TRIBHUVAN UNIVERSITY
Patriotism in Narayan Wagle’s Palpasa Cafe
A Thesis
Submitted to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of English,
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Master's Degree in English
By
Jharna Bhandari
Class Roll No.: 4/2069
Exam Roll No.: 2970003
T.U. Registration No.: - 6-2-297-15-2008
Department of English
Janapriya Multiple Campus, Pokhara
August, 2019
i
Declaration
I hereby declare that the reported in this thesis entitled “Patriotism in Narayan
Wagle’s Palpasa Cafe” submitted to Office of the Dean, Faculty of Humanities,
Central Department of English, Tribhuvan University, is my original work done in the form of partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in
English. (MA English) under the supervision of Mr. Chet Bahadur Pokhrel of
Janapriya Multiple Campus, Tribhuvan University.
…………………………….. Jharna Bhandari
Janapriya Multiple Campus
Campus Roll No: 04/2069
T.U Regd. No: 6-2-297-15-2008
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TRIBHUVAN UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department of English
Letter of Recommendation
Miss Jharna Bhandari has completed her thesis entitled “Patriotism in Narayan
Wagle’s Palpasa Cafe " under my supervision. She carried out her research from
December, 2018 to August 2019. I here by recommend her thesis be submitted for viva voce.
______Mr. Chet Bahadur Pokhrel
Lecture
Department of English
Janapriya Multiple Campus
iii
TRIBHUVAN UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department of English
Letter of Approval
This thesis entitled " Patriotism in Narayan Wagle’s Palpasa Cafe ", submitted to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of English, in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master's Degree in English, Tribhuwan
University, by Jharna Bhandari, has been approved by the undersigned members of the research committee.
Members of the Research Committee
...…………..……….… ...…………..……….…
Supervisor
...…………..……….… ...…………..……….…
External Examiner
...…………..……….… ...…………..……….…
Head
Department of English
Date : 2076/04/23 Janapriya Multiple Campus
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Acknowledgements
I would like to express my profound gratitude to Mr. Chet Bahadur Pokhrel,
Lecturer of Janapriya Multiple Campus, for making constant supervision and guiding me with regular inspiration, encouragement, and insightful suggestion throughout the study. His vigorous efforts made me present this research work in this form.
Similarly, I would like to express my gratitude to Faculty of Humanities and
Social Sciences, Department of English, Tribhuwan University, for providing me this opportunity of working in this issue. I am also grateful to all the lecturers of the
Janapriya Multiple Campus for their precious teaching.
My respect is always to my parents and other members of my family. Without their love and inspiration, I would not have been in the present stage. So, I am highly indebted to them.
Finally, I would like to thank everyone who have directly or indirectly supported me.
Jharna Bhandari September, 2019
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Abstract
This research examines the novel Palapsa café by Patriotism theory which is a
kind of psychological stimulus triggered by things that are related to one’s country.
This novel is the story of a Kathmandu-based artist, Drishya, who falls in love with a
Nepali American returnee, Palpasa. Along the way Drishya also sees for himself the devastating effects of Nepal’s conflict in the hills, via a mysterious old college friend now turned Maoist. These three characters who narrate the story in turns. Palpasa is pushed ahead by the intense sense of expressing love for her motherland. That is why she comes back to her motherland by discarding every available opportunity she gets in America. Unlike the romantic egoist driven by far-fetched ideas, they are committed to the real life. Characters like Drishya and Palpasa demonstrate endurance, vision, determination and intense will to overcome every hurdle that occurs in their lives. In their encounter with all the challenges and hurdles lies traces of heroism traits and attributes. These traits and attributes are examined excluding all the unrelated and unrelated details. The novel also, obviously, reflects the author’s own experience as a Brahmin male based largely in Kathmandu.
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Table of Contents
Title Page i
Declaration ii
Recommendation iii
Letter of Approval iv
Acknowledgements v
Abstract vi
Table of Contents vii
Chapter I: General Background 1-12
1.1 General Background: Narayan Wagle and Palpasa Café
1.2 Review of Literature
Chapter- II: Nation, Nationalism and Patriotism 13-27
2.1 Nationalism and Patriotism
2.2 Violence and Conflict
2.3 War and conflict: An issue of patriotism and nationalism
Chpter- III Patriotism in Palpasa Café 28-59
3.1 Effects of Maoist Violence in Palpasa Café
3.2 Patriotism in Palpasa Café
Chpter- IV Conclusion 60-61
Works Cited
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Bhandari 1
Chapter I
General Background
1.1 General Background: Narayan Wagle and Palpasa Café
Narayan Wagle is a Nepali journalist and novelist. He was the editor of
Kantipur Daily, one of Nepal's largest circulating newspapers, until 2008, and was the
editor of Nagarik News until May 18, 2012. Wagle's novel Palpasa Café won a
Madan Puraskar award. He worked at Setopati, a digital newspaper in Nepal. He was
born in Tanahun in 1968. Palpasa Café was Wagle's first book, published in Nepali in
2005, and subsequently translated into English, Korean and French. It tells the story
of an artist, Drishya, who goes trekking into the Nepali countryside in the midst of the
Nepalese Civil War. It was a best seller and was acclaimed for bringing the realities of
the Nepalese Civil War to the public in a way journalism had failed to. He is a
prominent Nepalese novelist. He incorporates his experience as a journalist with his
fictional writings. Being a Nepalese citizen, he conceptualizes the drastic events that
stormed in Nepal during the Nepalese Civil War. Wagle accomplishes distinctive
literary compositions about the war and its destructive consequences. In Palpasa
Café, hetries to depict the political turbulence which had not been given critical
journalistic coverage. Consequently, Wagle provides an artistic “literary form which
is seen to be a kind of meaning, a description of itself which the text communicates to
its reader, and has all the complex characteristics associated with meaning:
uncertainties, ambiguities and contradictions.
Fiction is one method of portraying war and conflict. Fictional narratives can
demand to be taken seriously as an equally legitimate branch of knowledge about war
Bhandari 2 by the strength of their own verve and written power. However, telling authentic fictional stories about real war is a difficult, high wire balancing act. There are dangers of never escaping history and also never developing a narrative, neither being factually correct nor descriptively interesting. Novelists may successfully walk the tightrope and, at times, go on to produce moments seemingly more authentic and powerful than the mass of typically sterile and academic reports usually spawned by war. Like travelogues, journalism and personal testimony fiction can provide another, perhaps more human way of talking about conflict and tumultuous recent history as well as in writing words against war.
Palpasa Café is the story of a Kathmandu-based artist, Drishya, who falls in love with a Nepali American returnee, Palpasa. Along the way Drishya also sees for himself the devastating effects of Nepal’s conflict in the hills, via a mysterious old college friend named Siddhartha now turned Maoist. These three characters who narrate the story in turns. The novel stands out primarily not as a fiction tale with authentic characters but, instead, as an embodiment of the stand of the people who resisted the war-mongers on both sides.
Even the characters coming from the common walks of life happen to display heroic disposition. The confrontation between setbacks and people from the normal spheres of life gives birth to the heroism in the average. This research deals with how sense of patriotism is projected in, Palpasa Café, especially in the protagonists. They demonstrate bold sense of willingness to face every challenge that befalls them.
Palpasa is pushed ahead by the intense sense of expressing love for her motherland. That is why she comes back to her motherland by discarding every available opportunity she gets in America. Unlike the romantic egoist driven by farfetched ideas, they are committed to the real life. They respond to every setback
Bhandari 3 within flinching back from the normal sphere of life. The Nepalese aura and atmosphere, local culture and custom shape and sustain their heroism.
Since the characters in Palpasa Cafe come from the normal sphere of life, their heroism represents Nepalese heroism and heroism in the average. They are all strong and have definite sense of purpose and beliefs that make them almost too real.
For instance, Palpasa is a daring woman who comes back to Nepal from the States and wants to make a significant career in documentary film making. Chhiring and
Kishore on the other hand are the rising stars in their photography and singing career respectively. Palpasa's grandmother becomes the author's mouthpiece in voicing his love for his motherland. They are all so simple and life like that one is bound to find at least a character they can relate to.
In Narayan Wagle’s Palpasa Café, almost all the characters face plenty of expected and unexpected hurdles. Palpasa’s return to Nepal is not caused solely by her love for Nepal. To dodge the growing insecurity in America following terrorist attack, she is compelled to return to her country. Drishya’s ambition and professional career is not thwarted by the mounting fear of underground insurgency and state sponsored counter-insurgency. Increasing death toll due to civil war, chronic sense of fear, daily setbacks of practical life and emotional love are some of the challenges which most of the characters face.
Sense of patriotism is expressed in Wagle’s Palpasa Café as the leading characters like Palpasa and Drishya are driven by the form sense of purpose, and definite will to overcome every hurdle of practical life. In the midst of insurmountable challenges, they do not flinch back. Rather they go on facing them. Pragmatic and practical sense of heroism mixed with the love for country lies at the center of the novel. Characters like Drishya and Palpasa demonstrate endurance, vision,
Bhandari 4
determination and intense will to overcome every hurdle that occurs in their lives. In
their encounter with all the challenges and hurdles lies traces of heroism traits and
attributes. These traits and attributes are examined excluding all the unrelated and
unrelated details.
Narayan Wagle is one of Nepal’s prominent media person. During his
journalistic career spanning two decades, he had travelled to many regions on
reporting assignment. This experience gets projected in most of his narrative
creations. Palpasa Cafe is a novel by Nepali author Narayan Wagle. It tells the story
of an artist, Drishya, during the height of the Nepalese Civil War. The novel is partly
a love story of Drishya and the first-generation American Nepali, Palpasa, who has
returned to the land of her parents after the September eleven terrorist attack on twin
tower.
1.2 Review of Literature
Palpasa Cafe is often called an anti-war novel. It describes the effects of the
civil war on the Nepali countryside that Drishya travels to. Adhikari makes the
following observation concerning the stylistic aspect of this novel:
Narayan Wagle, the young editor of Kantipur Daily, is a Nepali
journalist who writes prolifically on the burgeoning issues of Nepalese
society. Simplicity tainted with the trace of complexity is the hallmark
of Wagle’s writing. His style is characterized by realistic, simple and
the easy flow of language. This style makes Palpasa Cafe an
interesting reading stuff. It has so much to offer and it succeeds in
doing this succinctly. It makes every information it wants to share brief
and to the point.. (54)
Bhandari 5
Adhikari is intensely appreciative of the style of Narayan wagle. He holds
Wagle in high regard. Wagle’s style, a fusion of simplicity and complexity, serves to
reinforce the lucid content which the author keeps at the center of the novel. The utter
absence of ambiguity and obscurity is one of the most attractive facets of Palpasa
Café.
Pokharel dwells upon the idyllic setting and urban confusion that are
extensively described in Palpasa Café. He reveals his interest in the beginning and the
end of the novel.
Like the protagonist’s shattered dream of opening Palpasa Cafe in the
idyllic hills, the novel seems promising in the outset while ends up in
the maze of its own making. Conflict is only the backdrop where an
artist searches meaning of his love-life. But despite having an
encyclopedic knowledge of nature and painting, Wagle fails to portray
Drishya as an artist. Like Wagle himself, he sounds more like a
journalist; so he is an alter ego of its creator. (72)
As claimed by Pokharel, conflict serves as the background in which the inner agony and woe of characters are mentioned. Palpasa Cafe is oddly replete with female characters like Palpasa, Christina, Phulan, Jemina, grandma whereas males are not only mysteriously absent but are also nameless and faceless in the narrative. The specialty of Wagle is that he tries to twist every conversation.
Bohara. exposes some of the shortcomings and limitations of the novel. She subscribes to the opinion that the author is not at home in the art of retaining strong hold in the overall structure of the novel. Bohara’s critical insight in expressed in the following critical piece:
Bhandari 6
While providing elegant narrative, he fails to put the hold upon the
story. Though, Drishya’s homeward journey evokes nostalgia with
consummate mastery, towards the end, the story gets increasingly
implausible. An encounter with Palpasa in a bus as a co-passenger and
the fatal ambush which spares protagonist alive and his beloved dead is
much a make-believe stuff. Wagle would have been better off had he
woven the denouement more plausibly. (27)
So, we say Drishya is abruptly arrested from his gallery. Intentionally unfolding story is jolted into attention due to the authorial intervention and sporadic events. The novel comes to an end leaving Phulan all alone. The epilogue is an inquiry of Palpasa’s Nepali buddy from US. The beginning of metafictional mould is captivating.
Palpasa Cafe works on different level and through each character. Wagle reflects on our culture, values and most important of all deals with the current fascination of the youth towards the western cultureBut the book also has characters that come back to their motherland with great zeal and enthusiasm. Within this framework Bhandari says:
The pressing topic that the book addresses through a series of minor
characters is the effect of violence on the innocent people. The writer
creates the scenes of skeletal remains of schools and hospitals after
series of bombarding and gunfire as we turn the pages. Loss of loved
ones in the violence and the pain it causes is shown from different
perspective like the death of Mami's children, death of the husband of a
newly married woman and the tragedy of losing a best friend
experienced by a child. (17)
Bhandari 7
The issue of violence and its effects in the delicate psyche of the innocent
youths are crystallized in the novel. In terms of narration, Wagle is akin to his painter
protagonist Drishya. He is able to paint a broad portrait of an apocalyptic present with
the note of urgency and poignancy. He colors his fictional canvas with deft strokes.
He writes with thoroughness of detail and poetic imageries. But his strength appears
to be his weakness.
A large and dramatic section of the novel is then given to Drishya’s journeys
across conflict wrecked hills before inevitable tragedy strikes and he returns to
Kathmandu. As Malla illustrates in his book Fragility and Fear: Western Modernity,
Throughout long sections are taken up by dialogues between Drishya
and Palpasa, or Drishya and Siddhartha. These dialogues explore
individual tragedies and conflict inside the main protagonists
concerning the well-worn themes of love, art and politics. These inner
explorations are not well connected with the outer violent conflict in
Nepal. This is symbolic of a wider indecision in the novel between
portraying what Wagle the journalist saw and what Wagle the novelist
wishes to write; between Wagle’s journalism and his fiction. (12)
Wagle’s best observed sections are in the broader canvas he paints using his journalistic brushes. Wagle, through Drishya, writes with reflective knowing of the feverish and out of control atmosphere after the royal massacre and how a thick fog of uncertainty hung over Nepalese people.
Adhikari illustrates in his book Contemporary Issue in Nepalese Writing, takes the entire novel as the authentic representation of war-torn society full of dramatically convincing characters. He adds the following view in this connection:
Bhandari 8
The novel also, obviously, reflects the author’s own experience as a
Brahmin male based largely in Kathmandu. I hope to show that
Wagle’s journalism background rather than his caste identity is crucial
in understanding Palpasa Café’s successes and failures. It is to
Wagle’s credit that he has written about what he knows and not
attempted to include many different aspects of Nepal which would,
incidentally, be a very boring exercise in paint-by-numbers
prescriptive fiction. (17)
There are dangers of never escaping history and also never developing a narrative, neither being factually correct nor descriptively interesting. Fictional narratives can demand to be taken seriously as an equally legitimate branch of knowledge about war by the strength of their own verve and written power.
Reeves in his book Nuance and Negligence, claims that Wagle portrays how deviant characters in their old age struggle to return to their past. Returning to the past is almost tantamount to returning to one’s own twisted and distorted self.
The story of a man coming to terms with the mutable past, Wagle's new novel is laced with his trademark precision, dexterity and insight. It is the work of one of the world's most distinguished writers. Protagonist and his clique first met Drishya at school. They navigated the scenario drought of gawky adolescence together, trading in affectations, in jokes, rumor and wit. Maybe the protagonist was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they swore to stay friends forever. (31)
Reeves thinks that Wagle uses memory as the structuring device in the novel.
Memory is imperfect but it can always throw up surprises. The unexpected bequest conveyed by that letter leads the protagonist on a dogged search through a past
Bhandari 9
suddenly turned murky. Events conspire to upset all your vaunted truths. That is why
proper initiatives should be taken at the right moment.
Sander write in his book Gateway to Nightmare, judges the novel on the basis
of authorial power to coin new terms and neologisms. He says:
It helps the emergence of new notion of identity and the hurdles that
have arisen simultaneously in the contemporary postmodern era. To
describe this new kind of psychological problem which verges on
amnesia? The shifting socio-cultural horizon has bred amnesia. Many
unconscious and conscious forces operate beneath the surface of
identity formation. In this regard, Wagle’s novel plays a paramount
part. (27)
According to Andrew Sander, Wagle is dissatisfied with the languages of dominant discourses. He wants to maintain the radical sense of decorum. The underlying factors both cultural and psychological have to be exposed and studied carefully before probing into the complex web of postmodern identity.
Although all these critics and reviewers examined this novel from different points of view and then arrived at several findings and conclusions, student has not yet done a college level study on the issue of patriotism in Palpasa Café. The endurance and fortitude demonstrated by Palpasa and Drishya in the midst of terror, insecurity and recurrent fear of facing charge as well as assault is admirable. Both the characters including others are driven by the relentless passion for proving themselves as the capable citizens. Though circumstances have pushed them to different geography and culture, their passion, strength, vision and devotion to nation and her well-being are far more praiseworthy. They are the real hero begotten by the local climate and domestic aura.
Bhandari 10
The purpose of this research is to examine how the pragmatic and practical
sense of patriotic qualities arises in the characters who are surrounded by plenty of
challenges and setbacks. Even the characters coming from the common walks of life
happen to display heroic disposition. The confrontation between setbacks and people
from the normal spheres of life gives birth to the heroism in the average. This is the
intended target of the present research. This study is strictly confined in the analysis
of how characters like Drishya and Palpasa demonstrate endurance, vision,
determination and intense will to overcome every hurdle that occurs in their lives. In
their encounter with all the challenges and hurdles lies traces of heroism traits and
attributes. These traits and attributes are examined excluding all the related and
unrelated details.
The researcher makes use of the notion of patriotism. In addition, the
researcher utilizes some to the theoretical insights of those who believe in the power
of patriotism generated by the pragmatic aura and atmosphere of every local culture.
Analytical efforts should be directed towards the exploration of truth locally and domestically determined. With this methodological conception, the researcher proceeds to produce the thorough analysis of the text. The researcher’s own insight can of some help.
In this dissertation, the researcher was argued that Palpasa Café., the literary output produced in the context of people’s patriotism, nationalism, war, are
contaminated with politics of representation. While arguing researcher point, the
researcher show that the victims are not given enough space in the text to speak out
their painful stories from the site of cross-fire ensued in the violent insurgency that had broken out in the country for a decade. The problem the researcher point out in the texts is that the speakers, instead of refusing to make distinction between self and
Bhandari 11
other or victims and perpetrators, participate in the discourse of dividing and
identifying one or the other group and institution without paying attention to the
people who suffer within the group or the institution. In this dissertation the
researcher problematizes the texts ‘language under the research with the assumption
that writers writing on conflict, nationalism, patriotism and violence generally draw
on a world of mirrored, manipulated, and mediated representation. Assuming the
literatures on traumatic events are inflected with mediated representation, the
researcher was argued that Palpasa Café are not exceptional to this problem. In this
research hypothesis is drawn from the idea that unless the literatures on violence,
nationalism and patriotism are aware of a manipulation and mediation in representing the inside story. Bearing the idea in mind, in this dissertation, the researcher looks
into the narrative language of the texts.
The objective of this research has been proving that the moist violence,
nationalism, patriotism and politics of representation in the text renders different
meaning than that of what the critics in their review of the literatures came out with.
As it was clear in the analysis, Wagle’s anti-war and patriotism motive in Palpasa
Café unconsciously leaves the pangs and the suffering of the non-ruling class of the country by not giving the underprivileged sufferers a space to claim their victimhood.
However, reading these works of literature in the light of theory of violence, nationalism, patriotism and politics of representation in Palpasa Café. The research was helped to raise the question about the representation of Maoist violence, nationalism, patriotism and politics of representation in the texts written so far.
This thesis is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter, introduces the topic, elaborates the hypothesis, and quotes different critics’ views regarding to the text. The second chapter of this research deals with the theory of patriotism and
Bhandari 12 nationalism. The third chapter, discusses Maoist violence in Palpasa Café as well as the researcher makes a thorough analysis of the text, Palpasa Cafe, by applying the theory of war and conflict. The last chapter contains the conclusive ending of the research.
Bhandari 13
Chapter II
Nation, Nationalism and Patriotism
2.1 Nationalism and Patriotism
Patriotism or national pride is the feeling of love, devotion and sense of
attachment to a homeland and alliance with other citizens who share the same
sentiment. This attachment can be a combination of many different feelings relating to
one's own homeland, including ethnic, cultural, political or historical aspects. It
encompasses a set of concepts closely related to nationalism.
The general notion of civic virtue and group dedication has been attested in
culture globally throughout the historical period. For the Enlightenment thinkers of
18th-century Europe, loyalty to the state was chiefly considered in contrast to loyalty
to the Church. It was argued that clerics should not be allowed to teach in public
schools since their patrie was heaven, so that they could not inspire love of the
homeland in their students. One of the most influential proponents of this classical
notion of patriotism was Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Enlightenment thinkers also criticized what they saw as the excess of
patriotism. In 1774, Samuel Johnson published The Patriot, a critique of what he
viewed as false patriotism. On the evening of 7 April 1775, he made the famous
statement, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." James Boswell, who
reported this comment in his Life of Johnson, does not provide context for the quote,
and it has therefore been argued that Johnson was in fact attacking the false use of the
term "patriotism" by contemporaries such as John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute. (the
patriot-minister) and his supporters; Johnson spoke elsewhere in favor of what he
Bhandari 14
considered "true" patriotism. However, there is no direct evidence to contradict the
widely held belief that Johnson's famous remark was a criticism of patriotism itself.
Nationalism is an ideology and movement characterized by the promotion of
the interests of a particular nation, especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining
the nation's sovereignty. (self-governance) over its homeland. Nationalism holds that
each nation should govern itself, free from outside interference. (self-determination), that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity, and that the nation is the only rightful source of political power. (popular sovereignty) It further aims to build and maintain a single national identity—based on shared social characteristics such as culture, language, religion, politics, and belief in a shared singular history and to promote national unity or solidarity. Nationalism, therefore, seeks to preserve and foster a nation's traditional culture, and cultural revivals have been associated with nationalist movements. It also encourages pride in national achievements, and is closely linked to patriotism. Nationalism is often combined with other ideologies, such as conservatism. (national conservatism) or socialism. (socialist nationalism) for example.
Throughout history, people have had an attachment to their kin group and traditions, to territorial authorities and to their homeland, but nationalism did not become a widely-recognized concept until the 18th century. There are three paradigms for understanding the origins and basis of nationalism. Primordialism.
(perennialism) proposes that there have always been nations and that nationalism is a natural phenomenon. Endosymbiosis explains nationalism as a dynamic, evolutionary phenomenon and stresses the importance of symbols, myths and traditions in the development of nations and nationalism. Modernism proposes that nationalism is a
Bhandari 15 recent social phenomenon that needs the socio-economic structures of modern society to exist.
There are various definitions of a "nation", however, which leads to different strands of nationalism. Ethnic nationalism defines the nation in terms of shared ethnicity, heritage and culture, while civic nationalism defines the nation in terms of shared citizenship, values and institutions, and is linked to constitutional patriotism.
The adoption of national identity in terms of historical development has often been a response by influential groups unsatisfied with traditional identities due to mismatch between their defined social order and the experience of that social order by its members, resulting in an anomie that nationalists seek to resolve. This anomie results in a society reinterpreting identity, retaining elements deemed acceptable and removing elements deemed unacceptable, to create a unified community. This development may be the result of internal structural issues or the result of resentment by an existing group or groups towards other communities, especially foreign powers that are. (or are deemed to be) controlling them. National symbols and flags, national anthems, national languages, national myths and other symbols of national identity are highly important in nationalism.
Patriotism is a kind of psychological stimulus triggered by things that are related to one’s country. Many people associate patriotism with a love for the land in which they are born, brought up, or currently live. People’s sense of place and connection to a landscape is easy to understand. “Most of us have felt that, and it is a healthy instinct. It is difficult to care for something that one does not know well or have affection for. It is also common to talk about patriotism in terms of love and affection for one’s countrywomen and men. This can proceed on two levels, either as
“an assertion of differential value of people’s lives or as an expression of affection for
Bhandari 16
people. The former claims that the lives of people within one’s nation-state are more valuable than lives of people outside it. It is unacceptable by the standards of virtually all major moral philosophies and religions, which typically are based on the belief that all human life is intrinsically equally valuable.
It may be true that, especially in times of war, people act as if they believe the lives of fellow citizens are more valuable, but that cannot be a principle on which patriotism can rest. Goldstone adds, “Culture does not map exactly onto the mostly artificial boundaries of nation-states. Indeed, in many nation-states internal differences among cultures can be a source of conflict, not unity”. (131) It is difficult to imagine how patriotism could be defined as love of, or loyalty to, any particular culture or set of cultural practices. To say that Patriotism is about respect for different cultural traditions is nonsensical. Respecting different cultures may be a fine principle, but it has nothing to do with love of, or loyalty to, a nation-state.
Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. According to Jensen those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, and more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. (87) It is, therefore,
the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to
impose his superiority upon all the others. Jensen adds “An argument against
patriotism raises the question of whether nation-states are a sensible way to organize
political lives”. (76) The simple answer is both local and global. Politics must, over
time, devolve down to levels where ordinary people can have a meaningful role in
governing their own lives. At the same time, they maintain a sense of connection to
the entire human family. Majority of people are driven by an understanding that the
Bhandari 17
scope of high-technology and the legacy of imperialism leave people bound to each
other across the globe in new ways.
The pattern of relationships between nationalism and hawkish attitudes
suggested by the data did not, however, include individual aggressive activities as part
of the syndrome. Respondents' own reported aggressiveness is only weakly related to both nationalism and to attitudes toward war. Megan says, “While supporting more aggressive postures for their nation, nationalists are not more aggressive in their personal activities than were patriots. The patriots indicated willingness to
subordinate personal interests to national interests but are not particularly supportive
of war”. (65) Both sets of findings suggest that nationalism is associated more with a
competitive or militaristic approach to the world while patriotism with a more
cooperative or peaceful approach to the world. The strategies that each would
advocate appear to differ. In effect, the nationalists would constitute the hawks, the
patriots the doves in any debate over policy.
Various literary works discuss about patriotism. In the classical time, epical
poetry, epic and long narrative poems used to foster the sense of patriotism. In those
poems the hero’s sacrifice and martyrdom were celebrated. Those heroes who died for
their countries were praised as martyrs. Their names were remembered by everyone.
They were often represented as ideal figures for which love for their country is greater
than the love for their lives. In these poetical works, heroism, patriotism and
sacrificial virtues were often highlighted. Apart from the poetical works, there is
another genre called dramatic literature.
In dramatic works, the theme of patriotism is highlighted by showing the
tragic end of hero due to his excessive love for his country. As time passed by,
various other forms of genres came into light. With the passage of time, the theme of
Bhandari 18
patriotism underwent change. In the modern era, when war is fought not only on sea
and land but also in air, the notion of heroism is almost unappealing. Wars are often
fought with advanced weapons. So, the concept of heroism as understood in the
traditional past has almost faded. At the time of anti-colonial movement in many third
world, the sentiments of patriotism increased dramatically. In the anti-colonial or
postcolonial literature, patriotism becomes a strategy to deal with the colonial
oppression and exploitation.
This discussion of nationalism, patriotism, and in-group bias suggests that
loyalty not only has feelings associated with it but also images of what one's own and
other groups are like. In other words, there is a cognitive as well as an affective
component to loyalty. Images provide individuals with maps of the groups in their
environment on which to act. “But these image-derived maps only really become
critical to politics when they are held by larger collectivities and help define the world
for those larger collectivities. When these individual images become shared within a
group, they become stereotypes. Stereotypes represent widespread agreement among
members of a particular group about the nature of a specific image. People are
moving here to consider how individual loyalty becomes translated into a more
collective phenomenon that can influence what groups of people do.
2.2 Violence and Conflict
Violence is "the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or
destroy." Less conventional definitions are also used, such as the World Health
Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or
power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or
Bhandari 19
community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury,
death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.".
The Maoist violence, also known as The Nepalese Civil War, the Maoist
Insurgency or the Maoist Revolution, was a ten-year-long armed conflict between the
Communist Party of Nepal. (Maoist). (CPN-M) and the government of Nepal, fought from 1996 to 2006. The insurgency period is known as the Maobadi dwandakaal in
Nepal. The rebellion was launched by the CPN-M on 13 February 1996 with the stated purpose of overthrowing the Nepalese monarchy and establishing a People's
Republic. It ended with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord on 21
November 2006. The conflict was characterized by summary executions, massacres, purges, kidnapping and other war crimes and crimes against humanity. The revolution resulted in deaths of over 17,000 people including civilians, insurgents, army and police personnel, and internal displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.
(mostly of rural Nepal) According to INSEC, 1,665 of the dead were women.
Before stepping into the text’s narrative aspects, it is worth poring over where the author is standing in the social milieu. First of all, Narayan Wagle is a journalist, an editor to one of the most popular daily, only after that he is a novelist. He says,
“I’d stopped writing my weekly column “Coffee Guff” in the Kantipur daily newspaper to make time to finish a novel. One of my colleagues joked, “You’re a newspaper editor. What makes you think you can write?’ Another chided me, “A journalist shouldn’t write fiction”. (1) As a journalist Wagle has been reporting the events that took place during the insurgency for a decade, before he thought about writing a novel on the same issue. The author’s colleague who chides him may be right that a journalist, like Wagle, in Nepal should limit themselves to their profession rather than venturing a project like writing a novel with the narratives of conflict
Bhandari 20
events and issues. It is not that a journalist cannot or should not write, but, as Yadav
Bastola has it, “Media in Nepal disseminates a large quantity of popular prejudices
about armed and political group”. (6)
Writing a novel by threading traumatic events into it is not a simple task where
a whole country is going through a painful phase of social and political
transformation. Moreover, theorists claim that memoirs, biography and fiction are
taken as an alternative method accessible to the voices of the victim of traumatic
events. Because history by definition silences the victim, the reality of degradation
and of suffering—the facts of victimhood and of abuse—are intrinsically inaccessible
to history”. (Felman 126) Describing the social atmosphere during which he ventured
writing the novel, Wagle records, “Even events in my country seemed to be
conspiring against my novel. A sense of shocking incidents had occurred at
breathtaking speed in the lives of my countrymen and in the life of my protagonist.
The line between fact and fiction was blurring”. (1-2) Cultural critics and theorists
often emphasize on the nature of trauma as an after effect of an event that erodes the
conventional distinctions. In his speculation of trauma narratives Jay winter writes, at
times, the boundaries between truth and fiction become blurred in such storytelling,
whether, its setting is a public forum or an individual memoir”. (66)
2.3 War and Conflict: An Issue of Patriotism and Nationalism.
War is a state of armed conflict between states, governments, societies and
informal paramilitary groups, such as mercenaries, insurgents and militias. It is
generally characterized by extreme violence, aggression, destruction, and mortality,
using regular or irregular military forces. Warfare refers to the common activities and
characteristics of types of war, or of wars in general. Total war is warfare that is not
Bhandari 21 restricted to purely legitimate military targets, and can result in massive civilian or other non-combatant suffering and casualties. The war and conflict theory, suggested by Karl Marx, claims society is in a state of perpetual conflict because of competition for limited resources. It holds that social order is maintained by domination and power, rather than consensus and conformity. According to conflict theory,
those with wealth and power try to hold on to it by any means possible,
chiefly by suppressing the poor and powerless. A basic premise of
conflict theory is that individuals and groups within society will work
to maximize their own benefits. The war and conflict theory have been
used to explain a wide range of social phenomena, including wars and
revolutions, wealth and poverty, discrimination and domestic violence.
(55)
It ascribes most of the fundamental developments in human history, such as democracy and civil rights, to capitalistic attempts to control the masses rather than to a desire for social order. The theory revolves around concepts of social inequality in the division of resources and focuses on the conflicts that exist between classes.
Many types of conflicts can be described using conflict theory. Some theorists, including Marx, believe that inherent societal conflict drives change and development in society.
After the end of World War II, the international community made it a priority to maintain peace and security across the globe; however, various internal conflicts and proxy wars have threatened that peace and security throughout the end of the 20th and into the 21st century.
Nationalism appears to be emerging as the primary ideology in some
of these internal conflicts. While most scholars agree that nationalism
Bhandari 22
is a modern concept emerging in politics and society within the past
few centuries, it is an ideology rooted in history. (Malešević, 2013: 18,
20; Kedourie, 1960: 1; Breuilly, 1993: 5; Smith, 1991: 71; Gellner,
1997: 13, 93)
The current wave of nationalist agitation is at the forefront of forcing further
investigation into what the complex concept of nationalism actually means; the forms
it takes; and the behavior it entails. The causes of nationalism that result in conflict
are of great importance to the international community, but nationalism itself is not
inherently violent; rather, nationalism has a capacity for violence precisely due to
various contextual factors, specifically structural, political, socio-economic, ethnic, and perceptual issues, as they provide the base from which violent behavior expands.
The category of analytical writing comprises a large corpus. Most of these books historicize and explicate why and how Maoist insurgency grew in Nepal. For instance, A Kingdom Under Siege: Nepal’s Maoist Insurgence, 1996 to 2004. co- authored by Deepak Thapa and Bandita Sijapati analyzes the causes of Maoist taking the gun, and “its rapid success within a few years”. (53)
The author challenges the approaches that see nationalism as being inherently linked with ten-year maoist violence and demonstrates that nationalist ideology by itself is rarely a main cause of Nepalese government.
Similarly, Michael Hutt edited book Himalayan People’s War:
Nepal’s Maoist Rebellion concentrates on the emergence and
radicalization of Maoist movement from multidisciplinary
perspectives. The contribution from Maoist cadres in this corpus after
the peace accord is significantly high. (76)
Bhandari 23
The article focuses on the different forms of organized violence including
wars, revolutions, terrorism, and genocide. It aims to show that the relationship
between war and conflict and nationalism cannot be properly captured by the
dominant intentionalism and naturalist perspectives. Instead the case is made that the
emphasis should be given to the long-term historical processes and the relative
modernity of both nationalism and organized violence.
Among others, there are Tara Rai’s said in her Chhapamar Yuwati ko Diary.
(A Diary of a Young Guerrilla Woman). 'The willingness to engage in violence and the economic and sociopolitical reasons for the growth of nationalism constitute a further focus of these studies.
Whereas the establishment of Nepal as a political entity was conceived of as an effort to overcome a number of manifestations of nationalism, these very sentiments are now experiencing a renaissance at the national level and, expressed as a strong tendency toward autonomy and decentralization, at the regional and local levels as well.
Uttam Kandel’s Jokhim ka Paila. Nirmal Mahara alias Atom’s Gaurabsali
Itihas ra Yuddhamorcha ka Anubhutiharu. (Glorious History and Feelings in Battle
Field) An anthology, Marxbadi Sahitya ra Janayudda ko Saundarya. (Marxist
Literature and Aesthetics of People’s War) published in 2010 encompases both the number and variety of texts written mainly after the truce.
Accordingly, the novel serves as an emblematic documentation of the
Nepalese Civil War,
which disrupted the traditional socio-political balance in the country.
Among the critical assessments on this matter is the humanistic
propagation of the novel as a genre. It represents real human
Bhandari 24
catastrophic visions and their negative consequences upon the
Nepalese society. (65)
Nepal has always been a peaceful country and rich in diverse cultures as it has so many ethnic people; and the kings have always been referred to as god, but through politics, he becomes corrupted, and some Nepalese decide to take away powers from the king and the royal government. These Nepalese people represent the Communist
Party of Nepal-Maoists, which is always abbreviated as CPN-M. They try to establish a republic, thus rupturing the fabric of peacefulness; and this was done by ingraining in themselves:
Maoist ideology; a political doctrine that depends on revolutions to
overthrow the existing monarchy by force. This leads to a long civil
disruption and, in the end, Nepal became a republic.
The war was between the government and the Maoist rebels. It started as a
‘people’s war.’ Nepal Communist Party, which was led by Maoist representatives, planned to dethrone the monarchy in order to impose the republican system. The result had been a totally civil insurrection and political upheaval. Social instability dominated the status quo, and monarchy began waning as people proved strong will to reclaim republican government. Thus, the origin of the war was due to people’s dissatisfaction against Nepal’s autocratic system, and also the caste system.
Consequently, this conflict became bloody where around 17.000 people were killed in a war which lasted for almost 10 years. Mass media has always portrayed the plight of these Maoists as the victims of a corrupted kingdom yet what Wagle is portraying is that this is not the case as each individual has a different opinion for this atrocities and
Wagle sees no point of continuing this war as it destroys the peacefulness of the country, not mentioning the destroyed lives, and war will never end as long as there is
Bhandari 25
politics, as Wagle says at the end of the novel: “all written works are incomplete.
Something’s always missing. There’s always more to ad….. It’s so sad to see war in
our country,’ he said. It’s terrible to see our own people die. In essence, the novel
calls for peace and stability within the national demarcations. Nepal has witnessed a
great deal of devastation which has demolished hopes for stability that is reflected in
journalism. However, Wagle endeavors to approach the Nepali crisis through
literature. Being a literary therapist, he:
“strives not to introduce his agenda into a session other than in highly
unusual circumstances or in relation to practical arrangements. The
therapist novelist makes efforts to hold back his opinions about
difficult issues that the patient is trying to resolve, as the therapist’s
opinions do not belong in the psychotherapeutic session in which the
patient has to try to find his own solution”.
Thus, there has always been lack of this critical voice which Wagle has given in his novel. Hence, Wagle uses metafictional style to avoid being attacked by the official political authorities. In addition, he finds “metafiction a self-reflexive writing mode which reflects his own dissatisfaction with the ongoing political turbulence”.
The Palpasa Café examined the portrayal of the Nepalese Civil War. It has focused on the tragic consequences of the war upon the Nepalese individuals’ psyche.
The main rationale for the study has been the human relations in Wagle’s Palpasa
Café, relations that range from romantic to humane reciprocal affairs. The core conceptual methodology has been the use of metafictional elements in the novel and how they harmonies with allegorical and paradoxical depiction of such affairs. The discussion of authorial self-reflexivity distinguishes Nepal “as a culture, we are
Bhandari 26
enamored of freedom, self-determination, and variety, and we are reluctant to give up
any of our options”.
Most significantly, authorial self-reflexivity reveals the latent authorial
nuances and relative perspective on the Civil War and its catastrophic consequences
on the Nepalese people.
Patriotism may be strengthened by adherence to a national religion. (a civil religion or even a theocracy) This is the opposite of the separation of church and state demanded by the Enlightenment thinkers who saw patriotism and faith as similar and opposed forces. Michael Billig and Jean Bethke Elshtain have both argued that the difference between patriotism and faith is difficult to discern and relies largely on the attitude of the one doing the labelling.
Christopher Heath Wellman, professor of philosophy at Washington
University in St. Louis, describes that a popular view of the "patriotist" position is
robust obligations to compatriots and only minimal Samaritan responsibilities to
foreigners. (87)
Wellman calls this position "patriotist" rather than "nationalist" to single out
the members of territorial, political units rather than cultural groups. George Orwell,
in his influential essay Notes on Nationalism distinguished patriotism from the related
concept of nationalism:
"By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular
way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no
wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive,
both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is
inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every
nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself
Bhandari 27
but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own
individuality." (33)
Correspondingly, the discussion has exposed the authorial intervention within
the narrative structure which accentuates his viewpoint on the ongoing events. The
analysis of the narrator’s psyche is studied in relation to:
“individual creativity which can only be measured by the presence of
norms, whose task it is to discipline subjectivity, to enable it to
communicate both with others and with options untaken within its own
self”. (98)
Thus, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the allegorical depiction of the
Nepalese Civil War and the paradoxical discrepancy between the turbulent homeland
and the narrator’s predilection to seclusion and serenity.
Bhandari 28
Chapter III
Patriotism in Palpasa Café
3.1 Effects of Maoist Violence in Palpasa Café
The journalist Wagle dissolves into his novel’s character Drishya, as a reporter
in the conflict-ridden countryside of Nepal where future is a dream without image. Of
Drishya the dreamer, or of himself, Wagle writes, I wasn’t sure the situation in the
country was conducive to the realization of his dream. How, I wondered, could
Drishya find the strength to face all the uncertainties? His determination impressed
me, especially because I thought that the country had already raised its hand in
surrender, defeating his dream. He alone was standing defiant”. (3) There is no
argument about Nepal’s history was going through severe political and social change
during which period the novel was set. Yet, by no mean can it be called surrender as
Wagle has done, deliberately. To whom the country raised its hand in surrendered?
The author does not find it necessary to answer. But he points the finger at the Maoist
rebels as the Other who were defeating Drishya’s dreams. Yet, the reporter is defiant,
for he is responsible for reporting the picture of gruesome bloodsheds to the public
from the field that was taking place. I picked up a napkin to jot down the story: “A
patrol of the unified command lost contact with district headquarters after being
ambushed by Maoists this morning about eight kilometres to the east [….]’”. (Wagle
6) Instead of reporting the events in details as they are taking place, the author could
have adopted other narrative alternatives. Because imaginative solutions have been
adopted in many cases, rather than addressing the harsh specificities of the past, there
is a strong seam of reworked and re-imagined pasts that run through these new
narratives of nationalism” for the sake of resolving the conflict.
Bhandari 29
And the author’s intention for not adopting the indirect method of reporting is,
as I have pointed in preceding paragraph, to present the country has surrendered itself
to the Other, the Maoist rebels. Wagle’s deliberate presentation of the Maoist as
destructive force against the government’s security force.
As opposed to the author’s approach to reporting a conflict event, journalist
Yadab Bastola writes,
Conflict sensitive journalism is the practice of writing news stories
about conflict in a way that does not aggravate or identify the discord.
It presents a wide range of opinions, avoids inflammatory language
and experience ways in which the confrontation can be resolved”. (6)
Among the characters in Palpasa Café, the author has given a little space to just one character from socially and economically underprivileged class, a Tharu girl,
Phoolan, from Mid-west of Nepal. Even this girl is presented against the Maoists as he writes, I was still in touch with Phoolan but she’d changed. She lost her smile the day Drishya was taken away. […] If Drishya doesn’t come back soon, Phoolan might have to go back to her village. And there, she might have to join the Maoists. They’re asking for one recruit from each household.. (232) The girl’s social and economic background is left untouched. Phoolan is almost a mute girl in the novel, who is rescued by a painter from mid-hill ruling class background. Whilst reading the passage we come to know that the author has presented only one side of insurgency, which is the infliction caused by the Maoist. So, the narrative is more like a ruling classes’ political propaganda than being a truthful, for the author evades the other side, the infliction caused by the ruling class and the state security forces among the underprivileged people.
Bhandari 30
Drishya in the novel finds peaceful and harmonious countryside ravaged with war. More than that it is the absence of dominating mid-hill Brahmin culture and
feudal system that he perceives as a loss, for the countryside has fallen under the
rebels’ rule of law. In the absence of the state, Drishya narrates, “He [a rebel
commander Siddhartha] and his comrades were trying to place a gun in the hand of a
girl who was just a budding flower. They were trying to motivate other village
youngsters to join up as well. They were emptying the village of its youth and it upset
me”. (91)
As La Capra has pointed out “In converting absence into loss, one assumes
that there was. (or at least could be) some original unity, wholeness, security, or
identity which others have ruined, polluted, or contaminated and thus made “us’
lose”. (707) And, in an attempt to justify the war, the rebel commander says, “Most of
the people who’re being killed are representatives of the old power elite”. (76) The old power holders could no longer maintain their rules of law in the presence of the rebels, and thus, they were compelled to desert the countryside.
Drishya vents anger at Siddhartha who is responsible for his perceived loss.
Then he blames Siddartha and his party destroying the very root of the system.
Pointing at a sketch he once drawn of his village school, Drishya says to Sidhhartha,
“This school had absolutely nothing. There wasn’t even glass in the windows. But
now even this little school’s been destroyed. Whenever I look at this picture, I am
reminded of the way things are in our country these days”. (76) And Siddhartha in his turn replies, “I’m sorry. I understand I’m partly to blame but, the ultimate blame rests with the old power center”. (76) Thus, the narratives of blaming and pointing finger
proceeds in the novel. There is no room left for empathy towards the suffering other,
the victims of the conflict. There have been victims from both sides, the family
Bhandari 31
members of the rebels and the state security force fighting the rebels. And because
they are divided in the conflict-ridden milieu as the Maoists and the Police or Army,
there hardly any room left for readers to feel their pangs and agonies.
3.2 Patriotism in Palpasa Café
The novel also, obviously, reflects the author’s own experience as a Brahmin
male based largely in Kathmandu. I hope to show that Wagle’s journalism
background rather than his caste identity is crucial in understanding Palpasa Café’s
successes and failures. It is to Wagle’s credit that he has written about what he knows
and not attempted to include many different aspects of Nepal which would,
incidentally, be a very boring exercise in paint-by-numbers prescriptive fiction.
Unfortunately, Palpasa Café currently seems to be more discussed for a literary prize
that it should or should not have won, as well as for its marketing process than for its
actual content. One intention of translating the novel into English is surely to help
foreigners, both tourist and expatriates alike, to understand what happened in the
recent Nepali past.
The novel contains a short helpful glossary and does not overburden the text
with overlong explanations of detail for non-Nepalis Like the Nepali edition the book
is perhaps also aimed at the Nepali urban middle-class, whom Wagle presumably
knows well, as well as diaspora Nepalis. The real dedicatees of the novel are all
victims of the war and the novel as a whole can be seen as a fictionalized attempt at
not forgetting, during a time when, perhaps, many wish victims would move on.
Palpasa Café is the story of a Kathmandu-based artist, Drishya, who falls in love with
a Nepali American returnee, Palpasa. Along the way Drishya also sees for himself the
devastating effects of Nepal’s conflict in the hills, via a mysterious old college friend.
(named Siddhartha) turned Maoist.
Bhandari 32
Patriotism is an ideal that makes many thoughtful people uncomfortable.
Scholars and theorists find it difficult to label themselves as patriots because patriots are uncomfortable with the rituals and symbols of national loyalty. They worry that national loyalty implies indifference or hostility to people of other nations. They condemn national chauvinism and are disturbed by the associations between patriotism, militarism, and blind allegiance. Those who have patriotic pursuit shun the word patriot. At the same time, such people do not want to be considered disloyal.
They may attach great value to many of their country's political practices and traditions. They may even carry out the duties of citizenship conscientiously. They do not see themselves as unpatriotic and certainly do not want to be seen as traitors.
Renan makes the following observation regarding what patriotism is and what a patriot does:
The language of patriotism and loyalty seems to force them into a
difficult choice. To say that one is not patriotic suggests that one lacks
the loyalty that is appropriate to citizens. It is not surprising, then, that
the ideas of non-patriotic citizens are often viewed with suspicion, for
their lack of patriotism seems to imply that they possess neither loyalty
nor a basic concern for the well-being of the nation. Hence, their views
on national conduct and policy are suspect. It appears, then, that one
must either accept patriotism in spite of its undesirable features, or
place oneself in the role of an outsider, whose claims about the
national welfare have an uncertain status. (45)
Patriotism is evocative of a chronic form of discomfort and a hope that the subject of patriotism can be kept out of political discussions. It is no surprise that the established authorities of all nations encourage patriotism and support the view that it
Bhandari 33
is a virtue. Spokesmen for a nation want to encourage devotion to it so that they can
appeal to patriotic motives in bringing about compliance with the law and
encouraging citizen support for government policies.
These are the main characters who tell Wagle’s story. The novel stands out
primarily not as a fiction tale with authentic characters but, instead, as an embodiment
of what Drishya calls “the stand…of the people who resisted the war-mongers on both sides”. (213) In broad brushstrokes, like the artist Drishya, Wagle tries to use the novel to protest “against both warring sides…., my colours showing my support for the third camp”. (213) The novel begins with a description of the central character,
Drishya, being abducted. This is told within a post-modern introduction which, like the similarly ironical ending is deliberately out of place with the rest of the novel’s straightforward narrative style. The introduction is postmodern in the sense that
Wagle introduces himself as a character, a journalist who has written the true story of
Drishya during the conflict.
In his final second cameo appearance within the pages, Wagle uses the format to acknowledge with a wink that he might not have done his characters justice and that “all written works are incomplete. Something’s always missing. There’s always more to add”. (231) Using the author as character is a risky fictional device suggesting a paucity of original material and an overly self-referential style.
(especially for an existing full-time journalist) By limiting it to the bookends Wagle nearly carries it off but his final cameo appearance suggests a lack of confidence in his first published fictional material as well a need to spell out and reiterate his main intentions to the reader.
The main part of the novel begins with a portrayal of Drishya and Palpasa’s first encounters in Goa and then moves onto Kathmandu covering Drishya’s artistic
Bhandari 34 and personal torments. A large and dramatic section of the novel is then given to
Drishya’s journeys across conflict wrecked hills before inevitable tragedy strikes and he returns to Kathmandu. Throughout long sections are taken up by dialogues between Drishya and Palpasa, or Drishya and Siddhartha. These dialogues explore individual tragedies and conflict inside the main protagonists concerning the well- worn themes of love, art and politics. These inner explorations are not well connected with the outer violent conflict in Nepal. This is symbolic of a wider indecision in the novel between portraying what Wagle the journalist saw and what Wagle the novelist wishes to write; between Wagle’s journalism and his fiction.
Patriotism is not a virtue. Even for those not accustomed to seeing themselves as patriotic, the idea that patriotism is a vice is somewhat shocking. Renan adds, “For most of us, our country includes not just its politics but its language, culture, familiar history, natural beauties, customs, literature, folk heroes, and personal histories. It is not surprising that most people feel some degree of love for their country”. (56)
Patriotism is as much an emotional experience as an intellectual conviction. It is proverbial that patriotism is an expression of love of one’s country and readiness to defend it. Patriotism means critique of the war effort. It is one’s patriotic duty to be true to the core commitments of democracy and the obligations democracy puts on people:
Therefore, if one wants to be patriotic, one has to exercise judgment,
evaluate policies, engage in discussions and help see the best policies
enacted. The student’s earlier comments exemplify these competing
definitions of patriotism and its emotional dimensions. Ideology is by
definition rife with contradiction. To love one’s country is of course
not synonymous with an agreement to initiate military aggression in
Bhandari 35
defense of one’s country. Nonetheless, in the United States the
emotions of patriotism have been used to support the Bush
administration’s war in Afghanistan. Patriotism in the US can also be
seen as a reaction to a sense of personal and national loss. In their
yearning for unity, however, patriots seem to share the intellectual
rhetoric of nationalists. (65)
Patriotism is used to refer to political movements seeking or exercising state
power and justifying such actions with nationalist arguments. A patriotic argument is
a political doctrine built upon various assertions. It is premised on the belief that the
interests and values of a nation take priority over all other interests and values.
Wagle’s best observed sections, perhaps unintentionally, are in the broader
canvas he paints using his journalistic brushes – firstly in the disappearances and
general tension of post-royal massacre in Kathmandu and then of the conflict in the
hills. Wagle, through Drishya, writes with reflective knowing of the feverish and out of control atmosphere after the royal massacre and how “a thick fog of uncertainty hung over us all. (72) Wagle, ever the journalist, also notices small details like how “it was risky for men to walk about without having shaved their heads in mourning”. (72)
Wagle also cannot help noting the cavalcade of foreign journalists suddenly arriving in Nepal, as tourists leave. The desperate journalists swarm on Durbar Marg erecting satellite censors and positioning their cameras for live telecasts. The novel also carefully portrays the particular impact of the conflict in the hills. Wagle’s descriptions of schools being blown up, emptying villages, indiscriminate bombs, abduction, and mourning Nepali families are generally hard hitting and powerful.
Wagle finds a particularly credible voice in his description of a Maoist attack on a district headquarter. The attack is described as briskly as it happens: “I held on tightly
Bhandari 36
to my cot. „Shoot! Shoot!’ Myriad noises assaulted my ears. The cat wailed”. (132)
Then, dazed and wearied, the market awakes and the shell-shocked inhabitants
“looked at each other as if surprised so many people were still alive”. (133) The post-
attack shock of a lodge-owner is also distressingly well represented through her
“incomprehensible mumbling,” violent “trembling” and her son having “wet his
pants”. (133)
As elsewhere the purple passages involve more of what Wagle the journalist
saw and heard about and less of what the reader might expect a painter like Drishya to
feel and note. Wagle bitingly mocks his own profession again when a helicopter fall
of journalists lands in the district headquarter after the Maoist attack. Hunting for fast
answers them “all rushed away” herd-like before Drishya “could answer the last question”. (135) The journalists demonstrate a habitually short attention span as they move from questioning Drishya to a nearby policeman to the police inspector to the chief district officer in rapid succession.
Patriotism is not capable of taking serious enough the individual’s associative relationships. It regards all individuals of the world as being of equal concern regardless of their nationality or citizenship. Given the prominence of patriotic commitments in ordinary human life, patriotism is seen as a special challenge for cosmopolitan justice. Tan defines patriotism as the love for and loyalty to one’s country. According to Gaebler,
This love and loyalty give compatriots priority above strangers. It is
hard to see the difference with nationalism, as this also promotes the
solidarity and mutual commitment towards compatriots. For
nationalists, patriotism is a nation-building strategy. Patriots however
are not necessarily nationalists. Patriotism can emphasize for example
Bhandari 37
shared citizenship in a constitutional order. The priority given to
compatriots seems to contradict with the cosmopolitan ideal of
impartiality for several reasons. (66)
Patriotism provides a common identity that makes possible a sense of mutual indebtedness and mutual concern among people that are otherwise strangers. This is necessary to implement distributive principles, or in more extreme cases, to defend the nation-state in war. Secondly, cosmopolitanism seems out of touch with our commonsense morality. It offends our ordinary moral conception and experience not to be able to prefer our fellows above strangers.
Mourning families in the hills are also closely observed such as those of his dead ritual friend, Resham. Miit-Ba is “in despair” after Resham’s death and he and his wife “sometimes...weep, sometimes they mumble strange things. There are days when they don’t say a single word and days when they never stop talking”. (140)
Drishya hears about another old couple who have one son in the army and one in the rebels. He is told “The one in the army sent them a message saying.... they should go to Kathmandu because it’s too dangerous for him to come back here. But the old folk can’t go to Kathmandu....Their grief’s going to kill them one day”. (143) Wagle wishes to tell the common tales of individual and family trauma from the conflict.
Whether fiction or journalism is the best vehicle for him to do this is debatable.
Palpasa Café, almost incidentally, neatly notes individual stories in other aspects of modern Nepal. This includes diaspora Nepalis. (especially those connected to the
USA), retired Gurkhas, Nepali-foreigner relationships, trekking tourists. (endlessly laughing over their photos in Thamel) and internal migration for school and work.
There is a touching description of young boys entering the Kathmandu valley for the first time which leads Drishya back to his own childhood. When Drishya finds out
Bhandari 38
that the young boys are from the same region as he, his “eyes welled with tears...” and
say “When I entered the „Nepal’ valley for the first. There are many aspects to
criticize about Palpasa Café and things also perhaps lost in translation too. Wagle’s main characters are not believable except as two-dimensional archetypes, railroaded
into standing up for art, politics or creativity in extended and overlong dialogues.
Palpasa represents the creative spirit, and the younger generation and is mostly there
as the perfect foil for Drishya’s banter. Her side of the story is never told and as
Wagle states in the post-modern end piece that “would’ve given my novel another
dimension”. (231) Many readers may be tempted to skip the weak characterizations
and dialogues all together in order to reach Wagle’s more interesting and well-written
description of war-time events.
The style for the awkward dialogues model is set at the start of the novel
proper when Palpasa and Drishya meet in Goa. At one-point Palpasa says “Oh, didn’t
I tell you where I was staying?” Drishya replies “No, and I didn’t ask.” Palpasa
replies “Then you’re a fool as well!” Drishya then replies “I wasn’t before I met you".
Palpasa asks what he means and he replies “I lost my senses when I met you”. (12)
The dialogues barely evolve beyond this kind of he-said, she-said repartee and
schoolchild level of male-female taunts. When it does Drishya is the authoritative
model artist-philosopher proclaiming on the one hand that “artists care very much,
especially when they find someone who appreciates their work...”. (19), while later,
typically, pondering aloud that “There’s energy in inner conflict....It drives human
beings to search for clarity and resolution”. (30)
Cosmopolitans who reject the relevance of particular ties and special
associations seem to “prioritize a commitment to abstract principles over the concrete
and personal values that make life worthwhile and meaningful. The tension between
Bhandari 39
cosmopolitanism and patriotism is the confrontation of two opposing demands: while the first claims that nationality is to be factored out, the latter says that nationality is a
relevant point of consideration”. The best way to reconcile both is limited patriotism
as it has an affinity with both demands.
The cosmopolitan idea of patriotism is commonly criticized because it fails to take seriously the ties and commitments of nationalism and patriotism. The criticism
“takes the form of a dilemma: either we promote the special relations we have with our fellow citizens and reject cosmopolitan justice; or we promote cosmopolitan justice and reject nationalism and patriotism”. (87) Kok-Chor Tan claims that this dilemma is false and that reconciliation is possible. In his view on cosmopolitanism:
Cosmopolitan justice sets boundaries to patriotism and nationalism
without denigrating these ideals. He makes the analogy with the
domestic level. As the pursuits of our personal goals and commitments
are limited by distributive justice, so must the pursuits of nationalism
and patriotism be limited by global distributive justice? It is only
within the boundaries set by global distributive principles that nation
states have the right to self-determination. From this, it follows that
liberal nationalists should be international egalitarians, promoting
political and economic equality among states. Doing so will create
equal international opportunities, and will reduce the pressure on the
borders of richer countries. (112)
The priority given to compatriots does not necessarily contradict the cosmopolitan ideal, according to Tan. As long as patriotism respects the borders set by global justice, it can be recognized as an associative obligation with a moral worth in itself. Cosmopolitan justice, properly understood, can appreciate and integrate
Bhandari 40 nationalist and patriotic commitments. It simply means that before personal commitments and projects may be pursued, just entitlements must be established and secured by creating the necessary global institutions.
Feeling guilty but gaining stoutheartedness, Drishya evades the site “soaked in
Siddhartha’s blood”. Finally, he reaches the bus bound for Kathmandu where he accidentally becomes co-passenger with Palpasa. (167) But, the bus during a halt for urinating gets blown in the ambush. All the passengers inside including Palpasa exterminate making Drishya a witness to another atrocity. In Kathmandu with the scars, he visits Palpasa’s grandmother to inform about the tragic incident. But seeing the condition of the grandmother, he fails to evince the reality. While living in such a state, one day, “five strangers” who do not appear “art lovers” enter his gallery to “ask
[him] a few things”. Any of his excuses turn defunct to deter their intention; they take him “by the arm”. (225-27) Immediately after, Wagle hears the news of Drishya’s abduction and makes his efforts to rescue him.
Experience of Wagle ensues from, his witnessing of traumatic experience as an editor of national daily, and the impact of Drishya’s testimony over him after
Siddhartha and Palpasa’s brutal murder. The author’s own compelling account on his privilege as an editor elucidates the point: We publish stories like it every day.
Today’s newspaper already carried an almost identical story; tomorrows would as well. It was the same thing every day: security personnel losing contact with headquarters, land mines, bomb blast, the killing of suspected spies, and deaths of victims being rushed to health posts. (6)
Dixit points out another factor that availed trauma to him: “Wagle has visited remote corners of this rugged country, bringing stories about the neglect and apathy of officialdom to the notice of a government in faraway Kathmandu”. (96) Might be it is
Bhandari 41
true, as Dixit has stated, but it does not mean that the novel mimetically produces
Wagle’s encounter. The author himself has admonished readers not to interpret the
novel along this line: “To write more honestly about Drishya’s experience, I probably
should’ve trekked through the hills as he did. But I’m a busy man. I don’t have time for a long trek like that. Hence, a major source of traumatic experience for Wagle is the primary witness, Drishya. In Wagle’s case, the context comprises. (a) Maoist insurgency gradually spreading to Kathmandu from their stronghold areas, and. (b) the confinement of government bodies to metropolitan and other a few locations. The macro-political scenario in Kathmandu comprised the happenings from Royal massacre to King Gyanendra’s political move in October 2002. Before the massacre, people in Kathmandu had been non-intimately familiar with Maoist undertakings because their activities were concentrated in countryside and the media had also failed to show the intensity of insurgency. The massacre made it congenial for Maoist to enter Kathmandu and accelerate their activities. The government responded to the situation in town by detaining anyone without warrants. In villages controlled by the
Maoists, the security forces would reach these places very sparsely.
Instead of demanding global justice to legitimize itself against nationalism and patriotism, Paul Wiley turns to the notion of commitment to patriotism. The commitments of nationalism and patriotism have to be justified in a global context.
His arguments for international egalitarianism are quite convincing. However, Tan is
a bit hasty with equating international egalitarianism with the cosmopolitan ideal of
justice, because both have different moral units. Tan is well aware that “justice
between nations does not necessarily improve justice within nations, but his
arguments are unclear when it comes to taking the step from international to
cosmopolitan justice”. (104)
Bhandari 42
Later took the Maoist underground figure Siddhartha and Drishya argue,
occasionally with verve, around the age-old debates of art and politics and whether it
is “possible to create without destroying”. (82) These debates are slightly more nuanced and realistic than those between Palpasa and Drishya. However, even here
Siddhartha does not develop an actually existing character but, instead, is only really
alive as an ideologue served up to fit Wagle’s demand for an art versus politics
debate. Siddhartha, the old college friend and confirmed Maoist, sums up the
difference between him and Drishya saying “You give too much weight to the importance of the individual”. (84) Drishya, the artist, believes “in the supremacy of the free individual”. (84) and cannot accept violence and deaths in the name of a supposedly greater communal good.
For some reason the language in the letters from Drishya and Palpasa appears to have been much more closely revised than passages elsewhere. For example,
Drishya writes a letter filled with uncharacteristically attractive English to Palpasa via her Grandmother:
Your hopes are pinned on the gods, the farmers on the mountains and
mine on you. I made you dance and you were happy. The day I saw
you dance was the happiest day of my life. It was as though the snow
on the mountains was melting in the sun and a magnificent rainbow
had appeared on the horizon. (96)
There are also problems concerning the book’s narrative structure. From the end of chapter nineteen a series of devastating events occur in rapid and very unbelievable succession. The reader is asked to believe that the central character,
Drishya, is spectacularly unlucky in terms of being affected by the war. Since the reader does not know Drishya as a fully rounded character, only instead as the
Bhandari 43 fountain of wise home truths around art, then we consequently care less about what happens to him or those he loves.
Nationalism and patriotism both show the relationship of an individual towards his or her nation. The two are often confused and frequently believed to mean the same thing. However, there is a vast difference between nationalism and patriotism. Christopher Lewis makes the following disclosure in this regard:
Nationalism means to give more importance to unity by way of a
cultural background, including language and heritage. Patriotism
pertains to the love for a nation, with more emphasis on values and
beliefs. When talking about nationalism and patriotism, one cannot
avoid the famous quotation by George Orwell, who said that
nationalism is „the worst enemy of peace’. According to him,
nationalism is a feeling that one’s country is superior to another in all
respects, while patriotism is merely a feeling of admiration for a way
of life. (72)
These concepts show that patriotism is passive by nature and nationalism can be a little aggressive. Patriotism is based on affection and nationalism is rooted in rivalry and resentment. One can say that nationalism is militant by nature and patriotism is based on peace. Most nationalists assume that their country is better than any other, whereas patriots believe that their country is one of the best and can be improved in many ways. Patriots tend to believe in friendly relations with other countries while some nationalists do not.
Wagle’s simple message throughout the novel seems summed up by a boatman who rows Drishya away from death: The boatman strained against the
Bhandari 44
current. “It’s so sad to see war in our country,” he said. “It’s terrible to see our own
people die. Don’t you think so, bhai?”. (169)
This message could have been conveyed in other ways more suited to Wagle
the journalist. As it is Palpasa Café ends up being an unfulfilling mixture of
occasional journalistic insight, weak characterization and poor dialogue. Fiction has something to offer as an attempt at writing another form of the truth, to be another kind of historical record and memorial for victims. And Palpasa Café has these noble aims of writing against war, bringing home the personal devastation of the conflict and remembering the victims. A translated novel will always lose something in the process of translation and perhaps loses more when it tries to honestly write about such disputed recent history and war. However, Wagle would have been better to convey his thoughts, experiences and feelings about the war in a factual context, perhaps in the form of a travelogue or snapshots of different conflict-affected lives around the country.
Describing the nature and subject of the novel, Wagle says, “I’ve completed this novel based on whatever information I’ve been able to piece together” and adds
that the story, “was [Drishya’s] story, after all, and told from his perspective”. (229-
31) The novel takes its exposition from Goa where Drishya, a tourist, encounters
Palpasa and envisages that she “will be [his] girl”. (16) In the next meeting, the other
day, he undergoes a series of sensations ranging from romance to disappointment.
In patriotism, people all over the world are considered equal but nationalism
implies that only the people belonging to one’s own country should be considered one’s equal. A patriotic person tends to tolerate criticism and tries to learn something new from it, but a nationalist cannot tolerate any criticism and considers it an insult.
Christopher goes on to add “Nationalism makes one to think only of one’s country’s
Bhandari 45
virtues and not its deficiencies. Nationalism can also make one contemptuous of the
virtues of other nations. Patriotism, on the other hand, pertains to value
responsibilities rather than just valuing loyalty towards one’s own country”. (131)
Nationalism makes one try to find justification for mistakes made in the past, while patriotism enables people to understand both the shortcomings and improvements made.
Patriotism holds that the nation should be collectively and freely institutionally expressed, and ruled by its co-nationals. Recent events demonstrate patriotic movements retain the capacity to shake states and empires, as well as the pieties of devout conservatives and cosmopolitan liberals and socialists. Ernest Gellner’s writings aimed to explain why patriotism has become the key principle of political legitimacy of our times. Gellner provides lucid and persuasive accounts of why
patriotism is a necessary component of modernity and why it is the most salient
principle of political legitimacy. Gellner’s arguments disturbed both conservatives
and secular rationalists. The reasons are not hard to find. The following extract throws
light on this aspect of Gellner’s view:
Nationalism relegates religion to a secondary, and even inessential,
principle of a stable and legitimate political order and thus challenges
traditionalist conservatism. Nationalism also suggests that law, reason,
utility, material prosperity and social justice are secondary principles in
establishing a stable and legitimate political order, therefore provoking
persistent condemnation from rationalist liberals and socialists for
some two hundred years. (109)
The negative social foundations of patriotism are thus explained by the erosion
of rigid social structures. A shared culture is now much more important in creating
Bhandari 46
and sustaining social cohesion than it was. The positive social foundations are
explained by economies of scale in the production of literate citizens by state-
sponsored educational systems. The relevant educational system must operate in some
medium, some language. Literacy is generated by state-sponsored educational
systems, which are multiply facilitated if the idioms of the home and the school are
the same. In turn, modern educational systems explain the cultural identifications that
move so many human beings. These identifications are, however, historically recent.
Back to Kathmandu, Drishya engrosses in painting when a Dutch lady remarks
that the colours used in his artwork “don’t seem to suit the subject matter.” Growing
“increasingly depressed and reclusive,” he gets hold of “a book about the balance of
color and light in traditional Nepali art”. (46-50) Then, he coincidently reaches to
Palpasa’s grandmother to re-meet Palpasa and continue the romantic rapport set in
Goa. But again, the relation discontinues when his childhood friend, Siddhartha, now
an underground Maoist guerrilla, visits him unexpectedly after the Royal massacre in
June 2001. Siddhartha insists Drishya to put aside his romantic ideology and witness the bitter realities in countryside.
Finally, Drishya yields to Siddhartha’s persistence to get awakened to a series of shocking occurrences in the countryside – forceful recruitment of the children, merciless sabotages and brutal killings of the civilians. The bleak picture finally makes him sense that Siddhartha’s request proved eyesopening, “I realized Siddhartha had done me a favour by bringing me back to these hills”. (152) Fostered by this realization, he wants to see Siddhartha before he returns to Kathmandu. But due to his gaucherie against a female guide and subsequent firing during the journey, some people cordon, arrest and blindfold him. When the blindfold is lifted, he sees
Bhandari 47
Siddhartha and in excitement speaks out his name, but to become a witness to the
cordoners’ brutal killing of Siddhartha.
The preconditions of patriotism include widespread or universal literacy, and a
society committed to economic growth through its formal commitment to social
mobility. Industrial society requires effective and widespread context-free
communication through a common medium, a high culture. Communicative media are
placed center-stage in generating and maintaining nationalism, but the argument
stresses the functionality of a shared culture for the effective operation of modern
work-organizations and bureaucracies.
According to Gellner, “Patriotism is still seen as distinctive to modernity, but it is now part of a philosophy of history that distinguishes three phases in human progress, the pre-agrarian, the agrarian, and the industrial. In a considerably reworked
and non-teleological form of historical materialism”. (114) Gellner maintains that each of the three key phases is associated with characteristic modes of production, coercion, culture and cognition. Nationalism is distinctive to industrial society. It is intimately connected to its mode of production. It would have made no sense in tribal societies because such societies were and are stateless. The ambition to unify the national culture and the state would therefore have been incoherent.
An examination of Wagle’s perspective reveals that two factors have played their role in the selection. One can be discerned from the reiteration of Drishya’s perspective on art and politics: “Art isn’t politics. … It’s a medium that touches the heart and the mind simultaneously. It seeks only the synergy of brushstrokes and colours. I use colours to express beauty. I’m not involved in politics”. (2008, 85) It suggests that Wagle disregards political ideology dictated writing as it violates the principle of creativity. Another agency is the politics of peace: “The stand I’d taken
Bhandari 48
was that of people who resisted the warmongers on both sides. I belonged to this,
third force”. (213) The force signifies the community of people who presume that the
insurgency and counter insurgency would not be beneficial to any side. Hence, the
standpoint he holds is brokered by denouncement of any violence.
Wagle’s access to the publisher and publication house provides an appropriate instance of co-relation between the two elements mentioned in the equation. When the novel was in its making, Wagle was not only an editor but also a popular columnist of a powerful daily newspaper, Kantipur. The most accessible channel in such a context
would be newspaper. But he opted for another medium as he was aware that
journalistic reporting fails to include perspectives. Dixit echoes Wagle’s sense in the following admission:
As journalists in Nepal, we feel that every story of a landmine killing
children, abduction of students, young women disappeared by security
forces is a heartrending family tragedy. Unfortunately, by the time the
deaths are reported the manner of their reporting turns them into
statistics. We rarely see, hear or share the pain and personal loss of
someone’s loved one. (10)
Because Wagle was aware of journalism’s inadequacy and could choose alternative media, he selected “the medium of a novel to get the real story across”.
(2003:10) The publisher of Wagle’s novel, Nepa~laya, is originally an event management commercial company established in 2001. Initially, the company organized stage shows of Nepali musicians not only to raise funds for social/educational institute but also to raise social awareness. After two years of the company’s operation as musical event organizer, it ventured into publication with the slogan; artists create … rest we care.
Bhandari 49
The nation-state developed fairly recently. “Prior to the 1500s, in Europe, the
nation-state as we know it did not exist. Back then, most people did not consider
themselves part of a nation; they rarely left their village and knew little of the larger
world. If anything, people were more likely to identify themselves with their region or
local lord”. (Emmanuel O’Brien 131) At the same time, the rulers of states frequently
had little control over their countries. Instead, local feudal lords had a great deal of
power, and kings often had to depend on the goodwill of their subordinates to rule.
“Laws and practices varied a great deal from one part of the country to another. They
explain some key events that led to the rise of the nation-state. In the early modern
era, a number of monarchs began to consolidate power by weakening the feudal
nobles and allying themselves with the emerging commercial classes”. (O Brien 131)
This difficult process sometimes required violence. The consolidation of power also
took a long time. Kings and queens worked to “bring all the people of their territories
under unified rule. Not surprisingly, then, the birth of the nation-state also saw the
first rumblings of nationalism, as monarchs encouraged their subjects to feel loyalty
toward the newly established nations”. (O Brien 141) The modern, integrated nation
state becomes clearly established in most of Europe during the nineteenth century.
Drishya, a painter in a metropolitan location with Bohemian life style,
encounters his childhood friend Siddhartha who has “turned to violence.” He thinks
that offering shelter would “invite […] trouble from the security forces”; but finds
denying the same impossible: “If I denied him shelter, I’d be inviting trouble from his
people”. (2008, p.77) While in such a limbo, Drishya swerves his mind and decides to
visit the countryside without thinking that the journey would inflict trauma on him.
On the way, two terrible events bear significant scar on him: one, Siddhartha’s predicament -- “He was lying in a pool of blood but was still breathing”; and the
Bhandari 50
other, Palpasa’s tragic fate -- “Everything seemed to be on fire. I heard people
groaning […]. Through the blaze, I could hear the horrible shrieking of the passengers
trapped inside the bus […]. In no time, all that was left was a charred skeleton”. (186)
Theoretically, exposures to such traumatic happenings impart speechlessness.
And, when any bystander narrates the events, the account resurfaces with scenes of incredible vividness, broken sentences, gestures and overwhelming behaviour. To examine whether Drishya narrates in the same way, the paper concentrates on his bearing witness to major traumatic events – the Maoist’s attack in the district headquarters, the news of mitini’s death, Siddhartha’s treacherous murder, and
Palpasa’s tragic fate. The terrible attack in the district headquarters sweats Drishya as in summer day though it is a cool night. The next morning, he witnesses the lodge owner “trembling violently” and her son with his pants wet. (133) Another narration, i.e., the section which vicariously traumatizes him after he witnesses death of a small girl’s mitini, illustrates the symptoms of trauma: This hill shouldn’t have been so hard to climb. It wasn’t that steep but my legs felt weak. I didn’t know why I felt so drained of energy. I felt as if I was walking in a funeral procession. Though I was wearing shoes, I felt as if I was stepping on hot rocks. My rucksack wasn’t really
heavy but it felt like a bag of stones a drill instructor might make a recruit carry for
punishment.. (p. 151) The narration that presents Drishya’s condition after
Siddhartha’s murder transcribes similar situation:
I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say. I looked into his eyes.
They tore my heart out. […] I sobbed. I screamed. I wept like a child.
[…] I began to feel feverish. I felt as if I were drowning in a sea of
sand”. (pp. 166-67) And, the condition after Palpasa’s terrible fate
speaks his predicament: My whole body was shaking like a leaf. All
Bhandari 51
my dreams and desires were suddenly gone, as if they’d been a bird
flying off the branch of a tree. […] Why had I gotten on the same bus
as Palpasa. […] As the sun came up, I wished I could wake up from
the nightmare. (186)
The cumulative traumatic experience, due to overwhelming and recurring registration, re-traumatizes him when he reads a letter handed by Palpasa’s grandmother. It is from this point Wagle makes Drishya narrate his experience through the lens of peace politics.
In what has now become a classic in studies of nationalism, Benedict
Anderson’s Imagined Communities traces the origins of the rise of national consciousness to the modern-industrial age of the Enlightenment in Western Europe.
Following the demise of traditional, hierarchical forms of social organization associated with Christendom, Anderson attributes a “major role to economic factors that helped spread supposedly universal, homogenous and horizontal-secular notions of national space, territoriality, and citizenship”. (37) Specifically, “economic change fostered the rise of social-scientific discoveries, increasingly rapid communication, and the logic of capitalism, epitomized in its ruthless and perpetual search for new markets”. (38) Known as „print-capitalism,’ Anderson sees an essential link between the rise of capitalism and the development of print-as-commodity. Communication and popular literature, for instance, helped disseminate national languages, consciousness, and ideologies across a broad landmass, previously unconnected by any conception of shared experience or identity. Anderson makes the following remarks:
As a secular, non-religious phenomenon, the idea of the „nation’
reached a level of mass consciousness. Nationalisms, therefore, have
Bhandari 52
the unique ability to traverse millions of people in and through the
interplay of capitalist relations and modes of production, the spread of
communications, or print technology which resulted in the ultimate
demise of human linguistic diversity prevalent in the pre-modern era.
At the same time, however, Anderson’s conception of the nation is one
of a community that is socially-constructed, or imagined into being: all
communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact are
imagined. (47)
Anderson’s approach emphasizes the role of creative imagery, invented traditions, representation, imagination, symbols, and traditions in nationalism, as a constructed narrative about the nation-state. As a phenomenon that is fundamentally historical in its constitution, the truth of national identity cannot be found in fixed racial categories, myths about origins, or certain primordial facts.
Drishya, instead of acting out trauma which is reliving traumatic condition, recalls the experience using working through which according to LaCapra resorts to
“conscious control, critical distance, and perspective”. (1995) Accounting Drishya’s experience in working through mode, the narration reads, “Every movement was devoted to images. Even when I didn’t have a brush in my hand, lines and colours danced in my mind. I needed to keep working on the series to remind myself I was alive”. (216) Later, the narrator says: “I wanted to put hope into the figure of Palpasa.
At first, I’d painted her in vermilion but it looked like blood. I couldn’t even distinguish between vermilion and blood”. (211)
Drishya’s state of confusion as a trope for working through when qualified further by Wagle’s confession that he still did not know some of the basic facts about
Drishya, and “constructed [the other characters] purely from snippets of information
Bhandari 53
Drishya had given me” reiterates the author’s motive to further work through. (pp.
231-32) Similarly, the episodic nature of Wagle’s participation in Drishya’s bearing witness – “I’d interviewed Drishya many times” – rectifies that working through a mode of rending trauma is authorial intention. As a peace lover, Wagle should necessarily sanitize the scenes of atrocities. For it, in addition to the strategies discussed above, he resorts to metonymic substitution” and conjure up meta-ironic effect.
Chatterjee takes issue with Anderson’s conception of nationalism as one that pre-exists in modular forms, such that its basic tenets can easily be exported and appropriated in the postcolonial world. He states:
History, it would seem, has decreed that we in the postcolonial world
shall only be perpetual consumers of modernity. Europe and the
Americas, the only true subjects of history, have thought out on our
behalf not only the script of colonial enlightenment and exploitation,
but also that of our anti-colonial resistance and postcolonial misery.
Even our imaginations must remain forever colonized. (216)
While appearing to oppose the colonial influence at one level, the problematic of anticolonial nationalisms assert a form of inner sovereignty. Inner domain of national culture matters a lot in the process of understanding nationalism in local cultural context. Nonetheless, the very thematic of post-Enlightenment epistemologies and ethical systems provides a national-theoretical framework. Partha Chatterjee counterargues that “Anderson’s conception of nationalism as imagined comes dangerously close to idealizing discourse to the extent that the nation can be read as some sort of text, in order to uncover the legitimizing narratives that aid in its
Bhandari 54
construction”. (53) The political economy or materialist aspects of Anderson’s theory point to underlying social-material relations. The base of these relations can be found in the workings of the capitalist-economy. It is grounded on the corresponding modes of social production. Such theories tend to conceive ideas as mere reflections, or representations of a socio-economic base.
Pragmatically, the deployment of “metonymic substitution” with meta-ironic
effect reduces the intensity of traumatic happening. As readers, we feel reduction in
the force of trauma when Drishya narrates Maoist attack in the district headquarters
by juxtaposing it with the description of popular film figures like Manisha Koirala. In
another instance, i.e., while describing the people’s response after a devastating
attack, Wagle blends humorous situation with a pathetic event. Similarly, the frame of
romantic love affair between Palpasa and Drishya serves to reduce the force of trauma
and orient the readers towards working through.
Mr. Gaebler addresses the claim that Patriotism can supply “a sense of
community to those who live in liberal societies. He concludes that nationalism is fundamentally incompatible with the liberal values of individualism and tolerance, but that the argument presented in Liberal Nationalism provides a useful critique of liberalism's cultural and psychological deficits”. (55) He suggests that “neo-
Aristotelian ethics offers a better description of liberal community than that afforded by nationalism. Not so very long ago, nationalism was commonly viewed as a spent force in world politics”. (88) However, its spectacular comeback in central and
Eastern Europe five years ago proved this view a chimera. The reemergence of
nationalism exercises a peculiar allure for political philosophers in the West who are
dissatisfied with the alleged deficiencies of liberalism. Graham Walker, for example,
Bhandari 55
deplores “the neutral state’s tendency to relativize all substantive commitments by
viewing them as purely a private matter of personal choice”. (113)
The question remains whether Patriotism is the best source from which to derive our enriched characterization of human motives and interests. Tamir seems peculiarly bound to the “notion that our quest for meaning within a community can only be supplied by identification with a cultural or ethnic group. It would be foolhardy to ignore the dismal record on nationalism in the twentieth century”. (43)
Neo-Aristotelian ethics offers a different means to achieve the enriching effect sought
by Tamir. Emphasizing the role of emotion in the development and exercise of
judgment, practical reason is similar to the morality of community in many respects.
Tamir contends that “most importantly, it shares the conviction that the ideal vantage
points from which to make moral decisions is not some Olympian impartiality, but
rather a deep and reflective involvement in one's own particularity”. (44) To put it slightly differently, moral judgment is not the sure result of a rational procedure. It is always tentative, always open to revision, as new circumstances arise.
The contribution of context in trauma rendition appears when Wagle describes the atrocities of security forces. As it was a time when the army had been in operation to quell the Maoist, any of the narrations concerned with army demanded sanitized.
And, Wagle writing under such condition finds no escape from the entrapment. For instance, when Wagle needs to state who is involved in Drishya’s abduction, he makes Fulan allege that the Maoist have their hand. In brief, Wagle’s novel demonstrates that the whole writing is dictated by the factors mentioned above under the heading of selection, context and availability – vicarious trauma, the time of army deployment as a context and the author’s perspective configured by politics of peace.
Bhandari 56
According to Hayes, patriotism mobilizes a deep and compelling emotion that is essentially religious. Like other religions, nationalism involves faith in some external power, feelings of awe and reverence, and ceremonial rites. It is focused on the flag. Hayes argued that patriotism has its gods – „the patron or personification of the fatherland, its speculative theology or mythology. Hayes concludes the following parameters regarding to the inception of patriotism:
Patriotism is reflected in the description of the eternal past and
everlasting future’ of the nation; its notions of salvation and
immortality; its canon of Holy Scripture; its feasts, fasts, processions,
pilgrimages and holy days; and its supreme sacrifice. But while most
world religions serve to unify, nationalism re-enshrines the earlier
tribal mission of a chosen people, with its tribal selfishness and
vainglory. (25)
Patriotism is a religion both in a substantive sense, insofar as it entails a quest for a kind of this-worldly collective salvation. It involves a system of beliefs and practices that distinguishes the sacred from the profane. It unites its adherents in a single moral community of the faithful. In this new religion authenticity is the functional equivalent of sanctity. Patriotic heroes and national geniuses embody and exemplify such authenticity. It is this religious quality of nationalism that explains durability and emotional potency of national identities.
An underlying assumption in this Endeavour is that the conclusion will have methodological and applicational significance. From the methodological point of view, the paper invites scholars to opt for alternative approaches because a) resort to interdisciplinary borrowing opens potential to form alternatives when questions of importing any of the canonical theories have been problematized, and b) narrative
Bhandari 57
account of Maoist insurgency in Nepal is a rich field of inquiry waiting for
methodological innovations.
Ethnicity and nationalism have been characterized as basic sources and forms
of social and cultural identification. Regarding to the nexus between ethnicity and
nationalism, Brubaker dwells upon the following view:
As such, they are ways of identifying oneself and others, of construing
sameness and difference, and of situating and placing oneself in
relation to others. Understood as perspectives on the world rather than
things in the world, they are ways of understanding and identifying
oneself, making sense of one’s problems and predicaments, identifying
one’s interests, and orienting one’s action. Religion, too, can be
understood in this manner. As a principle of vision and division of the
social world, religion too provides a way of identifying and naming
fundamental social groups, a powerful framework for imagining
community, and a set of schemas, templates, and metaphors for
making sense of the social world. (67)
Religion, ethnicity, and nationality can channel informal social relations in ways that generate and sustain social segmentation. The key mechanism here is religious or ethnic endogamy, whether more or less deliberately pursued from the inside, or imposed from the outside. Religious injunctions against intermarriage, together with clerical control or influence over marriage, have often helped reproduce socioreligious segmentation. This, in turn, has helped reproduce religious, ethnic, and national communities over the long run and has worked to prevent their dissolution through assimilation. Religion contributed to origin and development of nationalism
Bhandari 58
not only through the political appropriation of religious symbols and narratives but
also in more indirect ways.
Patriotism is a useful concept only if it is not overstretched. If the concept is
not to lose its discriminating power, it must be limited to forms of politics, ideology, or discourse that involve a central orientation to the nation. It cannot be extended to encompass all forms of politics that work in and through nation-states. There is no compelling reason to speak of nationalism unless the imagined community of the nation is widely understood as a primary focus of value, source of legitimacy, object of loyalty, and basis of identity.
Paplasa Café presents vicarious trauma filtered through the politics of peace when the country was in the hands of army. Consequently, the content elides the atrocities of the army, approximates traumatic experience of the victims and presents
Drishya’s trauma in the frame of working through. It explicates the perspective of
human rights activist who could bear witness to people’s experience during armistice.
As a result, it not only shows the security forces in negative light but also resorts to the sufferings of the civilians through identarian inscription. Contrarily, Shah’s rendition of the time between intermittent truce and violence from 2002-2006 through the perspective of ambiguous morality delineates vulnerability of security personnel, political delinquency, atrocities of the Maoist, and the suffering of common people.
Wagle, through Drishya, writes with reflective knowing of the feverish and
out of control atmosphere after the royal massacre and how “a thick fog of uncertainty
hung over us all”. (72) Wagle, ever the journalist, also notices small details like how
“it was risky for men to walk about without having shaved their heads in mourning”.
(72) Wagle also cannot help noting the cavalcade of foreign journalists suddenly
Bhandari 59 arriving in Nepal, as tourists leave. The “desperate journalists” swarm on Durbar
Marg erecting satellite censors and positioning their cameras for live telecasts.
Bhandari 60
Chapter IV
Conclusion
The novel also, obviously, reflects the author’s own experience as a Brahmin
male based largely in Kathmandu. I hope to show that Wagle’s journalism background rather than his caste identity is crucial in understanding Palpasa Café’s successes and failures. It is to Wagle’s credit that he has written about what he knows
and not attempted to include many different aspects of Nepal which would,
incidentally, be a very boring exercise in paint-by-numbers prescriptive fiction.
Unfortunately, Palpasa Café currently seems to be more discussed for a literary prize
that it should or should not have won, as well as for its marketing process than for its
actual content. Palpasa Café is the story of a Kathmandu-based artist, Drishya, who
falls in love with a Nepali American returnee, Palpasa.
The novel begins with a description of the central character, Drishya, being
abducted. This is told within a post-modern introduction which, like the similarly
ironical ending is deliberately out of place with the rest of the novel’s straightforward
narrative style. The introduction is post-modern in the sense that Wagle introduces
himself as a character, a journalist who has written the true story of Drishya during
the conflict. In his final second cameo appearance within the pages, Wagle uses the
format to acknowledge with a wink that he might not have done his characters justice
and that all written works are incomplete. Something’s always missing. There’s always more to add. Using the author as- character is a risky fictional device suggesting a paucity of original material and an overly self-referential style.
(especially for an existing full-time journalist)
Bhandari 61
By limiting it to the bookends Wagle nearly carries it off but his final cameo
appearance suggests a lack of confidence in his first published fictional material as well a need to spell out and reiterate his main intentions to the reader. The main part of the novel begins with a portrayal of Drishya and Palpasa’s first encounters in Goa and then moves onto Kathmandu covering Drishya’s artistic and personal torments. A large and dramatic section of the novel is then given to Drishya’s journeys across conflict-wrecked hills before inevitable tragedy strikes and he returns to Kathmandu.
Throughout long sections are taken up by dialogues between Drishya and Palpasa, or
Drishya and Siddhartha.
These dialogues explore individual tragedies and conflict inside the main protagonists concerning the well-worn themes of love, art and politics. These inner explorations are not well connected with the outer violent conflict in Nepal. This is symbolic of a wider indecision in the novel between portraying what Wagle the journalist saw and what Wagle the novelist wishes to writes between Wagle’s journalism and his fiction. Wagle’s best observed sections, perhaps unintentionally, are in the broader canvas he paints using his journalistic brushes – firstly in the disappearances and general tension of post-royal massacre in Kathmandu and then of the conflict in the hills.
86
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