Welcome back to this course on postcolonial
literature
Today we will continue with our discussion
of Raja Rao’s novel Kanthapura.
Now as we remember we are reading Raja Rao’s
Kanthapura vis-a-vis the Gandhian discourse
of nationalism and decolonisation.
And in our previous discussion we had primarily
focused on two aspects of the Gandhian discourse.
The first of these two aspects is the notion
of a return to the village.
Now you remember that for Gandhi the journey
to reconnect oneself with the glorious India
of the precolonial past involved a turning
a away from the urban centres where one is
exposed to the “Corrupting influence of
the Western Civilisation” and return back
to the villages where the traditional Indian
ways of life had remained unaffected by the
colonial intervention.
So this trope of return is very significant
in the Gandhian discourse of nationalism.
But there is also another aspect.
And this second aspect which again we had
discussed in a previous meeting, is about
Gandhi’s insistence to make nationalism
mass based to connect with the masses, right.
So for Gandhi, the nationalist project of
creating a decolonised future for India for
instance, was not the solitary affairs of
English educated individuals from the middle
class who were engaged in an attempt to elevate
themselves through their learning the code
of their coloniser’s civilisation.
Rather for Gandhi, it was not this alleviation
that informed the true path of nationalism.
But rather it was an attempt to go down to
the level of the masses and to reconnect with
them.
So these are the two aspects, the two salient
aspects of Gandhian discourse, that we had
talked about.
And I had also said that Moorthy, who is a
central character in Raja Rao’s novel Kanthapura,
initially appears in the novel as an embodiment
of both these two aspects of the Gandhian
discourse.
Thus for instance, the novel tells us about
Moorthy’s return to his native village Kanthapura
from the city where he had gone to study in
a university.
Moorthy has a vision of Gandhi while he is
in the city.
And this vision convinces him that his university
education is “Foreign”.
And his cloths too are foreign.
And this realisation makes Moorthy promptly
give up both his university education as well
as his foreign clothes and return to the dumb
millions of the villages.
This is how Gandhi speaks of the villages
in his Hind Swaraj if you remember.
Now in the novel Moorthy’s return to Kanthapura
is also connected with the Gandhian notion
of making nationalism mass based.
Because Moorthy’s arrival in Kanthapura
leads him to organise the people of his village
as well as the nearby Skeffington coffee estate
into a non-violent struggle against the colonial
Authority.
And his efforts to reform the village society
earns him the reputation of being a local
Gandhi a local saint who replicates the figure
of Gandhi for the villagers.
Thus Moorthy’s portrayal in this novel not
only brings together the various traits of
Gandhian ideology but also beautifully presents
in a fictional form the charisma and the appeal
of the figure of Gandhi as a mass leader.
But today I will argue that in this novel
Raja Rao also introduces a strong element
of criticism of the Gandhian Discourse.
And this note of criticism, though it is subtle,
yet nevertheless it is all pervasive in the
novel.
So today the Lecture will primarily focus
on this subtle but all pervasive critique
of Gandhian Ideology and Gandhian Discourse
that informs the novel Kanthapura and to understand
this element of criticism that is there in
Raja Rao's novel.
Let us go back to the two points that we have
already discussed.
First, the return to the village.
And second, the mass based Nationalism.
And let us see how Kanthapura both represents
these two aspects of the Gandhian Discourse
and also undermines them, under curse them,
criticises them.
So let us start for instance with Moorthy's
return to the village.
If you read the novel you will see that the
narrator that Raja Rao uses in Kanthapura
is an elderly Brahmin lady of the village
Kanthapura.
And her name is Achakka.
And it is important to remember the fact that
Kanthapura is narrated by someone like Achakka.
And the reason for this is because Raja Rao
uses the perspective of this elderly village
lady Achakka to subtly undercut the Gandhianism
that Moorthy represents.
And we see this in play quite early in the
novel when Achakka introduces to the readers
her native village and its inhabitants.
So while talking about the Brahmin quarters,
and she talks about these distinct caste-based
quarters that form the village geography.
And we will return to these caste segregations
later on in our discussion today.
But Achakka, while describing the residents
of the Brahmin quarters, talks about a character
called Dore.
And who is Dore?
Well, Dore is a young man,who is from Kanthapura
but who had left his native village and had
gone of the city to become a university graduate.
And Achakka tells us that though he was not
very successful in his studies Dore picked
up quite a few new habits while he was in
the city.
So he had, in Achakka’s words, developed
city ways, read city books, and even called
himself a Gandhi man.
Now this repeated stress on the word, City,
both shows an effort by Achakka to underline
the foreignness of these new ways and new
books to which Dore was exposed in the city.
And also this repeated stress conveys a sense
of disapproval on the part of Achakka.
Now this should immediately remind us of Gandhi’s
own characterisation of the western style
university and the foreign ways of the city
as evils that Indians should shun so as to
escape from the corrupting influence of the
Satanic Western Civilisation.
And so far Gandhian Discourse and Achakka’s
point of view are almost the same.
But the irony here is of course that Achakka
also classifies Dore’s becoming a Gandhi
man as a new-fangled idea that he gets from
the city.
So from Achakka’s perspective, Gandhianism,
just like the city ways and the city books,
is a thing that Dore picks up after he moves
out of the ambit of his native village.
So ironically the very city which the Gandhian
Discourse of Nationalism presented as the
den of vices and diseases is in Kanthapura
presented as a space where young villagers
like Dore gets exposed to the Gandhian ideals,
and they turn themselves into foreigners who
are hardly recognisable by elderly villagers
like Achakka.
And therefore Achakka’s contempt for this
Gandhi man Dore who adopted city ways and
city habits is unequivocal.
Now the reason I dwelt on this assessment
of Dore by Achakka at such great length is
not because Dore plays a very significant
role in this novel.
He is not a very significant character.
In fact he is hardly mentioned after these
for first pages.
But Dore’s significance the reference to
Dore, the significance of that, lies in the
fact that immediately after expressing her
displeasure regarding him Achakka introduces
the character of Moorthy for the first time.
So after this description of Dore Achakka
then immediately after that goes on to describe
Moorthy.
And Moorthy is introduced to the reader for
the first time.
And in contrast to Dore Achakka praises Moorthy
highly.
Now we must remember here that the career
graph of Moorthy is almost an exact replica
of Dore’s in the sense that just like Dore
Moorthy too went away from the village to
the city to pursue the foreign university
education.
And he also just like Dore came under Gandhian
influence in the city and became a Gandhi
man which eventually resulted in his return
to the village.
But as I mentioned, Achakka’s attitude towards
Moorthy is in sharp contrast to her attitude
towards Dore.
So whereas Dore earns her displeasure, Moorthy
is highly praised for leading his life in
almost the exact same way.
And the reason for this is not because Achakka
takes a different view towards Moorthy's Gandhianism.
But rather, and this becomes very clear in
how Achakka tells us about Moorthy.
Her approval of Moorthy comes from the fact
that Moorthy was a childhood friend of Achakka’s
own son, Seenu.
Indeed rather than praising Moorthy for becoming
one of the Gandhi man, villagers like Achakka
at least in the initial stage, remains thoroughly
sceptical about the changes that Moorthy seeks
to make in the village to spread the ideals
of Gandhi.
So to understand this skepticism let us look
at a few instances.
Let us take for instance Moorthy's attempt
to popularise the use of Charka among the
villagers.
Now the Charka and the weaving of Khadi were
perhaps the most important Gandhian symbols
of the return to Indianness and the boycotting
of the Satanic Western Civilisation in the
Gandhian Discourse.
So Gandhi’s call therefore to weave Khadi
was always accompanied by his call to do away
with the foreign made clothes.
And indeed Moorthy's return to the village
from the city is initiated by his burning
in a bonfire his foreign clothes along with
his foreign university books.
But his return to Kanthapura does not automatically
mean that he returns to a life where the Charka
and where weaving of the Khadi is predominant.
In fact when Moorthy asks the villagers to
shun the foreign clothes and to weave Khadi
for themselves a character called Nanjamma
points out Moorthy that Brahmins do not spin
and that such spinning is properly the occupation
of the weaver caste.
Now here in Nanjamma’s opposition to weaving
we come across a significant point which complicates
our understanding of the Gandhian return as
represented by Moorthy.
Moorthy's activism in the village is strongly
characterised by his opposition to the system
of caste segregation.
In fact Moorthy spends almost as much time
trying to break various caste taboos as he
is trying to mobilise the villagers for the
Anticolonial cause.
This makes Moorthy confront age old caste
prejudices around which the entire village
life is organised.
And this is evident even in the way Achakka
introduces the village in the first pages
of the novel.
So for instance, as I told you, that Achakka
introduces the village landscape as divided
into various quarters inhabited by specific
castes.
So the village is a unity which has a number
of segregating lines separating one caste
from the other.
Indeed when the character Bhatta, and we will
talk about Bhatta more later.
So Bhatta is the Village Priest and the Moneylender.
And he also becomes the sort of primary enemy
the arch enemy of Moorthy in the novel.
So when he also criticises Moorthy his criticism
is based on the fact that Moorthy is attacking
the age-old traditional caste system.
So Moorthy's return to the village is therefore
marked less by the desire to accept the traditional
ethos of the village life and more by the
desire to transform the village population
into a homogeneous mass which can then be
directed against the colonial Authority.
Thus the story of Moorthy's return is not
that of his smooth integration into the village
which is otherwise so exalted in the Gandhian
Discourse as the repository of the true Indian
way of life.
Rather the story is of Moorthy disrupting
the regular pattern of the village life in
Kanthapura.
And this is not only evident in his efforts
to break the various caste taboos but also
in his efforts to politically mobilise the
women and bring them out of the domestic confines
which the patriarchal way of the village life
imposes on them.
Thus we see Moorthy's Anticolonial movement
foreground a figure like Ratna who, as a young
widow, with a mind of her own is detested
by the patriarchal order of Kanthapura and
is shunned as a “Concubine”.
So, here again we see Moorthy to be a disruptive
and even foreign influence in the village
life.
And rather than he returning as a prodigal
son who tries to assimilate himself into the
existing rhythm of the village life, Moorthy
emerges as a major force which destroys many
of the age-old practices that held the village
together.
But here I need to clarify that I am not judging
any of Moorthy's actions here in terms of
whether they were morally the right things
to do or not.
What I am trying to point out is that Moorthy’s
physical return to the village cannot be interpreted
as a simplistic assimilation into the village
life.
In fact Moorthy’s desire to transform the
village to which he returns and his efforts
to confront the evils of caste segregation
and of patriarchy renders questionable the
very idea of return.
So we are confronted with a question like
is the return to a golden age possible just
by physically going back to the village life
which has largely remained untouched by the
colonial influence even though it is written
by caste and gender discrimination.
Now here you see what Raja Rao is doing.
Chinua Achebe is going to do the exact same
thing in his Things Fall Apart.
Because, like Achebe’s novel, Kanthapura
too brings out the fault lines that already
plague the traditional indigenous society
even when it is bereft of the corrupting influence
of colonialism.
Thus these two novels, both Kanthapura and
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, make the notion
of a simplistic return problematic as a decolonisation
strategy.
Now I would like to end this discussion on
Kanthapura by talking about how apart from
the idea of return the novel also criticises
the Gandhian attempt to make Anticolonial
Nationalism mass based.
Now a superficial reading of the novel will
perhaps convince the reader that Moorthy does
managed to kindle within the villagers a spirit
of Nationalism and transform them into a united
opposition to the colonial authority by breaking
the behaviours of caste segregation and patriarchal
narrowness.
A careful reading will reveal that the force
of opposition and resistance that Moorthy
kindles within the villagers does not automatically
get directed against the British rule.
But before we discuss the complex dynamics
of this Anticolonial movement that happens
within the village of Kanthapura, let us for
a moment consider the Skeffington coffee estate.
Because there too Moorthy manages to organise
an Anticolonial resistance.
Now the Skeffington coffee estate, we are
told, is run by a British.
And the novel describes how Indians from all
over the country are brought there with false
promises and are then forced to work there
almost as bonded labourers.
So in other words, the coffee estate is presented
as a site of barbaric violence and exploitation
where the line distinguishing between the
British colonial exploiter and the poor Indian
exploited is very clearly drawn.
It is unmistakable.
So Moorthy’s call to resist the oppressions
of the authority of the exploitative White
man finds ready acceptance among the labourers
of the coffee estate.
And they almost immediately rise to the occasion.
But if you compare this with the village of
Kanthapura there we see that the patterns
of oppression are more complex.
And though Moorthy tries to convince the villagers
that the White man is exploiting them economically,
for the villagers the more real face of economic
exploitation is the Moneylender Bhatta for
instance.
And now the problem here is that the Bhatta
is not only not a British coloniser he is
also not a foreigner or even a city bred man.
In fact as a village priest he is thoroughly
integrated within the structure of the village
life.
And Moorthy’s discourse of Anticolonial
Nationalism fails to address the exploitation
that someone like Bhatta carries out.
So in other words, though Moorthy recognises
the economic exploitation, that goes on between
the coloniser and the colonised, he remains
at this stage in the novel, impervious to
the class exploitation that goes on between
one Indian and another.
So almost throughout the novel Moorthy's focus
primarily remains on talking about the colonial
exploitation which happens between the British
coloniser and the subjugated Indians.
But he does not really think through the exploitation
of one Indian by another which is a class
exploitation.
Thus when in Chapter 15 an elderly lady asks
Moorthy whether his fight for freedom is going
to free her from the exploitation of an Indian
Revenue Collector, who beats his own wife
and who also coerces the whole village, Moorthy
is at a loss for answer.
Hence while reading the novel one is never
very sure whether the villagers, I mean, whether
they do rise and resist the oppression.
But we are left slightly unsure whether this
villagers is resistance that Moorthy organises
is directed at the White man's government
which for most of the villagers remain a distant
entity or is it directed to the more immediate
Indian exploiters like Bhatta, for instance,
or the Revenue Collector.
Because after all, in spite of Moorthy's elaborate
explanation of the ways in which the White
man is economically exploiting the villagers,
for people like Ratna for instance or Rangamma,
they find the most pleasure when they see
the granary of Bhatta going up in flames.
Because it is Bhatta and not any White man
who lends them money at exorbitant rates and
who starves them and their children of food.
So the anger is very much directed at certain
Indians like Bhatta for instance.
And therefore within a colonial society oppression
is not merely evident in the relation between
the British and the Indian but also informs
the class relations of one Indian to the other.
Now the novel in fact ends with Moorthy realising
this class difference and class exploitation
as one of the major sources of crisis in the
Indian society.
And thus as an Anticolonial activist we see
that he finally changes his affiliation from
Gandhian idealism to the Nehruvian dream of
Realitarianism.
And Moorthy therefore, I mean though this
novel, is usually read as a Gandhian novel
as almost a propaganda of Gandhian idealism.
At the end of the novel we actually see the
central character Moorthy transforming into
a Nehruvian character and shifting his allegiance
from Gandhi to Nehru.
So here we end our discussion on Kanthapura.
And in our next Lecture we will discuss Rabindranath
Tagore and Frantz Fanon.
And we will look into their distinct criticisms
of the Middle Class led Anticolonial Nationalism.
Thank you.
