V. S. Naipaul is dead. Gone with him is his mastery of colonial mind set. His highest contribution to literature was to uncover, in that mindset, the framework used for glorifying the defeat- how the vanquished people psychologically evolved themselves to learn to live with the loss. How they fundamentally changed the status of conquerors from opponents to masters and lords and expelled them from their daily lives. How they instinctively figured that complete surrender was effective way of forcing their masters to leave them alone- an amazing trick where political freedom was surrendered to protect ways of life. And those ways of life were also gradually adjusted to mimic their master’s, without internalising the thought process (a high caste Hindu in western style suit and with western education and yet fully believing in caste based untouchability), to make the surrender look even more complete. A grand effort by vanquished race to cover up the ignominy of loss and surrender through selective mass amnesia, which over generations of subjugation became less and less selective- so much so that they had to discover their right of political freedom from the eyes of their conquerors. Such a race, even having won its political freedom was not able to shake off the mindset of colonial day’s and still struggled with confused identity mainly characterised by an inferiority complex and inability to give up what was not relevant any more.
Naipaul was a product of subjugated race, subjugated to the extent that its ways were ritualised in daily living. And, somehow, he became aware of it. This awareness did not lead him to empathy, but to contempt. A camera like contempt, which does nothing to cover the nakedness it captures, instead uses an angle to magnify it to its fuller extent. In ‘A House for Mr. Biswas’ Biswas is a portrayal of his own father, and though in real life Naipaul had great relationship with his father Biswas receives no sympathy from him. He, in the eyes of Naipaul- the writer, is fully responsible for his own predicament and deserves the life that he lived. Naipaul is of the firm view that weakness is not deserving of empathy but of only contempt. What irks him most about weakness is not the infirmity itself, but it’s tendency to descend into hypocrisy, denial, and false bravado to cover itself, specially that it happens at society level. That’s a constant theme in all his writings. His portrayal of Caribbean, of India, and of converted Islamist countries uses the same lens to see these people. He had a cold and clear eye to hunt down the symbolism used (in form of ironies, and tragedies) by these societies to avoid a real sustained fight and to only create a semblance of it to maintain the esteem without any real gains. What magnifies the blow ten fold is his description of these events/people in a comic sense highlighting the frivolity with which these participants conduct life. This frivolity emerges from their misplaced priorities dictated by their selfishness and lack of vision. A vicious cycle which Naipaul bitterly exposes.
No wonder he is accused of biases, against Muslims, women, Africans. An individual without biases is inconceivable, and being a man of intellect more so with Naipaul; but his biases were not superficial, they were based on deep and prolonged observation processed through a sharp, and mercilessly critical mind and one can not ignore him without being accused of same malice- the biases for less scathing. Balanced view is also an euphemism for avoiding controversy (thus veiled lying), Naipaul never gave two hoots about that.
He wrote beautiful prose. Short sentences of such precision that they did not need the force of context to pierce through any intellect. His description of a Hindu joint family in ‘A House for Mr Biswas’, its people, hierarchies, mechanisms of power, politics, nature of intrigues, is amazingly accurate and possible only through close personal observation. Who can forget the scene in ‘ A house for Mr. Biswas’ where one of the ladies in the house dominates in an argument by violently beating up her own children in a display of anger; or, his explanation of why in India so many people name their homes and business establishment after their deceased parents in “ A Million Mutinies”; or, his description of how the remanent of an old demolished Shiva temple with now a mosque standing on it were enfabled in a Muslim legend to usurp it as Muslim in “ Among the Believers”. His ability to keenly and clearly observe, analyse, convert in to precise thought, and replicate those thought in words on paper was unmatched. No wonder “A House for Mr Biswas” is considered best piece of English prose written in twentieth century.
Great writer are superior intellectual beings. They have their value as a mirror to the society. This puts them under the label of dangerous; dangerous to the establishment, and dangerous to society as well, for they may cause embarrassment. And, thus both try to control them, establishment through force and censor, and society by castigation and labelling (such as biased against, Marxist etc). All the allegation and controversies that Naipaul lived through are hallmark of his independence of thoughts and expression of it.
-Pulastya
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