is yes. National liberation also means liberating the people of the nation from corrupt politicians as well. Odili Samalu in A Man of the People has his own weaknesses, but he is ready to lay his life to save the nation from hypocrites like the powerful politician Chief Nanga. Formation of national consciousness begins with the rediscovery of the rich past of Africa, and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart too is a first step towards achieving this goal. Fanon writes, “National consciousness, which is not nationalism, is the only thing that will give us an international dimension” (Wretched of the Earth 247). And interestingly, as Fanon’s critique and ideas on Pan-Africanism are not confined to only African conditions but can be traced to possess universal or international dimensions, Achebe’s notion of nation, blackness and Africanism are not confined to mere African nations. Another echo of Fanon, found in narrating the nation by Achebe, is that Fanon also stresses upon the role of the national intelligentsia. Achebe himself assumes an important role in this struggle, not only as a writer but also as an activist. In fact, Achebe assumes several roles as one of the Nigerian intelligentsia – as a storyteller, critic, teacher and as a political commentator – to instill a sense of pride in their culture among the people of Africa. Thus, in A Man of the People Achebe reinvents Africa as a continent that is proud of it rich heritage but that is also ready to punish the villains in the continent.

Identity Identity is a highly problematic issue in A Man of the People. The most severe toll colonialism brings about is loss of identity of the colonized people. They fail to identify themselves with their own culture and cultural identity since, under the impact of cultural hegemony, their own culture appears to them outdated, obsolete, regressive and decadent. At the same time, they cannot acquire the identity of their masters as the masters maintain a distance, superiority and distinction. Colonialism

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creates a culture of exploitation as it is in itself founded upon exploitation. The hungry but smart people who replace the colonizers continue with the exploitative mechanism of the colonizers in the postcolonial setting. To justify their acts, they assume superiority over their own countrymen. Under postcolonial conditions, the new masters identify themselves with the colonizers in every possible way. They discard their own cultural practices as oppressively primitive. Chief Nanga’s children go to expensive public schools and receive superior education. They do not speak their mother tongue. They only speak English. And they have also developed a disliking for everything that is native- even their relatives and friends, too. The younger one, Micah, calls his maternal grandmother, ‘a dirty, bush woman’ (Achebe, A Man of the People 39). Chief Nanga always speaks English, but Mrs. Nanga never spoke anything other than her mother tongue. She identifies herself with Africa and African culture, but to everyone’s dismay, her African identity proves to be false, only a pretense since towards the end of the story when Odili goes to meet her after filing his nomination papers against her husband Chief Nanga, she is unbelievably rude to him. Though her behaviour may be ascribed to her lack of independent personality, only toeing the line of her husband’s footsteps, but still she does not recognize him as her African brother as she does in the beginning of the story. She appears to be as corrupt as her husband. All the corrupt leaders acquired the identities of their colonial masters. But the White masters knew how to put them in place. The protagonist Odili narrates how the exploitation of Africa and its people in the hands of Westerners and as well as corrupt native politicians are evident everywhere. After their rendezvous in bed, Jean takes Odili on a drive through the streets of Bori in her car and she takes him through the filthy, dirty streets as well which reminds him of the City Clerk’s notice about distribution of pails to the residents of Bori for collection and disposal of excrement. Odili was ashamed of his own city and then he wonders: I began to wonder whether Jean actually enjoyed driving through these places as she claimed she did or whether she had some secret reason, like wanting me to feel ashamed about my country’s capital city. I hardly knew her but I could see she was that kind of person, a most complicated woman. (Achebe, A Man of the People 54-55)

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The narrator seems to comment that being ‘complicated’ is the distinctive feature majority of the White women. Odili gets angry at the judgmental comments of Jean about his countrymen. The incident was small, but significant and Odili gets offended: We were now back in the pleasant high-class area. “That row of ten houses belongs to the Minister of Construction,” she said. “They are let to different embassies at three thousand a year each.” So what, I said within myself. Your accusation may be true but you’ve no right to make it. Leave it to us and don’t contaminate our cause by espousing it.” (Achebe, A Man of the People 55) The incident is a reflection on the identity crisis of the leaders and an attempt of the native intelligentsia to restore their national identity. At the same time, the incident gives an opportunity to peep into the double identity of the White men- as saviors of the doomed on one hand but as sarcastic commentators on native cultures, leaders, lifestyle and daily practices on the other hand. It is not merely an identity crisis since the same White people assume their real identity as soon as they return to their homeland. An important aspect of identity is how one negotiates one’s identity to derive full benefits out of it. Chief Nanga is the Minister of Culture of Nigeria, but to the Americans he is still a Nigerian, a low creature, and he happily accepts this; although it is an issue of cultural differences as in American culture there exists the concept of equality of all and no master-servant relationship. But the point to note here is that Chief Nanga accepts the concept of equality from the Americans. They address him by his Christian first name, “These two people were no older than I and yet had the impudence to call Chief Nanga his now almost forgotten Christian name” (Achebe, A Man of the People 44) even if his guests are very young people compared to his age as difference matters a lot in Nigerian culture and younger people should show respect to the ones older to them. But the same Chief Nanga would never accept the similar behaviour from his countrymen. “But what shocked me even more was his reaction. I had turned quickly and anxiously to watch his face contort with fury. But no. He had replied sweetly, “Hi Jean, hi John.” I couldn’t understand. I was dead certain that if I or any of our people for that matter had called him Micah he would have gone rampaging mad. But perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised. We have all 129 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

accepted things from white skins that none of us would have brooked from our own people.” (Achebe, A Man of the People 44)

Identity and Representation White men still represent Africa as a dirty, uncultured country to justify their presence there as a civilizing mission. They wish to prove that without them Africa wouldn’t move an inch towards progress. They seem to say that they were forced to leave Africa by international circumstances and the changing scenario in the world around. But their presence in Africa is essential as in their absence, African countries have rather deteriorated and that postcolonial African countries cannot manage their affairs on their own. Representation of Africa by White men to their relations back home who did not have the good fortune to visit the continent in person was done as an interesting place, a place that was represented as an exotic location with exotic people who lived in exotic jungles, in bushes, and who used leaves to clean themselves after excretion instead of water-closets. The place has been represented as a “must-see” place. Odili resents all this: Now I guessed I knew why she took so much delight in driving through our slums. She must have taken hundreds of photographs already to send home to her relations. And, come to think of it, would she – lover of Africa that she was – would she be found near a black man in her own country? (Achebe, A Man of the People 55) Odili’s anger is legitimate, and the only way he can think of taking revenge on the Whites who reduce him to be a subhuman creature is by having physical intimacy with their women. After his first physical encounter with Jean he asks her: “When do you expect John come back?” I asked, burning with anger. “Wednesday. Why?” “I was wondering whether I could see you again.” “Do you want to?” “Sure.” “Why not? Let me call you tomorrow?” (Achebe, A Man of the People 56) But the irony of the situation is that even during the sexual encounter he is not in a superior position. Odili negotiates his identity against her standards and during

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physical encounter also he is still a slave to her. He is merely a pawn being used by her. The White woman is exploiting his body to her full satisfaction in a similar fashion as the White colonizers have exploited the rich resources and the mineral wealth of the African continent. In terms hegemony, she is still a winner and he is still a loser. To Chinua Achebe, love of Africa and love of the Black people (and making them falsely believe that they treat them on equal footing) is a sort of hypocrisy of the Whites. The same woman who was ready to flirt with Chief Nanga and Odili at a moment’s notice would turn her face away at the sight of a Black man back home, treating him as an inferior creature not worth being in company of. This is clearly not a sign of equality. One such instance is given in the novel. A Negro writer, present at the party hosted by Jean and John, tells them the story of a White American man who came up to him at his lunch table at the International Hotel which he tells, “as everyone knows, is a kind of international mart for the sale to our people of all kinds of foreign wares, from ideologies to tractors” (Achebe, A Man of the People 51-52). This White American came up and said, full of respect: “May I join you, sir?” “Sure,” replied the other. “What do you think of the Peace Corps?” “I’ve nothing against it. One of my daughters is in it.” “You American?” “Sure. I came over…” I thought this was good. I could see the other man promptly excusing himself and searching other tables for authentic Africans. (Achebe, A Man of the People, 52) A Black man in America is a not an authentic African because he demands equality, social justice and abolition of racism. The same Black man in Africa is authentic because he is not a threat to their self-congratulatory image as the saviors of mankind. They are not obliged to share their private space with him on equal footing. In Africa they can treat him as a Black man in need of help and show to the world that they are on a charity mission. But the problem is, as Achebe perceives it, that some of the Africans themselves are not ready to treat their fellow Africans as equal since they want to 131 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

make the most of the opportunity that the departure of the colonizers has given them. They are not ready to grant their fellow countrymen the status of true citizens. They have retained the system of the ruler and the ruled that was established by the colonizers for the exploitation of the natives. That system was the system of distance, distinction, hierarchy, of master-slave relationship, of cultural superiority and of knowledgeable vs. ignorant, established in order to maintain their rule in the colony. How could the native populace who replaced the colonizers keep the same system intact? How could they treat their less fortunate fellow countrymen as slaves? But they did. They did it shamelessly. They did it because, like the colonizers, they wanted to maintain their hold on power to go on enjoying the life of luxury without sharing the comforts of life in a democratic manner. One instance from the novel is worth mentioning here. Odili visits the hospital where his girlfriend Elsie works as a nurse. It would be remarkable to look at the description of this visit: In our country a long American car driven by a white-uniformed chauffeur and flying a ministerial flag could pass through the eye of a needle. The hospital gateman had promptly levered up the iron barrier and saluted. The elderly male nurse I beckoned to had sprinted forward with an agility that you would think had left him at least a decade ago. And as I said earlier, although it was against all the laws of the hospital they had let me into the female nurses’ quarters and waked up Elsie to see me… “If you are looking for flattery from me this afternoon you won’t get it,” I said stooping at the door which the chauffeur had been holding open since I first emerged from the night nurses’ dormitory.” (Achebe, A Man of the People 57-58) (Emphasis added) An African man expects the other African man to salute him and would be angry if the other does not. He expects him to stand in wait for him and he enjoys if he is treated with deference, distinction and high respect. Colonialism has ended, but the colonial mindset lingers on. The postcolonial dilemma of identity is that some of the clever Black men identify themselves with the Whites and treat other Black men as their slaves. The same people get angry if they are represented in a different, lighter vein by the Whites.

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Postcolonial Strategies of Control Chinua Achebe’s major focus in A Man of the People is on a critique of the postcolonial culture of control in Africa. Achebe is highly dissatisfied with the political developments in most of the African nations, a situation where the politicians have betrayed the trust of people. Achebe agrees that more than a century of oppression has changed people’s perspective towards life and they hungrily fill their coffers before throwing small pieces to others, but that was not and is not the real Africa. In any case, Achebe in this novel provides a graphic image of the strategies of mass control used by the current politicians, the strategies used by their colonial master in a different form. Some of such important strategies are discussd here. A) Suppress the Dissent It is a dictatorial strategy. In a democratic set up only a corrupt government would resort to this strategy. The government in whose Cabinet Chief Nanga is a minister uses this strategy since the government assumes absolute power and they are afraid of subversion. The narrator in this novel muses how the newly appointed masters of native people declare even the legitimate questions of people against corruption as dissent: The trouble with our new nation – as I saw it then lying on that bed – that none of us had been indoors long enough to be able to say “To hell with it.” We had all been in the rain together until yesterday. Then a handful of us – the smart and the lucky and hardly ever the best – had scrambled for the one shelter our former rulers left, and had taken it over and barricaded themselves in. And from within they sought to persuade the rest through numerous loudspeakers, that the first phase of the struggle had been won and that the next phase – the extension of our house – was even more important and called for new and original tactics; it required that all argument should cease and the whole people speak with one voice and that any more dissent and argument outside the door of the shelter would subvert and bring down the whole house. (Achebe, A Man of the People 37) In postcolonial Africa the voices of individuals were suppressed just like in the colonial period. The common people still suffered and oppressed, as they were in the colonial Africa. Only the White masters were replaced by the native politicians at the

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top, but the way of life of the less fortunate commoners- their sufferings and subjugations did not get better in the postcolonial African fabric. B) Control the Media Media is considered as the fourth pillar of democracy. But if the democratic rights of the people are to be suspended, control over the media should be the first step in order to carry on the propaganda that whatever the government is doing it is doing for the welfare of the people. This was what happened under the rule of African politician after the colonizers left this land. For instance, in his inaugural speech at a book exhibition, a journalist comes to Chief Nanga asking for a copy of his speech and then the minister gives him a five pound note. He explains this gesture to Odili in this novel: If I don’t give him something now, tomorrow he will go and write rubbish about me. They say it is the freedom of the Press. But to me it nothing short of the freedom to crucify innocent men and assassinate their character. I don’t know why our government is so afraid to deal with them. I don’t say they should not criticize – after all no one is perfect except God – but they should criticize constructively…. (Achebe, A Man of the People 68) In a country ruled by a corrupt and suppressive government even the electronic media is controlled by the regime. Odili is surprised that despite the fact that they had provided full information about the activities of their party C.P.C. to the radio station, there was no coverage of their activities at all. Odili says, “...I wanted to keep a close watch on the antics of our radio system which incidentally had not so far said a single word about the existence of our new party even though we had kept them fully informed of our activities” (Achebe, A Man of the People 132). Whereas, Chief Nanga and his party are mentioned every five seconds in the news: But also I had been missing Boniface’s “Tief-man”, “Foolis-man” and similar invective aimed at Chief Nanga and his ministerial colleagues whenever their names came up in the news – which was about every five seconds at normal peaceful times and much more frequently in these critical days... But once more I listened in vain. Instead they announced Chief Nanga’s inaugural campaign which had not even taken place! It was to happen on Monday week in Anata. Perhaps I should go and see it. (Achebe, A Man of the People 132-133) 134 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

Even the local church is used as a medium of control by Chief Nanga and his thugs. The church crier announced that a decision has already been made by the elders and councilors of Urua that in the present election “they should make it known that they knew one man and one man alone – Chief Nanga” (Achebe, A Man of the People 135). C) Torture the Opponent into Submission In A Man of the People suppression of dissent is followed by silencing the opponents into submission if they do not bow to the desires of the dictator. This is achieved through arm-twisting techniques and terrorizing the family members and close relatives- strategies common villains generally use. Odili Samalu is dismissed from his post at Anata Grammar School because he has dared to challenge the local Member of Parliament (MP), Chief Nanga. The proprietor of the school calls him, hands him a month’s salary along with the notice of his dismissal and comments, “I see that you have grown too big for your coat,” (Achebe, A Man of the People, 103) to which Odili responds, “You have grown too small in yours, Mr. Push-me-down” (Achebe, A Man of the People, 103). His father is also dismissed from his post as the local chairman of People's Organization Party (P.O.P.) at Urua: I was dully thinking about this when my father's name coming out of the radio stung me into full life. It was announced that that Mr. Hezekiah Samalu, chairman of P.O.P in Urua, had been “ignominiously removed from his office for subversive, anti-party activities, according to an announcement received this morning from the P. O. P. Bureau of Investigation and Publicity”. (Achebe, A Man of the People 133). The matters does not stop at that. He is sent notice of reassessed tax assessment from local council Tax Assessment Office which implicates him in tax fraud. In the evening three policemen come to arrest him who are stopped from manhandling only as Odili bribes them with twenty-four pounds. Their leader makes it clear that the action is a consequence of Odili’s fight against Chief Nanga: “If I be you I go take am down too, when I done finish take am up. Turn you back make I see the nyarsh you go take fight Nanga” (Achebe, A Man of the People 133). The strong man in power abuses his position and uses all sorts of arm-twisting techniques to subdue his opponent in this novel. The Public Works Department’s trucks are sent to the village of Urua to cart away the pipes they have deposited there 135 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

several months ago for the Rural Water Scheme project (Achebe, A Man of the People 133-134). This is done to suppress Odili and his newly formed political party called Common People’s Convention (C.P.C) which is going to contest against Chief Nanga and his party in the forthcoming election. Achebe here tries to present the gloomy African picture in general and the Nigerian scenario in particular in the hands of native administrators after the colonial powers left this continent. D) Politics of Propaganda Dictatorial regimes in postcolonial period resorted to propaganda politics to keep their hold on power. This was another form of hegemony to forcibly have people’s consent in favour of the powerful ones. There is one such incident in A Man of the People. At one point of time the country has faced financial crisis because coffee prices has slumped while the national economy heavily depends upon coffee. To stay in power, the Prime Minister does not listen to the sane advice of his Finance Minister who has an intellectual background. The two-third of the Cabinet is in support of the Minister. But the Prime Minister sacks all of them and calls them the ‘Miscreant Gang’ (Achebe, A Man of the People 4). All of these sacked Ministers received their education at British universities and well qualified men. But the Prime Minister spreads a propaganda that these men “were conspirators and traitors who had teamed up with foreign saboteurs to destroy the new nation” (Achebe, A Man of the People 4). The newspapers, under the control of the ruling party, points out that “…even in Britain where the Miscreant Gang got its “so-called education” a man need not be an economist to be Chancellor of the Exchequer or a doctor to be Minister of Health” (Achebe, A Man of the People 4-5). So, the propaganda is that “What mattered was loyalty to the party” (Achebe, A Man of the People 5). The official newspaper of the P.O.P named The Daily Chronicle writes in an editorial: Let us now and for all time extract from our body-politic as a dentist extracts a stinking tooth all those decadent stooges versed in text-book economics and aping the white man’s mannerisms and way of speaking. We are proud to be Africans. Our true leaders are not those intoxicated with their Oxford, Cambridge or Harvard degrees but those who speak the language of the people. Away with the damnable and expensive university education which only alienates an African from his rich and ancient culture and puts him above his people… (qtd. in Achebe, A Man of the People 4) 136 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

The Prime Minister gives a speech at the Parliament for three hours and he is applauded non-stop by his followers. ““They deserve to be hanged,” shouted Mr. Nanga from the back benches” (Achebe, A Man of the People 5) and, “Mr. Nanga pronounced death sentence at least twice more but this was not recorded, no doubt because his voice was lost in the general commotion” (Achebe, A Man of the People 6). This incident is reminiscent of the story of Napoleon and Snowball in Animal Farm by George Orwell. Napoleon declares Snowball, who is very intelligent and works for the betterment of the Farm, as a traitor and declares, “…the death sentence upon Snowball” (Orwell 62), as Snowball’s hard work could be dangerous for Napoleon’s power and position in the farm. However, the hypocrisy of such politicians is visible to one and all in A Man of the People. Chief Koko, one of the Cabinet Ministers, does not even digest home grown coffee. He chokes on it and cries they have killed him; that his cook poisoned his coffee. The cook explains: “Why I go kill my master?” he asked of a now considerably sobered audience. “Abi my head no correct? And even if to say I de crazy why I no go go jump for inside lagoon instead to kill my master?” His words carried conviction. He proceeded to explain the mystery of the coffee. The Minister’s usual Nescafe had run out at breakfast and he had not had time to get a new tin. So he had brewed some of his own locally processed coffee which he maintained he had bought from OHMS [Our Home Made Stuff]”. (Achebe, A Man of the People 34-35) Chief Koko identifies himself with the ruling class that has left the country. The common masses are barricaded off his residence as he fears that they can bring harm to him for what he has done to them being in power. E) Rule of Terror In A Man of the People Achebe denounces all the tactics that the governments in newly independent African countries started using to subdue their own people after they got independence from the colonizers. The elected African representatives did not want to see any opposition to them, and in most cases elections were rigged. There was widespread violence in elections and a virtual rule of terror was established by the powerful in post-independent Africa. Achebe paints a very realistic picture of this culture of terror in A Man of the People. For instance, as Odili decides to stand as 137 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

a candidate in the general election against Chief Nanga’s seat in the constituency, Chief Nanga employs the tactics of terror against his opponent. Terrorism is hidden behind the propaganda at the surface level. He is pumping more than enough money to create something called Nanga’s Youth Vanguard or Nangavanga in short: New branches of this Nangavanga were springing up everyday throughout the district. Their declared aim was to “annihilate all enemies of progress and “to project true Nangaism.” The fellows we ran into carried placards, one of which read: NANGAISM FOREVER: SAMALU IS TREITOR. It was the first time I had seen myself on a placard and I felt oddly elated. (Achebe, A Man of the People 113-114) This group is nothing but the groups of goons. In post-independent Africa such groups were formed by corrupt politicians to guard their safety and more importantly to terrorize and torture those whoever tried to raise any voice against these powerful ones. The native people of Nigeria had to face quite a few problems and difficulties in their homeland under postcolonial conditions which they did not experience directly before the advent of imperialistic powers in their land. Following are some of such common difficulties and troubles that the native people had to face in their motherland during postcolonial period.

Contrasts between Lives The ‘tactics of control’ in post-independent Africa, as witnessed in the foregoing pages, were in fact aimed at creating a seamless system of flow of wealth in one direction. The new masters made sure that they lived in all luxury controlling all the wealth of the nation, even being in collusion with foreign forces who conducted trades with the nation, so that they could extract as much money as possible from them in exchange of trade contracts. The common masses were the worst sufferers in such scenarios. As described in one incident in this novel, the common people have only a restricted access to basic needs like, proper toilet and waste facilities. Odili, the narrator, refers to the following notice by the City Clerk of Bori, as printed in the daily newspaper the Daily Chronicle: The attention of Public is hereby drawn to Section 12 of the Bori (Conservancy) Bye-laws, 1951:

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(i) Occupiers of all promises shall provide pails for excrement; the size of such pails and the materials of which they are constructed shall be approved by the City Engineer. (ii) The number of such pails to be provided in any premises shall be specified by the City Engineer. The Public are warned against unauthorized increases in the number of pails already existing on their premises. The surprises and contrasts in our great country were simply inexhaustible. Here was I in our capital city, reading about pails of excrement from the cozy comfort of a princely seven bathroom mansion with its seven gleaming, silent action water-closets! (Achebe, A Man of the People 41) This notice for the common masses is in sharp contrast to the luxurious life of politicians: There was one man I noticed particularly. His robes were made from some expensive-looking, European woolen material – which was not so very strange these days. But what surprised me was that the tailor had retained the cloth’s thin, yellow border on which the manufacturer advertised in endless and clear black type: 100% WOOL: MADE IN ENGLAND. In fact the tailor had used this advertisement to ornamental advantage on both sleeves. I was struck once again by our people’s endless resourcefulness especially when it comes to taste in clothes… He also wore a gold chain around his neck. (Achebe, A Man of the People 65)

Abuse of Power by Politicians Some famous international native movements such as Negritude and Pan- Africanism, and Harlem Renaissance are briefly discussed in this chapter. These notions assert that all Africans are equal. As they oppose White supremacy over the Blacks, they should be opposed to Black supremacy over Blacks too. But, the irony is that this concept simply remains a hollow ideal. It is recurrently reminded in A Man of the People that no sooner have the native citizens of the homeland acquired power, they begin abusing it. The worst form of this abuse of power is that Blacks treat their Black brethren as inferior and worthless creatures. Chief Nanga takes Odili to the abode of another minister, Chief Koko. Chief Koko is drinking coffee when suddenly he got up and shouted ‘they have killed me’ (Achebe, A Man of the People 34). All 139 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

the people present there are in panic, and Chief Nanga is trying to call the doctor. Chief Nanga behaves as an all-powerful master with his own countrymen. It is worth noting how he talks to the person over the phone: “This is Chief the Honourable Nanga speaking,” he was saying. “I will see that you are dealt with. Idiot. That is the trouble with this country. Don’t worry, you will see. Bloody fool…” (Achebe, A Man of the People 34). As if the Chief does not belong to the country; he is somewhere superior to all the toiling masses. But at the same time he is afraid of the masses though since he knows that politicians like him are cheating the country. Odili contemplates: But I was saying within myself that in spite of his present bravado Chief Nanga had been terribly scared himself, witness his ill-tempered, loud- mouthed panic at the telephone. And I don’t think his fear had been for Chief Koko’s safety either. I suspect he felt personally threatened. Our people have a saying that when one slave sees another cast into a shallow grave he should know that when the time comes he will go the same way.” (Achebe, A Man of the People 35-36) A Man of the People is Chinua Achebe’s bitter remark about the postcolonial state of Nigeria in particular, and of African postcolonial countries in general. African people fought for their independence in the hope that independence would bring better days and good life for them, but surprisingly, independence has brought days even worse than what people had in the colonial era. Colonially educated people of African countries who took over from the Colonizers did nothing for the common masses. Rather these powerful natives treated them as if they were their new masters. The master and slave narrative continued as it was during the colonial period, and over and above that, the people at the helm of affairs took every opportunity to fill their coffers as the hungry masses slogged to death. Every post and position left vacant by the colonizers was quickly filled by clever and powerful people and they established the system of the colonizers as it was. This is obvious from the discussion of Odili and Max when they talk of the political situation in the country: “It is a favourite of my father’s who, by the way, still thinks we should never have asked the white man to go.” “Perhaps he is right,” I said.

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“Well, no. The trouble is that he hasn’t got very much out of Independence, personally. There simply weren’t any white posts in his profession that he could take over. There is only one bishop in the entire diocese and he is already an African.” (Achebe, A Man of the People 82-83) Politicians in postcolonial Africa took advantages of their position to make extreme profit for themselves. Chief Nanga in this novel in discussion wants a particular road in his constituency tarred because he is going to have his ten luxury buses plying on this road generating huge personal revenue: But none of these things was real news to me, only his saying that he had ordered ten luxury buses to ply the route as soon as it was tarred. Each would cost him six thousand pounds. So he had two good reasons for wanting the road tarred – next elections and the arrival of his buses. (Achebe, A Man of the People 43) In the postcolonial period of Africa, politicians also accepted bribes from foreign traders who sought favours from them for their commercial activities. Politicians abused their position and gave the foreign traders absolute freedom which ultimately caused the commoners to suffer. In A Man of the People it is narrated that Chief Nanga is building a four-storey house in his ancestral village, and the narrator reveals: “It was, as we were to learn, a “dash” from the European building firm of Antonio and Sons whom Nanga had recently given the half-million-pound contract to build the National Academy of Arts and Sciences” (Achebe, A Man of the People 97). It is very clear from this excerpt that the native politicians in postcolonial Africa like Chief Nanga of this novel, were greatly engaged in filling in their personal reservoirs from the foreign traders by exploiting the wealth, resources and post-independent hopes African masses.

Disillusioned Youth The youth in Nigeria are portrayed in this novel as completely disillusioned with the ruling government because it is run by corrupt and inefficient politicians like Chief Nanga. The voice of sensible and intelligent people who could have taken the country to the path of progress was suppressed when these politicians came to power after the colonizers left the country. Such people were maligned, subdued or deposed.

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That is one of the reasons why Odili hates Chief Nanga in A Man of the People. Also because Chief Nanga has been one of those MPs, instrumental in harassing and suppressing honest politicians. The common people were also responsible to a certain extent for their suffering caused by these corrupt politicians in the postcolonial African set-up. Because they were either ignorant or somehow did not find the corruption of politicians as improper and thus detrimental to the growth of their society in general. Here is an example from this novel to prove this point in discussion. The narrator Odili describes: As I stood in one corner of that vast tumult waiting for the arrival of the Minister I felt intense bitterness welling up in my mouth. Here were silly, ignorant villagers dancing themselves lame and waiting to blow off their gunpowder in honour of one of those who had started the country off down the slopes of inflation. I wished for a miracle, for a voice of thunder, to hush this ridiculous festival and tell the poor contemptible people one or two truths. But of course it would be quite useless. They were not only ignorant but cynical. Tell them that this man had used his position to enrich himself and they would ask you – as my father did – if you thought that a sensible man would spit out the juicy morsel that good fortune placed in his mouth. (Achebe, A Man of the People 2-3) The youth of the country is disgusted at the corruption of the politicians. So, when Odili floats the idea of forming a political party, all of his young and educated friends welcome the idea, as they could clearly see what damages these corrupt politicians have been causing to their homeland which has recently got independence from the colonial rulers. “Max and some of his friends having watched with deepening disillusion the use to which our hard-won freedom was put by corrupt, mediocre politicians had decided to come together and launch the Common People’s Convention” (Achebe, A Man of the People 78). The general public in postcolonial countries like Nigeria, and most of the African nations, was so used to being suppressed, silenced and subjugated that they had completely forgotten that there could be something like organized resistance to corruption, malpractices or atrocities against the masses. In Chapter 12 of this novel Maxwell Kulamo launches his election campaign in Odili’s village by speaking to the crowd gathered before his house, but Odili is astonished or rather sad that the people 142 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

do not have any conscience and consciousness left in them to realize that they could bring a change: …As he gave instance after instance of how some of our leaders who were ash-mouthed paupers five years ago had become near millionaires under our very eyes, many in the audience laughed. But it was the laughter of resignation to misfortune. No one among them swore vengeance; no one shook with rage or showed any sign of fight. They understood what was being said, they had seen it with their own eyes. But what did anyone expect them to do? The ex-policeman put it very well, “We know they are eating,” he said, “but we are eating too. They are bringing us water and they promise to bring us electricity. We did not have those things before; that’s why we say we are eating too.” (Achebe, A Man of the People 125) This lack of initiative and action, this lethargy of the masses, this inertia and the attitude of resignation to misfortune is the most dangerous impact colonialism has left upon the psyche of the colonized. This is exactly what Chinua Achebe resents that not only the effects and legacy of colonialism continue to exist in postcolonial nations but neo-colonialism continues in those nations in various forms. As the author puts it forward here, it is because of the inaction of the masses that educated people like Odili, Max, Eunice and Joe fail to bring about any changes in the system. In the climactic scene the heroic figure in the novel is killed, the protagonist’s skull is crushed and the heroic girl Eunice faces jail term. Through such a climax Achebe conveys the feeling that change is impossible without the support of the masses since villains can easily overpower the intelligentsia. However, there is some consolation in store for the protagonist in the novel as the country is taken over by the military and the villainous politicians are punished; his friend is declared the Hero of the Revolution and Eunice is freed from jail. Achebe seems to suggest that in a postcolonial country like Nigeria it was futile to expect a revolution from the common masses since centuries of oppression had turned them extremely docile. They came to believe that anyone who got a chance to exploit the nation for personal benefit had every right to do so and that it was rather his good fortune that had placed the marauder in a position to enjoy the loot. They were also made to believe that times changed and accordingly fortunes also changed, so, possibly in near future it could be anyone’s turn in power to enjoy the 143 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

loot. Therefore, the common natives assumed that it was futile to lose one’s life in any struggle against villains. Achebe discusses this pessimism of the natives to social development in details through the voice of Odili: The people themselves, as we have seen, had become even more cynical than their leaders and were apathetic into the bargain. “Let them eat,” was the people’s opinion, “after all when white men used to do all the eating did we commit suicide?” Of course not. And where is the all-powerful white man today? He came, he ate and he went. But we are still around. The important thing then is to stay alive; if you do you will outlive your present annoyance. The great thing, as the old people have told us, is reminiscence; and only those who survive can have it. Besides, if you survive, who knows? It may be your turn to eat tomorrow. Your son may bring home your share.” (Achebe, A Man of the People 145) Under the given circumstances, there can be a revolution only at an individual level, like what Max has done. Max becomes a hero overnight. After the army seizes power, their “most touching gesture as far as I was concerned was to release Eunice from jail and pronounce Max a Hero of the Revolutions” (Achebe, A Man of the People 148). Achebe also believes in the collective power of the intellectuals in a nation. National interest must be given supreme importance as opposed to self-interest. Achebe’s ideals are the ideals of Odili Samalu, the protagonist in A Man of the People. Some critics are of the view that this has been the primary goal of numerous African writers. As, for instance, Thiongʼo asserts that it is a means to assert their African identity. He believes that, “…the African intellectuals must align themselves with the struggle of the African masses for a meaningful national ideal. For we must strive for a form of social organization that will free the manacled spirit and energy of our people so we can build a new country and sing a new song” (50). A Man of the People also portrays the betrayal of the people by their Black rulers. Leaders have become pawns in the hands of foreign vested interests and put their country to ruins. But intellectuals like Odili Samalu and Maxwell Kulamu bear the responsibility to restore people’s lost faith in democracy since they must not give up; their country will grow only if they make sacrifices. The solution suggested by Achebe in this novel is that intelligent people should join politics to keep the inefficient ones out.

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However, it is also true that in the current scenario African writers have started going for different themes as well. Today many African writers are not interested in writing about their colonial past. Disillusionment of the youth with the ruling class in their nations is a common phenomenon found in the works of not only Achebe but also in the writings of major African writers, like, for example, Wole Soyinka and Ayi Kwei Armah, to name only a few. Thiongʼo notes that, “the disillusionment with the ruling elite is to be found in the recent works of most African writers” (47).

Propagandist Ambivalence and Status of Black Women The clever politicians in this novel display a hypocritical ambivalence in their behaviour typically oriented towards propaganda in favour of themselves. Corrupt politicians like Chief Nanga and Chief Koko call themselves nationalists while they hardly use home-grown products. They speak English even while addressing the native populace, their children go to expensive public schools and Chief Nanga drinks whisky with soda instead of home-grown coffee. The same Chief Nanga is one of the gang members of the Prime Minister and when the Prime Minister sacks the university educated Ministers in his Cabinet for the sake of retaining power, and calls them traitors and declares that true public leaders are not those who intoxicates with their foreign education but those who speak the language of the people, Chief Naga supports him unquestionably. But the same Chief Nanga sends his children to expensive public schools and his children know no ‘language of the people’ but only English and call their grandmother, “a dirty, bush woman” (Achebe, A Man of the People 39). He himself speaks in English (the language of foreigners according to the Prime Minister) while addressing the common people at Anata Grammar School: The Minister’s speech sounded spontaneous and was most effective…He would have preferred not to speak to his kinsmen in English which was after all a foreign language, but he had learned from experience that speeches made in vernacular were liable to be distorted and misquoted in the press. Also there were some strangers in that audience who did not speak our own tongue and he did not wish to exclude them… (Achebe, A Man of the People 13-14) Also, Chief Nanga does not drink coffee or tea (both the products are home- made) but prefers to have whisky with soda, the products of alien culture which he

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identifies himself with. "I no follow you black white-men for drink tea and coffee in the hot afternoon,” said Chief Nanga. “Whisky and soda for me and for Mr. Samalu” (Achebe, A Man of the People 33). Similarly, the ambivalent characteristics of most of the people, depicted in the novel as regard to the status of women, are worth discussing. White women command respect, equality and awe from one and all, without exception. As witnessed in this novel, even when they indulge in physical relationship with a Nigerian man, they do it on their own terms which are readily acceptable to the man. Black native women, on the other hand, are accorded an entirely different status, or no status at all. Portrayal of African women in A Man of the People is highly problematic– they are presented as weak, dependent, foolish, frivolous, jealous, seductive and totally spineless commodities. Elsie is easily seduced by Odili, and then simply raped by Chief Nanga. Chief Nanga promises to bring six girls to his door at the shortest possible notice if Odili wished so. So, native women are nothing more than commodities for these powerful native politicians. Edna is just a purchased girl – her father has taken money from Chief Nanga and therefore she has to marry him even if she does not wish to. Edna explains this to Odili in her letter to him: I have noted carefully all what you said about my marriage. Really, you should pity poor me, Odili. I am in a jam about the whole thing. If I develop cold feet now my father will almost kill me. Where is he going to find all the money the man has paid on my head? So it is not so much that I want to be called a minister’s wife but a matter of can’t help. What cannot be avoided must be borne. What I pray for is happiness. If God says that I will be happy in any man’s house I will be happy. (Achebe, A Man of the People 111) Mrs. Nanga is just a helpless woman and she has to follow what her powerful politician husband commands. And the irony of the behavior of the idealist Odili is quite baffling, too. To take revenge on Chief Nanga for snatching his ‘good-time’ girlfriend Elsie (Achebe, A Man of the People 60), he desires to seduce Chief Nanga’s fiancé Edna, and perhaps would rape her as Chief Nanga did to Elsie. As if Edna has no independent personality of her own, as if the ego-battle of the two opponents is to be fought over the body of a woman, “In flesh and blood terms I realized that I must 146 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction go back, seek out Nanga’s intended parlour-wife and give her the works, good and proper” (Achebe, A Man of the People 77). Could Odili think of doing the same to a White woman who was known to both of them? Probably he would never do it. Black men in A Man of the People are depicted to have this cultivated cultural prerogative over their women as a means to force them into allegiance and subservience. The practice also has accorded men legitimacy in exercising their power over women to bring them to subordination and perpetual marginality. Hussein’s views are in agreement on this issue and he says that the native society “tends to cultivate men’s prerogatives to the allegiance and subservience of women, and legitimatize men to exercise their power over women to sustain the latter’s subordination and marginality” (qtd. in Dwivedi 7) Women have no values in the eyes of powerful politicians like Chief Nanga, who run the country. He has the following to say about women: “But that woman na waa,” I said. “Who put that kind sense for im head?” “Woman?” rhapsodized Chief Nanga. “Any person wey tell you say woman no get sense just de talk pure jargon. When woman no want do something e go lef am, but make you no fool yourself say e left the thing because e no get sense for do am.” How true, I thought. (Achebe, A Man of the People 61) To sum up, A Man of the People is the story of the courage of a single individual to challenge the people responsible for decades of misrule playing puppets in the hands of the neo-colonialists. Achebe referred to the novel as, “a rather serious indictment of post-independence Africa” (qtd. in Dwivedi 3). At the time of writing the novel Nigeria was plunged by its villainous politicians into a cesspool of corruption. Achebe brings the story of the struggle of an individual against the system, and in a significant way the novel turns into a metaphor for the heroic struggle of the Africans against White supremacy. The writer laments that the Africans have to be reminded of their past, but he also suggests that the intellectuals in a country should take their duties seriously. The novel throws a light on the disturbed era in the post-independence history of Nigeria highlighting how corruption had taken roots in the country. But in a covert manner the story of corruption of the local political leaders is also linked to the neo-colonialist agenda of the US and the UK. It is interesting to note how identities are negotiated and reconstructed in 147 Chapter-4 Chinua Achebe’s Postcolonial Fiction

postcolonial nations, in different situations, creating a culture of hybridity, ambivalence and alterity. The erstwhile colonizers as well as the colonized both live with an identity crisis, or double identity, one for their own people and the other for their others. A Man of the People represents Achebe's perception of postcolonial African society and its struggle to create its own identity different from colonial era. The message to a large extent is that the Africans have failed in this attempt as their independence has been usurped and the African societies have been pushed into chaos and anarchy. The common masses in the novel display an unprecedented lethargy, inaction, inertia, cynicism and resignation to their fate, giving enough clues to the reader that nothing has changed in Africa and the identity of the Africans and Africa, created through the colonial narrative, as a ‘heart of darkness’ with lack of knowledge and action is still intact. But, the narrator gives some hope in the end that there are African heroes like Maxwell and Eunice whose sacrifices can ignite revolutions. Whatever attempts the neo-colonial stakeholders make to destabilize Africa, African unity cannot be shaken now. This is what the new identity of Africa is.

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Works Cited Achebe, Chinua. A Man of the People. New York: Anchor, 1989. Print. ---. "An Image of Africa." Joseph Conrad: Third World Perspectives. Comp. Robert D. Hamner. Washington, DC: Three Continents, 1990. 119-130. Print. ---. Anthills of the Savannah. London: Penguin, 2001. Print. ---. Arrow of God. London: Penguin, 2010. Print. ---. No Longer at Ease. London: Penguin, 2010. Print. ---. Things Fall Apart. Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 1996. Print. Carroll, David. Chinua Achebe, Novelist, Poet, Critic. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 1990. Print. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton, 1988. Print. ---. Lord Jim. New Delhi: Peacock, 1994. Print. Dickovick, James Tyler. Africa. 49th ed. Lanham: Stryker-Post Publications, 2014. Print. Dwivedi, Vachaspati. "Aspects of Realism in Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People." African Study Monographs 29.1 (2008): 1-13. Web. 11 June 2016. . Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann. London: Pluto, 1986. Print. ---. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. New York: Grove, 1965. Print. Gikandi, Simon. "China Achebe and the Invention of African Literature." Things Fall Apart. By Chinua Achebe. Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 1996. ix-xvii. Print. Gordimer, Nadine. Rev. of Anthills of Savannah. New York Herald Tribune [New York] 21 Feb. 1988, Book Review sec.: 1+. Print. Gorlier, Clauduo. "Mbari versus Conrad: Chinua Achebe's Aesthetics." Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe. ISINKA: The Artistic Purpose:Chinua Achebe and the Theory of African Literature. By Ernest N. Emenyonu and Iniobong I. Uko. Vol. 2. Trenton, NJ: Africa World, 2004. 49-56. Print.

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Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. Second ed. London: Routledge, 1998. Print. Thiongʼo, Ngũgĩ Wa. "Chinua Achebe: A Man of the People." Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture and Politics. London: Heinemann, 1972. 45-50. Print. Omotosho, Oyejide Felix. "Democracy in Nigeria: “Challenges and Prospects in the next Twenty Years”." VERITAS The Academic Journal of St Clements Education Group 6.1 (2015): 25-33. Academia.edu. Web. 15 July 2016. . Orwell, George. Animal Farm: A Fairy Story. Middlesex: Penguin, 1978. Print. Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. London: Vintage, 1994. Print. Udumukwu, Onyemaechi. "Achebe and Th E Negation of Independence." Modern Fiction Studies 37.4 (1991): 471-91. Web. 22 May 2016. .

150 CHAPTER V

RAJA RAO’S POSTCOLONIAL FICTION

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Postcolonial fiction, coming from almost all the postcolonial countries, is generally characterized by the elements of hybridity, ambivalence, alterity, diasporic dilemmas, essentialism, ethnic conflicts, exoticism, hegemony, ideological conflicts, belief (or loss of belief) in metanarratives, mimicry, effects of colonial education on the elite class, and the conflicts of self versus other among other notions. Raja Rao’s writings span both the eras, that is, the era of colonialism as well as postcolonialism in India, and interestingly, his writings reflect the change in his perspective with the change of time. Although Raja Rao avoids writing forthright political novels as does Chinua Achebe, yet one can discern a fine thread of political comments in his fictional works. Raja Rao is a realist and this characteristic trait is reflected in his writings quite recurrently. As he was influenced by Gandhi, there is much on Gandhi and Gandhian ideals in his works. He was moved by the pathetic condition of the common masses of India under colonial rule. All these sufferings and their factors are explored in his fictional works. Similarly, he was also moved by the condition of women in India, especially widows, and he wrote several stories reflecting their lives. Raja Rao was a serious scholar of ‘Advaita Vedanta’ philosophy and he includes his opinion on the subject in his fictions as well. The Hindu mythological term ‘Advaita’ means non- dualism soul in English. The philosophy advaita refers to ideology that God is the Supreme Being and He is the only reality- everything else is nothing but illusions. Sri Sankaracharya, one of the main champions of this philosophy, defines ‘Advaita Vedanta’ “Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya Jivo Brahmaiva Na Parah” (qtd. in "Advaita Vedanta Philosophy") It is roughly translated in English as “God alone is real. The world is illusory. The individual is none other than God” (qtd. in "Advaita Vedanta Philosophy"). The individual is the representation of God or ‘Brahmin’. According to this philosophy the reality of ‘jagat’, which means that this mortal world, is relative in comparison to the absolute truth of God, and thus this world and its existence is unreal compared to the absolute truth, that is, God. So this unreal word is an illusion like a dream, “which has its own subjective reality but which is illusory” in relation to the ‘Brahmin’ or individual self ("Advaita Vedanta Philosophy"). That is the kind of realism is encountered in his works.

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Yet another characteristic feature of Raja Rao’s writings is that he was the most innovative novelist of his time. He experimented with a new genre in a foreign language. He also experimented with his own language and made it malleable to suit his purposes. R. Parathasarathy has the following to say in this connection in the introduction to The Cat and Shakespeare: One of the most innovative novelists of twentieth century, Rao departed boldly from the European tradition of the novel, which he indigenized in the process of assimilating material from the Indian literary tradition. He put the novel to uses to which it had not perhaps been put before, by exploring the metaphysical basis of writing itself – of, in fact, the word. In the Indian tradition, literature is a way of realizing the Absolute (Brahman) through the meditation of language. (ix) Raja Rao’s postcolonial works are not untouched by some of these notions and ideas framing his worldview. In the present chapter three of his well-known postcolonial works, namely, The Serpent and the Rope, The Cat and Shakespeare and Comrade Kirillov are discussed with a view to analyze his idea on culture, identity, cultural conflict and cultural hegemony in postcolonial India. But before venturing to analyze Raja Rao’s novels from particular cultural perspectives, it would be worthwhile to discuss the term ‘culture’ briefly.

Culture Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines culture as: • the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time; • a particular society that has its own beliefs, ways of life, art, etc.; • a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization (such as business). ("Simple Definition of Culture.") And in a more serious deliberation on culture John Sutherland explains T.S. Eliot’s description in this respect: If we take culture seriously, we see that a people does not need merely enough to eat but a proper and particular cuisine…Culture may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living.’ So wrote Eliot in his treatise Notes Towards a Definition of Culture, in 1948. Eliot was consciously answering a question that his fellow Harvard graduate, the philosopher

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William James, had posted in a lecture 50 years earlier, entitled, ‘What makes life worth Living?’ Culture, Eliot proposed, can fill the empty socket where religion used to be. And literature is a main constituent in a nation’s culture. (48) So, taking into consideration the definition of culture, it is commonly expressed in two forms, material culture and non-material culture. Material forms of culture are the aspects of culture visible in the appearance of a cultural or ethnic group associated with a particular culture, for instance, dress codes, looks, food habits and artifacts whereas, the non-material forms of culture are the aspects of culture that may not be directly visible to a customary viewer, like language, beliefs, religious practices, customs, traditions, values, ways of thinking, world view and social semiotics. When the vision of culture, cultural conflict and cultural hegemony in Raja Rao’s postcolonial fictions is in discussion, it would be sensible to look in his fictional works keeping in mind the non-material forms of culture, like linguistic behaviour, way of life, philosophical thoughts, customs, traditions and values of Indian people. Though it is to be admitted that he draws a good picture of the material forms of Indian culture, too in his novels and strikes a sharp contrast with the material forms of Indian culture that he sees in conflict with the Western culture. In all the three novels under discussion here, Raja Rao gives enough space to the description of material culture of India, especially south India, leaving ample scope for a good grasp of the features of India and Indian culture even to a cursory reader in a foreign country. The dress codes, food habits, landscapes, architecture, household goods, lithographs, art objects, musical instruments, people’s looks, artifacts, jewelry, holy places, temples, ghats (bathing places on different water bodies), rivers, and so on, have been paid enough attention to draw the picture of real India in a postcolonial setting. In the forthcoming pages Raja Rao’s perspective of Indian culture, as expressed in his fictional works is discussed in details. How does Rao view the conflict of cultures as two different cultural forms, namely, Indian culture and Western culture? What happened when two cultures came in close contact, the one being the culture of the conqueror while the other being the culture of the vanquished? Naturally, the ruler shows hegemonic arrogance as regard to his culture. So, this is also important to study how Raja Rao perceives the cultural hegemony coming from the West, and more specifically, what his response to such a hegemony is.

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Raja Rao may not be making a value judgment when he puts Indian culture in contrast with the Western culture, but of course, he gives the reader enough hints to believe that he insists on the superiority of Indian culture. The main protagonists of Raja Rao, namely, Moorthy in Kanthapura, Ramaswamy in The Serpent and the Rope, Govindan Nair and Ramakrishna Pai in The Cat and Shakespeare and Padmanabha Iyer in Comrade Kirillov, are deeply devoted to the service of Indian culture (specifically, ancient Hindu culture of the Vedas, Upanishads, Vedanta, Samkhya and the like). All these central characters live for Indian culture, as depicted in these novels. They always speak in favour of it and try to inculcate the good aspects of this culture in their loved ones. They defend its tenets tooth and nail at all costs. It would be worth pointing here that all of these protagonists represent Raja Rao in one or the other form. Moorthy in Kanthapura is a follower of Gandhi and his ideologies. He is well- versed in Indian literature and Indian way of life. He is so affected by the culture of his land that on a call from the Mahatma Gandhi he gives up his nice clothes and puts on rough khadi (locally hand-woven) garments. He also abandons his foreign education at the university and jumps headlong into the struggle for freedom movement. He devotes the rest of his life in educating the people of his village in the ways of Mahatma Gandhi and prepares a dedicated Gandhi brigade in his village. At his call, people put their lives at risk fighting a non-violent battle against the aggressors, the colonizers to be more specific. He sees in Gandhian principles not just a political philosophy but a philosophy of life. He ultimately becomes a seeker of Truth. Ramaswamy in The Serpent and the Rope is an Advaita Vedanta scholar, though for his research he is working on the history of the ‘Albigensian heresy’ that took place between 1209 and 1229 in France against the dualist religious movement called ‘Cathari’ (Madden & Baldwin). He is trying to find a link between “Bogomolites and the Druzes, and thus search back for the Indian background–Jain or maybe Buddhist–of the Cathars.” (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 12). Ramaswamy is also a seeker of absolute truth. The title of the novel in itself is a reflection of Sri Adi Sankaracharya’s philosophy explicated as: “Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya Jivo Brahmaiva Na Parah”. (qtd. in "Advaita Vedanta Philosophy")

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(Its English translation earlier in this chapter can be referred to here.) Like, owing to human illusory sense perception, a rope may be mistaken for a snake in the dark, but when this illusion vanishes, one may realize the truth that it is nothing but a piece of lifeless rope. Govindan Nair in The Cat and Shakespeare is a staunch follower of the Vishistha Advaita of Ramanuja, the founder of ‘Bhakti Movement’ (the path of devotion) in India. Although he likes to recite ‘Aho Aham Namo Mahyam Yasyame Nastikinchana’, which means, ‘Wonderful am I! Adoration to myself who love nothing’ (Rao, The Cat and Shakespeare 46), yet his firm belief is in God’s love for his creatures. He believes that God’s ways may look unpleasant to man at times, but His love is infinite. Here is an example from the text worth mentioning: “Govindan Nair always talks of a mother cat. It carries the kitten by the scruff of its neck. This is why he is so carefree. He says, ‘Learn the way of the kitten. Then you’re saved. Allow the mother cat, sir, to carry you,’” (Rao, The Cat and Shakespeare 101). Mother cat symbolizes God here, while the kitten is human mortals. Thus, it can be construed that to Raja Rao Indian culture, especially the ancient Indian philosophy and the cultural values associated with it, are of supreme importance. Sometime, he even goes to the extent of extolling so much that readers may feel that Raja Rao is all for the Hindu cultural revival in India, at the cost of several other cultural practices and traditions, different from the mainstream Hindu cultural traditions, including the practices of the untouchables and pariahs. He seems to advocate for that culture as the mainstream which has never allowed a respectable life to the untouchables and the pariahs, and which has been the cause of much suffering to them. In any case, in the forthcoming pages in the present chapter these points will be discussed at length.

Vision of Culture, Cultural Conflict and Cultural Dominance in Raja Rao’s Postcolonial Fiction It would not be an overstatement to say that Raja Rao visualizes India as the land of Hindus and the lives of her people permeated by the ideas of Hindu cultural traditions coming down from the ages of the Vedas. His point of view, as can be derived from the three novels analyzed here, appears to be that the world has experimented with so many theories and philosophies – social theories, political

155 Chapter-5 Raja Rao’s Postcolonial Fiction theories, economic theories, and scientific theories to name a few – to find solutions to the problems the world has been facing perennially. Indian intellectuals have also pondered over human misery from time to time. They have also experimented with various thoughts, ideas and theories, and then have come up with various solutions to the problems of humans. The theories the Indian sages have come up with are capable of providing long lasting solutions to man’s social, political, economic and even spiritual problems. In The Serpent and the Rope Raja Rao suggests that only material progress cannot bring happiness to humanity; man has to finally take refuge to spiritualism. Man finally realizes that the temporal world is not absolutely true and there has to be something beyond this visible reality. But, if dualism of subject and object, or the duality of visible world and the absolute reality beyond it is to be believed, there would always remain the question of their infinite separateness and imbalance in nature. The only solution to this conundrum is the theory of the error of perception which perceives the subject and object as two entities which in reality are one and the same thing. The author of this novel believes that the temporal world and the absolute consciousness are one and the same thing. The theory is propounded by Adi Sankaracharya as ‘Rajju-Sarpa-Nyaya’ in Sanskrit language, which means the rope and its illusion being a snake. Following is the illustration of his theory with the translation in English: Rajju-Sarpavad-Aatmanam Jivam Jnatva Bhayam Vahet Naham Jivah Paratmeti Jnatas-Cet Nirbhayo Bhavet. 27… Just as the person who regards a rope as a snake is overcome by fear, so also one considering oneself as the ego (Jiva) is overcome by the fear. The ego-centric individuality in us regains fearlessness by realizing that It is not a Jiva but Itself the Supreme soul. (qtd. in Chinmayananda 54) The question arises is if this is the case, why people do not realize it in their day-to- day life and thus suffer because of worldly emotions and consciousness. The answer is that to realize it, one has to realize the nature of reality, appearance and unreality. At this juncture, it is also important to refer to the psychological term ‘subration’ as described by Eliot Deutsch in his book Advaita Vedānta: A

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Philosophical Reconstruction to explain the dilemma and conflicts of the central characters of these novels. Subration is the mental process by which one disvalues some previously appraised object or content of consciousness because of its being contradicted by a new experience…From the standpoint of the subject, to subrate means to undergo an experience – practical, intellectual, spiritual – which radically changes one’s judgment about something. (Deutsch 15-16) In such a state of mind one rejects his/her previous experience or notion of an object which is replaced by a new consciousness or experience of the same object. He or she believes that his/her previous understanding of an object or situation was essentially wrong and the current realization is the true meaning of the object or experience in terms of being more logical. Deutsch explains that prior to the experience of subration, the nature of reality, unreality and appearance needs to be grasped. He theorizes: Reality is that which cannot be subrated by any other experience. Appearance is that which can be subrated by other experience. Unreality is that which neither can nor cannot be subrated by other experience. (15) To further clarify this mental consciousness, Deutsch presents the simple analogy of a living person with his/her exact wax replica in a museum. A human replica in a wax museum can be initially mistaken as a living person by someone. But when he/she realizes that it is in fact a wax figure, the individual rejects the previous judgement and replaces it with a new a realization “which, one believes, conforms with reality” (16). This mental process is called ‘subration’. The same analogy can be drawn in between the serpent and the rope in the The Serpent and the Rope where the rope can be mistaken as a serpent in the dark until one confronts the light of reality. Ramaswamy in The Serpent and the Rope undergoes the process of this consciousness, which Deutsch terms as ‘subration’, when he feels utter emptiness at the later stage of his life. He feels that what he took to be reality till that time is not reality at all. As a follower of Advaita, he is already familiar with the theory of the non-duality of the individual soul and the absolute consciousness. Now he practically realizes it. As the novel opens, Ramaswamy traces his lineage to Upanishadic sage Yagnyavalkya (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 1) and he is proud of this myth in his life. He has inherited the knowledge of the Vedas and Upanishads from his forefathers

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and he is himself very much interested in Advaita Vedanta. He feels that there is much delusion and misery in human life. The cycle of birth and death is a bondage, and since everyone identifies oneself as individual souls, there arises ignorance. To Ramaswamy, the aim of human life is self-realization and he believes that this realization can be perceived as an individual soul, which is just like a wave in the great sea of Absolute Soul. Ramaswamy says: And the history of philosophy – remember that in the eighteenth century even scientists were called “les philosophes” – is nothing but a search for a clue to this problem: “If I am real, then the world is me.” It also means that you are not what you think and feel you are, that is, a person. But if the world is real, then you are real in terms of objects, and that is a tenable proposition. The first is the Vedantin’s proposition – the second is the Marxist’s – and they are irreconcilable.’ (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 370) But, the problem is that in France Ramaswamy is a European Brahmin, neither completely Brahmin nor Buddhist nor a Christian. He is a hybrid creature, as noted by P. Dayal: Ramaswamy’s ancestral spiritual compulsions impel him to observe Vedantic discipline while his liberal European upbringing evokes the desires for erotic freedom. He, therefore, oscillates between matter and spirit, pleasure and truth, between the call of the flesh and the love of God. ("The Serpent and the Rope: From Vedanta to Tantra" 31) He changes himself in line with the culture and religion where stays. He is aware of the tenets of Advaita Vedanta and he knows what he should do, but he does not do it. Ramaswamy’s persona is dominated by ‘lust’ and ‘ego’ the most dreaded enemies in the path of self-realization. He is polygamous and has an incestuous crush for his young step mother and teenaged half-sister Saroja, “Saroja was a strange sensation for me. Here was a mystery which I had never observed before: the girl becoming woman,…” (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 51). Ramaswamy, it seems, can justify all his actions in the name of advaita (non-dualism) which prioritizes metaphysics over morality. Raja Rao, it appears at the outset, extols ancient Indian culture and Indian cultural traditions, especially the brahminic traditions, and the belief that India has been a world Guru, and thus he believes that India can once again become world Guru, but only through the path of spirituality, shunning materialism, since

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materialism is not true happiness. The novel opens with a lament on the lack of interest in ancient Indian culture among modern Indian youth: I was born a Brahmin – that is, devoted to truth and all that. ‘Brahmin is he who knows Brahman,’ etc. etc…. But how many of my ancestors since the excellent Yagnyavalkya, my legendary and Upanishadic ancestor, have really known the Truth excepting the Sage Madhava, who founded an Empire or rather, helped to build an Empire, and wrote some of the most profound of Vedantic texts since Sri Sankara?” (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 1) Ramaswamy is a scholar of history but he preaches Advaita Vedanta and he makes serious efforts to promote Indian culture and tradition across the world. His discussions with Madeleine and her family member are always scholarly and thought- provoking. It is through him that Madeleine learns the deeper meanings of Indian social and philosophical thought. His love for India is such that he expects his French- Spanish wife to imbibe Indian culture. Of course, she is herself interested in the Indian way of life, even in the material culture of India. After his second visit to India when Ramaswamy goes back to France, he is so deeply affected by the all-pervasive Indian spirit and zeal that he expects his wife to dress up like an Indian woman; rather he imposes it upon her. This particular point in the novel creates a doubt about Raja Rao’s perception of Indian culture. It appears that his model of Indian culture is biased to some extent and he tends to tilt towards the mainstream brahminical culture, as if it is identical with Indian culture as a whole. He seems to suggest that for all the ills of not only Indian society but also of the world society at large, the path hewn by Indian culture is the best path. This is rather a polemical view since ancient Indian culture, particularly the mainstream Hindu culture, has been reinterpreted by the Hindu nationalists as suiting to their interests. The ancient traditions, customs, rituals and practices have been interpreted to come down as it is from the time immemorial into the present. The practices are visualizes as sanctioned by the major Hindu scriptures, sages and great thinkers. But the distressing point to note there is that a large part of the Hindu society has been denied proper place in those cultural practices, and therefore, they are not considered as part of the Hindu society. The marginalized people of Indian society have had no right to property, no right to education, no right to perform worship, no right to learn and recite scriptures, no right to enter Hindu temples, and so on.

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In other words, they can exist in the Hindu society only as the lowest rung, serving all other castes and classes. If there is a revival of the mainstream Hindu culture, there will be a revival of all these disturbing practices and all that which need to be abandoned will be relived and the structure of the Hindu society will remain as it is forever. Raja Rao’s fiction points to this disturbing trend, although it is not clear whether he himself believes in the revival of the Hindu cultural practices or he is just drawing a realistic picture of the emerging Hindu nationalism. All these factors are kept in mind in analyzing Raja Rao’s vision of culture, cultural conflict and cultural hegemony as outlined by him through the storyline, characterization, dialogues and settings in the three novels, chosen here for a critical study.

The Serpent and the Rope: A Brief Overview The Serpent and the Rope was published in 1960. The novel narrates the story of a young south Indian intellectual Brahman named K. S. Ramaswamy, referred to in short as ‘Rama’ in the novel. Rama is a student of history. He goes to France to conduct research on the Catharist heresy of the Albigensians. His objective is to trace back its origin in the Eastern, possibly Indian, culture. In France Rama meets Madeleine Rousselin, a young girl interested in Indian culture and tradition. Madeleine also shares his intellectual interests. They fall in love and after three years the couple gets married. A son is born to them and they name him Pierre Krishna, but the child suffers from bronchopneumonia and dies after seven months. At this time Rama has to return to India as he receives the news that his father is on the death-bed. Following Hindu rituals and traditions, after his father’s death, Rama takes his step- mother (called ‘Little Mother’ in the novel) and her young son, Sridhara, to Benares to perform obsequies of his father. He is charmed and poetically charged at the sight of the Hindu holy city. His attitude towards India also undergoes a change. At Benares, Rama is introduced to Savithri, the daughter of a smalltime king Raja Raghubir Singh of Surajpur. Savithri is betrothed to Pratap, the son of another smalltime king. He is an Indian Civil Service officer, but Savithri does not fancy him very much. Since Rama has been to Europe and married to a French woman, he is supposed to have a deep understanding of love, and therefore, he is requested to look into the matter of lack of love between Savithri and Pratap. Rama does not find

160 Chapter-5 Raja Rao’s Postcolonial Fiction anything significant in Savithri in their first meeting. He returns to France. He has taken along his mother’s toe-rings and a saree given to him by his sister, Saroja for Madeleine. But Madeleine is very upset to learn that the saree for her is not brought by Rama. They painfully realize that there has come up a certain kind of change in their relationship, and they try to overcome it through physical union, although it may not be more than a temporary fulfillment. The conflict of culture between the East and the West thus becomes apparent in Rama’s character when his immediate visit to Benaras in India has changed his personal equation with his wife Madeleine who represents the Western identity at that point in the storyline. This is when Savithri from Benares visits them. Rama goes to London where Savithri studies English at Cambridge. They develop a deep love for each other. In the hotel room Savithri worships Ramaswamy as Lord Krishna and imagines herself as Radha, which is a mythical immortal love story in the legend of Radha-Krishna. Rama gives her his mother’s toe-rings he has brought for Madeleine. As a family tradition, toe-rings are passed from generation to generation, from mother-in-law to daughter-in-law. Symbolically, Rama and Savithri are thus wed permanently according to the Hindu religion and its cultural practices. Rama returns to France after this incident. Madeleine is pregnant again and the baby is expected soon. But, again, Rama has to go to India at this crucial moment to attend his sister Saroja’s wedding. Madeleine delivers a stillborn baby boy in his absence. Rama receives the news with equanimity of emotions as a believer in Advaita philosophy. But, Madeleine is left heartbroken at the death of her two sons, and for consolation she takes refuge in Buddhism. Rama returns to France and Madeleine chooses to live with him despite her acceptance of the Buddhist Order. Rama suffers from chronic consumption, and so Madeleine takes care of him, even observing ritual penance fasting for forty-one days for a permanent cure for Rama’s illness. Rama is hospitalized in London later on, and during this time Savithri visits him in the hospital. This is the time when the coronation ceremony of the young queen of England is held in London. Rama watches the ceremony with Savithri and feels that the queen is merging into Savithri in his consciousness. At this juncture, Madeleine realizes her body to be a composition of eighteen aggregates (as propounded in Buddhism), and she renounces all worldly attachments, including her marital bond with Rama. They arrange for a divorce. Rama is left with no place to call his own; none to go to. He is filled with anguish and remorse and goes

161 Chapter-5 Raja Rao’s Postcolonial Fiction into profound introspection. After three days of deep contemplation he finds himself enlightened with the realization that he needs a spiritual guide. He decides to seek the blessings of his spiritual guide at Travancore in India for self-realization, and thus, his spiritual quest comes to an end. All the major characters in this novel, namely Ramaswamy, Madeleine and Savithri suffer from identity crisis which is created because of the clash of European culture and Indian culture in their lives. According to Poonam Jhinjha’s analysis of cultural conflicts in The Serpent and the Rope both Ramaswamy and Madeleine fail to maintain their relationship more because of the differences emerged from their inter-racial marriage than their personal equations. The relationship between Rama and Madeline, the eventual failure of their marriage is a reflection on the nature and consequences of an inter-racial marriage. Rama and Madeline are both evolved beings. But they fail to remain united in their journey of life. Ramaswamy is profoundly rooted in his culture. His wife Madeline does not partake of his inner-self whereas in Savithri he finds a perfect spiritual companion as in spite of her modern ways she wears kumkum, choli, black beads which are essentially Indian. (The Serpent and the Rope 4) The Serpent and the Rope appears to be an autobiographical account of the narrator’s life, the events in the life of a young intellectual Brahman, Raja Rao. His French wife also seeks spiritual solace and truth in India, France, and England. Although one can argue that an author’s life and his/her creative works are two different things, yet it is interesting to note the presence of autobiographical elements in The Serpent and the Rope. Encyclopaedia Britannica has the following entry on the life of Raja Rao: Descended from a distinguished Brahman family in southern India, Rao studied English at Nizam College, Hyderabad, and then at the University of Madras, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1929. He left India for France to study literature and history at the University of Montpellier and the Sorbonne. Also while in France he married Camille Mouly, in 1931. He returned to India in 1933—the same year that, in Europe and the United States, some of his earliest stories were published – and spent the next decade there moving among ashrams. He also participated in the movement of Indian independence and engaged in underground activities against the British. Rao returned to France in 1948 and subsequently alternated for a time between

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India and Europe… His first marriage having ended in 1949, he married twice more, in 1965 (to Catherine Jones) and 1986 (to Susan Vaught). ("Raja Rao") It cannot be merely coincidental that the subject matter of the novel is also quite similar the narrator’s first marriage and its disintegration. The subject acquires a more impersonal appeal as it puts the Eastern and Western cultural traditions in contrast, though the author has avoided being judgmental as many writers handling this subject commonly tend to be, glorifying Indian tradition without even going into the merits of Western thought. Raja Rao has been inconclusive even on the subject of divorce of Ramaswamy and Madeleine. The novel brings together ideas from various literary forms and philosophical systems from both the traditions, which is further reinforced by the style of narration. But, it is also not essential to read the novel as an autobiographical account of Raja Rao’s life, rather such a reading would be a reductionist attempt. It would deflate the deeper significance of this work of art, deflecting the attention from the issues the author has raised, especially concerning the impact of colonization in the youths of postcolonial India. The marriage of Ramaswamy and Madeleine may be read as an allegory representing coming together of the East and West, and their divorce representing separation because of their irreconcilable cultures. Once again, the oft-quoted and clichéd expression of Rudyard Kipling needs to be mentioned at this juncture. It is: “Oh! East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, / Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;” (qtd. in Hampson 11). Madeleine is madly in love with Rama, and she deems herself very fortunate that she has married a Brahmin boy from India since she is an Indian by her soul. But is there a future of this relationship? No. Their marriage ends up in divorce, and quite soon too. Moreover, the offspring born out of this union also do not survive long. The elder one dies after seven months of his birth, while the younger one is born dead. Over and above all this, frustrated Madeleine converts to Buddhism for consolation, a religion that left India long ago. The separation from India and Hinduism is complete with Madeleine accepting Buddhism. Buddhism arose in India as a reaction to extreme ritualism in Hinduism. Gautam, the Buddha, rejected ritualism and even the concept of God as a path to salvation, and ultimately the two religions ended up having two different worldviews leading to two different cultural streams.

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It can be safely stated that Madeleine leaning towards Buddhism, leaving aside the path of Hinduism, is symptomatic of the irreconcilable nature of Hinduism with any other religion and culture. There is a bridge between the cultures, but it is never crossed, “The bridge was never crossed. Madeleine had a horror of crossing bridges” (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 11). Although it is often claimed that Hinduism is a way of life, and therefore anyone can accept it, yet it can be implied from the events in The Serpent and the Rope that one can never become a complete Hindu; one can be only born as a Hindu. The next important question to ask while reading the works of Raja Rao is: Does the author visualize a future of relationships that Indians attempt to establish with Westerners? The answer is no. Indians remain glued up to Indian culture and cultural values, and however hard they try to imbibe the values of an alien culture, they inadvertently fail in their attempts. Indians feel comfortable only in Indian cultural ethos. Ramaswamy respects Madeleine’s faith and her world view. He visits churches and studies various aspects of Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism, but he finds peace and serenity only when he visits Benares, Hardwar, the Ganges, the Sarayu, and holy places and pilgrimages in India. Culture is an expression of composite feelings, emotions, fears, anxieties, and the ways to deal with conscious, subconscious and unconscious phobias and manias. Culture is also the collective wisdom of a cultural or ethnic group which may not be expressed overtly, but to be derived inductively from actions and reactions of people. Therefore, one cannot acquire a culture; one is born into a culture. One’s cultural values provide one with the assurance of guidance in difficult circumstances. They assure one of immortality and absolute peace. Ramaswamy attains peace only when he realizes that what he took to be a snake is only a rope, and for further guidance he needs to seek the blessings of his spiritual guide at Travancore. Govindan Nair in The Cat and Shakespeare finds absolute happiness and satisfaction in the philosophy of life that it is futile to struggle against circumstances beyond one’s control. What one has to do is to surrender oneself to the will of the Absolute Reality, a philosophical tenet coming from the Vishishta Advaita teacher Ramanuja. Padmanabha Iyer of Comrade Kirillov, as the narrator describes, wastes his time in futile search for happiness of the masses in the US, the UK, the USSR and finally in China, whereas the narrator believes that Gandhian philosophy of life provides easy ways to such a happiness through a bloodless, non-violent revolution. That is what Mahatma Gandhi

164 Chapter-5 Raja Rao’s Postcolonial Fiction tries teach the Indian masses and also, he does not preach anything new to the India populace. Such a system has been existent, in place, in Indian cultural ethos not only for centuries but for millennia. Gandhi just brought a revival of what was already there. Gandhi preached non-violence, equality and social justice. All the great religions and sects in India do the same – Buddhism preaches non-violence, equality and social justice; Jainism does the same, Hinduism does the same and even Christianity, the religion that originated outside India, does the same. That is the point Raja Rao is trying to put forward- return to one’s roots, and he/she will find peace and absolute truth. Equality and social justice will follow since the basic foundations of Indian cultural ethos are equality and social justice. Looked from a different perspective, the life of man in the civilized world is an ongoing struggle for various things and for numerous reasons, for instance, to attain knowledge, to derive material pleasures, to become famous and may be to attain salvation. But the problem is that as man gets more and more of his desires fulfilled, his desires also go on expanding, and no matter how much pleasure he enjoys, it always remains short of the expectations. Even if one goes on striving for more and more knowledge, towards the twilight of his life a man feels an emptiness, and accumulated life experiences as mere illusions. Man becomes restless at this state of affairs and most often he gives up in despair. This is what is found in The Serpent and the Rope. Ramaswamy gives up all efforts in the end when he is disillusioned with life and seeks the guidance of his spiritual teacher, though he was himself an erudite scholar of Advaita Vedanta. Raja Rao, as mentioned previously, glorifies the thoughts and values enshrined in ancient Indian philosophical traditions with a clear hint that there is a need to revive those values because over time and because of certain other reasons, like colonialism, common people have forgotten those values. Or perhaps because of cultural hegemony they have developed inferiority complex. And under the influence of inferiority complex the common people have themselves undermined their cultural values. Rao believes that these common people need a complete revival of their own culture and not any alien culture which may not suit their lives. ‘Return to the Vedas’ is what the author seems to suggest. There are no overt instances of cultural hegemony in The Serpent and the Rope, but of course, there are covert hints that the Western mindset is hegemonic and

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Indian intellectuals felt the pressure of this hegemonic and dominant discourse of colonialism which needed to be countered, and those raw reactions of Indian people owing to inferiority complex invariably created an imbalance and tension. For instance, the narrator paints the picture of Madeleine as an unreality, an abstract creature: “Madeleine was so lovely, with golden hair – on her mother’s side she came from Savoy – and her limbs had such pure unreality. Madeleine was altogether unreal. That is why, I think, she never married anyone – in fact she had never touched anyone” (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 10). The description completely undermines Indian sense and sensibility and clearly displays a sense of inferiority in the narrator’s approach. His own skin colour and looks, which in a way is a metaphor for Indian skin and looks, are nowhere compared to the beauty of Madeleine which makes her absolutely desirable and even condescending in her attitude: “she never married anyone – in fact she had never touched anyone” (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 10). It speaks volumes about the attitude of the narrator towards women. The sense of a woman being touched by someone generates the feeling like she is defiled. This is a typical Indian sensibility imposed upon Western culture where virginity of women has never been a very serious issue, whereas in India this has been the main issue when it come to a woman’s identity, all other issues are connected to this single agenda. The alterity in the mindset and approach of the narrator, creating an absolutely different ‘other’ in the form of Madeleine, a metaphor for Western cultural ethos, vouchsafes readers’ attention. Madeleine, to the narrator, is the alter ego of the Empire which is pure, white, desirable and unapproachable. It is Madeleine who contrasts their skin colour: I was too much of a Brahmin to be unfamiliar with anything, such is the pride of caste and race, and lying by Madeleine it was she who remarked, ‘Look at this pale skin beside your golden one. Oh, to be born in a country where tradition is so alive,’… I (Ramaswamy), however, being so different, never really noted any difference. (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 17) So, the same skin colour here are perceived in two different ways- much-loved in the Western eyes of Madeleine and not so worthy to be noted in Indian culture, represented by Ramaswamy. But, ultimately, it was the skin colour that brought about his doom.

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As a critique of Indian culture, Raja Rao in The Serpent and the Rope also deconstructs various myths prevalent in India, especially in the Hindu society, like the myth of eternal love, a Guru, holy Benares, Benares-born bride, Maya (illusion), woman being the other half of man and the myth of husband as a representative of the eternal ‘purusha’ (a male) and woman as ‘prakriti’ (nature) in the cosmic principle. For instance, the myth of eternal love, and man being ‘purusha’ and woman being ‘prakriti’ is deconstructed when Savithri marries Pratap, her fiancé, instead of Rama with whom she has played as prakriti, the cosmic nature. Rama, ‘the eternal purusha’ is so frustrated and disappointed at this turn of events that he repents he lost the chance of taking Savithri in his arms. The idea of ‘love between two souls’ is utterly lost at this point and he satisfies his lust for Savithri by indulging in sex with other woman!

The Cat and Shakespeare: A Tale of India: The Cat and Shakespeare was first published as a short story ‘in the Summer 1959 issue of Chelsea Review, New York’ titled ‘The Cat’ as noted by R. Parathasarathy in his introduction to The Cat and Shakespeare (ix). The story was enlarged and brought out in the present form published by Macmillan, New York in 1965. The Cat and Shakespeare is an allegorical comic novel set in Trivandrum, the capital of the then State of Travancore. In The Cat and Shakespeare, the narrator Ramakrishna Pai goes from Alwaye to Trivandrum and builds a house there. It is worth noting here that the protagonist of The Serpent and the Rope, Ramaswamy, in the end decides to leave for Travancore to seek the blessings of his spiritual guide. For this and for some more notable features, critics consider The Cat and Shakespeare as a sequel to The Serpent and the Rope, Sudhir K. Arora being one of them. Raja Rao is quoted in this regard: “The Cat and Shakespeare is a sequel to The Serpent and the Rope, and that it takes up the theme of metaphysical quest at the point at which Rama’s story has carried it, and shows the next step in this quest” (qtd. in Arora 154). Another critic P. Dayal agrees to this view of Raja Rao, too: “It is interesting to note that Ram’s search for the guru in the preceding novel is materialised in The Cat and Shakespeare, as his successor Pai finds the guru in Govindan Nair who is a tantric adept” ("The Cat and Shakespeare: A Tantric Prayer" 61).

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There are two popular ways, suggested in Indian mythology and philosophy, to get rid of anxiety and sorrow – jnana yoga (the path of knowledge) and bhakti yoga (the path of devotion). Advaita Vedanta of Sankaracharya is the path of knowledge, whereas, Vishishta Advaita of Ramanuja is the path of devotion (Boliaki 328). The path of knowledge is difficult as not everyone can understand the illusory nature of the world to realize the real nature of the self as Absolute Brahma. The path of devotion is easy since even a layman can understand that total surrender to God’s will leads to salvation. In The Cat and Shakespeare Raja Rao, it seems, has developed a strong faith in the path of devotion of Ramanuja. There’s not much of a story line in the novel, and there’s not much of a philosophy either, only diverse kind of grandiloquent philosophical discussions are found in The Serpent and the Rope on the issues of truth, God, salvation, and so on. The Cat and Shakespeare is the story of the life of ordinary mortals, leading an ordinary life, though one of the major characters and the narrator, Ramakrishna Pai here, too is a south Indian Brahmin. Ramakrishna Pai is a clerk. His neighbor, Govindan Nair, is also a clerk. Both of them work at the revenue office. Govindan Nair helps Ramakrishna build a house. Ramakrishna lives away from his wife, Saroja. One morning all of a sudden he finds strange boils all over his body. Allopathic medicines fail to cure his disease. Shantha, a Nair woman, gets some traditional Ayurvedic medicine for him which proves to be very effective. In the absence of his wife, Shantha takes care of him, and thus, they develop an illicit liaison. Govindan Nair does not hesitate to visit a brothel with his friend Velayudhan. But in his characteristic way, he ends up blessing the girl as if she were his own daughter. Govindan Nair is also charged in a bribery case, but he defends himself in a fantastic manner and is acquitted. The character of Govindan Nar is presented as a man who remains unperturbed in any situation, under any circumstances, even in the events of the death of his own son. His philosophy of life is to surrender ourselves at the will of God since He is the one who takes care of us, like a cat, when transferring her kitten, catches them by the scruff of their necks. The kitten have nothing to do but surrender themselves to the infinite love of their mother as they know that between the teeth of their mother they are at the safest place on the earth. Govindan Nair is also a very unconventional man in his approach to life. He looks at the cat from an altogether different perspective which none else can admire.

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Cat is usually a pariah animal, not much in favour as a pet in India. Brahmins even associate a cat with bad omen, and if a cat crosses one’s path when one is leaving the house for something auspicious, it is considered a bad sign. But Govindan Nair declares a cat to be a supreme animal. Why? P.P. Mehta has tried to suggest an answer to this query. He observes that: The important question to ask here is how Govindan Nair has been able to look at the cat, a pariah animal in this altogether unconventional light. Bhootalinga Iyer, an orthodox Brahmin, regards a marjoram (cat) as “shy, unclean, unfaithful.” The sight of a cat in the morning, or it crossing your path from right to left was a bad omen which could be counteracted only by going back home and visiting the sanctuary and begging the gods to bless you…But, is this not being slave to one’s tradition? (Mehta 40) Is the change of theme from an exalted philosophical seeking of spiritual truth in The Serpent and the Rope to an ordinary, mundane life of common people miles away from the grand ancient India philosophies in The Cat and Shakespeare symptomatic of a change in perspective of the lives of the people of India? Perhaps yes. It appears to be a lament of the author on the apparent ‘degradation’ of the standards of life among Indian masses as regards learning, knowledge, spirituality, morality, truth-seeking behaviour, greatness of ancient Indian culture and so on. The postcolonial Indian scenario does not make the author happy or proud of the achievements of freedom fighters. Mahatma Gandhi, whose ideals Raja Rao followed, had launched the struggle for India’s freedom with lofty ideals, whereas those lofty ideals were lost somewhere in course of time. Yet another very disturbing incident in Indian history has been the division of the country into two nations, India and Pakistan. During partition and in its aftermath, there was a lot of bloodshed which neither Gandhi nor Raja Rao ever imagined to happen in India. The apparent cynicism of Govindan Nair is the cynicism of Raja Rao. An analogy with Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People can be drawn at this juncture, because Chinua Achebe is also disillusioned with the condition of Nigeria in the aftermath of independence when some clever politicians usurped the independence of people and lived a life of corruption and luxury. The common people in Nigeria became cynical about the economic and political progress of their country in the post-independence scenario. Of course, Raja Rao’s cynicism is of a different kind and the reasons behind it are also quite different.

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In The Cat and Shakespeare the reader is face to face with the lives of clerks, revenue-board offices, ration-shops, bribery, crime, criminal courts, brothels run as health clinics and so on in contrast to the world of intellectuals and truth-seekers like, Ramaswamy and Madeleine, discourses on the tenets of Hinduism, Buddhism, Catharism, and Christianity, the poetic raptures at the beauty of the Himalayas and the Ganges and the descriptions of the Cathedral of Aix in The Serpent and the Rope. This is a real-life painting of the postcolonial situation in India – people have no time and interest in the exalted philosophical ideals of life as the successive governments at the helm have reduced them to mere puppets worried only about collecting their daily bread, spending more time in long queues at the ration-shops than caring about Advaita or Dvaita! Raja Rao’s pride in Indian culture and his attempts at countering the hegemony of European culture is discernible in his choice of narrative styles, literary tradition and themes for his stories and novels, and that is obvious in The Cat and Shakespeare too. R. Parathasarathy notes that Raja Rao has indigenized the European genre, the novel: One of the most innovative novelists of the twentieth century, Raja Rao departed boldly from the European tradition of the novel, which he indigenized in the process of assimilating material from the Indian literary tradition. He put the novel to uses to which it had not perhaps been put before, by exploring the metaphysical basis of writing itself-of, in fact, the word. (ix) The next point as argument for Raja Rao’s counter-cultural hegemony is his use of the colonizers’ language and putting it to use to portray Indianness, Indian literary traditions, Indian sensibilities and complete Indian ethos in the alien language. What he wrote was literature in English, but entirely independent from English literature. R. Parathasarathy adds in this regard that, “The preface to Kanthapura is revolutionary in its declaration of independence from English literature, and it has, as a result, become a classic stylistic guide for non-native English writers everywhere” (xi). Kanthapura is not just a story of Gandhi’s struggle for Indian independence reaching remote corners of India, but also a call for the revival of Indian traditions, told in an ancient Indian folk narrative form, the puranas. Raja Rao himself dubbed it as a purana, sthal-purana:

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There is no village in India, however mean, that has not a rich sthala-purana, a legendary history, of its own. Some god or god-like hero has passed by the village… the Mahatma himself, on one of his many pilgrimages through the country, might have slept in this hut, the low one, by the village gate… One such story from the contemporary annals of my village I have tried to tell. (qtd. in Parathasarathy xi-xii) The incidents in The Cat and Shakespeare are comical and the central figure, Govindan Nair, is almost a comedian. But hidden behind the lines of comedy is Indian postcolonial condition in a disturbed state. This is not the India freedom fighters like, Mahatma Gandhi, Subhashchandra Bose, Bhagat Singh and Lokmanya Tilak had visualized. This is not the India the author has dreamed. Raja Rao avoids political writing, but the pain he feels at the condition of masses in post-independence India cannot be missed in the musings of Ramakrishna Pai: And off it goes – something. What is it that is gone? What is time? What is death? In fact you could ask what is life. You issue a ration card. Your house number, numbers of the family, are all indicated: you are class A, B, C or D. You buy what you want and when you want, but only what is available. Governments are notoriously mismanaged. A railway car might have gone off to Coimbatore containing rice for Cannanore or Conjeevaram. What matters is that the station begins with a C. Cannanore, Conjeevaram, Coimbatore.” (Rao, The Cat and Shakespeare 83-84)

Comrade Kirillov: A Brief Overview Comrade Kirillov, a novelette, was written prior to The Serpent and the Rope but published in English in 1976 (Mathur 117). The novelette is not a very serious deliberation on the communist movement in India, especially in Kerala, as is suggested by its title, but yes, it does offer a peep into the life of a Malayali Brahmin, Padmanabha Iyer, who converts to communism influenced by Dostoyevsky’s writings, specifically The Possessed. Apparently, Raja Rao is himself influenced by Dostoyevsky so much so that the epigraph found in Comrade Kirillov has been excerpted from The Possessed:

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Stravogine: Tell me, have you caught your hare? To cook your hare you must first catch it; to believe in God you must first have God…Do you believe in God? Shatov: I, -I will believe in God. (qtd. in Rao, Kirillov) Kaushal Sharma notes that the conversation between these characters is an indication of the failure of communism, a philosophy of godlessness, which is unacceptable to Raja Rao: This conversation takes place between Stravogine an egotistical aristocrat and his former disciple Shatov, an ill-mannered person. They are absorbed in discussing the fate of Russia after the proposed revolution. Shatov gradually becomes disillusioned, though initially he had great hope from the revolution not only for Russia but for the entire world. (74) The name ‘Kirillov’ also appears in The Possessed, a character is named ‘Alexis Kirillov,’ although Raja Rao’s hero Padmanabha Iyer alias Comrade Kirillov is more akin to Dostoyevsky’s Shatov in The Possessed. This point is significant for further discussion on the novel as Shatov can be noted here commenting “I will believe in God,” thus, giving a hint that he has lost faith in the Godless ideology of communism, or rather, in the Russian Revolution itself. This point is further discussed later in this chapter. Comrade Kirillov is a thin novel, even thinner than The Cat and Shakespeare, and the storyline is still thinner. The narrator is not given any name in this novel; he is simply called ‘R,’ and he is a correspondent of The Hindu, a popular newspaper published from Madras. Padmanabha Iyer, a young Brahmin boy, is chosen by Annie Besant and the Theosophists to be sent to America for education and groomed as a Theosophist and a companion of J. Krishnamurti. He goes to California. Padmanabha Iyer marries a Czech girl named Irene, a working nurse. Irene shares his communist ideals. The readers notice here a streak of similarity between this story and the story in The Serpent and the Rope as in the latter novel the protagonist Ramaswamy goes to France for education and marries a French girl named Madeleine. Madeleine shares Rama’s interest in Hinduism and the Indian way of life. Rama is influenced by Advaita philosophy of Adi Sankaracharya, while Iyer of Comrade Kirillov is impressed by socialism. He starts reading books on socialism and gets so much impressed by their ideology that he prepares himself to become a communist. He admires the British Labour Party very much and visits England. After his full-fledged

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conversion into communism, he is called ‘Comrade Kirillov.’ The couple, Padmanabha and Irene, is blessed with a son, Kamal. After a couple of years, Irene dies in childbirth and their two-day old daughter also dies. At this juncture, Kamal is sent to Trichinapalli to his grandfather for care and upbringing. Padmanabha, now Comrade Kirillov, is unperturbed by this misfortune and leaves for Moscow, the Mecca of socialism. The last that is known of Kirillov is that he left for Peking, and at this point the narrator gives up on him. This novel by Raja Rao is apparently a parody of the false communist ideals of the Indian communists. It is not that Raja Rao did not like communism as an ideology, but he did not approve the Indian protestations of communism as he felt that it was empty of ideological commitments. The protagonist in the novel, Padmanabha Iyer, is a Brahmin by birth and he remains a Brahmin for life. Which means that as regards theoretical grasp of communism and socialism, he is very good at it, but as regards the practical aspects, he fails. He cannot accept equality of men by heart. Naik’s observation is quite apt in this regard, “While his intellect subscribes to Marxism, his heart obstinately continues to wear its Brahmanical sacred thread though he hates to admit the fact” (39). Raja Rao’s faith is in Indianhood, and therefore, the narrator in Comrade Kirillov predicts that his Indianhood would put an end to his faith in communism. There may be several interpretations of this statement as Raja Rao has not been straightforward in explaining what he exactly means by Indianhood. Is it the mainstream brahminical tradition to which Padmanabha Iyer originally belongs? Or is it a different cultural trend started by Mahatma Gandhi in which all men were equal in caste, creed, religion, region and opportunity, therefore, there was no need of bloody revolution as was required by Marxist ideals to establish the commune of the proletariat? It is not very clear. Comrade Kirillov brings forth the ambivalence in the nature of Indian diaspora. They live in alien countries, like the US, the UK, Canada and even erstwhile USSR, but their heart and mind are always in India. They wish to make material progress in the fields of scientific and technological developments in the West, but cannot forget the spiritual and social attractions of their country of birth. They are charmed by the materialistic abundances and thus like to emulate the West, but they hate its extreme materialism. So, on some occasions they are ready to fight for the idealism and spiritualism of India. They hate the stagnant nature of Indian ethos –

173 Chapter-5 Raja Rao’s Postcolonial Fiction stagnancy at every quarter like, social, economic, political and intellectual levels. Therefore, they wish to run away from the scenario, but they love its spiritual, traditional and moral side, which is an antithesis of the West to a certain extent. Shatov in The Possessed is disillusioned with Russian revolution as it failed to deliver the expected results, for the obvious reasons related to the iron-curtain dictatorial regime of Stalin, whereas, Raja Rao seems to be disillusioned with the postcolonial developments in India, and quite soon too. “Kirillov will die – but India shall be free. Kirillov will kill himself - but the new communist state will rise. Man is a biological equation and Marxism has no traffickings with individuals. All men in Marxism have anonymous names and death…” (Rao, Comrade Kirillov 26). The initial version of Comrade Kirillov was published in French (translated by Georges Fradier) in 1965, just roughly two decades after India got freedom from the British. It show how soon Rao got disappointed with the new India after the colonizers left the country. It would not be out of place if some of the major issues that Raja Rao has chalked out in his dominant characters in The Serpent and the Rope, The Cat and Shakespeare and Comrade Kirillov, are looked at in detail.

Ambivalence, Impact of Colonial Education and the Postcolonial Native Identity There are such situations at every step in the three novels that raise the issue of ambivalence in the dominant characters. The major characters in the novels – Ramaswamy in The Serpent and the Rope, Govindan Nair in The Cat and Shakespeare and Padmanabha Iyer in Comrade Kirillov – are drawn as ambivalent characters. They marvel at what they feel is better in an alien culture, but they also visualize its corrupting influence upon them. They now and then look down upon some of the aspects of their own culture, but its uniqueness and suitability to their conditions of life also surprises them in the extremes. Ambivalence of these men towards women, religious injunctions and the social issues prevalent around them is discernible. It is not difficult to find such instances in the novels where these intellectuals treat women as inferior creatures, but at the same time they extol their virtues. Govindan Nair visits a brothel, taken there by his friend Velayudhan. But

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instead of satisfying his carnal desires, he pities her condition and blesses her like his sister or daughter: ‘Your husband will come back,’ he said. ‘They shot him,’ she said. ‘No, they did not. I have the ration cards of all the soldiers. I have his name, I am sure, in the office. Our working hours are between ten and five.’ ‘Bless me, as if I were your daughter,’ she said. ‘My sister,’ he said.” (Rao, The Cat and Shakespeare 70) So, the author uses ambivalence as a methodology and strategy to subvert and disrupt the power of both the alien and traditional Indian culture. Women in both the cultures are viewed as bodies, and commodities for consumption. But the author’s favour tilts more towards Indian culture since colonial paradigm views everything Indian as a commodity. Ambivalence is the keynote of Kirillov’s character. He is a bundle of contradictions. The author focusses on this particular trait of Kirillov. His physical appearance is described thus: He wore a necktie which had a “prater plus-parenthetical” curve as if some deep philosophy had gone into its making. It appeared to betray his “ambivalent” soul. Other items of his turn-out are equally interesting. His pants, the narrator describes, were “too dissimilar for his limbs,” his coat “flapping a little too fatherly on his small, rounded muscles of seating”. (Sharma 71) The narrator ‘R’ finds Kirillov childlike in a number of ways: “He was so like a child…when it came to simple things…he loved India with a noble delicate unreasoned love” (Rao, Comrade Kirillov 86). All these childish traits are in contradiction with his overall personality. Although he is hugely influenced by communism as he believes that there is no god but the common man, he almost worships India which has nothing but only goodness. This is the ambivalence in Kirillov. The crisis of his personality is that on one hand he behaves as an atheist, while on the other hand he worships India as if it does not have any negative qualities but sheer goodness. Another narrator Irene aptly labels Kirillov as ‘the Sadu (the saint in English) of communism’ (Rao, Comrade Kirillov 72). Ambivalence in the personality of the central character in The Serpent and the Rope is also one of the predominant themes. Ramaswamy displays a love-hate

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relationship with the West. He lives in the West, but practices Indian customs and traditions. He loves and marries a French-Spanish girl, but his heart goes for Indian women. He is charmed by Western education, and social and political developments there, “…somehow I always thought of a house white, single-storeyed on a hill and by a lake – and I would go day after day to the university and preach to them the magnificence of European civilization.” (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 12). But no sooner he is in India, he sings praises for the Ganges, the Himalayas and Benares. He is in poetic rapture at the sight of the sacred city of Benares, but he is all hatred for the hypocrisy of the Brahmins there: I wrote postcards to friends in Europe. I told them I had come to Benares because Father had died, and I said the sacred capital was really a surrealist city. You never know where reality starts and where illusion ends; whether the Brahmins of Benares are like the crows asking for funeral rice-balls, saying ‘Caw-Caw’; or like the sadhus by their fires, lost in such beautiful magnanimity, as though love were not something one gave to another, but one gave to oneself. (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 8) Speaking of his father’s attitude, the narrator says that “He disliked my marriage, I think chiefly because my wife could not sing at an arathi; but before the world he boasted of his intellectual daughter-in-law, and had a picture of me and Madeleine on his table” (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 15). Ramaswamy’s father does not like the marriage of his India son with a European girl as it is against the cultural practices of his society, but at the same time he takes pride in the fact that he has a Western daughter-in-law. Ramaswamy is well-versed not only in the theory of Advaita Vedanta but also other schools and subjects of Indian Philosophy. “I even knew grammar and the Brahma Sutras, read the Upanishads at the age of four, was given the holy thread at seven – because my mother was dead and I had to perform her funeral ceremonies, year after year – my father having married again” (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 1). But, on the contrary, he finally realizes that by following the path of orthodox brahminism, he has rather swerved away from the path of self-realization. He came to believe that external purity or the purity of acts observed by Brahmins is not the real purity, but purity lies in the meaning of the act. Therefore, he thinks that had he been less of a Brahmin, he might have known more love. If this fact is accepted as the

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central tenet of The Serpent and the Rope, then it can be interpreted that Raja Rao is broadly advocating Hinduism for India but not exactly brahminism. This point has been noted by P. Dayal too. He strongly believes that Ramaswamy displays much aversion to brahminism, specifically the so-called rigid, inflexible and static interpretation of the principles of the Hindu religion regarding morality. But, this feature in his personality may be a later development as he comes in contact with European civilization and ponders over the rigidity of brahminism on issues like austerity and sexual containment for self-realization as compared to rather sexual freedom in the Western thought (Dayal, "The Serpent and the Rope: From Vedanta to Tantra" 30). This may be an expression of a person who feels his libido is blocked unnecessarily. His critique of brahminical morality seems to be oriented under the influence of free sex, rather than as a matter and advocacy of equality and social justice. This is a tricky situation. This is a different kind of ambivalence, though. Ramaswamy speaks against Indian morality in general. So, Raja Rao’s Ramaswamy is a man who firmly believes in Indianness, but an Indianness devoid of rigid morality and brahminical dharma; an Indianness dedicated to the pursuit of self-realization and happiness for one and all. This Indianness is universal, not confined to any particular religion or sect. There is a hint of an influence of exoticism on Ramaswamy’s character, which is fundamentally an impact of colonial education on his personality. Colonial education was intended to inculcate in the colonized the way of thinking of the colonizers so that they could become useful tools in carrying out the business of the empire. It created a hybrid generation, neither like the colonizer nor like the colonized: After all to be in the Political Services was to belong to the most exclusive cadres of the Government of India: you were not quite an Englishman or a Maharaja, but about equidistant from both, and sometimes superior, because you played polo. You ruled Maharajas, who ruled Indians, and the British received you at the club. (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 28) One of the outcomes of colonial education has been exoticism, that is, the colonially educated individual found the aspects of his/her own culture something exotic and the aspects of the culture of the colonizer as something normal or typical. Ramaswamy feels normal in France and with Madeleine, but he is dazed by India,

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Indian scenic beauty, India holy places, Indian rivers, the Himalayas, Indian women and the Indian way of life. Here is an instance of his feelings: I remember how in 1946, when I first came to Europe – I landed in Naples – Europe did not seem so far nor so alien. Nor when later I put my face into Madeleine’s golden hair and smelt its rich acridity with the olfactory organs of a horse – for I am a Sagittarian by birth – did I feel any the less familiar. (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 17) The irony is that it is not very long he had been out of India, but still his feelings are as if he saw India for the first time, a dreamy and exotic place. Indian women are typically exotic to him, with their devotion to their husbands. Raja Rao succeeds in bringing to readers’ attention, particularly through his postcolonial novels, the influence of the thought patterns of a limited number of colonially educated Indian people, who, after independence, merely replaced the British and never accorded full citizenship rights to the masses. It has been only a change of masters in India. However, Raja Rao does not display any despair at the state of affairs the same way as many of his other contemporary writers did, and that is why many critics and scholars feel that Raja Rao’s novels are just portraits of life in general, not that much of the Indian postcolonial political condition. The following observation in the introduction of The Cat and Shakespeare by an eminent critic of Raja Rao is worth noting here. R. Parathasarathy, who had been Raja Rao’s editor from 1974 to 1998 notes that “As a Writer, Raja Rao’s concern is with the human condition rather than with a particular nation or ethnic group” (ix). In a conversation between this critic and Rao on a lovely February morning in 1976 in Adyar, Madras, Rao told him the following about his objectives in writing: One of the disciplines that has interested me in Indian literature its sense of sadhana (exercitia spiritualia) – a form of spiritual growth. In that sense, one is alone in the world. I can say that all I write is for myself. If I were to live in a forest, I would still go on writing. If I were to live anywhere else, I would still go on writing, because I enjoy the magic of the word. The magic is cultivated mainly by inner silence, one that is cultivated not by associating oneself with society, but often by being away from it. I think I try to belong to the great Indian tradition of the past when literature was considered a sadhana. In fact, I wanted to publish my books anonymously because I think they do not belong to me. But my publisher refused. (qtd. in Parathasarathy ix- x)

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But the critic tends to disagree with this feeling of Rao, as the readers can indirectly get the feeling that Raja Rao’s standpoint on postcolonial Indian condition is that things would have been better if India had accepted Gandhian ideals and if Indians had gone back to their Vedic roots. Even Madeleine displays some traits of ambivalence in her personality. She is attracted to India and Indian culture, but she thinks Indian people are difficult to understand. Even Hinduism proved to be difficult to her and ultimately she converts to Buddhism. Ramaswamy feels that she married him because he was from a poor suffering country: “What I think Madeleine really cared for was a disinterested devotion to any cause, and she loved me partly because she felt India had been wronged by the British, and because she would, in marrying me, know and identify herself with a great people” (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 16). Her love-hate relationship with India is very much clear in her warning to her husband when he prepares to leave for India: You say you are going to Benares with your mother. Of Benares all I know is the bits of floating human flesh and the pyres of the dead, and that the Ganges water when chemically examined shows no bacteria. We Europeans are not yet holy enough to have crypts with no bacteria. (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 40) In Europe she is a European, and wonders about her adherence to Indian thought pattern now and then, “How Indian sometimes I have become – I see and I wonder. India is infectious, mysterious and infectious” (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 40). She is an erudite scholar of Advaita Vedanta and a lover of Indian traditions, but she leaves nothing to chance when it comes to health concerns on Indian soil: The smell of incense that used to hurt me now gives me a pained delight. I hate to kneel and yet sometimes I half bend my knees and remember what my mother always said: “Never kneel without cotton on your knees; God knows what infection may lie there.” I still have such a fear of bacteria –how shall I ever stand India? (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 39-40). In neo-colonial paradigm of identity crisis in the ambivalent populace in the postcolonial countries becomes the founding pillars as consumers. Cultural warfare and conflicts are won through them, as suggested by Sardar in his forward to Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin White Masks, the ego of such a person “…collapses. His self- esteem evaporates. He ceases to be a self-motivated person. The entire purpose of his

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behavior is to emulate the White man, to become like him, and thus hope to be accepted as a man” (xiii). At the economic and political front, the conquest has achieved some success in Saudi Arabia and further grounds are being prepared for a cultural invasion.

Estrangement and the Dilemma of Hybridity “I told you Kirillov was an Indian – and his Indianhood would break through every communist chain” (Rao, Comrade Kirillov 91). This is what the narrator ‘R’ says of Kirillov waiting outside to knock at Kirillov’s door. R is a staunch Vedantic and he feels Kirillov’s meandering into communism is just one aspect of the quest of a seeker of truth which he will ultimately find only in Vedanta, though the author has been inconclusive on this aspect. But it is very much evident through the anecdote of ‘Kanthaka’ and ‘Siddhartha’ presented at this point in the novel. Kanthaka was the name of the horse Siddhartha (Gautam the Buddha) rode when he left his palace seeking enlightenment. The narrator imagines himself to be Kanthaka which stands as a symbolic representation of his determination to bring the communist Kirillov back to Vedanta (Sharma 82). Estrangement of Indian intellectuals from their “great ancient” roots has been a prominent theme of Raja Rao’s works. All the three novels discussed here, viz. The Serpent and the Rope, The Cat and Shakespeare and Comrade Kirillov deal with this ‘problem’ at great intensity. And it is not surprising that Ramaswamy of The Serpent and the Rope is shown to finally return back to his Indian sensibilities after experimenting with various thoughts and philosophies. Govindan Nair and Ramakrishna Pai of The Cat and Shakespeare are very faithful followers of Vishishta Advaita of Ramanuja, and Padmanabha Iyer of Comrade Kirillov, though seeks deliverance of the masses in communism, is not very happy the way the great ideology has been exploited in communist countries. The narrator is shown to be hopeful of his return to Indian philosophy which, according to him, solves not only the problems of the material wants but also spiritual needs of man. Raja Rao’s protagonists in all the three novels The Serpent and the Rope, The Cat and Shakespeare and Comrade Kirillov are the transcultural hybrid products of a cross-cultural exchange. They display characteristics of hybridity in their social, religious and linguistic exchanges. But, the point to note is that the author stresses

180 Chapter-5 Raja Rao’s Postcolonial Fiction upon purity, it seems, since all the protagonists in these novels turn to their supposedly ‘pure’ roots in the end. “The ‘pure’ were dear to me. Madeleine, too, got involved in them, but for a different reason,” comments Ramaswamy (Rao, The Serpent and the Rope 12), putting it succinctly in reference to his research objective with the hope of tracing the roots of Albigensian heresy to ancient Indian times of Jainism and Buddhism. Ramaswamy is a curious mix of Indian and European traditions. One of the central characters in The Cat and Shakespeare, Ramakrishna Pai, suffers from “British boils” though he is purely an Indian man: “Hitler has bombs, the British have boils….Yes, the British boils worked” (Rao, The Cat and Shakespeare 17). And not surprisingly, the disease couldn’t be cured by allopathic medicines, but only through an Indian concoction brought to him by Govindan Nair, that ‘smelled disgusting, like horse dung’ (Rao, The Cat and Shakespeare 19). Looking at the British boils, Govindan Nair had declared, ‘Let’s drive the British out’ (Rao, The Cat and Shakespeare 19). Padmanabha Iyer in Comrade Kirillov is a bundle of contradictions and a typical specimen of a hybrid character, ‘a prisoner of ideology’ (Naik145) who accuses Gandhi of kleptomania and suggests him to read Freud to gain some wisdom, “Your Gandhi is a kleptomaniac… Ask your Gandhi to read Freud — he would be the wiser for it” (Rao, Comrade Kirillov 35-36). The same comrade Kirillov is shown to be endowed with an altogether different persona: “He could almost speak of India as though he were talking of a venerable old lady in a fairy tale who had nothing but goodness in her heart…He could not bear a word against Mahatma Gandhi” (Rao, Comrade Kirillov 58). This is one of the techniques Raja Rao uses to portray conflicts of cultures. Communism to him is not just a political ideology but a culture, an alien culture unsuitable to Indian ethos and therefore in clash with Indian way of life and values. It is not that Rao is not with the poor and suffering masses of India or that he is with the capitalists. No, that is not the case. Rao is not for a bloody revolution which ends in endless class conflicts and hatred for each other. He is for perfect harmony among people, based on Gandhian ideals, which derives their strength from ancient Indian traditions and philosophies of life. He is for non-violence and perfect harmony among the masses where people love each other; people share each other’s joys and woes, a society where hoarding of wealth is a sin.

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The village of Kanthapura is an example of such a society, and Moorthy represents its ideal member. Raja Rao is for gram swaraj (village self-rule), each village in India being a self-contained, self-sustaining unit where there is no much difference between the poor and the rich, the whole village functioning as a commune. This may be called the Gandhian perspective for development of India. Of course, Mahatma Gandhi has provided a model of progress with social justice. He favoured development of villages and village life. His central focus was on cottage industries specially set up in rural areas, full employment of one and all, regionalization of political and economic and power, and the sanctity and purity of our environment. Gandhi’s opinion was that it is villagers’ basic right to own lands. If Gandhi’s model is followed, then heavy industrialization in not needed in India, and therefore the problem called ‘capitalism’ will never take root in India. According to Raja Rao it was not just an empty idealism as he had faith in it. The fact is, it is still true since the world has witnessed disasters of heavy industrialization, slowing down economies and leaving the masses jobless, in lurch. Heavy industries require big markets, and markets are already over flooded, with stiff competitions. Industries, in the growing technical sophistication, also require less manpower, and they will require less and less manpower as technical sophistication grows. Where will the large population, unemployed because of loss of land, go? Gandhi had said, “Industrialism is, I am afraid, going to be a curse for mankind. Exploitation of one nation by another cannot go on for all time. Industrialism depends entirely on your capacity to exploit, on foreign markets being open to you, and on the absence of competitors” (qtd. in Pandikattu 487). Gandhi favoured cottage industries, even if the production was done there through machines. The idea was to give economic, social and professional self-dependence to people (as traditionally there has been self- dependence in Indian villages before the advent of colonization, as we read in Raja Rao’s Kanthapura), rather than converting them into labour units without any life. It may be dubbed by some people as a highly idealistic dream, unrealizable in India or elsewhere amid stiff market competition, but Gandhi’s ideas came from real life situations. Communist countries also make progress through heavy industrialization, with a difference of some form of social justice being in place there, but Gandhi could foresee the results of lopsided developmental projects that depended upon heavy industries. He believed that such projects could never tend to establish human

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equality. According to him, “real planning consisted in the best utilization of the whole man-power of India” (qtd. in Prasad 31) at their own rural sites. Raja Rao seems to be in full agreement with Gandhi. Therefore, comrade Kirillov is characterized as a misguided youth who remains a mere convert to communism since he could not reconcile himself with the alien ideology, which at times goes against the deep-rooted cultural heritage in his collective unconsciousness. Comrade Kirillov also represents failure of communist movement in India owing to the presence of better political and social ideologies than communism since communism is based on struggle among people, whereas Indian social and political thought is rooted in spiritualism and hits at the root of materialism and greed. Materialistic pleasure has always gained secondary importance in Indian thought – not denied altogether since it is the first experience of man before he realizes that there is no ultimate satisfaction in it. The primary importance is given to spiritual pleasure which lies in the happiness of one and all. If happiness of one and all is the motto, there is no place for class struggle, greed, anger and hatred for each other. Comrade Kirillov is given up by the narrator at the end symbolizing unacceptability of the alien ideology in Indian scenario.

Cultural Hegemony and the Postcolonial India Hegemony, especially cultural hegemony, is a subtle phenomenon. Hegemony is commonly defined as “the power of the ruling class to convince other classes that their interests are the interests of all, often not only through the means of economic and political control but more subtly through the control of education and media” (“Key Terms in Post-Colonial Theory”). Political hegemony is coerced, but cultural hegemony may not be so. It is a willing acceptance of the presumed ‘superiority’ of the culture of the conqueror by the conquered masses. This is achieved through the metanarrative of modernity and discourses of technological advancement, effectiveness of approach and a model of progress for one and all. Thus, to the followers of other cultures, their own culture appears much inferior compared to the culture of the conqueror and their approach appears to be progressive leading to all round happiness for one and all. In a colonized nation like India, this was achieved through colonial education and control of media. The conditions created are such that

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the colonized feel proud in accepting the alien culture, though at the same time feeling a pull of his/her own culture, too. There was an unbridgeable cultural gap between Ramaswamy and Madeleine in The Serpent and the Rope. Their marriage is a marriage of intellectuals but their cultural idiosyncrasies have not allowed them to stay together. What is a hindrance to their marriage is not their mutual incompatibility, but the incompatibility of their cultures. Rama is advised to obtain a divorce on the grounds of their mutual incompatibility, but that is a wrong move. Madeleine comes from a culture that lays stress upon individualism. She hardly shares herself with Rama. This gesture of hers may be construed as a sign of cultural conflict which she does not want to overcome. It amounts to even cultural hegemony at occasions. She remains confined to herself hinting that she considers herself superior to Rama in certain ways. Her approach to life bears more of a practical touch. Rama, on the other hand, is a dreamy creature. He represents the Eastern mystic soul always contemplating on metaphysics, the conundrum of human existence and the absolute truth.

Issue of Diaspora An interesting issue, brought to the fore in the novels under discussion here, is the diasporic problematic. The protagonists in The Serpent and the Rope and Comrade Kirillov represent Indian diaspora. Interestingly they are enlightened and start thinking of India and the problems in the Indian nation when they are out of the country. This may be a metaphor for the impact of colonial education, but at the same time it also indicates their altered identity. India to them attains the status of a subject of study and look back in sympathy. In a sense, they become part of the colonizers. Perhaps, that is the reason the author rejects both the protagonists as effective interpreters of Indian identity. Though their souls are Indian but they think in an alien language; they acquire an alien idiom. In Indian postcolonial conditions, such an identity is undesirable. It indicates that Indians are yet to be free, as mere change of masters is not real freedom. If White skin is replaced by brown skin with the thoughts and mindset of the Whites, does it make any difference for the masses? In conclusion, it can stated that Raja Rao is a staunch supporter of Gandhi and Gandhian ideals of harmony in Indian nation. He whole-heartedly supported Indian freedom struggle, especially the non-cooperation movement and abandonment of

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foreign goods called swadeshi, uplifting the downtrodden to the mainstream, welfare of Indian villages, establishing connection with the Indian rural masses through a revival of India’s past glory, educating the masses and reinventing an India free from evils. He had a firm belief in the revival of Hinduism and Hindu philosophy of life. In Hindu view of life man is born with an aim, and that is attainment of salvation and self-realization to recognize the self as the Supreme Self, the ‘Divine Brahma’. All human efforts should be directed towards this goal. Man may forget his goal attracted by worldly pleasures and taking the charms of the empirical world to be an end in itself, but there comes a time in life when man realizes that the world is not real in itself; the world only appears to be real. Self-realization is that experience which radically changes man’s attitude towards the world. Raja Rao follows this Advaita Vedantic philosophy in The Serpent and the Rope. The protagonist Ramaswamy undergoes all the phases in a common man’s life. He is charmed by the pleasures of the world – pleasures of the flesh, pleasures of the intellect and the pleasures of ego-satisfaction (like, the feeling of being loved and being praised). He takes the world to be as it is. But towards the end when he is disillusioned with his life, he realizes he took a rope to be a serpent. He feared losing his loved ones, losing sensory pleasures and losing his reputation as one fears a serpent. But in the end when he loses everything, he realizes he was afraid of a rope. In The Cat and Shakespeare, the philosophy of life is quite different. Here Raja Rao’s protagonist Govindan Nair is a carefree man. He preaches the philosophy of pure love and total surrender. According to him, struggle against divine will is futile since the divine carries individuals with infinite love like the mother cat carries her kitten by the scruff of their neck. In Comrade Kirillov Raja Rao makes an experiment with communism and finally rejects it as unsuitable for India conditions. He is with the suffering masses of India, and for equality and social justice, but he feels that communism is not the right way to achieve this social goal. In Serpent and the Rope, Raja Rao makes a point that Indian culture is quite rich and fulfilling, but Indians in general fail to realize its richness in postcolonial period. Rather, charmed by Western material progress they seek pleasure through the Western models of human happiness. But truth seekers and the seekers of true happiness even from the West look towards Indian models of attaining happiness. The way is spiritualism and self-realization. Raja Rao shows it through two measures: First, Madeleine is fascinated by Indian culture and she quickly falls in love with a

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man from India who shares her intellectual and spiritual interests. She seeks happiness through spirituality, not materialism. Second, Ramaswamy is charmed by the West, Western women and the Western way of life. But when he visits India, especially the holy places here, he is in rhapsody and rapture for India’s spiritual beauty. Towards the end of the novel Ramaswamy realizes that what he has been seeking all through his life is true happiness, but mistakenly he has taken materialism to be the source of pleasure despite being aware of the deep philosophy of Advaita Vedanta. The Serpent and the Rope represents a society in transition. It represents sheer confusion in a society that has just gained independence from foreign rule, dominated by alien but materially attractive culture that left its impact on the Indian mind, a hegemonic influence, so to say. The hegemonic culture is felt more progressive and scientific by one and all, so much so that people have moved away from their ancient but equally forceful, scientific and attractive culture which is not material but spiritual in nature. Cultural dominance is a real issue that cannot be side-stepped, and it was very much visible and pronounced as a phenomenon at the time when these novels were being written. But the state of transition produced much hypocrisy and a lot of hypocrites were born. Hypocrites were the people who were neither this side nor that side but they claimed to know both the sides. In India there is no dearth of people who shout slogans on the glory and greatness of ancient Indian culture without knowing much about it, least to follow it in their lives. On the other hand, they derive much material advantages out of this slogan-shouting and make much profit. Such people are dangerous and treacherous since they care only for themselves and harm both the nations and their respective cultures. Like Mahatma Gandhi, Raja Rao also laments that cultural hegemony has taken its toll in India. The problem is not that the alien culture is bad or undesirable, but for Indian social conditions, citizens’ own thought process and culture are more suitable and no other cultural values can solve their problems. Comrade Kirillov makes this message quite obvious. To sum up, in this chapter three postcolonial novels of Raja Rao, namely, The Serpent and the Rope, The Cat and Shakespear and Comrade Kirillov are analyzed with a view to examine raja Rao’s vision of culture, cultural domination and cultural hegemony as portrayed in these novels. The examination has revealed that Raja Rao’s vision of culture was coloured chiefly by the mainstream Hindu thought of Indian

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culture. Raja Rao was all for the revival of the so-called glorious Hindu tradition of the past. In his works the past comingles with the present as in folktales there is no distinction of past and present. Raja Rao’s style of narration is also affected by Indian folk tradition. But in the three novels investigated in the present chapter, he has also given a glimpse of the postcolonial scenario in India. If the stories are considered as metaphors, Raja Rao seems to suggest that post-independence India is ridden with hybridity, alterity, ambivalence, diasporic problem and such other postcolonial issues that are induced in the characters of people by colonial conditions. Like Chinua Achebe, Raja Rao is also critical of post-independence Indian nation, but his perspective is that India suffers in the postcolonial age because Indian masses have not taken the path shown by Mahatma Gandhi, the path that is also glorified in ancient Indian philosophical traditions, like Advaita Vedanta and Vishishta Advaita of Ramanuja. But as the researcher vies it, the works of Raja Rao lean towards the mainstream Hindu traditions as he lauds Hindu philosophy and almost all of his protagonists are Brahmin intellectuals, except Govindan Nair. Raja Rao fails to realize that the mainstream Hindu cultural tradition neglects a large part of Indian population, their hopes and aspirations in free India. Indian masses have had a great contribution in the struggle for India’s freedom and they had to put up double fight – fight against the foreign rule, as well as, fight against anti-pariah movements led by prominent Hindu leaders. They fought with others in the hope that they would see better days in free India. But if Gandhi supporter writers like Raja Rao start leaning towards a biased ideology, it is not a god sign. Cultural conflict has been visualized by Raja Rao in India at both the levels, conflict between the culture of the ruler and the ruled, the colonizer and the colonized, and conflict between the mainstream Hindu culture and the culture of the neglected lot. Raja Rao apparently stands for social justice, equality and fraternity since he follows Gandhian ideals of social justice. Thus, in his postcolonial novels also he displays strong sympathy for the suffering masses. But this sympathy is not the sympathy of Moorthy in Kanthapura for which he is excommunicated by the all- powerful Swami, and he does not care for it. Raja Rao’s sympathy for the suffering masses of India is spiritualistic, the philosophical stance of Advaita Vedanta

187 Chapter-5 Raja Rao’s Postcolonial Fiction according to which the visible phenomenon is an illusion of the senses. One has to get over the error of perception to enjoy real happiness and joy in life.

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Works Cited "Advaita Vedanta Philosophy." Advaita Yoga Ashrama, n.d. Web. 03 July 2016. . Arora, Sudhir K. "Raja Rao's The Cat and Shakespeare: A Philosophical Critique." Raja Rao: The Master and His Moves. Ed. Jaydeep Sarangi. Delhi: Authorspress, 2007. 153-170. Print. Boliaki, Eleni. "Jnana, Bhakti, and Karma Yoga. Sankara and Ramanuja on the Bhagavad-Gita." Docplayer.net. N.p., Jan. 2012. Web. 07 July 2016. . Chinmayananda, Swami, trans. Atma Bodha of Sri Adi Shankaracharya. Mumbai: Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, 2004. Print. Dayal, P. "The Cat and Shakespeare: A Tantric Prayer." Raja Rao: A Study of His Novels. New Delhi: Atlantic and Distributors, 1991. 60-77. Print. ---. "The Serpent and the Rope: From Vedanta to Tantra." Raja Rao: A Study of His Novels. New Delhi: Atlantic and Distributors, 1991. 21-59. Print. Deutsch, Eliot. Advaita Vedānta: A Philosophical Reconstruction. Honolulu: East- West Center, 1969. Print. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Possessed. Trans. Constance Garnett. New York: Jefferson Publication, 2015. Print. Hampson, Robert. "Kipling and the Fin-de-siècle." The Cambridge Companion to Rudyard Kipling. Ed. Howard J. Booth. New York: Cambridge UP, 2011. 7- 22. Print. Jhinjha, Poonam. Meeting of Cultures in Select Works of Raja Rao and E. M. Forster. Http://research.iisuniv.ac.in. The IIS University Jaipur, n.d. Web. 21 June 2016. . "Key Terms in Post-Colonial Theory." Dallas Baptist University, n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2016. .

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Madden, Thomas F., and Marshall W. Baldwin. "Albigensian Crusade." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 03 Aug. 2016. . Mathur, O. P. "Existensial Overtones in Raja Rao's Comrade Kirillov." The Modern Indian English Fiction. New Delhi: Abhinav Publication, 1993. 117-125. Print. Mehta, P. P. "Quest for Wholeness: A Central Preoccupation of Raja Rao’s Fiction." Perspectives on Raja Rao. Ed. Krishan Kumar Sharma. Ghaziabad: Vimal Prakashan, 1980. 32-43. Print. Naik, M. K. Raja Rao. Bombay: Blackie & Son Pvt., 1982. Print. Pandikattu, Kuruvilla. "Global Village vs. Gandhian Villages: A Viable Vision." The Global Intercultural Communication Reader. Ed. Molefi Kete Asante, Yoshitaka Miike, and Jing Yin. Second ed. New York: Routledge, 2014. 480- 495. Print. Parathasarathy, R. Introduction. The Cat and Shakespeare. By Raja Rao. Gurgaon: Penguin India, 2014. vii-xlviii. Print. Prasad, Siddeshwar. "Global Crisis and the Search for an Integrated Agricultural Policy." Development Planning for Agriculture: Policies, Economic Implications, Inputs, Production, and Marketing. Ed. Arbind Prasad and Jagdish Prasad. New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1994. 28-42. Print. "Raja Rao." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 Oct. 2015. Web. 06 June 2016. . ---. Rao, Raja. Comrade Kirillov. New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1976. Print. ---. Kanthapura. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1974. Print. ---. The Cat and Shakespeare. Gurgaon: Penguin India Pvt., 2014. Print. ---. The Serpent and the Rope. Gurgaon: Penguin India Pvt., 2014. Print. Sardar, Ziauddin. "Forward to the 2008 Edition." Foreword. Trans. Charles Lam. Markmann. Black Skin, White Masks. By Frantz Fanon. London: Pluto, 2008. vi-xx. Print. Sharma, Kaushal. "Comrade Kirillov." Raja Rao: A Study of His Themes and Technique. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2005. 69-87. Print.

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"Simple Definition of Culture." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 31 July 2016. . Sutherland, John. "Culture." How Literature Works: 50 Key Concepts. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. 48-51. Print.

191 CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION

Chapter-6 Conclusion

The current study, “Colonialism, Cultural Dominance and Cultural Conflict: A Comparative Study of Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao” has been an attempt to read the colonial and postcolonial writings of these two writers and bring out the instances of oppression of the colonized people at the hands of the colonizers, and also of the marginalized sections of India and Africa at the hands of powerful and elite classes of each society. Human relationships and society are a wide area of study when studied in relation to cultural conflict and hegemony. An attempt is undertaken to examine and analyze at length how Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao have recreated in their colonial works the history of the cultural, religious, social, economic and political dismantling that colonialism had brought about in their respective countries. However, the postcolonial fictional works of both these authors deal with the systemic failures in their newly emerged nations and the disillusionment of the native people with the native leaderships of the nascent democracies. It is not always possible to come to an absolute conclusion when the array of study is of such magnitude. The plight of the native Africans and Indians, as raised in the novels of Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao, is enmeshed with the culture and history of the respective countries in such a manner that it becomes an enormous task to wind up any discussion. The present research is undertaken to investigate (i) the impact of colonialism on the social, psychological and political make-up of the colonized subjects and upon their colonial history, (ii) the description of this impact in the fictional narratives of two writers, Chinua Achebe and Raja Rao from two different colonies, and (iii) any points of confluence of ideas as well as of divergence on the impact of colonialism and postcolonialism in the works of the two writers in their specific cultural contexts. The investigation into the narratives of the two writers selected for the present study reveals that though the narrative events, portrayed in the writings, are fictional in nature and display great aesthetic values as works of art, they also possess historical significance as their thematic contents are corroborated by historical facts documented in the two colonies. The thesis started with an in-depth definition and analysis of the terms like, ‘colonialism’ and ‘postcolonialism’, and their meaning and implication in literary context. This was followed by a brief discussion on how colonial powers changed the fabric of socio-cultural identity by controlling the cultures, lands and wealth of the native people of Africa and India, as this thesis concentrates on Africa and Indian 192 Chapter-6 Conclusion

subcontinent of colonial and postcolonial era, because they share a history of colonial dominance and cultural struggle against that dominance in one form or the other. The main emphasis of postcolonial studies is also discussed here. It studies and examines how the ex-colonies had to grapple with the identity crisis of the indigenous people and the clash of cultures as residues of the colonial period. The colonizers treated the native cultures as substandard and constantly substituted them with the cultures of their own. The consequence of such changes became an enormous task to deal with when the colonies got independence. The common people of Africa and India were neither able to go back to the cultural beliefs and practices of the time before the arrival of colonial powers, nor could they accomplish and develop a new political and cultural ethos to substitute the legacy of the invaders. Though Africa and the Indian subcontinent experienced these unequal and hegemonic relationships between the colonial rulers and the indigenous people of these colonies, and also between the privileged section of the native societies and the marginalized ones, the colonial relationships were more multifaceted than they appeared. A detailed historical account of colonial invasion with a stress on the condition of common people at different periods in the colonial history of Africa and India is given in chapter one. Colonialism broke apart the social structure in the colonies. Social classes, hierarchies and commune relations that ensured smooth functioning of the existing social system in colonies went in disarray. This produced positive as well as negative results for the common people. Such a deep experience of cultural clash and cultural hegemony could not but find an echo in the literature of that time. A study of selected literary texts from two entirely different colonies namely, Africa and India, is undertaken and analyzed to find out how the colonial experiences are reflected therein. The extremely male-dominated Igbo society in Nigeria got disintegrated after the advent of colonialism and gave way to a new structure providing some space to women too. Chinua Achebe’s fiction works highlight all such complexities of Africa’s social setup before and after the colonial invasion. The rigid caste system of Indian society too showed signs of disintegration when confronted with colonial powers. Raja Rao’s creative works are testimonies to such disintegration. Chinua Achebe’s three famous novels during colonial period called Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease, has been analyzed in chapter two, 193 Chapter-6 Conclusion titled ‘Chinua Achebe’s Novels: The Colonial Period’, to find out how colonial developments in Africa from the beginning of 19th century to the end of the 20th century are reproduced in these narratives. These three novels predominantly revolve around the theme of colonialism and cultural hegemony between the traditional African societies and that of the colonial masters. The settings, plots and characters are found to represent the eastern Nigerian life and societal condition in chiefly two different phases of Nigerian history– the pre-colonial and colonial Nigeria. Achebe’s attempt in his works has been to counter the colonial argument that there was no civilized life worth mentioning in Africa before the arrival of the colonizers. Thus, Achebe has showcased a rich history of African nations and a glorious past of his people through his works, and then put that in sharp contrast with the degenerating social conditions in Africa that emerged after the European colonization of the continent. Things Fall Apart lives up to its title as things in African people’s lives fall apart after colonial encounter. The Igbo society, depicted in the novel, loses all the cultural values that defined them and held them together for centuries. The new culture of the colonizers is forced upon the people through intimidation and cultural hegemony, which eventually places them in a no man’s land. The novel Arrow of God, for example, relates the story of the loss of the native Igbo ethnic philosophy, traditions and cultural values owing to the hegemony of the Western cultural alternatives imposed by the colonial forces. The aspiration of Ezulu, the protagonist in this novel, to get in charge of his clan and regulate the impact of colonial invasion on his society brings his ultimate ruin in this novel. No Longer at Ease recounts the cultural alienation of native people caused by the colonial invasion in Nigeria. Obi Okonkwo, the hero of No Longer at Ease, gets utterly confused and ultimately fails in the transition from native Igbo culture and customs to the new and seemingly fascinating Western way of life. Obi’s catastrophe paints how colonial encounter in Nigeria in particular and in Africa in general had more often than not led the youth of Nigeria, educated in colonial education system, to eventual downfalls. Thus the people of Nigeria find themselves in an uneven equation with the colonial hegemony that threatens their ethnic individuality. These three novels illustrate the culture of violence perpetrated by the White men to protect their power over native people and force them into submission. 194 Chapter-6 Conclusion

In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is forced to take his life because he could not bear the submission of the people of his village to the White men’s justice. The point Achebe tries to bring home is the ruthless domineering and cruel traits of the White people who do not perceive the native Igbo people at individual levels. They considered them as a united herd, and therefore, instead of punishing the individual responsible for the killing of one white man in the village of Abane, they killed and obliterated the whole village. The Christian missionaries paved the way for further expansion of colonialism in the colonies. They pointed out the ‘weaknesses’ in the native culture and converted a large number of people to Christianity to help them in their colonizing mission. The natives were made to feel that their culture was no longer good and their customary titles had no value. Only, the things with the White men were great and of significance. Such ideas were sufficient to move some people to the other side creating a rift in the community. Achebe also brings forth the preexisting prejudices in African societies that helped colonialism greatly. The emergence of the new middle class created a sense of identity crisis and hybridity, again helpful in colonial expansion. Achebe’s fiction works of colonial period emerge as attempts to counter the European Enlightenment legacy and White men’s civilizing mission, without unnecessarily glorifying the African past to reclaim their lost identity. It can be determined that through Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease Achebe tells the world that the representation of his people’s past in erstwhile Western writings as an extended night of primitive darkness and savagery, in need of the authoritarian control and governance of the enlightened West, is prejudiced. And these novels stand against this Eurocentric discrimination and consciously illustrate how self-regulating and self-contained African society is dominated and subdued when comes in contact with Western colonial forces. The European attitude to colonies has been challenged by modern anthropologists on the premise that all expressions of human culture are equally powerful and meaningful. They also criticize the common native perspective that the Western culture and way of life is much superior to their own traditions and social setup. This is a great victory for thinkers like Raja Rao, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Ayi

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Kwei Armah and Derek Wolcott, to name only a few, who have struggled much to decolonize the minds of their countrymen, while the struggle still goes on. Chapter three discussed Kanthapura. It narrates in a traditional storytelling manner the idyllic Indian rural setup that was self-sustaining to a large extent but was disturbed by colonial onslaughts. The novel forms a small chapter in the history of Indian freedom movement taking place in one such small rural area in South India that gained momentum under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. "The Cow of the Barricades” is a short story that deals with Gandhian philosophy of life, or what Gandhi saw as problems in Indian, especially caste system, child marriage and prohibition of widow remarriage. Kanthapura is rife with the acts of brutality and cruelty of the colonial administration to suppress opposition from the people. When it comes to brutality, even women are not spared. Prior to colonial encounters, people in India and Africa lived in isolated tribal islands and hamlets with very little sense of a unified ‘nation’ or a greater sense of nationalism. Colonialism introduced them to a new form of nationalism dismantling regional identities. It is noted in Kanthapura that the village of Kanthapura was an idyllic, self-contained rural society before Gandhi and Moorthy connect it to a larger entity called India. Kanthapura is an account of the mechanism of the economic exploitation of the colonies and then people putting up a brave struggle against this oppressive exploitative mechanism. Through the stories in The Cow of the Barricades and Other Stories, Rao draws readers’ attention to the prevalent social evils in India and suggests a big social revolution. The majority of colonial subjects accepted the “greatness” of the culture of the rulers. This was the real instance of hegemony when the subjects accepted that they deserved to be ruled since they lagged behind the rulers in everything. It is also noticed that though there are two layers of cultural hegemony in the novel, one, the hegemony of the colonizers’ culture and the second, the hegemony of caste Hindu culture over the culture of the untouchables and the downtrodden, Raja Rao does not directly recognize the later as hegemony. The hegemony of the colonizers’ culture is subject to resistance by one and all, except a selected few who are hand-in-glove with the foreign rulers. But the hegemony of the Brahmins against non-Brahmins, including Muslims who were called mlechas (untouchables), did not 196 Chapter-6 Conclusion

become a mass movement in India. However, the fact cannot be denied that on the appeal of Mahatma Gandhi, the common masses renounced all their differences and united with all in the freedom struggle against the colonial power. The paramount triumph of the masses was that they reclaimed their consciousness, their self-esteem and put up a nonviolent form of resistance against the all-powerful colonizers. Raja Rao’s perception of the colonized Indian masses, as observed here, is that of a people united in faith. For the Indian masses, as depicted by Rao, the struggle for India’s independence is not only a political struggle. They take this struggle to be a religious one, a dharmayuddha in which people are warriors fighting against evil for the protection of dharma and to reinstate virtue. Colonial invasion changed the existing modes of production in the colonies. Dependence on British industrialization, export of raw materials and import of finished goods destroyed cottage industries in the colonies. People lost their employment opportunities and became poor and slaves. The colonial condition brought about a significant change in the economic relationship of people. Owing to capitalism, wealth began accumulating in a few hands and the majority of common masses started getting poorer every day. The trend continues to dominate the lives of people in postcolonial conditions too, in erstwhile colonies like India and Nigeria. The changed economic reality even altered the psychological make-up of the subjects: the colonized subjects suffered from identity crisis. They could no longer establish a relationship of equality either with the rulers or with their own countrymen. Chapter four and five study and analyze the postcolonial novels of Achebe and Rao respectively. The new social class that emerged in the colonies equipped with the knowledge of English language and assumed more power within the native community proved to be a double-edged weapon. If resistance to colonialism was articulated by this class on the one hand, on the other hand, the same class filled the power vacuum created by the departure of the colonizers, in most cases replacing the White master in the same power positions, keeping intact the master-slave narrative. This is resented by Chinua Achebe in A Man of the People in chapter four, and by Raja Rao in his postcolonial works in chapter five of this thesis. Achebe suggests a solution of the menace through social revolutions, but Raja Rao appears to be resigned in his approach, turning to ancient Indian philosophy rather than being a man of action for modern Indian society. 197 Chapter-6 Conclusion

Chinua Achebe is a realist. If his novels of colonial period portray the reality of colonial dominance and the cruelty of the violent colonizers to perpetuate their rule in Africa, his postcolonial novels depict the reality of life in post-independent African countries. A Man of the People depicts the post-independent scenario in an imaginary country, which to a large extent is Nigeria. It is realized that Achebe believes that postcolonial Africa is just a new version of the colonial Africa. The reason is that nothing much has changed in common people’s lives, except the ruling faces. The White man has been replaced by black man, with equal powers to perpetrate violence upon people if they oppose him. It is also found that though the novel in discussion in chapter four is a true depiction of the reality in post-independent Nigeria and predicts a social revolution, the central character Odili has his own weaknesses which in real life may hinder the progress of a social revolution based on equality for all men and women. It can be discerned that Odili does not consider women to be equal to men. But Chinua Achebe also shows fissures in the fabric, mainly because of corrupt politicians who are not ready to treat their fellow beings equal. They employ all the techniques, like, suppression of dissent, control over the media, propaganda politics, rule of terror, torture of opponent into submission and the likes to rule the common people, as they were ruled by the colonial masters. A Man of the People represents Achebe's perception of postcolonial African societies and their struggles to create their own identities different from the colonial era. Achebe paints a dim picture as most of the nascent democracies have been usurped by vested interests. Still he does not give up and hope that the heroic struggle of a few awakened individuals will bring about larger changes. In his postcolonial novels, The Serpent and the Rope, Cat and Shakespeare: A Tale of India and Comrade Kirillov, Raja Rao presents a glimpse of Indian society in transition. In Serpent and the Rope it is easy to see that Indian populace is in confusion as they have not yet come out of the stupor they were in during the colonial period. The common men are dominated by alien but materially attractive Western culture that has left its impact on the Indian mind. The undigested influence of political theories can also be seen in Comrade Kirillov. People in his novels find the hegemonic culture more progressive and scientific since they are indoctrinated to see only weaknesses in their own culture and only the greatness in the culture of the ruler, 198 Chapter-6 Conclusion

so much so that, people have moved away from their ancient but equally dynamic, scientific and attractive culture which is not materialistic but spiritual in nature. The Cat and Shakespeare: A Tale of India has a comical overtone and most of the actions of the central character, Govindan Nair are humorous. But the postcolonial dilemma and ambivalence in India’s new identity is concealed under the cover of humor. This is not the kind of India nationalists like, Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh and Lokmanya Tilak had envisioned. Raja Rao also does not identify the ambivalence of Govindan Nair with his idea of post-independent India. As noticed in these novels, Rao wishes to save Indian culture and tradition from the onslaught of foreign culture. But the state of transition, as found in Chinua Achebe too, does not give one any chance to reclaim his identity. In the state of transition the individual voluntarily gives up his cultural practices and acquires the practices of an alien culture. This leaves him in a severe identity crisis. Perhaps, Raja Rao, through his fictional narratives, warns Indian people of such an impending crisis if they give up their indigenous cultural practices, traditions, customs and values. Comrade Kirillov is a great example of hypocrisy as Padmanabha Iyer cannot cease to be Padmanabha Iyer, a staunch Brahmin, and at the same time, he cannot reconcile with being comrade Kirillov. The novel is a good satire on the people lost in transition. But the question remains unanswered whether Raja Rao favours socialism and Marxism as a viable solution for the predominant ills in postcolonial India. To Raja Rao, the impact of Western culture in India necessitated the conditions of personal conflicts since it affected people’s socio-economic situations bringing their lives to a screeching halt by introducing various sources of exploitation and also by destroying their traditional spheres of economic activities. It is found that Raja Rao puts Indian culture in contrast with the Western culture. He does not accept the hegemony of Western culture, rather he believes in the superiority of Indian culture, as the main characters in the postcolonial novels finally turn to Indian cultural traditions after their stints with the Western culture. Rao’s protagonists are deeply devoted to the service of Indian culture (specifically ancient Hindu culture of the Vedas, Upanishads, Vedanta and the likes); all of them live for Indian culture.

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The Comparative Aspect: The Colonial and Postcolonial Perspective in Raja Rao and Chinua Achebe Raja Rao and Chinua Achebe have only one thing in common- a colonial past of their respective countries India and Nigeria, which were colonized by Britain. Both the writers have come up with almost similar portrayals of the impact of cultural conflicts, cultural hegemony and political dominance of the colonizers in their countries, despite having significant differences in their race, region, religion and language. Raja Rao’s and Chinua Achebe’s writing span both the eras- colonialism as well as postcolonialism in India and Nigeria, and interestingly, their writings reflect the change in their perspectives with the change of time. Oppression is a major theme dealt with by both the writers. The novels during colonial period of both Raja Rao and Chinua Achebe are centred on the oppression of the colonial masters and on certain evils in their respective indigenous societies. Pictures of brutal oppression are painted in Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease of Chinua Achebe. Acts of violence are executed just to terrorize people in order to prevent any acts of uprising in the future. But oppression and brutality are not confined to only alien cultures. They are very much part of the native cultures as well. Chinua Achebe is not shy of describing certain evils in his community, for instance, people’s belief in superstitions and corrupt practices. Raja Rao is much critical of child marriage, practiced in India and a cultural ban on widow remarriage, which are forms of oppression of women. Two stories in the short story collection The Cow of the Barricades and Other Stories deal with these issues. The major difference between the two writers as regards oppression is that the postcolonial works of Raja Rao do not deal with this theme overtly as the works of Achebe do. In fact, Raja Rao has turned to philosophy in his postcolonial writings while Achebe relies on realistic technique. A Man of the People depicts corruption and oppression of the native leaders who have betrayed the masses. The leaders like Chief Nanga shelter hooligans and goons who create much havoc for common native people, though ultimately the same goons become the cause of their downfall when things go out of control. Cultural conflict and cultural hegemony form the second major pivot around which the stories of the novels of colonial period of Raja Rao and Chinua Achebe

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revolve. Cultural hegemony is countered in unique ways in their works discussed here, and yet their methods have resonances of each other’s approach. Raja Rao turns to ancient Indian philosophical traditions, Indian mythology and people’s faith in their heroes to fight against evil forces. Similarly, Achebe believes in the greatness of Africa’s recent past, its traditions, values and community living. He also believes in Negritude and Pan-Africanism. Colonialists obliterated the history of Africa and it needed to be rewritten, as the other side of the story is required to be told. Achebe takes up this responsibility in his creative works. The idea of nationalism finds divergent voices in the two writers. Raja Rao’s writings, colonial as well as postcolonial, weave a narrative that holds on to the idea of an Indian nation seamlessly merging from the mythic past into the present times. In this sense, Raja Rao appears to be reinforcing the stereotypes about Indian culture and the people of India. Chinua Achebe, on the other hand, discards even the national boundaries drawn between communities in the postcolonial era. Thus, to him the cultural conflicts within a community are byproducts of the colonial era. The other difference is that Raja Rao, influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, discards the system of education introduced by the colonizers as a tool for the perpetuation of their rule, while Achebe, as found in his novels, encourages his people to take advantage of the education system introduced by the White men. The novels, written in colonial period by Raja Rao and Chinua Achebe are accounts of people’s struggle for independence for their nations, and in both the countries people have fought the battles together. But the postcolonial novels of Achebe tell the story of betrayal of people by their leaders after independence. The disillusioned youth of the newly emerged democracies feels betrayed by their corrupt leaders. Raja Rao’s approach in his works seems to be more resigned as regards politics in the post-independent era in India. Chinua Achebe’s emphasis is on reconstruction through education and awareness. According to him, people of Africa need to be taught various things they have forgotten or made to forget. His works are narratives with an educator’s point of view. Raja Rao also wishes to reconstruct through instruction and critique. But his instruction is more of a philosophical nature, seeking happiness through self- realization. Both the writers kindle hope for the future. Achebe’s hope lies in self-

201 Chapter-6 Conclusion sacrificing youth like Maxwell and Eunice of A Man of the People. Raja Rao’s hope also lies in the youth who are intellectually and spiritually enlightened. Thus, keeping in mind all the similarities and differences in the approaches of Raja Rao and Chinua Achebe in dealing with the colonial and postcolonial era in their works, it can be said that colonialism has provided the thematic meeting grounds to these two writers coming from two entirely different cultural milieu. An analysis has been carried out with a socio-cultural approach in relation to the history of colonization in Africa and India, which forms the essence of this thesis. The novels and short stories of these two writers have been studied to find out the reflection of this history of colonization.

202 BIBLIOGRAPHY Bibliography

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