Skip to main content

Remembering Naipaul

 Nobel laureate VS Naipaul left for his heavenly abode at the age of 85. He is famous for his stern views on India's working and the comparisons he made between us and the western civilization. Right from his teenage he had developed a certain distaste for the Indian ethics. For nearly a year he traveled India to gain information about his book. His trip to India, certainly left a deep negative impact on him. As he witnessed lack of maintenance at public places, poverty stricken people everywhere - for a man who grew up in abroad, all these factors within five years of India's independence was shocking - and finally, his witnessing of caste division. He firmly believed that our Indian government and customs were responsible for abstaining India from growth. His book 'Area of darkness' dealt with these matters in an unrefined way. Though the book was banned, his next book 'India: A wounded civilization' was a strong comeback of the former book. He pored his obsessions of western civilization with that of India in his book. He went on to the extent of criticizing Hinduism also with the times of loss that India had faced in the past. His writings are in general, extremely Hinduist. He fails to analyse, examine and inquire his writings. He uses caste as the ultimate explanation to every statement he makes. Being an outsider, his views on India, blooming with billions of people, are malevolent views.


VS Naipaul

  On the other hand, poets like Nizzim Eziekel cherish the Indian cultures and see the hatred, as of Naipaul, is a conventional way that is carried on for generations. He sees India growing disregarding the drawbacks of poverty, population. Authors like Nirad Chaudhuri also gave views on India in his autobiography 'An unknown Indian' which stirred Indian intellectuals and illuminatingly affected western reader. He narrated the bitter truth about India giving proper justifications unlike Naipaul who backed on the reason of caste only. Even Naipaul regarded the book as the best account for penetration of the Indian mind by the western civilization.


 Though Naipaul showcased the orthodox problems in India but he more crticised the principles and the people of the nation. Even though his predictions were true but we must not blindly follow his legacy. Keeping up our customs and traditions, we must try to resolve the issues portrayed by Naipaul on various occasions.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Indian Constitution: the unfulfilled dream

 As we celebrated the ‘Constitution day’ on 26th November, bragging about being the world’s largest democracy, the question we failed to ask ourselves is whether we have truly lived up to the essence of our constitution. The Constituent Assembly of India had adopted the Constitution on this day in 1949, and the current government decided in 2015 to observe this day annually as the Constitution Day. Our Constitution declares India to be a “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic and to secure to all its citizens justice, social, economic and political; liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith, and worship; equality of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation”. Even though our constitution offers so much, the printed media has repeatedly pointed out the inability to uphold them. To quote Granville Austin from his book, Working a Democratic Constitution, the cons...

The Japanaese Renaissance

Whenever we think of Japan, we think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Second World War had left Japan completely devastated, depleted of its teeming potential and resources. After 74 years, Japan has metamorphosed into a world power, flaunting its suave in multilateral fields.With t he excitement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics all around and shops ready with official merchandise, Japan is pushing the accelerator on full throttle to showcase their best.  My recent visit to Japan was worthwhile, a revelation in itself. The rapid development of Japan never fails to awestruck anyone. The main shifting point was during the Meiji dynasty - during which Japan faced a huge technological, political, and educational influx from the western nations and broke out of their isolated cocoon. Since then, Japan has no turning back. The disciplined traditional nature of the people along with their quality education have contributed a lot to this development. Recently, the Japan government has decide...

IS INDIA SECULAR?

                After 69 years of independence, being in the 21st century we are not successful to promote secularism in India .                ( Ex-MP) and current chief minister of Uttar Pradesh - Yogi Adityanath's move to stop the working of 140 stand alone abattoirs and 9 integrated abattoir- cum- meat processing units(source : The Telegraph) has been welcomed by many Hindus all around our country. Adityanath's move was imposed on illegal slaughter houses who didn't follow the rules and regulations formed by the government. The owners failed to give a satisfiable alibi for not following the law which leads to the closure of these abattoirs.                  Many people are also pointing out the fact about the leather factories in Kanpur. Many factories ...