Republic of Ideas – Transcript

Session No 73
Session Title: Republic of Ideas
Venue: Char Bagh

FOREWARD TO TRANSCRIPT

This is a transcript of sociologist and scholar Ashis Nandy’s statement at the session titled Republic of Ideas at JLF. While discussing different aspects of India, Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal had suggested that maybe one way of looking at corruption is that it is a sort of equalising force in society as power structures are always created by the elite to keep the status quo in their favour and the poor can break through these glass ceilings created by the elite only by bending and subverting the system. Tejpal went on to give DhirubhaiAmbani as an example; that if he had not bent and subverted the system, he might have remained a petrol pump attendant.

Ashis Nandy picked up on this thread of argument and said he agreed with Tarun that corruption was a way of creating social mobility. He said the corruptions of the rich get noticed less because the rich have learnt to be sophisticated — and gave an imagined example of how he and another speaker Richard Sorabjee could be corrupt and nepotistic in ways that no one would catch on. The corruptions of the poor or those who have newly broken through the glass ceiling, on the other hand, are often more noticeable because they are moreconspicuous. This, Ashis, argued was because they do not have the sophisticated mechanisms of the rich to hide their money. They only trust their families to be loyal so park their money only with close relatives — which again makestheir corruption more visible. But, Ashis continued, according to him all of this was fine and part of a necessary social churn because this was the only way that the poor could break free from centuries of being downtrodden and access the power and entitlements that should be theirs by right. Another speaker had earlier criticised dynastic politics but Ashis explained that even that was part of social churn as Mulayam Yadav and the entire Yadav community that are seen as mainstream now were part of the historically oppressed classes barely 20 years ago. He explained how important it is for dalits and backward classes to break through centuries of oppression and access power and money so that society can become more equal. He spoke of the desperation they feel.

Ashis then went on to say that though what he was going to say would sound vulgar, he felt it may even be a fact that the SC\ STs and OBCs were among the most corrupt today, BUT (and it is important to note this) he said he felt if this was true, and as long as the percentage of the poor or oppressed classes was more corrupt than the elite, he felt the Republic of India was safe because the necessary social churn was taking place. He went on to give the example of Bengal, where according to him, 40 years of Left rule had meant it was comparatively less corrupt but at the same time it meant no Dalits or OBCs had been able to even come close to accessing power and the social hierarchy was frozen with only the upper castes having a grip on power.

The statement that is being interpreted as offensive therefore has been taken wrongly out of context. It was part of a larger argument Ashis was making that corruption should not be read in narrow terms and sometimes can be an important social mechanism to correct the wrongs of history. In his reading the social churn is more important to India’s health just now than a perfect corruption-free society.

Ashis is a scholar who has always been pro dalit and backwards and all his writing over the past 30 years would be proof of this.

TRANSCRIPT FROM SESSION

(33:04)

Urvashi Bhatalia: Ashis da, your comments now on the ideas that have been discussed here: equality, the changeability, the need for change, the dreams of the founding fathers and mothers. Um, and on utopia generally, I mean what have you been writing about utopia? You want to tell us a little bit.

(33:29)

Asish Nandy: Well let me first clear two things, I think you heard when you said that I’m a philosopher. I’m a philosopher only in the sense that philosophy can come from texts but it can also come from slums. So I’m talking about the second kind of philosophy and I do hope that I will convey some idea of it today. First of all I do endorse the view which has come, that a realized or successful utopia is the other name for terror. In Soviet Union they used to put dissenters in mental asylums after the psyciatrists have diagnosed them as mentally ill because anybody who dissents in a utopia is naturally insane. Normally, we should diagnose them as insane so utopias can be dangerous and visions can be also dangerous but on the otherhand no collectivity, and for that matter no individual, can live without visions. A good life requires vision. But such visions must also have a touch of the imperfect. And unless you are sensitive to that, I think it will be very dangerous to mount a kind of informed movement, which strives for perfection. In the context of our discussion, if I may point that the only country which I know is close to zero corruption is Singapore and that’s not part of my concept of utopia, it can be very much a part of my concept of dystopia. I do wish that there remains some degree of corruption in India because I would also suggest that it humanizes our society. Indian society, Indian republic if you would like to call it like that here, is that it has left only four sectors of the society where your true talents are recognized, your true capabilities and skills are acknowledged. Rightly or wrongly, that’s a different thing but at least they’re acknowledged, people think they only work for that. In other words, no considerations of caste, religion, sect enter your considerations. And these four sectors are: spectator sport, which is a very small sector because sports heroes are not that many. Two: entertainment industry, which is a very slippery category because contrary to our belief at least four fifths of all Bombay films for example fail in the box office, so it’s a very risky business. Actually all four sectors are risky but it is perhaps the most risky business. Third is crime, our criminal gangs are perfectly egalitarian. Do not forgetthat Dawood Ibrahim’s gang had a lot of Hindus in it…Totally secular. And finally politics. You fight it out in politics and make it. All this talk of dynasty is an illusion created by the middle classes. Mrs. Gandhi did not become prime minister when Nehru was living. There was a large and very noticeable gap between her ascent to the throne and Nehru’s demise. She fought her way up. She was seen as a very meek, very unskillful, politically naïvewoman. And therefore the syndicate chose her. She knew that in Indian politics that you should not project yourself as either too intelligent or too shrewd or too clever or even too political and that helped her. She clawed her way topower and so have each one of the names which have come up whether it is Mulayam Singh Yadav or Lalloo Prasad Yadav. In addition, in the case of Lalloo Prasad and Mulayam Singh, and people like them, exactly because of the reasons you give, there is a sense of desperation, utter desperation and insecurity. Even if you make through corruption millions of rupees, you suspect that you will not be able to get away using the machinery of law or cleverly manipulating your investments in the right way with the right connections because you have none. If I may point out to you that to the best of my knowledge the only unrecognized billionaire in India today, in dollar terms, is Madhu Koda. Madhu Koda. He’s a tribal and I can assure you that Mr. Koda must have been a very insecure, unhappy, tense person. And in this kind of situation, the only people you can trust are your own relatives. Your son, your daughter, your nephew or your own cousins, where you can use them for keeping your money, keeping your political secrets or trusting them to remain loyal to you. And if you fit your experiences within this model, you will recognize, why this insecurity is there because politics looks a very impersonal/contractual work to a large part of Indians. They are new to politics. And your family members do not have the capacity to absorb the additional money in more clever, intelligent way. If I do a good turn to Richard Sorabji, he can return the favour by accommodating my nephew at Oxford, if it were in the United States, it would be a substantial fellowship. Miss Mayawati doesn’t have that privelege. She probably has only relatives whose ambition was to a nurse earlier or run a petrol pump. If she has to oblige somebody or have somebody in the family absorb the money, she will probably have to take the bribe of having hundred petrol pumps and that is very conspicuous, very corrupt indeed. Our corruption doesn’t look that corrupt, their corruption does.

(41:20)

Tarun Tejpal: Urvashi, can I add something to what Ashis da just said. You know on this corruption issue, I just want to put this corruption issue in a different kind of light along the lines of what Ashis da just said. I just want to throw a thought amongst all of you, which I’ve said earlier on also, perhaps, I’m saying perhaps corruption in a country like India is also a great class equalizer. And I’m going to try and explain that to you. It’s not all bad, it’s probably a great class equalizer. I’m saying suppose in an extremely class ridden society like India where somebody who works in my house, my driver or my cook, what chance do his children have in the way India is constructed today versus my children where for the last fifty years in many senses the class that has ruled India, the elite, the privileged, my class of people, have built a set of rules that makes things easy for them and makes things lucrative for them. I mean all the rules that are laid down, let me give you the dumbest rule of them all, that English is the kind of dominant, hierarchal language. You know almost everyone who exercises power in India in some sense has an advantage if he comes from an English speaking background, a clear advantage over everybody else. In a situation like this if you come from the wrong side of the tracks of which roughly a billion people in this country would, whatchance do you have of breaking through to get your hands on the spoils of life and on the spoils of a country. I’d say almost nothing. What do people like that do? People like that subvert the rules; these are not God’s rules, these are man made rules. God’s rules are you shall not kill anybody, you shall not rape anybody, you shall not oppress anybody. Those maybe God’s rules. Men’s rules are rules of examinations, taxations, privileges. I’m saying what chance do you have if you come from the wrong side of the tracks where I would sayroughly a billion people of this country do, of breaking into and getting your hands on the resources available to the 200 million. I’d say a lot of these people do that by subverting the system which is what we call corruption, which are these man made rules. I’ll give you one the greatest examples of this which will easily strike a chord with most of you. There’s a man called Dhirubai Ambani. If he had not known how to subvert the rules; all the rules that hesubverted today are now law. At that time they were not, at the time he wassubverting them they were not, he would have still been filling petrol in apump in Doha. And that’s how I’m saying, today you see all across the landscape in Delhi and Bombay, people coming from nowhere, from the wrong side of thetracks not having the privilege of elite education, of elite background, ofadmission to elite clubs, but breaking through on the basis of their wit, their intelligence and their hunger and very often subverting the rules that certain classes made.

(44:15)

Ashis Nandy: Just a response to this part, very briefly, he’s not saying the most important part of the story which will shock you and it will be a very undignified and, how should I put it, almost vulgar statement on my part. It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the OBCs and the Scheduled Castes and now increasingly Scheduled Tribes and as long as this is the case, Indian republic will survive. And I give an example, one of the states with least amount of corruption is the state of West Bengal where when the CPM was there. And I want to propose to you, draw your attention to the fact that in the last 100 years nobody from the OBCs, the backward classes and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes have come anywhere near power in West Bengal. It is an absolutely clean state.

The art of Historical Fiction

–Linda Grant, Madeline Miller, Lawrence Norfolk in conversation in Jeet Thayil

 

In the final talk at the Google Mughal Tent, Poet-moderator Jeet Thayil opened the session by introducing the talk as about the different perspectives in writing a novel set in an historical period. The discussion began with novelist Lawrence Norfolk explaining ‘who is a historical novelist ’. He used a quote from poet John Keats which says ‘the least poetic thing imaginable is a poet,’ saying that “the same goes for a historical novelist”. Author of Orange Prize winning novel When I lived Modern Times, Linda Grant said the idea of historical fiction is to “rise above the facts” and create a story with your imagination in the backdrop of historical setting. She was of the view that fiction is now the way people are coming to read history,” and the panelists discussed the distinction between history and fiction. Orange Prize winner Madeline Miller said that in the interpretation of history, “there is no such thing as non-fiction, there is always a person on the other end of the keyboard.” Norfolk agreed, saying that “people bring in their biases and perspective in the interpretation in history.” He went on to say that “if you want to know what happened without the intervention of the writer, go to art!” On the question of the amount of research that goes into creating historical fiction, Grant commented that “if you do a lot of research, it will block your head.” The panel agreed that a lot of research could block the free flow of creative faculty, but still it was extremely important to get the facts right. Nofolk joked that a footnote of a book in the midst of his research could keep him “locked in the library forever.”

Debate: This House Proposes that Capitalism Has Lost Its Way

–Shoma Chaudhary, Suhel Seth, Frank Savage, Michael Sandel, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, moderator

The final event of the sixth DSC Jaipur Literature Festival saw a rousing and typically high-spirited debate between various speakers at the festival. Shoma Chaudhary opened the debate, arguing for the motion, declared that capitalism has lost its way, saying that if the goal of human enterprise is not just o put a bit of cash in the bank but to care for happiness, we would not be having this conversation. ‘Capitalism has fallen off the track an is completely mutilated.’ She went on to say that everything to do with capitalism had been subverted: if it’s not possible to provide electricity or drinking water to those who need it, the corporates will not do it. Capitalism is about cornering lane and potential for only a privileged few. 80% of India would paint a very dark picture of their experience of capitalism. A percentage of society has grown richer but the poorer have grown poorer.  Paranjoy Guha Thakurtaresponded that ‘the rich have not grown richer an the popper have not grown poorer but the gap has grown.’ He discussed economic and social systems, arguing that India had to rise above ‘isms’ to get the best of all worlds. Suhel Seth, arguing against the motion, disagreed, saying that ‘Capitalism is not always good but it is a reality and can do good.’ He urged the audience to ‘vote with your conscience not some archaic liberal talk.’ Frank Savage, who took a very pro-capitalist stance, argued ‘Show me another economic system that has provided mobility for so many people.’ He said that as a democracy it was up to us to make the system work, since capitalism was adaptable and it was up to each country to make its own system. Michael Sandel admitted that capitalism had lost its way ‘because it has wandered into places it does not belong’ such as family values and community life, but urged that ‘the challenge is not to get rid of capitalism but to keep it in its place.’ The audience voted to dramatic drum rolls, and the conclusion was resoundingly for the motion that Capitalism has indeed lost its way.

 

Voices from Under

–Santhali Stories by Damayanti Beshra, Untouchable God by kancha Ilaiah, introduced by Namita Gokhle

 

The session opened with Namita Gokhale introducing writer of Santhali Stories, Damayanti Beshra, a writer in the Santhali language, one of the 22 scheduled languages in India. Beshra, who has received an award for her contribution to tribal literature, read two stories about animals from her collection for children. She explained that “people from tribal backgrounds spend more of their time in jungles among the company of animals so it will make more sense to them.” On being asked to share her experiences on writing, Beshra said that she “had to struggle because there were no publishers or buyers for books in Santhali”. She said she wanted to “preserve this language” and to inspire fellow girls from her community to write. Gokhle introduced Kancha Ilaiah as “an important and compelling voice in Dalit movements.” She described his new book Untouchable God as “a witty and ironical novel about the hypocrisy of caste Brahmins and upper castes.” Ilaiah talked about the essence of Dalit writing, saying that the “literary genre of dalit is still very minimal. Most writings are instances of pain and discrimination faced by lower caste people.” The session was the official book launch for Untouchable God, andIlaiah’s publisher said he was honored to release this book, with Beshra was the happy receiver of the first copy. Ilaiah commented that ‘this session might be called ‘Voices from Under’, but these are also the voices of transformation.’ He went on to make a statement about Ashish Nandi, saying “Ashish Nandi has made a bad statement with a good intent. However as far as I know him, he has never been against reservations. Therefore the controversy should end here.” Namita Gokhale observed that the “controversies in the field of literature go on and on”.

Stree Ho Kar Sawal Karti Ho- women’s voices, women’s questions

–Preeta Bhargava, Sushila Shivran and Lata Sharma in conversation with Dushyant

 

Dushyant, jihnhone apni ek kitaab mein striyon ke bare me likha hai, ne dusre lekhakon se sabka parichaye karwaya aur Stephen Hawking ke bare me bataya jo striyon ko rahasyamay samjhte the. Kavitri Preeta Bhargava ne sabke beech apni ek kavita ko rakkha ‘aurat shabd se man me akuraate hai, woh mein piche chhod aayi hun’. Bhargavane kaha ki jab satta aur paisa purush ke paas rha hai mahilaon ke paas apne adhikaar ke liye sawal uthaane ki koi jagah hi nahi thi. Unhone yah prastav rakkha ki ‘samanjasya ki zaroorat hai’. Unka kehna tha ki ‘purush mahilaon ke madhyam se prashikshan chala rha hai aur keh rha hai ki aurat hi aurat ki dushman hai’.  Bhargava ji ne yeh bhi kaha ki ek aurat ko bata diya gaya haiki who ‘kya pehnegi aur kya khayegi’ aur is manovritti mein badlav ana chahiye. Lekhika Sushila Shivran ne sabha ke samaksh ‘o dambhi purush sadiyon se chhala hai tumne’, apni kavita padhi. Aajkal arthik roop se sampann haie aurat, phir bhi khap panchayat apne behenon, maon aur striyon ko baandh deti hai. Shivran ji ka kehna tha ‘Vastu ki tarah mahilaon ko dekha jata hai’ aur ‘unki khubsoorati ko hi dekha jata hai’. Lekhika Lata Sharmane kaha ki ‘streeyon ki sawalon ke uttar dena ki koi zaroori nahi samajhta’aur Draupadi ke bhari sabha me pooche hue prashna ka bhi koi jawab nahi mila tha. ‘Monalisa ke man me kya hai?’ kehkar unhone apni kitab se padh ke sunaya. Sharma ji ne ‘Simone de Beauvoir’ ke hawale se kaha ki stree paida nahi hoti unhe banaya jata jaise kehti hai.’ Mahilaon kimajja me aa jata hai ki wah sawal nahi karengi’ aur Sharma ji ne sawal kiya ki ek purush insaan kab banega? Sharma ne yeh bhi kaha ke ‘mahila ke apne asmita ko banaye rakhna apne aap me sangharsh hai’.

Maps of Love and Hate: Nationalism and Arab Literature

–Ahdaf Soueif, Tahar Ben Jellon and Selma Dabbagh, Reza Aslan in conversation with Jonathan Shainin introduced William Dalrymple

 

Festival Director, William Dalrymple, introduced the stage of luminaries known for their contribution to Arab literature, each one writing in a different language. Ahdaf Soueif, author of The Map of Love, shortlisted for Booker Prize, asserted that “it is a literature which is aware of itself as an Arab literature”, it is extremely conscious of itself. Reza Aslan whose work defies the tendency to stereotype the Arab region as purely about religion and politics, called the region the “cradle of story-telling.” Selma Dabbagh, a British-Palestinian fiction writer based in London, discussed her own experience of writing her novel from outside the country. Jonathan Shainin contemplated the crossing of borders and mingling of cultures, and talked about what it was to write about a region from far away. Tahar Ben Jellon, celebrated French writer, responded by saying that the “Writer is always in exile even when lives at home”, venturing further by saying “My homeland is my language”. In a tongue-in-cheek manner, he added, he would love to be Indian or even Japanese, chuckling that this would solve his dilemma of answering whether he was Arabic or French. Talking about censorship, he said that what bothered censorship was the “representation of reality rather than reality”. Referring to the role played by fiction in the depiction of reality, Ahdaf Soueif cautioned people to be aware of political opportunism, insisting that readers and writers alike should be aware of political agendas, and added that the primary concern of Arab writers was not the representation of reality but issues of art and culture. Soueif re-iterated Jellon’s viewpoint that as a writer “you represent nobody but yourself”.

A Sense of Place

–Peter Hessler, Pico Iyer, Akash Kapur and Samanth subhramaniam with William Dalrymple

 

This was an informative and encouraging session about travel writing in which the panel of distinguished travel writers enlightened the audience about the intricacies of  the genre. DSC Jaipur Literature Festival director William Dalrymple described travel writing as an ancient form of literature, which experienced a huge boom in the 1930’s and 1980’s. He said that “Travel writing is still relevant in the age when you can hit Google and virtually find any place in the world.” Pico Iyer declared that he did not enjoy reading or writing travel books, but since he has always travelled, a lot of his writing had been about travelling. He said he was more interested in the inner than outer aspect of traveling: “the place is less interesting than the emotional issues that you may be confronted with at that place, and not at home.” In contrast, Akash Kapur observed that in a lot of travel writing, there was a tendency to run through the place and reach the story, but for him, “it’s more about the place.” Samant Subhramaniam commented that the writer’s instinct was to open yourself up and share what you see with your readers. Peter Hessler observed that travel writers tended not to take themselves too seriously, which was a quality he liked. Each of the panelists read out passages from their books, followed by an interactive discussion with the audience.

Readings

–Andrew Solomon, introduced by Aminatta Forna at Counselage Durbar Hall

Aminatta Forna introduced award-winning writer Andrew Solomon, an expert on psychology and depression and author the book Noonday Demon, which examines depression in personal, cultural, and scientific terms. Drawing on his own struggles with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, doctors and scientists, policy makers and politicians, drug designers and philosophers, Solomon talked about the subtle complexities and sheer agony of the disease. He said he wanted to show that “depression is not a phenomena confined to western middle class, but happens in all religions and cultures all across the world.” He also talked about “the poverty of English language” for having the same word to describe what “a child feels when he loses his ball game and the severe mental illness that makes a person kill himself.” Reading out some experiences of patients from his book, Solomon addressed the question of medication in psychotherapy and said that, contrary to the general perception, “they are supplementary,” adding that “going into medication is often the opposite of cowardly; it requires a lot of strength going into an experiment with your brain.”

Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi 1707-1857

–William Dalrymple introduced by B.N. Goswamy

 

B.N. Goswamy introduced DSC Jaipur Literature Festival Director William Dalrymple as a “writer, researcher and organizer; a person who hold strings together”. In a beautiful session about late Mughal art between 1707 and 1857, Dalrymple presented a fascinating slideshow of art and paintings from this period. He explained how between the years 1707 and 1857, the cultural centre of Delhi in North India was the locus of a dramatic shift of power, with the decline of the Mughal Empire and the rise of the British Raj.The exhibition focused on Mughal artistic culture to highlight the interwoven nature of Mughal, European and regional patronage networks within which Delhi artists operated. Writer of Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi 1707-1857, said that “it remains largely unrecognized that this period produced astonishing art.” Going through the paintings of Mohammad Shah Rangeela, Nader Shah among other painters from this period, Dalrymple talked about “the poor nature of identity during this period”. He said that there was eminent confusion “whether to raise children as Muslims or Christians”. He also talked about how the Great Age of Urdu Literature came at the time of political decline during this period.

The Art of Biography

–David Gilmour, Wade Davis, Andrew Lycett, John Zubrzycki and Pico Iyer in conversation

 

The illustrious panel of biographers discussed their craft in this fascinating session. David Gilmour explained that he had become a biographer by accident, having previously been a journalist. He said that he wasn’t good at approaching people to talk to them, so he had written his first biography about a dead person, so that he only needed to go through the source material to research it. WadeDavis described the process of writing biographies about dead people as a ‘bringing them back to life.’ Davis said that no matter who you do a biography about, you always learn a lot about people that was not known before, including details of a person’s sexuality or extra-marital affairs. Andrew Lycett commented that the first quality required for a good biography was the biographer’s strong interest in the subject, and passion for intensive research. Lycett explained that part of the biographer’s role was to find information that may have ‘disappeared,’ particularly sensitive information, and to talk to people with different opinions on the subject. John Zubrzycki described the subjects of his biographies as ‘eccentrics doing exotic things in extraordinary places”. Pico Iyer talked about his extraordinary experience of writing the biography of the Dalai Lama, whom he had already known for thirty years. He explained how he followed him everywhere, whether it be the optometrist, the shop sitting in on meetings with all sorts of people, including rock stars. The panelists discussed the future of the genre, bemoaning that diaries were no longer kept, and letters were no longer being written in the digital age, which was going to make it difficult for future biographers to retrieve information about their subjects.