What do you think?
Rate this book
India Trilogy #2
India: A Wounded Civilization
"In 1975, at the height of Indira Gandhi’s “Emergency,� V. S. Naipaul returned to India, the country his ancestors had left one hundred years earlier. Out of that journey he produced this concise masterpiece: a vibrant, defiantly unsentimental portrait of a society traumatized by centuries of foreign conquest and immured in a mythic vision of its past.
Drawing on novels, news reports, political memoirs, and his own encounters with ordinary Indians–from a supercilious prince to an engineer constructing housing for Bombay’s homeless–Naipaul captures a vast, mysterious, and agonized continent inaccessible to foreigners and barely visible to its own people. He sees both the burgeoning space program and the 5,000 volunteers chanting mantras to purify a defiled temple; the feudal village autocrat and the Naxalite revolutionaries who combined Maoist rhetoric with ritual murder. Relentless in its vision, thrilling in the keenness of its prose, India: A Wounded Civilization is a work of astonishing insight and candor." Back cover comments.
Drawing on novels, news reports, political memoirs, and his own encounters with ordinary Indians–from a supercilious prince to an engineer constructing housing for Bombay’s homeless–Naipaul captures a vast, mysterious, and agonized continent inaccessible to foreigners and barely visible to its own people. He sees both the burgeoning space program and the 5,000 volunteers chanting mantras to purify a defiled temple; the feudal village autocrat and the Naxalite revolutionaries who combined Maoist rhetoric with ritual murder. Relentless in its vision, thrilling in the keenness of its prose, India: A Wounded Civilization is a work of astonishing insight and candor." Back cover comments.
180 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
207 people are currently reading
2832 people want to read
About the author
V.S. Naipaul
193books1,742followersV. S. Naipaul was a British writer of Indo-Trinidadian descent known for his sharp, often controversial explorations of postcolonial societies, identity, and displacement. His works, which include both fiction and nonfiction, often depict themes of exile, cultural alienation, and the lingering effects of colonialism.
He gained early recognition with A House for Mr Biswas, a novel inspired by his father’s struggles in Trinidad. His later works, such as The Mimic Men, In a Free State, and A Bend in the River, cemented his reputation as a masterful and incisive writer. Beyond fiction, his travelogues and essays, including Among the Believers and India: A Million Mutinies Now, reflected his critical perspective on societies in transition.
Naipaul received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded for his ability to blend deep observation with literary artistry. While praised for his prose, his often unsparing portrayals of postcolonial nations and controversial statements sparked both admiration and criticism.
He gained early recognition with A House for Mr Biswas, a novel inspired by his father’s struggles in Trinidad. His later works, such as The Mimic Men, In a Free State, and A Bend in the River, cemented his reputation as a masterful and incisive writer. Beyond fiction, his travelogues and essays, including Among the Believers and India: A Million Mutinies Now, reflected his critical perspective on societies in transition.
Naipaul received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded for his ability to blend deep observation with literary artistry. While praised for his prose, his often unsparing portrayals of postcolonial nations and controversial statements sparked both admiration and criticism.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 222 reviews
May 28, 2019
Naipaul is not a much-liked figure in India. There are good reasons for it. First, nation-states do not like being condemned or harshly judged, and India is no exception. Second, if a writer in his bashing enthusiasm goes on hitting while ignoring some key facts about a particular people and their history, he loses some of his credibility. However, there is a lot in Naipaul's oeuvre that cannot be dismissed, no matter how much his work makes one cringe.
He sees deep flaws in contemporary Indian culture and goes on to trace the genealogies of these flaws in Indian history and Hindu religion. Flaws that still reign the ordinary Indian mind. One of Naipaul's key findings is that Indians are neither skilled nor do they have any solid understanding of the real world. (For instance, Indians cannot make cheese). When facing a crisis, they take refuge in their glorious past, and retract from the immediate. Naipaul looks at history, key Indian figures, contemporary literature to prove his point.
What is so good about reading Naipaul is that he makes one listen and pay attention. There is a lot of truth in what he says about India. It would be foolish to dismiss his work. However, what is so annoying about the book is that he does not see anything good or worthwhile in India's present or even in its past. He completely ignores the syncretic traditions of India, its music and classical dance forms and so forth. He does not see much in them because he cannot. He does not know any Indian languages to judge the finer aspects of Indian culture. Even an average Indian person does not automatically become proficient in admiring and understanding classical Indian art forms.
Before Naipaul, in colonial India, there have been British historians, writers, politicians, who wrote extensively and perceptively about Indian culture, drawing attention to what was wrong with it. One can reject these texts but what is in them is actually all around us in present-day India. However, like Naipaul, the Europeans also showed ignorance and plain stupidity in the same texts. In other words, Naipaul makes similar errors.
However, what makes Naipaul different is that his dismissals are brilliantly crafted. I also feel that his engagement with the country is a way of dealing with his own past. One criticizes because one cares.
Reading Naipaul and thinking about his chief problems with India, and looking at today's world; civil unrest, climate change, diminishing resources, water crisis. It is okay that some people (Indians) are not practical enough, that they recede rather than take charge, that they dream and practice 'karmic' theories, that instead of raping environment (further) and turning rivers into drains for material gains. Naipaul sees this non-doing as an Indian Flaw.
In some weird way, primitive India, with its backwardness–that Naipaul so dislikes� is what in today's western Europe is referred to as sustainable living. Gandhi, with all his flaws and quirks, seems wise now. His idea of 'Swaraj,' which, apart from its layered meanings, is an appeal to Indian people to adopt sustainable and eco-friendly lifestyles; to embrace ways that are more inclusive, that go beyond the merely anthropocentric ones.
I must say that what is so exemplary about this book is Naipaul's language. If one reads him for long and then picks up a book by any other contemporary writer, one immediately recognizes that one is not in the same superior, exciting world of words any more. One should read his prose to enjoy its softness and porcelain like texture.
May 4, 2025
I had never read anything by V S Naipaul before. Known first for fiction, his travelogues are highly regarded as well. "A Wounded Civilization" is the second in his trilogy on India, written during 1975 when democracy was under siege by the autocrat Indira Gandhi. The beginning of the triptych, "An Area of Darkness", was banned on the subcontinent for its 'negative portrayal of India and its people'.
Naipaul traveled for a year and surveyed what he saw as the decay of a past civilization. The trip is not arranged either geographically or chronologically, but followed the musings of his mind. Generally his thoughts were of a critical nature; he saw the people as backward, narrow minded and short sighted. For Naipaul eastern philosophy and religion were to blame for fatalistic and unambitious attitudes.
The saving grace of Naipaul’s approach was his writing, the reason I suppose for his fame. An easy going style undercuts the acidity of his observations. The combination is a stream of conscious rambling by a disillusioned son of the diaspora. It is easy to enter into his frame of mind and find fault in everything you come across. The risk is a lack of rigor, the same shortcoming Naipaul found within India.
Naipaul offered some interesting insights on caste, class and post-colonialism during the early decades of the Republic. He visited slums in Mumbai, fiefs in Pune and ruminated on Mahatma Gandhi's rejection of the West. It is an eclectic set of sketches and studies; how they contributed to his Nobel prize is unclear. My guess is that you would need to read his entire body of work in order to fully understand.
Postscript (2024): Further reflection on this volume of his trilogy impugns Naipaul’s assertion religion and superstition were the major causes of underdevelopment since 1947. He later indicted Islam as a culprit of poverty in Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia. Here he omits subjugation of the subcontinent beginning with the East India Company in the 17th century and ending with Crown Rule in the 20th.
Naipaul traveled for a year and surveyed what he saw as the decay of a past civilization. The trip is not arranged either geographically or chronologically, but followed the musings of his mind. Generally his thoughts were of a critical nature; he saw the people as backward, narrow minded and short sighted. For Naipaul eastern philosophy and religion were to blame for fatalistic and unambitious attitudes.
The saving grace of Naipaul’s approach was his writing, the reason I suppose for his fame. An easy going style undercuts the acidity of his observations. The combination is a stream of conscious rambling by a disillusioned son of the diaspora. It is easy to enter into his frame of mind and find fault in everything you come across. The risk is a lack of rigor, the same shortcoming Naipaul found within India.
Naipaul offered some interesting insights on caste, class and post-colonialism during the early decades of the Republic. He visited slums in Mumbai, fiefs in Pune and ruminated on Mahatma Gandhi's rejection of the West. It is an eclectic set of sketches and studies; how they contributed to his Nobel prize is unclear. My guess is that you would need to read his entire body of work in order to fully understand.
Postscript (2024): Further reflection on this volume of his trilogy impugns Naipaul’s assertion religion and superstition were the major causes of underdevelopment since 1947. He later indicted Islam as a culprit of poverty in Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia. Here he omits subjugation of the subcontinent beginning with the East India Company in the 17th century and ending with Crown Rule in the 20th.
August 10, 2016
I’m quite okay with what gets termed as ‘India Bashing� (or, if for that matter, bashing of any other country) as often it is just a veil used by powerful to suppress criticism pointed at them but my one condition is that author should actually feel concerned for the people. That she/he is frustrated and seems to be frowning at the circumstances too is fine by me.
What is not fine is when it is done by a author who seems to scorning at the people, feeling disgusted at them as if he belongs to some higher race.
Now V. S Naipaul calls India a ‘difficult� country. He has clear problems with Indian part of his Identity and he probably feels insulted by it. The tone he takes is not that of ‘We� Indians but instead ‘they� Indians�. Yet, he must write about it � because let us face it; a book about India is big bucks.
The ‘India� shown in this book must have suited to then western temperament, when US didn’t approve of India-Russia relations. I bet he actually came to India with a title already in his mind and saw only what suited his prejudice.
He must began his book with Vijaynagar - (I)an ancient city-empire (II) which Indians have 'forgotten'. He will later contradict himself on both these counts (I) by condemning a politician for trying to look at country through its ancient past. (II) by blaming country of being struck in its past.
Not only that, he must scorn at the country � draw a really dark picture of the country, should tell you that India somehow ‘deserved� to be colonized, has failed as an independent country and that its ways are too old for society to progress.
Poverty
Let us began by admitting a lot of things he says about poverty of the country are true; although it is true they give only a partial image. For example, not all houses of country (even those of poor) are like those Slum dwellers of Mumbai as Naipaul would have you think. It is having you look at a man's armpit and then have you believe that this is what whole man look like. (Okay! I need to work with my metaphors.)
He also forgets to mention that country was one of the richest country in eighteenth century � and that british rule drained it dry. It takes his genius to look at country’s poverty and not feels frustrated at the powerful who caused it. Not only he managed to do so without talking about british rule but also without talking about corruption prevalent in Indian government services.
He would often distort the situation rather than making it clear; throw in random phrases the like ‘Hindu way of life� and window dress the facts to make his case.
For example, not all parts of India were poor � he just conveniently missed the regions of Panjab and Harayana which had shown miraculous growth in food production during years of green revolution and while he is quick to say co-operatives won’t work in India; he forgot to mention the incredible success of Amul co-operative which by the time he was writing actually turned into a country wide initiative ‘Operation Flood�.
And let me tell you more, this ‘poor� country with ‘no resources� gave refuge to over ten million Bangladeshis during Bangladesh Liberation War just a few years before Naipaul wrote the book. Another fact missed by Naipaul. We sure don’t like to preach but it is not because we are bad at doing so. This time I’m going to preach a little. Compare Indian attitude back than to present European attitude towards a few lakhs of migrants –where governments decide how many people they are willing to take in (how easy it is to be indifferent to lives once we start talking in numbers!) and where those people will settle down.
Again what he says of untouchibility is particularly moving and probably true but let me tell you, it is not like we were not doing something. He will tell you that constitution had just been suspended but won’t tell you the constitution he just talked about was framed by an untouchable. Also that untouchability was banned under same constitution � something British didn’t do in their reign extending two centuries.
Hindu way of life
He puts all the blame on what he calls ‘Hindu way of life� which in itself is the result of his own oriental bias. He is himself culprit of several fallacies he sees in others. There is just no Hindu way of life. You can’t expect one/eighth of the population of the world to be same in any way at all. His generalization come out of a character from R.K. Narayana � and no, not the famous opportunist ‘Raju� from The Guide or ‘Swami�, the protagonist in Narayan’s children stories –those figures won’t suit the image he is trying to create He must choose an example of intellect, Mr. Sampath, accuse him of giving up on world he lives in and then generalize it for all Hindus. I mean all intellects are like that; look at Naipaul’s own life, is he not himself dependent on society for providing him with a lavish life style while all he does is just scorn at different cultures? Yet since Sampanth reads Sanskrit books while Naipaul reads western classics; it makes all the difference in the world. And even if he wants to call it the ‘Hindu way of life�; only a few people actually lived that kind of life.
Indifference to Politics
Nor Hindus or Indians were particularly indifferent to who is rulling upon them. He actually generalizes this notion from what he read of RK Narayan’s uncle. It is funny, isn’t it?
Yes, Emergency was the darkest spot in history of Indian democracy but even USA had its civil war. You can’t judge the book of my life from the chapter you walk in ( a quote from ŷ)
And Indians love talking about their Politics. Politics is one of six most talked about subjects (the other five being � marriage, opposite sex, cricket, religion, bollywood; information source: yours only) India has one of the highest voter turn-up; much, much higher than most first world countries despite the fact that socio-economic costs of voting for an individual are higher in India than in west.
Indians and Hindus are not the same
Actually this inter-changeable usage of words ‘Indians� and ‘Hindus� itself is wrong, criminally wrong. India has world’s third largest Musilm population; largest Sikh population and communities of several other religions. It is offensive to call a secular country or its people ‘Hindu� � if Naipaul had actually looked at some of ‘Hindu� philosophy he loves so talking so much about, he could have been surprised at diversity of thought in it.
No, he even goes to anarchy of calling all Muslim ruler as foreigners; even when most of whom never left India all their lives. He can’t call himself ‘Indian� when his ancestors have been out of India for a hundred years, yet he wants to raise an eye brow when some Muslim tells him that his family is Indian for five centuries.
Dark Ages
All the last thousand years of the country are ‘dark� ages according to him. Dark ages which have produced among architecture � Taj Mahal, Lal Quila, Bhakra Dam; among saints and philosophers � Madhvacharya, Kabir, Nanak, Gobind, Vivekananda; among artists � Surdas (he could make it rain through his music); Premchand, Tagore etc. This list could go on and on but I just don’t see the point.
I'm not saying there were dark ages, there were - like other parts of world; but they sure never lasted beyond a couple of centuries.
The Western Ideas
Now one last question - do you ever saw an Indian saying ‘Zero� is an Indian invention; Westerners don’t know how to use it or they must inhibit use of what is a foreign idea to them? No? Then why do everybody keep saying democracy won’t work in East; that Judiciary is a western concept and so on? Not only that, but you must give Nobel Prize to people for saying that. BTW, Democracy had actually failed in Germany and Italy just a few decades back. It had also failed in country of its origion, France, just a few years after it was first established.
Gandhism
At one point Naipaul will have you believe a politician's statement that India had once again turn into Importer of foodgrains (which is not true) at face value just because he is gandhian. Later he is questioning gandhian politics itself after Gandhi's death. You can't have an apple and eat it too. He is scarcastic when told that Gandhi presented himself in dhoti to English president to show the world India's poverty. Naipaul's thoughts - 'as if they didn't know it already'. And what is Naipaul himself doing if I may ask? Is he not selling India's poverty? It is not like Naipaul is here to offer some solutions. No he won’t even pretend to. According to him, India can’t be helped. I mean we don't need to import Naipaul for this, we have enough of those pessimistic useless uncles of our own, to tell us that.
Last time I checked, India was world’s second fastest growing economy. Take that Naipaul!
What is not fine is when it is done by a author who seems to scorning at the people, feeling disgusted at them as if he belongs to some higher race.
Now V. S Naipaul calls India a ‘difficult� country. He has clear problems with Indian part of his Identity and he probably feels insulted by it. The tone he takes is not that of ‘We� Indians but instead ‘they� Indians�. Yet, he must write about it � because let us face it; a book about India is big bucks.
The ‘India� shown in this book must have suited to then western temperament, when US didn’t approve of India-Russia relations. I bet he actually came to India with a title already in his mind and saw only what suited his prejudice.
He must began his book with Vijaynagar - (I)an ancient city-empire (II) which Indians have 'forgotten'. He will later contradict himself on both these counts (I) by condemning a politician for trying to look at country through its ancient past. (II) by blaming country of being struck in its past.
Not only that, he must scorn at the country � draw a really dark picture of the country, should tell you that India somehow ‘deserved� to be colonized, has failed as an independent country and that its ways are too old for society to progress.
Poverty
Let us began by admitting a lot of things he says about poverty of the country are true; although it is true they give only a partial image. For example, not all houses of country (even those of poor) are like those Slum dwellers of Mumbai as Naipaul would have you think. It is having you look at a man's armpit and then have you believe that this is what whole man look like. (Okay! I need to work with my metaphors.)
He also forgets to mention that country was one of the richest country in eighteenth century � and that british rule drained it dry. It takes his genius to look at country’s poverty and not feels frustrated at the powerful who caused it. Not only he managed to do so without talking about british rule but also without talking about corruption prevalent in Indian government services.
He would often distort the situation rather than making it clear; throw in random phrases the like ‘Hindu way of life� and window dress the facts to make his case.
For example, not all parts of India were poor � he just conveniently missed the regions of Panjab and Harayana which had shown miraculous growth in food production during years of green revolution and while he is quick to say co-operatives won’t work in India; he forgot to mention the incredible success of Amul co-operative which by the time he was writing actually turned into a country wide initiative ‘Operation Flood�.
And let me tell you more, this ‘poor� country with ‘no resources� gave refuge to over ten million Bangladeshis during Bangladesh Liberation War just a few years before Naipaul wrote the book. Another fact missed by Naipaul. We sure don’t like to preach but it is not because we are bad at doing so. This time I’m going to preach a little. Compare Indian attitude back than to present European attitude towards a few lakhs of migrants –where governments decide how many people they are willing to take in (how easy it is to be indifferent to lives once we start talking in numbers!) and where those people will settle down.
Again what he says of untouchibility is particularly moving and probably true but let me tell you, it is not like we were not doing something. He will tell you that constitution had just been suspended but won’t tell you the constitution he just talked about was framed by an untouchable. Also that untouchability was banned under same constitution � something British didn’t do in their reign extending two centuries.
Hindu way of life
He puts all the blame on what he calls ‘Hindu way of life� which in itself is the result of his own oriental bias. He is himself culprit of several fallacies he sees in others. There is just no Hindu way of life. You can’t expect one/eighth of the population of the world to be same in any way at all. His generalization come out of a character from R.K. Narayana � and no, not the famous opportunist ‘Raju� from The Guide or ‘Swami�, the protagonist in Narayan’s children stories –those figures won’t suit the image he is trying to create He must choose an example of intellect, Mr. Sampath, accuse him of giving up on world he lives in and then generalize it for all Hindus. I mean all intellects are like that; look at Naipaul’s own life, is he not himself dependent on society for providing him with a lavish life style while all he does is just scorn at different cultures? Yet since Sampanth reads Sanskrit books while Naipaul reads western classics; it makes all the difference in the world. And even if he wants to call it the ‘Hindu way of life�; only a few people actually lived that kind of life.
Indifference to Politics
Nor Hindus or Indians were particularly indifferent to who is rulling upon them. He actually generalizes this notion from what he read of RK Narayan’s uncle. It is funny, isn’t it?
Yes, Emergency was the darkest spot in history of Indian democracy but even USA had its civil war. You can’t judge the book of my life from the chapter you walk in ( a quote from ŷ)
And Indians love talking about their Politics. Politics is one of six most talked about subjects (the other five being � marriage, opposite sex, cricket, religion, bollywood; information source: yours only) India has one of the highest voter turn-up; much, much higher than most first world countries despite the fact that socio-economic costs of voting for an individual are higher in India than in west.
Indians and Hindus are not the same
Actually this inter-changeable usage of words ‘Indians� and ‘Hindus� itself is wrong, criminally wrong. India has world’s third largest Musilm population; largest Sikh population and communities of several other religions. It is offensive to call a secular country or its people ‘Hindu� � if Naipaul had actually looked at some of ‘Hindu� philosophy he loves so talking so much about, he could have been surprised at diversity of thought in it.
No, he even goes to anarchy of calling all Muslim ruler as foreigners; even when most of whom never left India all their lives. He can’t call himself ‘Indian� when his ancestors have been out of India for a hundred years, yet he wants to raise an eye brow when some Muslim tells him that his family is Indian for five centuries.
Dark Ages
All the last thousand years of the country are ‘dark� ages according to him. Dark ages which have produced among architecture � Taj Mahal, Lal Quila, Bhakra Dam; among saints and philosophers � Madhvacharya, Kabir, Nanak, Gobind, Vivekananda; among artists � Surdas (he could make it rain through his music); Premchand, Tagore etc. This list could go on and on but I just don’t see the point.
I'm not saying there were dark ages, there were - like other parts of world; but they sure never lasted beyond a couple of centuries.
The Western Ideas
Now one last question - do you ever saw an Indian saying ‘Zero� is an Indian invention; Westerners don’t know how to use it or they must inhibit use of what is a foreign idea to them? No? Then why do everybody keep saying democracy won’t work in East; that Judiciary is a western concept and so on? Not only that, but you must give Nobel Prize to people for saying that. BTW, Democracy had actually failed in Germany and Italy just a few decades back. It had also failed in country of its origion, France, just a few years after it was first established.
Gandhism
At one point Naipaul will have you believe a politician's statement that India had once again turn into Importer of foodgrains (which is not true) at face value just because he is gandhian. Later he is questioning gandhian politics itself after Gandhi's death. You can't have an apple and eat it too. He is scarcastic when told that Gandhi presented himself in dhoti to English president to show the world India's poverty. Naipaul's thoughts - 'as if they didn't know it already'. And what is Naipaul himself doing if I may ask? Is he not selling India's poverty? It is not like Naipaul is here to offer some solutions. No he won’t even pretend to. According to him, India can’t be helped. I mean we don't need to import Naipaul for this, we have enough of those pessimistic useless uncles of our own, to tell us that.
Last time I checked, India was world’s second fastest growing economy. Take that Naipaul!
June 17, 2012
If you are an Indian with a national pride, I would be surprised if you get through this book with your pride still afloat. Naipaul literally rips through the Indian psyche in an uncompromising and practical manner. Every aspect of India, its education system, its mindset, its administrative setup, political and religious beliefs have been ridiculed and I am not angered as the logic is telling in most occasions. Even though, this book was completed in 1976, I can see that not much has changed as I too perceive Indians being unclear of their identity. 'The nation as a whole still lacks ideology and just swallows up ideas from other countries.' This is one of the key messages from the book. The book is a must read for an Indian just because it forces the much-needed introspection. I wouldn't recommend it to other nationals as it portrays the Indian citizens as menial workers who lack the faculty of logical reasoning and thinking and this portrayal can influence general perception on Indians. Overall, an absolute classic by Naipaul who has shown his prowess as an astute observer and a gifted writer.
July 22, 2017
In the forward, Naipaul identifies himself to be of the New World, having been raised in a far more homogeneous Indian community in Trinidad, than the isolated countrymen Gandhi met in South Africa in 1983. He also admits to have been washed clean off many religious attitudes, which according to him, are essential in understanding Indian civilization. This book is a collection of 8 essays in 3 parts, on his experiences and observations about the mainland, during Internal Emergency(1975-1977).
With this knowledge at one’s disposal, though rude and harsh from an average Indian perspective, these essays offer good critique on life during Emergency period and Indian democracy in general. In the introductory essay he aligns his first Indian visit with what he had learned about the country from RK Narayan‘s 1949 novel �Mr. Sampath�. His Indian experience becomes less accessible and overwhelming, as he finds everyone politically nonchalant like the titular character of book. He then associates his observation with the repeated conquests of land in past and its tendency to respond by retreating to archaism, even though it provides no substitute for modernities like like Press, Parliament or Courts. He further effeminates ‘Non-violence� as a means of securing undisturbed calm and reduces it to an excuse for non-doing, non-interference and social indifference. Also contradictingly, he is somehow unable to appreciate any effort for individual and collective (abolition of privy purses and titles, a female prime minister addressing the nation about living in the present without sweeping away the past) advancements, and write them off as mock aggressiveness and mock desperation. Still, in Naipaul’s denial of Hindu response to the world, in its comedy and irony, this reader found a mysterious reverence towards something he couldn’t comprehend.
In the second essay, he brings our attention to another novel by Narayan� �The Vendor of Sweets�. Here I found myself aligning with the author, in his complaint of using elated visions of eternity as cheap escapism from ones duties, a concept highly misrepresented in Hesse‘s �Siddhartha�. I was ‘hear, hear� with his viewpoints, in blind acceptance of suffering as ‘karma� for what one has done in past lives, though he was using it for emphasizing the elegiac fixation of India in its past. Our newfound romance soon found its grave, when he started hyphenating ‘Karma� as the classical Hindu retreat, who got nothing to offer, when his world shatters. Still, under the light of then deified poverty with Gandhian-ism, it wasn’t difficult for me to agree with the existence and acceptance of antique violence and caste system, justified by the twisted philosophy of past life redemption.
The third essay � ‘The Skyscrapers and the Chawls�, is Naipaul‘s �Maximum City�. His experiences in Bombay had made him render the city in an image of Dostoevsky’s St. Petersburg, but with a crowd that never truly dispersed. Unable to understand the prevailing street culture, he then goes back to the mistake of relating individual Identity with set of beliefs, and concludes that people are burdened with a nationalism, which, after years of subjection, badly demanded an Idea of India. This underlying narrative prevailed in the essay that followed where he defined Naxalism as ‘an intellectual tragedy of middle class, incapable of generating ideas of its own, borrowing someone else’s idea of revolution�. His next essay, ‘A Defect of Vision� tried to define Gandhian philosophy as a negative way of perceiving the external world. Naipaul argues Gandhi’s experiments and discoveries and vows as means for answering his own needs as a Hindu, for defining ‘the self� in the midst of hostility, and not of universal application. He then puts forward an amazing review for U.R. Anantamurti’s novel, �Samskara� to substantiate this fierce inward concentration of ‘Hindu nationalism�. Gist of both could be better summed up in Sudhir Karkar’s words � “We Indians use the outside reality to preserve the continuity of the self-amidst an ever changing flux of outer events and things� . I wish I could prove Naipaul wrong after what is almost half a century, but Indian Politics still remain narrow, and based on caste and religion as he accuses it to be, back then.
Remaining portions of book are more or less variegated accounts of Emergency Period, from freedom of Press to Poverty, with the underlying idea of ‘modernity� or ‘Indian-ness� being a facade. But he offered a commendable perspective on clamorous religious excitation of Indian political programme. Gandhian-ism in modern day is reduced to Mahatma-hood: religious ecstasy and self-display, and escape from constructive thought and political burdens. Like a solace for conquered people, alienated by the state, he argues. I thoroughly enjoyed his well-researched last essay, where his pet punching bag was Bhave, for overdoing everything and making Gandhi a figure like ‘Merlin�. Yet, by the end of the day, to Naipaul, India is without an ideology, locked in by fantasies of Ramraj (Rule of Ram: an Indian utopia), spirituality and return to village, where everyone is paralyzed with obedience as demanded by ‘dharma�.
The communal accord of history moves along the lines of identifying India primarily by her religious identities, and is uprooted on the colonial assumption of them being fundamentally in conflict. And there are historians who produce voluminous reports in this line, using the century old Colonial pretext of Imperial powers being the anointed benign saving medium. I remember reading an essay associating Naipaul’s acceptance in the New World over Desani , for his West appeasing narrative, and though farfetched, this book inclines me to buy that argument. No matter what he had experienced over the visit, the good, the bad and the ugly of a young nation in its worst period of democratic history, Naipaul was hell bent on finding a way back to his personal clincher � title of the book.
In the first essay, Naipaul mentions about a middle class rich girl he got to meet during a Delhi dinner party, who is married to a foreigner and living abroad. To him, she was in a state of despair and confusion, of having lost her place in the world, not having a caste or a community. And he was amazed by her calmness on return to India during the chaotic Emergency, like its world’s deepest order, where everything is fixed, sanctified and secure. If I may go off the reservation and be a condescending critic as this book was, I found Naipaul jealous of above trait and rather frustrated in his inability to understand the civilization he draws bloodline from, and yet, utterly helpless in being drawn towards it time and again.
This maybe his coping mechanism.
Still, one cannot categorize this book as an archaic critique on antique mind-sets, without ignoring the relevance of harsh truths, however little and offending they might be. Especially in our present day ‘triggered� generation, filled with internal anxieties about food eaten, places of worship, sexual preferences, and intolerance towards everything they can’t agree with. But marginalizing a whole civilization solely on their basis and laxity towards everything otherwise, is where author and this reader part ways.
With this knowledge at one’s disposal, though rude and harsh from an average Indian perspective, these essays offer good critique on life during Emergency period and Indian democracy in general. In the introductory essay he aligns his first Indian visit with what he had learned about the country from RK Narayan‘s 1949 novel �Mr. Sampath�. His Indian experience becomes less accessible and overwhelming, as he finds everyone politically nonchalant like the titular character of book. He then associates his observation with the repeated conquests of land in past and its tendency to respond by retreating to archaism, even though it provides no substitute for modernities like like Press, Parliament or Courts. He further effeminates ‘Non-violence� as a means of securing undisturbed calm and reduces it to an excuse for non-doing, non-interference and social indifference. Also contradictingly, he is somehow unable to appreciate any effort for individual and collective (abolition of privy purses and titles, a female prime minister addressing the nation about living in the present without sweeping away the past) advancements, and write them off as mock aggressiveness and mock desperation. Still, in Naipaul’s denial of Hindu response to the world, in its comedy and irony, this reader found a mysterious reverence towards something he couldn’t comprehend.
In the second essay, he brings our attention to another novel by Narayan� �The Vendor of Sweets�. Here I found myself aligning with the author, in his complaint of using elated visions of eternity as cheap escapism from ones duties, a concept highly misrepresented in Hesse‘s �Siddhartha�. I was ‘hear, hear� with his viewpoints, in blind acceptance of suffering as ‘karma� for what one has done in past lives, though he was using it for emphasizing the elegiac fixation of India in its past. Our newfound romance soon found its grave, when he started hyphenating ‘Karma� as the classical Hindu retreat, who got nothing to offer, when his world shatters. Still, under the light of then deified poverty with Gandhian-ism, it wasn’t difficult for me to agree with the existence and acceptance of antique violence and caste system, justified by the twisted philosophy of past life redemption.
The third essay � ‘The Skyscrapers and the Chawls�, is Naipaul‘s �Maximum City�. His experiences in Bombay had made him render the city in an image of Dostoevsky’s St. Petersburg, but with a crowd that never truly dispersed. Unable to understand the prevailing street culture, he then goes back to the mistake of relating individual Identity with set of beliefs, and concludes that people are burdened with a nationalism, which, after years of subjection, badly demanded an Idea of India. This underlying narrative prevailed in the essay that followed where he defined Naxalism as ‘an intellectual tragedy of middle class, incapable of generating ideas of its own, borrowing someone else’s idea of revolution�. His next essay, ‘A Defect of Vision� tried to define Gandhian philosophy as a negative way of perceiving the external world. Naipaul argues Gandhi’s experiments and discoveries and vows as means for answering his own needs as a Hindu, for defining ‘the self� in the midst of hostility, and not of universal application. He then puts forward an amazing review for U.R. Anantamurti’s novel, �Samskara� to substantiate this fierce inward concentration of ‘Hindu nationalism�. Gist of both could be better summed up in Sudhir Karkar’s words � “We Indians use the outside reality to preserve the continuity of the self-amidst an ever changing flux of outer events and things� . I wish I could prove Naipaul wrong after what is almost half a century, but Indian Politics still remain narrow, and based on caste and religion as he accuses it to be, back then.
Remaining portions of book are more or less variegated accounts of Emergency Period, from freedom of Press to Poverty, with the underlying idea of ‘modernity� or ‘Indian-ness� being a facade. But he offered a commendable perspective on clamorous religious excitation of Indian political programme. Gandhian-ism in modern day is reduced to Mahatma-hood: religious ecstasy and self-display, and escape from constructive thought and political burdens. Like a solace for conquered people, alienated by the state, he argues. I thoroughly enjoyed his well-researched last essay, where his pet punching bag was Bhave, for overdoing everything and making Gandhi a figure like ‘Merlin�. Yet, by the end of the day, to Naipaul, India is without an ideology, locked in by fantasies of Ramraj (Rule of Ram: an Indian utopia), spirituality and return to village, where everyone is paralyzed with obedience as demanded by ‘dharma�.
The communal accord of history moves along the lines of identifying India primarily by her religious identities, and is uprooted on the colonial assumption of them being fundamentally in conflict. And there are historians who produce voluminous reports in this line, using the century old Colonial pretext of Imperial powers being the anointed benign saving medium. I remember reading an essay associating Naipaul’s acceptance in the New World over Desani , for his West appeasing narrative, and though farfetched, this book inclines me to buy that argument. No matter what he had experienced over the visit, the good, the bad and the ugly of a young nation in its worst period of democratic history, Naipaul was hell bent on finding a way back to his personal clincher � title of the book.
In the first essay, Naipaul mentions about a middle class rich girl he got to meet during a Delhi dinner party, who is married to a foreigner and living abroad. To him, she was in a state of despair and confusion, of having lost her place in the world, not having a caste or a community. And he was amazed by her calmness on return to India during the chaotic Emergency, like its world’s deepest order, where everything is fixed, sanctified and secure. If I may go off the reservation and be a condescending critic as this book was, I found Naipaul jealous of above trait and rather frustrated in his inability to understand the civilization he draws bloodline from, and yet, utterly helpless in being drawn towards it time and again.
This maybe his coping mechanism.
Still, one cannot categorize this book as an archaic critique on antique mind-sets, without ignoring the relevance of harsh truths, however little and offending they might be. Especially in our present day ‘triggered� generation, filled with internal anxieties about food eaten, places of worship, sexual preferences, and intolerance towards everything they can’t agree with. But marginalizing a whole civilization solely on their basis and laxity towards everything otherwise, is where author and this reader part ways.
January 1, 2025
È un'opera di complessa classificazione: non è integralmente un racconto di viaggio, per quanto il libro nasca in occasione di un viaggio compiuto da Naipaul in India negli anni '70, e per quanto vengano raccontate percezioni ed immagini catturate durante la visita; non è quasi sicuramente un saggio, mancando la coesione ed il rigore di un saggio ante litteram, presenti soltanto a sprazzi; a tratti sembra persino una raccolta di recensioni di opere di autori indiani da cui trarre testimonianze della decadenza indiana: e potrei continuare così ancora e ancora.
È insomma un po' un ammasso confusionario, dove tutti questi spezzoni di generi non si amalgamano e restano disuniti, in cui la voce di Naipaul riesce solo a tratti ad uniformare il tutto in un originale resoconto sulla decadenza della civiltà indiana durante l'epoca dell'Emergenza.
Oltre ciò, l'opera non mi ha convinto appieno per altri motivi: in primis, non sono riuscito ad entrare in piena sintonia col pensiero di Naipaul. A tratti l'ho trovato maledettamente poco empatico nei confronti degli intoccabili, l'ultimo e martoriato gradino del sistema castale indiano; a tratti tremendamente razzista (in certi casi vi sono addirittura mirabolanti descrizioni di razze, termine usato in continuazione dallo stesso Naipaul); in certi aspetti invece superficiale (specialmente nei confronti del movimento naxalita), certe volte non capace di perforare la coltre di una società che resta incomprensibile persino agli indiani stessi (Naipaul infatti non è indiano, è nato da figli di indiani nati e vissuti a Trinidad, per poi trasferirsi e vivere in Inghilterra): talvolta mi è sembrato che il rammarico provato nel racconto della sofferenza indiana non fosse proveniente dal cuore di un uomo, ma dal freddo cervello di un borghese.
Devo però riconoscere che qui e là sparsa per l'opera scintilla la penna dello scrittore "di razza" (sì, ormai sono anch'io plagiato) come nella descrizione della bidonville di Bombay, o del feudale sistema agricolo ancora vigente negli anni '70, o nei pungenti ritratti di Gandhi e ancora di più di Bhave, il successore designato di e da Gandhi, descritto in tono provocatorio e brillante.
L'incertezza di quest'opera secondo me si evince soprattutto dalla chiave di lettura che Naipaul dà della decadenza indiana: da una parte l'aprioristica accettazione di modelli e strutture sociali e comportamentali occidentali, completamente avulse dal pensiero indiano; dall'altra, la presenza ancora ingombrante di una religione che nei suoi aspetti quotidiani risulta spesso fanatica, ancorata a rituali magici e sciamani, a credenze che definire medievali sarebbe riduttivo (come nella necessità religiosa di continuare ad usare il carro trainato da buoi per la lavorazione dei campi piuttosto che le macchine a motore...). In questo binomio Naipaul secondo me non riesce a fornire una sintesi, resta incerto in discorsi astratti e nuvolosi.
È insomma un po' un ammasso confusionario, dove tutti questi spezzoni di generi non si amalgamano e restano disuniti, in cui la voce di Naipaul riesce solo a tratti ad uniformare il tutto in un originale resoconto sulla decadenza della civiltà indiana durante l'epoca dell'Emergenza.
Oltre ciò, l'opera non mi ha convinto appieno per altri motivi: in primis, non sono riuscito ad entrare in piena sintonia col pensiero di Naipaul. A tratti l'ho trovato maledettamente poco empatico nei confronti degli intoccabili, l'ultimo e martoriato gradino del sistema castale indiano; a tratti tremendamente razzista (in certi casi vi sono addirittura mirabolanti descrizioni di razze, termine usato in continuazione dallo stesso Naipaul); in certi aspetti invece superficiale (specialmente nei confronti del movimento naxalita), certe volte non capace di perforare la coltre di una società che resta incomprensibile persino agli indiani stessi (Naipaul infatti non è indiano, è nato da figli di indiani nati e vissuti a Trinidad, per poi trasferirsi e vivere in Inghilterra): talvolta mi è sembrato che il rammarico provato nel racconto della sofferenza indiana non fosse proveniente dal cuore di un uomo, ma dal freddo cervello di un borghese.
Devo però riconoscere che qui e là sparsa per l'opera scintilla la penna dello scrittore "di razza" (sì, ormai sono anch'io plagiato) come nella descrizione della bidonville di Bombay, o del feudale sistema agricolo ancora vigente negli anni '70, o nei pungenti ritratti di Gandhi e ancora di più di Bhave, il successore designato di e da Gandhi, descritto in tono provocatorio e brillante.
L'incertezza di quest'opera secondo me si evince soprattutto dalla chiave di lettura che Naipaul dà della decadenza indiana: da una parte l'aprioristica accettazione di modelli e strutture sociali e comportamentali occidentali, completamente avulse dal pensiero indiano; dall'altra, la presenza ancora ingombrante di una religione che nei suoi aspetti quotidiani risulta spesso fanatica, ancorata a rituali magici e sciamani, a credenze che definire medievali sarebbe riduttivo (come nella necessità religiosa di continuare ad usare il carro trainato da buoi per la lavorazione dei campi piuttosto che le macchine a motore...). In questo binomio Naipaul secondo me non riesce a fornire una sintesi, resta incerto in discorsi astratti e nuvolosi.
December 4, 2013
I started this book expecting to enjoy it for the same reasons other readers had criticized it: Naipaul's "negativity" and his willingness to question a culture that's not his own. I do believe that an outsider can, under the right circumstances, offer a valuable perspective on a foreign country. Unfortunately, as he acknowledges in the introduction, Naipaul has a complex relationship with India that largely prevents him from treating it without bias or, it seems, anything other than smug hostility. "India is for me a difficult country. It isn't my home and cannot be my home; and yet I cannot reject it or be indifferent to it; I cannot travel only for the sights. I am at once too close and too far." This sounds to me like an older brother describing a sibling who he's bound to 'love' but can only feel contempt for, and what follows is an ugly book of cheap shots and bullying. Admittedly, some of Naipaul's criticism was simply over my head and required more than a casual knowledge of India to appreciate. While much of it sounds like it could be valid, he continuously undercuts it with cringe-inducing generalizations such as "the inadequacy of every Indian's idea of India." There are some worthwhile passages, less tainted with bitterness—his meeting with a village leader, his reading of Gandhi's autobiography—but these require more effort than most readers will be willing to give. I don't fault Naipaul for his personal feelings about India, I just don't want to read about them. In the end, I felt the book had given me such a distorted picture of the country, as it was in the mid-1970s, that I was left with more questions than I had before reading it.
September 27, 2019
This is a book about India, but it could be about "oriental fatalism" more generally, which Naipaul never ceased to notice or despise. Naipaul criticizes the psychology of Hinduism from the perspective of someone who is culturally Hindu himself. He engages in his usual curmudgeonly tourism and shares his lacerating observations. The medieval squalor of Indian life is depicted in evocative terms. There are also extended attacks on Gandhi and certain Indian literary figures of the 1970s. The British are praised for intellectually stimulating India during their colonial enterprise. The world Naipaul is describing already seems to have been superseded.
I didn't like this book at first since it seemed to be irrelevant to present circumstances. After awhile though, its significance began to dawn on me. This is a book about one type of Hindu, or one type of Asian, killing another type. Naipaul hates what he sees as the decadent spirituality of India. He wants a new Hindu Indian, who is a man of action rather than one of Gandhian spirituality and self-cultivation. The latter, it is argued, has resigned Hindus to centuries of defeat, subjection, casteism and acceptance of suffering. Rather than a type of stoicism, spirituality is merely the minimum psychological tool for a defeated people to survive. He cherrypicks history to paint as bleak a picture as possible and has total faith in the West, which admittedly was still at its unchallengeable apex during his early lifetime. He did not see the good or the possibilities that may exist or had existed within a non-Western people. Nonetheless, as always, he was correct that something was wrong.
Naipaul wanted Hindu Indians to leave behind spiritual nonsense and stir to material action, rational calculation and race consciousness. Reading this book helped me understand Naipaul's own later support of Hindu nationalist movements, including violent ones. He laceratingly criticizes the traditional Hindu way of life and thought, in a way that would probably have struck some as offensive. For all his venom, it's intended as constructive criticism. He painfully wanted Hindus to thrive as a powerful modern people, rather than as bearers some ancient civilization. It seems like people did listen to him in India. They changed, and are changing. "The past has to be seen to be dead; or the past will kill," Naipaul wrote. There can be no continuity with any imagined antique harmony. I am starting to think that is a good message for Muslims to reflect on as well.
The Gandhian world that Naipaul loathed so much is in its death throes. In many ways Naipaul was really under-recognized as an anti-Gandhi. Some of his criticisms are no doubt true. But I feel that the jury is still out on his total hatred for metaphysics and embrace of Western materialism. If the process of psychological Westernizing the people of India and Asia ultimately leads them to material death � either through ecological collapse or nuclear annihilation � in my view that will be an important judgement to take into consideration.
I didn't like this book at first since it seemed to be irrelevant to present circumstances. After awhile though, its significance began to dawn on me. This is a book about one type of Hindu, or one type of Asian, killing another type. Naipaul hates what he sees as the decadent spirituality of India. He wants a new Hindu Indian, who is a man of action rather than one of Gandhian spirituality and self-cultivation. The latter, it is argued, has resigned Hindus to centuries of defeat, subjection, casteism and acceptance of suffering. Rather than a type of stoicism, spirituality is merely the minimum psychological tool for a defeated people to survive. He cherrypicks history to paint as bleak a picture as possible and has total faith in the West, which admittedly was still at its unchallengeable apex during his early lifetime. He did not see the good or the possibilities that may exist or had existed within a non-Western people. Nonetheless, as always, he was correct that something was wrong.
Naipaul wanted Hindu Indians to leave behind spiritual nonsense and stir to material action, rational calculation and race consciousness. Reading this book helped me understand Naipaul's own later support of Hindu nationalist movements, including violent ones. He laceratingly criticizes the traditional Hindu way of life and thought, in a way that would probably have struck some as offensive. For all his venom, it's intended as constructive criticism. He painfully wanted Hindus to thrive as a powerful modern people, rather than as bearers some ancient civilization. It seems like people did listen to him in India. They changed, and are changing. "The past has to be seen to be dead; or the past will kill," Naipaul wrote. There can be no continuity with any imagined antique harmony. I am starting to think that is a good message for Muslims to reflect on as well.
The Gandhian world that Naipaul loathed so much is in its death throes. In many ways Naipaul was really under-recognized as an anti-Gandhi. Some of his criticisms are no doubt true. But I feel that the jury is still out on his total hatred for metaphysics and embrace of Western materialism. If the process of psychological Westernizing the people of India and Asia ultimately leads them to material death � either through ecological collapse or nuclear annihilation � in my view that will be an important judgement to take into consideration.
January 27, 2018
A fascinating view of India during the Emergency in 1975-1976. Naipaul has a very negative view of India and its obsession with Gandhism. A good quote that sums up his viewpoint is ‘Gandhi swept through India, but he has left it without an ideology. He awakened the Holy land; his mahatmahood returned it to archaism; he made his worshippers vain.�
Although the eight essays in this book were published 40 years ago their relevance can still be seen today in India. Bonded labour or slavery still exists, the caste system still exists and thrives as well as the poverty in the rural areas. The examples he gives of trying to bring modern technology to India and the reluctance to change is still evident in 2018. However, India is changing albeit slowly.
I was surprised to see Balzac and his novel Cousine Bette mentioned in the final essay as I just finished it a week ago. The context was about work and duty. The problem with India from these essays is your caste defines who you are and your place in society and status with no real way to escape it.
Although the eight essays in this book were published 40 years ago their relevance can still be seen today in India. Bonded labour or slavery still exists, the caste system still exists and thrives as well as the poverty in the rural areas. The examples he gives of trying to bring modern technology to India and the reluctance to change is still evident in 2018. However, India is changing albeit slowly.
I was surprised to see Balzac and his novel Cousine Bette mentioned in the final essay as I just finished it a week ago. The context was about work and duty. The problem with India from these essays is your caste defines who you are and your place in society and status with no real way to escape it.
August 17, 2018
The great G. K. Chesterton once noted that he had an idea for a novel that he was either “too busy or too lazy" to actualize. The plot concerned a yachtsman who through miscalculation lands in England when he believes he’s discovered a new island in the South Pacific. Despite some beautiful prose, I believe something akin happened to V.S. Naipaul when he traveled to India. Every broken lightbulb or beggar confirms his thesis of a failed people, unsuited for intellectual endeavor and seemingly Naipaul would then go into the shadow of a new hydroelectric dam to scribble these notes. There’s an uncomfortable invective on display. The fact that the visit occurred during the infamous Emergency is the sole consolation. Naipaul predicts a smashing of the great Indian nation state, a subsequent creation of small nations. During the mid 1970s many people predicted a number of such collapses as when the Love Canal caught fire, the last chopper left Saigon, the Junta assumes control of Argentina and Larry Mullins Jr. leaves a note in a Dublin rec center seeking band mates.
One should not fault Naipaul for his failures of prognosis. There’s plenty to dislike about Vidia, just don’t be cheap about it.
One should not fault Naipaul for his failures of prognosis. There’s plenty to dislike about Vidia, just don’t be cheap about it.
March 17, 2009
Among the three books Naipaul has written on India (Area Of Darkness, A Wounded Civilisation and third, A Million Mutinies Now), this one has to be the most scathing of them all. While the other two are travelogues in nature, A Wounded Civilisation is more of a critique - an analysis.
Since the book is so academic in nature, it's really difficult to absorb everything he says in one reading - this most certainly needs to be revisited to analyse clearly the various points the author raises.
As expected, it's the cynical, fierce side of Naipaul you get to see, exposing India for all that ails it. Predictably, he doesn’t give the country an inch.
The book was written post the Emergency (1975) and Naipaul makes a persuasive argument about how the country's political collapse is really the least of its concerns. He makes a case for how the Hindi way of life (with its customs, beliefs, myths, mysticism and orthodoxy) prevents the country from ever shedding the burden of its past and idea of the 'self'. This, he believes, has crippled Indians and their intellectual capacities, leading to them seeing everything from the prism of their own limited mental scape. The spirit of science and enquiry cannot exist amidst such primitivism, he says.
Interesting, Naipaul uses his favourite writer R K Narayan's works to delve into the deep-rooted psychological and attitudinal problems that India itself suffers from.
He's critical about some aspects about Gandhism and how its result was the deification of poverty itself. Naipaul is especially critical of avid Gandhian Vinoba Bhave, who he says, created a useless archaic model of Gandhi's legacy.
All in all, this book is a rather intriguing one on many fronts, and lends itself to a second read.
Since the book is so academic in nature, it's really difficult to absorb everything he says in one reading - this most certainly needs to be revisited to analyse clearly the various points the author raises.
As expected, it's the cynical, fierce side of Naipaul you get to see, exposing India for all that ails it. Predictably, he doesn’t give the country an inch.
The book was written post the Emergency (1975) and Naipaul makes a persuasive argument about how the country's political collapse is really the least of its concerns. He makes a case for how the Hindi way of life (with its customs, beliefs, myths, mysticism and orthodoxy) prevents the country from ever shedding the burden of its past and idea of the 'self'. This, he believes, has crippled Indians and their intellectual capacities, leading to them seeing everything from the prism of their own limited mental scape. The spirit of science and enquiry cannot exist amidst such primitivism, he says.
Interesting, Naipaul uses his favourite writer R K Narayan's works to delve into the deep-rooted psychological and attitudinal problems that India itself suffers from.
He's critical about some aspects about Gandhism and how its result was the deification of poverty itself. Naipaul is especially critical of avid Gandhian Vinoba Bhave, who he says, created a useless archaic model of Gandhi's legacy.
All in all, this book is a rather intriguing one on many fronts, and lends itself to a second read.
May 6, 2021
This is the second book in Naipaul's 'India Trilogy'. Prompted by the Emergency of 1975, he casts an analytical eye, convinced that India, wounded by a thousand years of foreign rule, has not yet found an ideology of regeneration. The book is remarkable for its clarity and engaging narrative.
It is a scathing criticism of the Indian way of life, Indian spirituality and Gandhian methods and vision. The author exposes the rigid caste system, the drudgery and lack of intellectual capacity, the alien nature of India's ineffective institutions, etc as the reason for India being ossified. It is in his terms, a wounded civilization, devastated by centuries of conquest and defeat. He sees Gandhian model of 'Ram Rajya' like village self-rule and simple life only as a solace of despair.
The solution, he says, is in breaking away from the past to find an ideology of regeneration. In his own words - 'The past has to be seen to be dead, or the past will kill.'
It is a scathing criticism of the Indian way of life, Indian spirituality and Gandhian methods and vision. The author exposes the rigid caste system, the drudgery and lack of intellectual capacity, the alien nature of India's ineffective institutions, etc as the reason for India being ossified. It is in his terms, a wounded civilization, devastated by centuries of conquest and defeat. He sees Gandhian model of 'Ram Rajya' like village self-rule and simple life only as a solace of despair.
The solution, he says, is in breaking away from the past to find an ideology of regeneration. In his own words - 'The past has to be seen to be dead, or the past will kill.'
May 12, 2016
4.5/5 This is the 2nd book in the 3 books that Naipaul has written on India. They were written in 1962, 1977 and 1989 but each of d 3 books seem relevant even today. While the 3rd one is almost completely in d words of ppl bring interviewed and there is little commentary, this one like the first, is all commentary by Naipaul - brutal, honest, relentless, sharp observations on India and Indians.
The author says that in our self-absorption, we engage in self-deception and false glorification of poverty and our history. Also, he makes searing comments on our apathy and lack of initiative/creativity for backwardness. Also, visible to him much more sharply was our caste system. Interestingly, He has also used authors Narayan, Tendulkar, Anantamurthy's books to analyse and illustrate these points.
While this may seem anti-India and may enrage nationalists who loved 'Purab aur Paschim', I did not find a single dishonest and malicious statement. Worth a read ! My 5th book by him and thanks to him for making me read travelogues.
PS:- Lucid but there is no comic relief and a lot to think. Suggest reading a lighter book in parallel.
The author says that in our self-absorption, we engage in self-deception and false glorification of poverty and our history. Also, he makes searing comments on our apathy and lack of initiative/creativity for backwardness. Also, visible to him much more sharply was our caste system. Interestingly, He has also used authors Narayan, Tendulkar, Anantamurthy's books to analyse and illustrate these points.
While this may seem anti-India and may enrage nationalists who loved 'Purab aur Paschim', I did not find a single dishonest and malicious statement. Worth a read ! My 5th book by him and thanks to him for making me read travelogues.
PS:- Lucid but there is no comic relief and a lot to think. Suggest reading a lighter book in parallel.
December 2, 2020
As a distant insider (an East Indian from Trinidad), Naipaul feels free to ridicule almost everything about mother India he can get his hands on. It's refreshingly anti-reverent, and recalls the blazing self-righteousness of youth.
April 25, 2020
Riddled with some outstanding passages Naipaul starts off Part One (A Wounded Civilization) this the second of his famous/infamous trilogy of sorts bemoaning the wretchedness of India with the resolute faith in his thesis that India is not only decrepit in so many ways it was destined to decrepit and also designed to remain decrepit. There is at times yearning for some idyllic early Aryan past which was followed by a millennium of darkness and decline - a monochromatic and now increasingly belligerent and weaponized assertion which more fuels a generation of younger Hindutva writers of fiction and fiction disguised as non-fiction and which is contradicted by scholarship and popular writing Indian and non-Indian that points to vast and multifarious growth, cross-fertilization, productivity and indeed light, during this darkness - and after an admittedly on part of Naipaul (grudgingly one can tell) despotic colonial interregnum which nevertheless had invaluable boons to offers he hastily adds, the rot only deepens post partition.
Naipaul finds even the triumph of Hindu culture in Vijayanagar regressive and insipid what to say of Muslim invaders thereafter. Though to give him credit he finds suffering and caste exploitation to be mainstays of Indian society from even earlier times. Several of his observations about the modes and magnitude of this exploitation may be unpalatable but they are brutally true. It is in his exegesis of the complex, multi-textured, and often beguiling narratives of history that one is lost as to what exactly does he ascribe it all to - happenstance, culture, dialectical materialism, natural order of things, eugenics, or something else. Certainly colonialism and post-colonialism make an appearance in passing. Is the Indian path-dependent when it comes to retreat, surrender and decline? Ridiculous as it may seem we cannot tell and the very last possibility appears to what he seems to be most inclined towards. He refers multiples times in this part of the book to two novels by R.K.Narayan finding therein evidence of the quintessential Hindu approaches to the changing world.
Part 2 (A New Claim on the Land) is quite brilliant because Naipaul describes much more than he theorizes, conjectures, generalizes, imagines, surmises and concludes - the depressing contrast of the skyscrapers and chawls & squatters settlements on the one hand and irrigation cooperatives in bursting Bombay on the one hand and small village tiers of power and control in broken and arid Maharashtrian country on the other. His description of the Naxalite Movement though is sketchy and dismissive. And definitely not prescient as he appears to have written it off though that is not what eventually transpired as we well know.
Part 3 (Not Ideas, But Obsessions) is where Naipaul shows both sides of his writing - at one level he is lucid, poignant, brilliantly deconstructive, irreverent, and capable of writing truly magical sentences (I have to hold a pencil to underline); at another level he is acerbic, dismissive, grossly generalizing, reductionist, pessimistic, misanthropic and downright insulting. At one level he narrates uncomfortable truths and if the modern purveyors of Hindutva were to go through his thorough dressing down of all they they weave their fantasies around they would have rather depressing season. But at another level after floundering here and there (having brutally disabused the reader of any notion that Indian civilization was ever truly capable of growth and its intelligentsia having the potential for brilliance and innovation or it ever will be) he fails in putting down his finger on why how and why it is so distinctly designed to be doomed. Race and some better sense of a regional racial identity and not religion, regionalism or caste is what he feebly mentions a few times but does not quite elaborate. And the manner he mentions it sounds rather ominous given the racism, toxic nationalism and insularity that has come to grip the world since he wrote this in the mid-1970s.
Though written during the Emergency the Emergency remains a side theme and he finds it hard to condemn and a natural outcome of the failure of not just Indian politics but Indian imagination. His primary preoccupation in this section is the life and politics of M.K.Gandhi whose South African apartheid influenced politics he admires but whose transformation into Mahatma he moans and considers a cop-out. He finds the latter to be a retreat into superstition, inaction, self-defeatism, fatalism, lack of propensity to take on the hard challenges of contemporary life, and the fantasy of a glorious past that he finds to be a recurrent theme in Indian history and a fatal flaw of the Indian psyche. One is at times persuaded - especially when he quite splendidly deconstructs Gandhi's career and politics - but one can't help but noting how his broad sweeps ignore multiple facets of Indian intellectual thought and social progression. This does not persuade as an intellectual history or astute sociological and political insight because Naipaul's method tends to cover up a more comprehensive and deeper assessment with outstanding rhetoric and turn of phrase. He gets so carried away by the latter - as he keeps repeating the same observation and ever so many new and glorious ways - that his belief in what he believes become self-evident and incontrovertible. 'A Defect of Vision' is the chapter he starts off with. Then he moves on to how almost all Indian thought and civilization - which he blames constantly on invasions but then he hardly finds anything worthwhile pre-invasions as well; and very rarely does he mention the Aryan invasion and its impact on Dravidian civilization - is weak and defective mimicry and synthesis in 'Mimicry and Synthesis."He finds no renaissance but dull, debilitating continuity in 'Renaissance or Continuity." And before that he appears to paradoxically both mock and bemoan a bygone time in 'Paradise Lost.'
One instance of where one gets some vague idea of what would have been renaissance rather than continuity is when he says: "Gandhi, the South African, was too complex for India. India made the racial leader the mahatma."
His castigations are complete and absolute.
"It seems to be always there in India: magic, the past, the death of thee intellect, spirituality annulling the civilizations out of which it issues, India swallowing its own tail."
"The racial sense, which contains respect for the individual and even that concept of 'the people', remains as remote from India as ever."
"Gandhi swept through India, but he has left it without an ideology. He awakened the holy land; his mahatmahood returned it to archaism; he made his worshippers vain."
His wit is at its biting best when describing Vinobha Bhave, Gandhi's successor.
"He is in the old Indian tradition of the sage who lives apart from men, but not so far from them that they are unable to provide him with a life-support system."
"Gandhi took India out of one kind of Kal Yug, one kind of Black Age; his success inevitably pushed it back to another."
"It is what Gandhianism was long ago reduced to by mahatmahood: religious ecstasy and religious self-display, a juggling with nothing, a liberation from constructive thought and religious burdens. True freedom and true piety are still seen to lie in withdrawal from the difficult world. In independent India, Gandhianism is like the solace still of a conquered people, to whom the state has historically been alien, controlled by others."
"India is without an ideology - and that was the failure of Gandhi and India together. Its people have no idea of the state, and none of the attitudes that go with such an idea: no historical notion of the past, no identity beyond the tenuous ecumenism of Hindu beliefs, and, in spite of the racial excesses of the British period, not even the beginning of a racial sense. Through centuries of conquest the civilization declines into an apparatus for survival, turning away from the mind ..."
Naipaul is impressed by RSSS and its grassroots work and grappling with contemporary issues in its encounters with it. He often mocks brilliant white homespun cotton wearing Congress Wallahs with their fake modesty, ineffectualness and caprice. Towards the end of his life he was also quite taken with Hindutva politics and BJP of course except quite paradoxically a lot of what he admired can be seen today as highly anti-intellectual, unscientific, yearning for a mythical past, superstitious and fascist. Towards the end of the book he surmises.
"The past can now be possessed only by inquiry and scholarship, by intellectual rather than spiritual discipline. The past has to be seen to be dead; or the past will kill."
Well the past is definitely killing as we speak. Naipaul in my final analysis is clear and zealot in his castigations but confounded in his rationale and justifications of the same. Often he is brilliant astute and incisive but as often just bitter and dismissive. This is nevertheless perhaps his best non-fiction and relevant equally to those on the other sides of the border when it comes to religion and religiosity being abused to escape from hard battles for betterment of the people.
Naipaul finds even the triumph of Hindu culture in Vijayanagar regressive and insipid what to say of Muslim invaders thereafter. Though to give him credit he finds suffering and caste exploitation to be mainstays of Indian society from even earlier times. Several of his observations about the modes and magnitude of this exploitation may be unpalatable but they are brutally true. It is in his exegesis of the complex, multi-textured, and often beguiling narratives of history that one is lost as to what exactly does he ascribe it all to - happenstance, culture, dialectical materialism, natural order of things, eugenics, or something else. Certainly colonialism and post-colonialism make an appearance in passing. Is the Indian path-dependent when it comes to retreat, surrender and decline? Ridiculous as it may seem we cannot tell and the very last possibility appears to what he seems to be most inclined towards. He refers multiples times in this part of the book to two novels by R.K.Narayan finding therein evidence of the quintessential Hindu approaches to the changing world.
Part 2 (A New Claim on the Land) is quite brilliant because Naipaul describes much more than he theorizes, conjectures, generalizes, imagines, surmises and concludes - the depressing contrast of the skyscrapers and chawls & squatters settlements on the one hand and irrigation cooperatives in bursting Bombay on the one hand and small village tiers of power and control in broken and arid Maharashtrian country on the other. His description of the Naxalite Movement though is sketchy and dismissive. And definitely not prescient as he appears to have written it off though that is not what eventually transpired as we well know.
Part 3 (Not Ideas, But Obsessions) is where Naipaul shows both sides of his writing - at one level he is lucid, poignant, brilliantly deconstructive, irreverent, and capable of writing truly magical sentences (I have to hold a pencil to underline); at another level he is acerbic, dismissive, grossly generalizing, reductionist, pessimistic, misanthropic and downright insulting. At one level he narrates uncomfortable truths and if the modern purveyors of Hindutva were to go through his thorough dressing down of all they they weave their fantasies around they would have rather depressing season. But at another level after floundering here and there (having brutally disabused the reader of any notion that Indian civilization was ever truly capable of growth and its intelligentsia having the potential for brilliance and innovation or it ever will be) he fails in putting down his finger on why how and why it is so distinctly designed to be doomed. Race and some better sense of a regional racial identity and not religion, regionalism or caste is what he feebly mentions a few times but does not quite elaborate. And the manner he mentions it sounds rather ominous given the racism, toxic nationalism and insularity that has come to grip the world since he wrote this in the mid-1970s.
Though written during the Emergency the Emergency remains a side theme and he finds it hard to condemn and a natural outcome of the failure of not just Indian politics but Indian imagination. His primary preoccupation in this section is the life and politics of M.K.Gandhi whose South African apartheid influenced politics he admires but whose transformation into Mahatma he moans and considers a cop-out. He finds the latter to be a retreat into superstition, inaction, self-defeatism, fatalism, lack of propensity to take on the hard challenges of contemporary life, and the fantasy of a glorious past that he finds to be a recurrent theme in Indian history and a fatal flaw of the Indian psyche. One is at times persuaded - especially when he quite splendidly deconstructs Gandhi's career and politics - but one can't help but noting how his broad sweeps ignore multiple facets of Indian intellectual thought and social progression. This does not persuade as an intellectual history or astute sociological and political insight because Naipaul's method tends to cover up a more comprehensive and deeper assessment with outstanding rhetoric and turn of phrase. He gets so carried away by the latter - as he keeps repeating the same observation and ever so many new and glorious ways - that his belief in what he believes become self-evident and incontrovertible. 'A Defect of Vision' is the chapter he starts off with. Then he moves on to how almost all Indian thought and civilization - which he blames constantly on invasions but then he hardly finds anything worthwhile pre-invasions as well; and very rarely does he mention the Aryan invasion and its impact on Dravidian civilization - is weak and defective mimicry and synthesis in 'Mimicry and Synthesis."He finds no renaissance but dull, debilitating continuity in 'Renaissance or Continuity." And before that he appears to paradoxically both mock and bemoan a bygone time in 'Paradise Lost.'
One instance of where one gets some vague idea of what would have been renaissance rather than continuity is when he says: "Gandhi, the South African, was too complex for India. India made the racial leader the mahatma."
His castigations are complete and absolute.
"It seems to be always there in India: magic, the past, the death of thee intellect, spirituality annulling the civilizations out of which it issues, India swallowing its own tail."
"The racial sense, which contains respect for the individual and even that concept of 'the people', remains as remote from India as ever."
"Gandhi swept through India, but he has left it without an ideology. He awakened the holy land; his mahatmahood returned it to archaism; he made his worshippers vain."
His wit is at its biting best when describing Vinobha Bhave, Gandhi's successor.
"He is in the old Indian tradition of the sage who lives apart from men, but not so far from them that they are unable to provide him with a life-support system."
"Gandhi took India out of one kind of Kal Yug, one kind of Black Age; his success inevitably pushed it back to another."
"It is what Gandhianism was long ago reduced to by mahatmahood: religious ecstasy and religious self-display, a juggling with nothing, a liberation from constructive thought and religious burdens. True freedom and true piety are still seen to lie in withdrawal from the difficult world. In independent India, Gandhianism is like the solace still of a conquered people, to whom the state has historically been alien, controlled by others."
"India is without an ideology - and that was the failure of Gandhi and India together. Its people have no idea of the state, and none of the attitudes that go with such an idea: no historical notion of the past, no identity beyond the tenuous ecumenism of Hindu beliefs, and, in spite of the racial excesses of the British period, not even the beginning of a racial sense. Through centuries of conquest the civilization declines into an apparatus for survival, turning away from the mind ..."
Naipaul is impressed by RSSS and its grassroots work and grappling with contemporary issues in its encounters with it. He often mocks brilliant white homespun cotton wearing Congress Wallahs with their fake modesty, ineffectualness and caprice. Towards the end of his life he was also quite taken with Hindutva politics and BJP of course except quite paradoxically a lot of what he admired can be seen today as highly anti-intellectual, unscientific, yearning for a mythical past, superstitious and fascist. Towards the end of the book he surmises.
"The past can now be possessed only by inquiry and scholarship, by intellectual rather than spiritual discipline. The past has to be seen to be dead; or the past will kill."
Well the past is definitely killing as we speak. Naipaul in my final analysis is clear and zealot in his castigations but confounded in his rationale and justifications of the same. Often he is brilliant astute and incisive but as often just bitter and dismissive. This is nevertheless perhaps his best non-fiction and relevant equally to those on the other sides of the border when it comes to religion and religiosity being abused to escape from hard battles for betterment of the people.
January 16, 2025
This is a difficult book to feel qualified to comment on, not being Indian myself. The author pulls no punches in his blistering criticism, which other ŷ reviews have detailed well enough. Again, I am hardly the right person to speak to the accuracy or the validity of those criticisms, except to say that I do not think it is the self-forgetting or pain-loving antiquarianism or intoxicating romanticism which induced the author to turn with passionate interest toward national criticism. Rather, the author must have been impelled to do so by the crisis of his time. Another review put it well that "one criticizes because he cares".
It is inevitably a glib and facile reduction to isolate one factor among many in an overdetermined historical analysis. Yet it seems to me that the cultural problems which Naipaul describes can all be traced to the metaphysical biology of the caste system. I shall not speak of that doctrine which was developed by the illustrious and rich Hindu tradition. I shall simply say that the doubt of the natural character of both castes and divisions of the human race into distinct political and ethnic groups finds its thesis that all men are by nature free and equal. This is a distinctly western idea which it seems was forced upon India and integrated with some difficulty, and perhaps not integrated at all, but transmuted and neutralized back into ideas and metaphysics from older traditions. The difficulty, with India as with the rest of the world, is in reconciling notions of modern right with classical right, and with the natural character of different groups.
It is inevitably a glib and facile reduction to isolate one factor among many in an overdetermined historical analysis. Yet it seems to me that the cultural problems which Naipaul describes can all be traced to the metaphysical biology of the caste system. I shall not speak of that doctrine which was developed by the illustrious and rich Hindu tradition. I shall simply say that the doubt of the natural character of both castes and divisions of the human race into distinct political and ethnic groups finds its thesis that all men are by nature free and equal. This is a distinctly western idea which it seems was forced upon India and integrated with some difficulty, and perhaps not integrated at all, but transmuted and neutralized back into ideas and metaphysics from older traditions. The difficulty, with India as with the rest of the world, is in reconciling notions of modern right with classical right, and with the natural character of different groups.
September 10, 2016
I have never thought of A WOUNDED CIVILIZATION as depressing or pessimistic. I found it to be enlightening, but yes, it is hard hitting stuff. The analysis of R.K.Narayanan's novel and Gandhi's writings offer a lot of interesting insights into the Hindu psyche. Naipaul says that Gandhi traveled to the UK but never noticed anything because of his anxiety. Sudhir Kakkar gave a nod to Naipaul's analysis of Gandhi in one of his books about Indian sexuality. I don't know whether Naipaul's idea of Hindu retreat (tendency of Hindu's to withdraw when faced with potential outsider invasion or violation, to maintain purity) is applicable to non-Brahmins. But it is an interesting concept, nonetheless.
Nobody can deny the extreme sense of anomie with which a lot of people live in India. Naipaul's description of the Hindu psyche as one that been shaped by centuries of invasions and defeat and Indians as a supine people who are resigned to their fates is still relevant.
Nobody can deny the extreme sense of anomie with which a lot of people live in India. Naipaul's description of the Hindu psyche as one that been shaped by centuries of invasions and defeat and Indians as a supine people who are resigned to their fates is still relevant.
March 26, 2022
Naipaul at his best. Extremely perceptive and witty. Resenting India was a way to better her. It captures the wound created by a lack of ideology at the time of independence. He believes that the old india dominated by magic, Karma and caste has to be buried. We need to industrialize and become an individual in our right. It shouldn't be a petty imitation of the west, but our own indian sensibility shaping our vision. He calls for a new renaissance.
A renaissance is indeed the need of the hour where we create institutions rooted in the masses, taking into account our own cultural and material realities. India can indeed think about solidarity and collaboration with other African nations to create a egalitarian universe instead of imitating the western democracies. Probably climate change can be addressed by decentralized local models instead of mega parks.
A renaissance is indeed the need of the hour where we create institutions rooted in the masses, taking into account our own cultural and material realities. India can indeed think about solidarity and collaboration with other African nations to create a egalitarian universe instead of imitating the western democracies. Probably climate change can be addressed by decentralized local models instead of mega parks.
April 17, 2022
India - A wounded civilization - VS Naipaul.
Rating 5/5
One of the brilliant books by Sir Vidia. What a man and what a writing! I bow in respect to you Sir Vidia.
If you grade a writer on the basis of how many times he hits the bull's eye (target) then Sir Vidia would not fall into that category of writers. With Sir Vidia, we need to see how many times did he miss the bulls eye. And I can say, not many a time.
Sir Vidia hits bulls eye every single time, with his observation, with his criticism, with his knowledge and writing skills. You cannot ask for more.
In Khushwant Singh's own words on Sir Vidia - "Squalor and stench attracted his attention more than scenic beauty and fragrance". This can be summed up as many a people's opinion on Sir Vidia, not mine though!
The book is about Sir Vidia's observations during his travel through India in the 1970's, Hampi, Bombay, Poona, Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi. The book is a serious attempt to decode the cause of the shortcomings of the country, post independence or even for that matter before independence.
Sir Vidia attributes the culprit to be Hinduism, the culture which on the whole, through years of defeat, surrender and invasion has left people intellectually drained. He concludes the lack of progress to lack of intellectual abilities, lack of interest to observe and learn.
Sir Vidia equates Hindu karma to Hindu calm also calling it Hindu killer which calls people to accept fate and adjust and move on with life and in turn leads to self absorption ignoring what is happening around them. He also mentions the missing of an agreement between man and another man and between man and a state.
Sir Vidia is not a much liked gentleman here in India, no wonder such brilliant writing never made it to our textbooks. Sigh! Writings such as these can make men out of boys. It opens up one's own thought process and makes one open to ideas. It is a very highly recommended read and I am sad, I found it only now.
There is mention of RK Narayan and his books with their shortcomings and the reason why RK Narayan chose to keep his world of Malgudi away from political movements. There is mention of Mahatma Gandhi and his autobiography. Also, emergency finds a place, Naxal movement, Hampi - Vijayanagara empire too find a much detailed chunk of Sir Vidia's observations.
This book appeals to people who are interested in questioning stuffs and are having a heart big enough to appreciate an alternate viewpoint.
One thing I realized is people find it hard to accept criticism or shortcomings especially in this part of the sub-continent. This book by Sir Vidia has criticism, but its accurate, spot on, so, one needs to have that intellectual resilience to understand and appreciate Sir Vidia's writing, let alone criticism.
This is the reason why Sir Vidia never got his due in India (or did he?) for his utmost intelligence.
Cheers,
Rating 5/5
One of the brilliant books by Sir Vidia. What a man and what a writing! I bow in respect to you Sir Vidia.
If you grade a writer on the basis of how many times he hits the bull's eye (target) then Sir Vidia would not fall into that category of writers. With Sir Vidia, we need to see how many times did he miss the bulls eye. And I can say, not many a time.
Sir Vidia hits bulls eye every single time, with his observation, with his criticism, with his knowledge and writing skills. You cannot ask for more.
In Khushwant Singh's own words on Sir Vidia - "Squalor and stench attracted his attention more than scenic beauty and fragrance". This can be summed up as many a people's opinion on Sir Vidia, not mine though!
The book is about Sir Vidia's observations during his travel through India in the 1970's, Hampi, Bombay, Poona, Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi. The book is a serious attempt to decode the cause of the shortcomings of the country, post independence or even for that matter before independence.
Sir Vidia attributes the culprit to be Hinduism, the culture which on the whole, through years of defeat, surrender and invasion has left people intellectually drained. He concludes the lack of progress to lack of intellectual abilities, lack of interest to observe and learn.
Sir Vidia equates Hindu karma to Hindu calm also calling it Hindu killer which calls people to accept fate and adjust and move on with life and in turn leads to self absorption ignoring what is happening around them. He also mentions the missing of an agreement between man and another man and between man and a state.
Sir Vidia is not a much liked gentleman here in India, no wonder such brilliant writing never made it to our textbooks. Sigh! Writings such as these can make men out of boys. It opens up one's own thought process and makes one open to ideas. It is a very highly recommended read and I am sad, I found it only now.
There is mention of RK Narayan and his books with their shortcomings and the reason why RK Narayan chose to keep his world of Malgudi away from political movements. There is mention of Mahatma Gandhi and his autobiography. Also, emergency finds a place, Naxal movement, Hampi - Vijayanagara empire too find a much detailed chunk of Sir Vidia's observations.
This book appeals to people who are interested in questioning stuffs and are having a heart big enough to appreciate an alternate viewpoint.
One thing I realized is people find it hard to accept criticism or shortcomings especially in this part of the sub-continent. This book by Sir Vidia has criticism, but its accurate, spot on, so, one needs to have that intellectual resilience to understand and appreciate Sir Vidia's writing, let alone criticism.
This is the reason why Sir Vidia never got his due in India (or did he?) for his utmost intelligence.
Cheers,
December 27, 2020
Written during the emergency period almost 50 years ago,V. S. Naipaul makes many interesting observations that are ruined by his bitter tone, scorn and contempt, and the complete lack of any insight or an attempt at analysis. Desptie being a Hindu, Naipual is no different from any other biased western observer of India.
India is indeed a wounded civilization. We have gone through almost a thousand years of invasions and foreign rule by monotheistic or monocultural people, during which our tradition knowledge systems and industry have been systematically destroyed. Especially during the colonial times, the local traditional science, technology and crafts of the lands and people have systematically been exterminated or undermined. This has resulted in self alienation, loss of ideas and a lack of continuity in our arts, architecture, literature and science and technology. This alienation and stagnation is visible throughout this book.
Unfortunately even after independence, under the guise of modernisation, instead of reconnecting to our past and civilizational values we have ended up importing "secular" institutions and modern ideas that are borrowed from the west and completely disconnected from our own past. V.S.Naipaul keeps saying that Hinduism has failed us, but the truth is that the decolonization of Hindu mind and the decolonization of our educational, technological and artistic institutes hasn't yet happened.
India is indeed a wounded civilization. We have gone through almost a thousand years of invasions and foreign rule by monotheistic or monocultural people, during which our tradition knowledge systems and industry have been systematically destroyed. Especially during the colonial times, the local traditional science, technology and crafts of the lands and people have systematically been exterminated or undermined. This has resulted in self alienation, loss of ideas and a lack of continuity in our arts, architecture, literature and science and technology. This alienation and stagnation is visible throughout this book.
Unfortunately even after independence, under the guise of modernisation, instead of reconnecting to our past and civilizational values we have ended up importing "secular" institutions and modern ideas that are borrowed from the west and completely disconnected from our own past. V.S.Naipaul keeps saying that Hinduism has failed us, but the truth is that the decolonization of Hindu mind and the decolonization of our educational, technological and artistic institutes hasn't yet happened.
November 26, 2019
l'unico scrittore-nobel che non mi abbia mai deluso. Duro e ferrigno, non distoglie mai gli occhi dalla realtà perchè non sembra esserne capace. Quindi nessuna consolazione, neanche dai buoni sentimenti.
Le sue molteplici 'India', raccontate con una una lingua ricca e asciutta (è possibile?) si scolpiscono nella mente per sempre. Questo sopra a tutti. Più che una lettura un'esperienza
Le sue molteplici 'India', raccontate con una una lingua ricca e asciutta (è possibile?) si scolpiscono nella mente per sempre. Questo sopra a tutti. Più che una lettura un'esperienza
December 5, 2014
Oh, my gosh, this book was just continuous negativity. There's no let up; he just complains about what is wrong with India, but he offers no solution. Drove me crazy.
March 4, 2012
V S Naipaul’s second book much acclaimed, but rarely understood India Trilogy -India : A Wounded Civilization comes from Don Vidia’s experience post the Emergency Years of Indira Gandhi where individual freedom was brutally suppressed and views -whether political,social or almost of any kind were subverted to suit the whims of the state .I bought the book pure on the author’s reputation having been graced by a friend on how the man has an almost radar-like precision in his views on whatever subject he chooses to focus his almost Zen-like attention on.Naipaul has never made any secret of the disillusionment with the country of his birth ; he fidgets and then almost resolutely declines to call it his home before and even after.all the more is reflected in his writing where he murders and dissects everything that is associated with India ; leaving the carcass to rot in the sun without any pangs of guilt.Why does his choose to annihilate India in this short-travelogue is not difficult to understand.His ancestors were forced migrants and you do tend to harbor a particular distaste for a country which hasn’t been too kind on your kin.This comes out to be the greatest undoing for this book for you are surprised that in all his travels in the country Naipaul couldn’t find anything even to sympathize, leave alone pleasurable.
The book starts with a semi-historical account of the Vijayanagar kingdom with Naipaul making his first incision by concluding that the kingdom was,in his view the last remnant of Hindu civilization in India .Although he makes a marked observation when he points out that plunder in the region has caused the human resource drought that has plagued the region for almost 4 centuries .Naipaul also recounts of his meetings with R.K. Narayan ;the creator of Malgudi with zest but his enthusiasm for India has already taken a beating by the end of second chapter.He almost ,complains that he found Narayan’s characters in his books far too removed from the ground .Taking examples from R.K’s novels like Mr.Sampath Naipaul borders on mocking the Hindu view of life which takes deeper contemplation before any action as its primary responsibility.However,to even out things a bit he credits Vijay Tendulkar and his plays Sakharam Binder and The Vultures to be more nearer to his almost cynical vision of the country. I have been a bit caustic until now so let me refrain from going the Naipaul way.The language has been Naipaulishly simple ,yet effective; you can conjure up the thoughts pretty clearly with limited cranial capacity usage.Naipaul has almost ,every time, refrained from letting the language hold sway over his thoughts and ideas; something which his more ‘sensational� contemporaries are more visibly seen indulging in.
Although I would again go back to where we started -In an almost quizzical error Naipaul chooses to describe the Indian state as comical,aimless and Russian something which the narrative bears a close resemblance to when the aforementioned words come about.The intensity of criticism however makes a return when N chooses to distance himself from the North and Focus on Mumbai -Bombay at that time .Indian Diaspora,especially those concerned with engagements in liberal arts have found Bombay as a romantic companion in their Indian journey .Mr N is no exception.However Naipaul gives very little of his time and attention towards the Gateway of India ; Instead he chooses to focus his attention on the narrow bylanes and chawls of Mumbai which I assume were the precursors of an Indian image for the outside world .
It has already become clear by now that the emergency was the sole reason for Naipaul’s visit to India.Indeed ,the timing couldn’t have been better.It is evidenced in the book that Indians themselves were not involved in the Emergency as such .this becomes clear from the imprisonment of JP and Morarji Desai ; former being the best Statesman India has ever produced and latter the first PM post the incumbent Nehruvian era .This is the best portion of the book although it doesn’t last for long .Then comes the most unforgiving part of this book where Naipaul focuses more on criticizing everything Gandhian ;Gandhi the man,his values ,his way of freeing India ,the perception of Gandhian values today which to a certain degree I would agree have lost their relevance today .I would rather be led to believe that Sir Vidia gave away to sensationalism here and this is not his actual opinion .Although this looks more like a guerrilla attack on the very first false impression Naipaul has of India.He opines that the Gandhian policy of self-renunciation ,celibacy,civil disobedience are mere attempts to bring out the Hindu,the Indian way of life were suffering of any kind is held in the highest order .For a country which was under the fist of British empire very strongly for almost 70 years (post 1857 ) and had shown no signs of fighting back,the tiniest act of picking up a fistful of salt held great symbolism and significance for an impoverished Indian mass ;the poverty of ideas ,opinions ,viewpoints and actions and a horrific famine some 15 years later on .But VS chooses to discredit this altogether .Instead he chooses to denounce the Salt March belittling the act itself.Naipaul views Gandhi himself as more of a Hindu caricature a person imprisoned in his own ideas of meat and alcohol avoidance ,trying very hard tacitly to preserve his very fragile Hinduism .The flogging of Gandhi does not stop here.Instead ,it moves on to one of the world’s most read and inspiring autobiographies.Naipaul finds that Gandhi has not given his sufficient attention to detail of his environment pervading around during his tenure in England and South Africa ,choosing to ignore the fact that Gandhi was not a wordsmith at any point of time in his life ;still he has left behind a treasure of experiences from his eventful life chronicling more his mistakes in all humility and grace and leaving the readers with lessons he learned from them and deliberately choosing not to focus on his achievements.
As I trudged on towards the end of the book I became convinced that I had never been far off from where we started.the cynicism remained the same,there was a paucity of ideas with some refreshing interjections ,the collective failure of India as a nation and Hinduism in protecting the heritage of this country which as I write this is undergoing the biggest transformation in its 5th year of superannuation.I found that there were merely selected examples from India ;here and there which are bound to happen in a vast nation and which could be given some leeway.But to assume that everything is dark ,morbid,repugnant and revolting would be stretching things a bit too far.I was not very satisfied with the great author’s view on my Country and I would spare no chance in inviting him for a visit to do a rain-check.This review although comes after a second and a very patient read of the book.I hope Sir Vidia obliges .
The book starts with a semi-historical account of the Vijayanagar kingdom with Naipaul making his first incision by concluding that the kingdom was,in his view the last remnant of Hindu civilization in India .Although he makes a marked observation when he points out that plunder in the region has caused the human resource drought that has plagued the region for almost 4 centuries .Naipaul also recounts of his meetings with R.K. Narayan ;the creator of Malgudi with zest but his enthusiasm for India has already taken a beating by the end of second chapter.He almost ,complains that he found Narayan’s characters in his books far too removed from the ground .Taking examples from R.K’s novels like Mr.Sampath Naipaul borders on mocking the Hindu view of life which takes deeper contemplation before any action as its primary responsibility.However,to even out things a bit he credits Vijay Tendulkar and his plays Sakharam Binder and The Vultures to be more nearer to his almost cynical vision of the country. I have been a bit caustic until now so let me refrain from going the Naipaul way.The language has been Naipaulishly simple ,yet effective; you can conjure up the thoughts pretty clearly with limited cranial capacity usage.Naipaul has almost ,every time, refrained from letting the language hold sway over his thoughts and ideas; something which his more ‘sensational� contemporaries are more visibly seen indulging in.
Although I would again go back to where we started -In an almost quizzical error Naipaul chooses to describe the Indian state as comical,aimless and Russian something which the narrative bears a close resemblance to when the aforementioned words come about.The intensity of criticism however makes a return when N chooses to distance himself from the North and Focus on Mumbai -Bombay at that time .Indian Diaspora,especially those concerned with engagements in liberal arts have found Bombay as a romantic companion in their Indian journey .Mr N is no exception.However Naipaul gives very little of his time and attention towards the Gateway of India ; Instead he chooses to focus his attention on the narrow bylanes and chawls of Mumbai which I assume were the precursors of an Indian image for the outside world .
It has already become clear by now that the emergency was the sole reason for Naipaul’s visit to India.Indeed ,the timing couldn’t have been better.It is evidenced in the book that Indians themselves were not involved in the Emergency as such .this becomes clear from the imprisonment of JP and Morarji Desai ; former being the best Statesman India has ever produced and latter the first PM post the incumbent Nehruvian era .This is the best portion of the book although it doesn’t last for long .Then comes the most unforgiving part of this book where Naipaul focuses more on criticizing everything Gandhian ;Gandhi the man,his values ,his way of freeing India ,the perception of Gandhian values today which to a certain degree I would agree have lost their relevance today .I would rather be led to believe that Sir Vidia gave away to sensationalism here and this is not his actual opinion .Although this looks more like a guerrilla attack on the very first false impression Naipaul has of India.He opines that the Gandhian policy of self-renunciation ,celibacy,civil disobedience are mere attempts to bring out the Hindu,the Indian way of life were suffering of any kind is held in the highest order .For a country which was under the fist of British empire very strongly for almost 70 years (post 1857 ) and had shown no signs of fighting back,the tiniest act of picking up a fistful of salt held great symbolism and significance for an impoverished Indian mass ;the poverty of ideas ,opinions ,viewpoints and actions and a horrific famine some 15 years later on .But VS chooses to discredit this altogether .Instead he chooses to denounce the Salt March belittling the act itself.Naipaul views Gandhi himself as more of a Hindu caricature a person imprisoned in his own ideas of meat and alcohol avoidance ,trying very hard tacitly to preserve his very fragile Hinduism .The flogging of Gandhi does not stop here.Instead ,it moves on to one of the world’s most read and inspiring autobiographies.Naipaul finds that Gandhi has not given his sufficient attention to detail of his environment pervading around during his tenure in England and South Africa ,choosing to ignore the fact that Gandhi was not a wordsmith at any point of time in his life ;still he has left behind a treasure of experiences from his eventful life chronicling more his mistakes in all humility and grace and leaving the readers with lessons he learned from them and deliberately choosing not to focus on his achievements.
As I trudged on towards the end of the book I became convinced that I had never been far off from where we started.the cynicism remained the same,there was a paucity of ideas with some refreshing interjections ,the collective failure of India as a nation and Hinduism in protecting the heritage of this country which as I write this is undergoing the biggest transformation in its 5th year of superannuation.I found that there were merely selected examples from India ;here and there which are bound to happen in a vast nation and which could be given some leeway.But to assume that everything is dark ,morbid,repugnant and revolting would be stretching things a bit too far.I was not very satisfied with the great author’s view on my Country and I would spare no chance in inviting him for a visit to do a rain-check.This review although comes after a second and a very patient read of the book.I hope Sir Vidia obliges .
January 29, 2023
Sometimes, on festive days, stripped divers, small and bony, sit or stand on the sea wall, waiting to be asked to dive into the oil, water. Sometimes there is a little band - Indian drums, Western trumpets - attached to some private religious ceremony. Night deepens; the ships' lights in the harbour grow brighter; the Taj Mahal lobby glitters behind its glass wall. The white crowd - with the occasional red or green or yellow of a sari - melts away; and then around the Gateway and the hotel only the sleepers and the beggars remain, enough at any time for a quick crowd, in this area where hotels and dimly lit apartment buildings and stores and offices and small factories press against one another, and where the warm air, despite the sea, always feel overbreathed. The poor are needed as hands, as labour; but the city was not built to accommodate them. One report says that 100,000 people sleep on the pavements of Bombay; but this figure seems low. And the beggars: are there only 20,000 in Bombay, as one newspaper article says, or are there 70,000, the figure given on another day Whatever the number, it is now felt that there are too many. The very idea of beggary, precious to Hindus as religious theatre, a demonstration of the workings of karma, a reminder of one's duty to oneself and one's future lives, has been devalued. And the Bombay beggar, displaying his unusual mutilations (inflicted in childhood by the beggar-master who had acquired him, as proof of the young beggar's sins in a previous life), now finds, unfairly, that he provokes annoyance rather than awe. The beggars themselves, forgetting their Hindu function, also pester tourists; and the tourists misinterpret the whole business, seeing in the beggary of the few the beggary of all. The beggars have become a nuisance and a disgrace. By becoming too numerous they have lost their place in the Hindu system and have no claim on anyone.
- A new claim on the land : The skycrapers and The Chawls (India : A wounded civilisation) by VS Naipul
.
.
Can someone suggest ways to review this book when I am not an Indian, not even living in India (i did go to South India but only for 5 days which made me a tourist hence my experience were limited) and experiencing all the problems and difficulties about India that were described in the book. We are seeing India via lenses of V.S Naipul and let me tell you, it aint pretty. It is almost (80%) of India Bashing and this is something that i did not expect from the book. I was expecting some discourse about India Ancient Civilisation, History, Past Inventions instead what i got is more like a whiny analysis why India will never progress or why India will stay the same (outdated, caste infested nation) post Ghandi and Ms Ghandi death. My patience was really thin that i almost wanted to DNF this book but i persevered until the final page. I have to say the only part that i love is when he dissected the Indian literature written by R.K Narayan and connected it to Hindu way of life but that itself is just 1/8 of the contents featured in the book. If any Indian (that lived in India) that have read this book and wanted to share your insights on this book, i would very much appreciate your input. V.S Naipul stated in the book : India is for me a difficult country. It isn't my home and cannot be my home; and yet I cannot reject it or be indifferent to it; I cannot travel only for the sights. I am at once too close and too far. This statement at least showed that He did not deny his Indian heritage but this book did not even demonstrate it. All he got is just a contemptuous remarks and endless negativity towards a country he visited in a short while. I would like to end my review with what Jose Rizal wrote in ‘Noli Me Tangere� : � � and to hate one own’s country is the greatest of misfortunes�. Thats what i felt when i finish this book - pity that Naipul cannot see India beyond his bitterness and (maybe) complexity that he had with the country. I know every country has its own problems and for its incompetence to resolve it, one deserved criticism for it but this book is just not it (at least in my opinion). Putting this 2 stars simply because i learned something despite him cherry picking on spirituality and race consciousness. Overall, this was painful and not so satisfying reading to say the least.
- A new claim on the land : The skycrapers and The Chawls (India : A wounded civilisation) by VS Naipul
.
.
Can someone suggest ways to review this book when I am not an Indian, not even living in India (i did go to South India but only for 5 days which made me a tourist hence my experience were limited) and experiencing all the problems and difficulties about India that were described in the book. We are seeing India via lenses of V.S Naipul and let me tell you, it aint pretty. It is almost (80%) of India Bashing and this is something that i did not expect from the book. I was expecting some discourse about India Ancient Civilisation, History, Past Inventions instead what i got is more like a whiny analysis why India will never progress or why India will stay the same (outdated, caste infested nation) post Ghandi and Ms Ghandi death. My patience was really thin that i almost wanted to DNF this book but i persevered until the final page. I have to say the only part that i love is when he dissected the Indian literature written by R.K Narayan and connected it to Hindu way of life but that itself is just 1/8 of the contents featured in the book. If any Indian (that lived in India) that have read this book and wanted to share your insights on this book, i would very much appreciate your input. V.S Naipul stated in the book : India is for me a difficult country. It isn't my home and cannot be my home; and yet I cannot reject it or be indifferent to it; I cannot travel only for the sights. I am at once too close and too far. This statement at least showed that He did not deny his Indian heritage but this book did not even demonstrate it. All he got is just a contemptuous remarks and endless negativity towards a country he visited in a short while. I would like to end my review with what Jose Rizal wrote in ‘Noli Me Tangere� : � � and to hate one own’s country is the greatest of misfortunes�. Thats what i felt when i finish this book - pity that Naipul cannot see India beyond his bitterness and (maybe) complexity that he had with the country. I know every country has its own problems and for its incompetence to resolve it, one deserved criticism for it but this book is just not it (at least in my opinion). Putting this 2 stars simply because i learned something despite him cherry picking on spirituality and race consciousness. Overall, this was painful and not so satisfying reading to say the least.
May 3, 2022
I have always wanted to read VS Naipaul and I finally have, so that is the first tick on my 2022 wish list.
Now coming to the book, it is both dated and relevant at the same time. It was written in the late 1970s and gives an insight into the politics and people of the time. Much has changed in India since then and Gandhi has become even more archaic, now completely relegated to history books.
What remains relevant today is the caste politics, a fragmented sense of self that aligns with a regional identity rather than an Indian image. A stepping back and clinging to an ancient ideal rule with all its cracks as the ideal state rather than learning from the past and adapting just the positive to the new reality.
Overall it was an informative book with interesting insight.
Now coming to the book, it is both dated and relevant at the same time. It was written in the late 1970s and gives an insight into the politics and people of the time. Much has changed in India since then and Gandhi has become even more archaic, now completely relegated to history books.
What remains relevant today is the caste politics, a fragmented sense of self that aligns with a regional identity rather than an Indian image. A stepping back and clinging to an ancient ideal rule with all its cracks as the ideal state rather than learning from the past and adapting just the positive to the new reality.
Overall it was an informative book with interesting insight.
May 5, 2020
Devastating in its gaze and judgement, A Wounded Civilization doesn't feel like the slim little book it is. It feels like something older. It took me time to read, because I didn't have the mental strength this book demands of a reader, at least not all at once, and especially from an Indian.
Have I made sense of all that is in there? No. Not really. It demands a reread, especially with all my notes and scribbles on its margins. And when I do, perhaps I will know how to respond.
For now, the 'wow' I wrote with my pencil at the end of the book is enough.
Have I made sense of all that is in there? No. Not really. It demands a reread, especially with all my notes and scribbles on its margins. And when I do, perhaps I will know how to respond.
For now, the 'wow' I wrote with my pencil at the end of the book is enough.
April 23, 2020
One of the best books you'll read on India. While the economic constraints coming off in the 1980s ensured a less pessimistic outcome for India, the wounds are still not fully recovered and can be inflamed at any time.
July 28, 2024
Take my rating with a grain of salt. It reflects my personal enjoyment while reading this, rather than the book's quality. I think you need way more cultural+historical context of India to enjoy it. My bad.
July 27, 2016
This book could not grip my imagination, even the style of writing was not impressive
July 22, 2020
This is the second book of Naipaul’s ‘India trilogy�; and, while the first book was more in the line of a conventional travel memoir � albeit with scattered observations and insights on the Indian way of life � this book almost dispenses with the travel aspect completely. Instead, Naipaul here seems to have completed a particular journey of disillusionment, and the text is almost wholly given up to an extended meditation on India’s civilizational arrest.
The book opens with Naipaul visiting the ruins of Vijayanagar, the erstwhile Hindu kingdom, and a rallying point for the current day Hindu nationalist movement. The treatment of Vijayanagar acts a synecdoche for the rest of the book; Naipaul notes that even during its� heyday in the 14th and 15th centuries, its art and architecture were only heavy-handed copies of previous Hindu glory further back in time. The decline of Indian civilization has very long roots indeed.
Naipaul is in search of these roots. There are several references in the text to India’s impotence in the face of the changing world; and Naipaul, an intellectual himself, notes that this impotence manifests itself as an intellectual vacuum - what he cruelly calls India’s intellectual ‘second-rateness�. India does not have any especial gift for synthesis, as her defenders are wont to proclaim; rather, in keeping with their status as a subjugated people, Indians have been intellectually parasitic on the world. Unable to produce any guiding idea for its own people, India's conspicuous ‘lack of an ideology� means that Indians rely on other, imperfectly understood cultures for their tenacious sustenance upon the world stage.
While he does not use the exact term, what Naipaul has diagnosed here is a subcontinental-wide form of psychological regression; in fact, he even reproduces the words of the Indian psychoanalyst, Sudhir Kakar, who offers a psychological diagnosis of civilizational mediocrity. For the most part, Indians have an ‘underdeveloped ego� with the corresponding ‘tenuous grasp of reality� that this implies. The subjectivism of most Indians, with all the connotations of primitive magic and fantasy that this brings along in its' wake, is a negative achievement, countenanced by the general failure to engage with reality. Naipaul quotes Kakar's speculation that this failure is due to the absurdly over-regulated social sphere in which most Indians live � responsibility for reality is constantly outsourced and travels increasingly diminished across an endless chain, leading to a people in permanent paralysis and tragically unaware of their own mediocrity.
Thus, wounded and threatened by the churning and vibrant outside world, Indians refuse to move forward and instead take refuge in a glorious past of which too they have little real understanding. This is the tragedy of India’s intellectual myopia � and leads to Indians as a people, and India as a polity, simply outsourcing the running of the world to others.
This stunned and insecure worldview is perfectly represented by the novelist RK Narayan. I remember scattered remarks in ‘An Area of Darkness�, that testified to Naipaul’s admiration of Narayan; but here, it seems that the admiration has become much more mixed. Narayan’s self-contained world, with the gentle humour that can only survive in such a severely circumscribed world, has a touch of the didactic eternalism so dear to the Hindus; and Naipaul concludes, that for all its humanity and lightness of touch, Narayan’s novels represent a deeply Hindu response to a world that has passed it by, and, in so doing, has injured it. It is the forced adoption of calm in the face of defeat, it is playing dead.
The figure of Narayan also plays a double role in Naipaul’s reckoning � he is a figure of interest not only in the context of his novels and what these represent, but also himself as a novelist. Naipaul observes � and it is an observation that he had made in his earlier book as well � that the novel, being a form of social inquiry, is something quite removed from Indian sensibilities. Narayan therefore represents the pathos of engaging with the outside world, but in a half-hearted manner � India’s sole remaining genius seems to lie in importing foreign ideas and modes of world-engagement into her own depleted milieu and contorting them until they fit, null, alongside the nullity that is her own.
The intellectual mediocrity of the subcontinent is further exemplified by what the country has done to its Gandhian legacy. It seems that Naipaul has a mixed opinion of Gandhi himself. On the one hand, there are remarks of admiration for the man’s greatness of spirit as well as the genuine complexity of his personality that refuses to succumb to caricature. On the other hand, Naipaul glumly speculates that Gandhi’s appropriation of the ancient Hindu virtue of quietism into a project of national awakening, was ultimately a null venture; the India which he awakened was an India of ‘far older defeat�, and the qualities he called up in service of the awakening were qualities which were the handmaidens of that defeat and, after Gandhi himself disappeared, would inevitably lead India back to her deep sleep once again. The caricaturing of the Gandhian legacy � captured in Naipaul’s brutal description of Vinoba Bhave, a figure whom I had only vaguely known � is symptomatic of Indian lethargy, but is the harbinger of a much more troubling civilizational attribute. Even India’s one resurgence on the modern world stage, the Gandhi-led awakening, was forced to look backwards to India’s past. It seems, Naipaul is saying, that any Indian renaissance or revival can only take the form of a looking back. The civilization is too depleted of spirit to look forward.
It is fair to say that Naipaul locates India’s continuing defeat in Hinduism; or, more accurately, in the Hindu psychology of which the religion is only the manifestation. Naipaul has already shown his cards, declaring that a century of his forefathers being uprooted from Indian soil, had been enough of a time period to cleanse him, personally, of many of the old Indian religious attitudes; and he caustically remarks that, without the filter of these attitudes, without the filter that is, of some element of fantasy or magic, the filth and squalor of India is intolerable. Some of the attitudes that Naipaul locates and which he viciously castigates include; the virtues of quietism, of blind obedience, social indifference and apathy, the bracketing of the world not as a place for action and of individual heroism, but only as a stage for the impersonal calculus of karma; a sense of history, insomuch as it can be said to exist in Hinduism, that is primitive and which only lends itself to a perspective of history as an extended religious fable and nothing more. In sum, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that, for all the soaring heights of Hindu speculation, the religion has degenerated considerably into (or perhaps, has always been) a barbaric process of primitive magic and equally primitive wish-fulfillment; and further, more generally, that the entire religious edifice, distilled into the typical Hindu psychology and ‘way of life� is only an exhausted religious response to worldly humiliation.
There are other cruel, almost uncalled-for, criticisms of certain typical Indian attitudes and behaviours: Naipaul takes issue with the uniquely subjective manner in which most Indians perceive the world, whereby the latter is only encountered insomuch as it affects the inner emotional state. This ‘negative way� of perceiving is allied to the underdeveloped ego, and mitigates against curiosity, objective engagement with the world, and effective action. This distinct lack of curiosity about reality means that the desire of India’s leaders at Independence, to inculcate the spirit of scientific temper, has been reduced to a shameful mockery. Naipaul notes that most Indians who make contributions to global science do so outside India � and, what is more worrying, are almost expected to do so. There seems to be an acceptance of the fact that India itself will not nurture scientific curiosity and will not reward it. The scientists who have made their contributions and then return to India resume their place in the stifling matrix of stagnation that is the subcontinent, and their brilliance evaporates under the pressure-cooker of India’s over-regulated social space. The merit they had attained previously under the aegis of their own efforts, now can be had simply by playing one’s circumscribed role in the implied eternity of Hindu life.
Hinduism subtracts brilliance and energy from its adherents, Naipaul seems to be saying, and substitutes crude and readymade pleasures on their behalf. The paralyzing effect of Hinduism means that ‘men do not actively explore the world, but are instead, defined by it.� But this permanent Hindu immobility means that India invites disasters again and again.
In conclusion, I thought that this was a very sobering and especially brutal look at India and Indians. I did not intend this review to be as long as it turned out - but Naipaul's observations evoked a deep and painful dialogue within me. With the previous book, I had come away with a sympathy for Naipaul’s analyses and yet maintained a sense of unfairness at the harsh criticisms he was making. In the span of years that has passed since then, however, it really does seem to me that Naipaul is by and large correct in his analysis of Indian civilization; my protest dies under the weight of facts. Again, to return to the previous book, I had come away enraptured with Naipaul’s prose; here, my enthusiasm has considerably waned. Not to say that the writing isn’t decidedly above-average � after all, if the skill of a writer is measured by the ability to match words to needs, Naipaul exceeds exceptionally. No one can accuse him of hiding shoddy perception with flowery language. Rather, the language is as unfeeling and brutally exact as the observations. My complaint would be rather that it seems quite uninspired in spots, there is a certain rigidity about the prose that betokens a lack of vitality � almost as if the prose was in response to the devitalized country he was sojourning in.
A strongly recommended book for people interested in India and who care about it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 222 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.