Was at Bangalore Lit Fest yesterday and happened to listen to Rajiv Malhotras lecture. He talked about a grand Indian narrative which has been suppressed and distorted by vested interests outside India and that he is making an attempt to re-articulate it. I do not know how much truth is there in what he was saying but wanted to ask him a few questions: 1. Whose perspective will this grand narrative portray? Will it accommodate the perspectives of Dalits, Scheduled Tribes, Adivasis and BCs who have been at the receiving end in history for the last 500 years and continue to be at the receiving end? What would he say to them if they choose to reject it? 2. Will this narrative explain what have been the fundamental civilizational weaknesses/faultlines that allowed India to succumb to foreign rule for 400+ years and could not resist the onslaught and why is that we needed a phalanx of Western educated leaders with deep knowledge of Marxian historical frameworks to help us regain our independence? Gandhiji had a wonderful understanding of the economic dynamics underlying the British rule 3. Rajiv was fair when he mentioned that Wendy Doniger had a right to express her views on Hinduism but glossed over the real facts behind the circumstances on why her book was banned in the country. He practically hid behind some references to legalities 4. I wanted to let him know that there are many grand narratives and not a single monolithic one and that the Telangana state used one of these narratives that dates back to nearly 1000 + years to regain its current avatar 5. He also talked about the right of the Hindus in India to control their places of worship. I wish the BJP Govt does it and takes away the control of Tirupati Temple from the the control of AP Govt and see what will happen.... Unless questions of this nature are answered convincingly any attempt by any group (left, right, north, south) will degenerate into propaganda and self delusions of the defeated My respect for V.S.Naipaul especially for his India Trilogy (An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now) where he attempts to answers some of these questions with the intuition of a writer has gone up by a couple of notches
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 03:13:27 +0000
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