As the descendants of earlier generations, we are left holding their passions and terrible mistakes. So it is that while debates about marginalisation and communal hostilities rage across India, our continuing crisis of caste and criminal discrimination turns the spotlight on all who toil in the salt mines of our humanities departments. Where, but in their midst, might we hope to see a way out: a change of perception in future populations. Have we not entrusted to them the study of social problems and their cultural histories?
When events explode in our midst, we do not always know what they mean. Bloodless words like ‘depression’ and ‘rejection’ pass for descriptions, but many-sided truths lie in human stories. In telling the story of what happened, meaning might emerge. There are hundreds of ordinary human stories yet untold, each extraordinary, each worthy, each valid. Hence, the importance of collaborations between sociologists, historians and teachers of literature, because the last of these three has flowed into the gaps between women’s studies, sociology, and culture studies.
Wait a second. At least three generations have believed that Sociology, History Literature and the like are not for the tremendously talented but for those who couldn’t get past the gates to something ‘better’. Well, Humanities courses may not prepare students for the job market as well as a degree in Corporate Studies could but they could save the nation. As Thermistocles said in BC times: “I cannot fiddle but I can build a great city.”
About ten years ago, Alladi Uma published a paper titled ‘Why teach these texts?’ in which she elaborates how distanced from reality Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable (considered a classic) is and how much closer to reality is Bama’s sketch of a Dalit village in her autobiography Karukku . Shifting from one to another, pointing out that 60 years separate the two works, Uma opens the full throttle of her purpose when she cites Anand’s descripton of Baka cleaning latrines. In an attempt to show that all work is respectable, Anand romanticises the task but Bama angrily asserts human dignity from a realistic appreciation of who they are and what society has done to them.
How many read Untouchable unquestioningly?
The truth is what Madduri Nageshbabu wrote in Telugu 20 years after Karukku .
I want a little breeze
a glass of water
some warmth
a little sky in this dungeon
a little land for me in this country of mine
Will you give it?
I want real citizenship
Will you give it?
(tr: Velcheru Narayan Rao)
Writing in 1998, Mahasweta Devi said: “After reading me, the reader should feel duly ashamed of the true face of India because caste and class exploitation and the resistance are rooted in India’s land-system… I saw this man, whose right side from arm to ankle was deformed. Why? Because his maalik made him lift a paddy-laden cart. He fell and his right side was crushed under the heavy cart. I asked the maalik , ‘Why not use bullocks? He answered if a bullock dies, I lose a thousand rupees. He is just a bonded labourer. His life is of no value.”
Moving even further back to take this forward, mention of a little-known anthology is a must. Short Stories for Social Work Education, edited by Manu Manu Desai, was published by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 1985.Though carelessly laid out and disrespectful to its many translators whose names have gone missing altogether, the book has 28 stories translated from different Indian languages (the 29th is an original piece in English by an Indian).The editor says: “Unfortunately our educators have hardly used the vast and perennial source of our distinguished literature in Social Work Education…. even after thirty-odd years our educators rely heavily on writing rooted in Western culture. The indigenisation of teaching material in India is essential to enable students to understand the society to which they belong.
Two weeks ago, a prestigious college developed its required reading for a course on Marginalised Writings, and announced that of the 19 selections only seven were Indian. Had India’s marginalised communities — for so long forced to stay invisible — become marginalised in their own country’s colleges?
If Indian students do not study a good range of Indian writers, who will?
What shall we tell our students to read to make sense of the chaos in their country today?
Mini Krishnan edits translations for Oxford University Press India.
minioup@gmail.com
