Empathy for migrants: A Reading of Abdulrazak Gurnah' The Last Gift

 

Abdulrazak Gurnah’s The Last Gift  (2011) portrays the silence of the migrant Abbas who married an orphan Maryam who was raised by different parents until she found herself in love with Abbas. She abandons her last foster parents Ferooz and Vijay  and marries  Abbas. Abbas after working as a sailor , fitter and finally an engineer whereas Maryam works as a cleaner in a hospital. The couple move from Birmingham to Norwich to Exeter. One day Abbas collapses and diagnosed with diabetes.  He who used to be solitary in mind and independent becomes dependent on Maryam. The latter has keen yearning for reconciliation with her foster parents whom she left long ago. Their children Hanna and Jamal come back from where they are studying and recollect their relationship with their father. Hanna changes her name to Anna and tread an independent path whereas Jamal who is vague in mind    aspires to realise his creativity. Abbas plunges himself into deep silence and recollects his poor childhood, struggle in getting himself  educated, school life in Mfenesini Though his miserly father was reluctant to send him for higher education, his brother Kassim and sister Fawzia came to his rescue.

    The narration goes back and forth. Abbas reminiscences, Maryam’s car taking of her husband, Anna’s life with Nick and Jamal’s struggles to establish himself are narrated in jumbled sequence. The Childrens’ anticipation and frustration to know their father’s history are mentioned. Hanna who came to be called Anna moved out of her father’s orbit of  affections. She expresses wonder when her mother informs that her father was listening to audio books of  poems. Abbas slowly plunges himself into his own reveries, Maryam expects her children to take care of each other and reconcile with her father. While Jamal was passionate in his causes, Anna was different. To Jamal, “moving is a moment of ruin and failure, a defeat that is no longer avoidable , a desperate flight, going from bad to worse, from home to homelessness, from citizen to refugee , from living a tolerable  or contented life to  vile horror.” (73)

Jamal while observing his neighbour, white-haired and dark-skinned painting his shed ruminates over the phenomenon  of  migration . “He knew that it was a clutter of ambition and fear and desperation and incomprehension that brought people so far and enabled them to put up with so much. And they could no more resist the coming than they could the tide or the electric storm.” (87) he thought that he could be South Asia or South Arabian,  Yemini. Millions are like that who belong and not belong in places they live but find happiness in small achievements  

Anna’s boy friend nick got a post at university and after  commuting  from Wandsworth to  Brighton he suggested moving to university . She  gave up her job and followed Nick. Anna had a recurring dream in new house in which she aw a house  partly derelict and she saw someone whom she could not identify. In the dream, she climbed a narrow stairs and force open a door and explained to some one invisible how to repair. When she recounts her dream to Nick, he could not make any sense of it and inquired if she was feeling guilty regarding her dad. She resented her father’s restrictions on her dress and overconcern about her boy friends about whom she maintained silence. But her relation with her mother was  more intimate. When Nick invited her home, she preferred to visit  her parents first and then went from Norwich to Chichester where Nick’s s parents lived.

 the novelist shows how alienation grows in family reactions of migrants who suffer from insecurity, loneliness, cultural change between their native country to where they migrated. Anna found it stressful to maintain intimacy with her parents as she wanted to find her own path of adventure and meaning. The generational gap too contributed its mite to the feeling of separation among the family.

   “ They were adrift, out of their depth, lonely together. They had done this deliberately , she thought, cut themselves off , living timorous lives, expecting slights and disregard.”.

This feeling of guilt and been traitorous is common to all where the children growing wings flyaway from their parents leaving the latter in their empty nest .  this was inevitable but it would not alleviate guilt feeling in the children. The parents too have to reconcile to the new condition as they cannot force the children to stay back in view of the latter’s  future.  

Anna visits nick’s family  Chichester and finds that they feel discomfort regarding her. Nick’s father Ralph is  an engaging conversationalist .  His mother Jill was a  professional who ran aa hospital and Anna thinks that she could intimidate her mother Maryam.  Ralph argues that correcting historical injustice could lead to new injustices in Zimbabwe. Ralph says some people cannot tolerate whereas others see injustice as natural order of things. He inquires her if she read Orwell. She who studied literature  gets impressed by Ralph’s write reading  but still feels  some sort of discomfort in her brief  stay with Nick’s family . “He made these comparisons without insistence, wit out enthusiasm, as if they were calm observations of civil truths. She wondered that ralph did not seem to notice the abrasive underside of his comparisons , which was a smug suspicion of everyone else’s  unsteadiness.”  (106) 

Gurnah brings out    the delicate likes and dislikes in family relationships. Maryam at first gives up he job and tends to take care  of Abbas. The chores needed to be learnt and done with as little disgust as possible. After a while , she wants to join  and offer her services at a refugee centre.  The novel unravels the difficult relation between the  natives and  the refugees and the psychological problems faced by the refugees in coming to terms with their past , the differences in upbringing of children at school left to the choice of the parents, the silences which accumulate, struggle for survival and the strains imposed by them due to the need for building bridges.

When Uncle Digby  asks her about her origins , she relies that she’s British. He wants to know what she had been before she became British. Anna says her father came form East Africa and   she didn’t know  the specific country from which she where her father came from. Uncle Digby says , “  We see families falling apart because children do not want to know about the world  their parents came from.  To keep communities together, host and stranger need to know each other , but we cannot know each other if we don’t know ourselves. We who care for the welfare of immigrants work as hard as we know how to get  that message across , to encourage people to know. Those words I am British   feel like a cold tragic blast to me.” (119) Later anna remembers how she has spoken slightingly about her father to Nick to assert her ‘British identity’ and recollects her father’s sense of  strangeness despite many years of living in a host country.

Jamal was initially reluctant to go to the mosque abut attend at the behest of his friend  Monzoor. The latter is  surprised by Jamal’s stance to now more before believing and praying. After 9/11 incidents, he realises sense of insecurity felt and he also remembers the state of mind of people of Palestine, Chechnya , the Congo and how people endured their situation. Gurnah also shows  through the eyes of Jamal  the petering out of the movements began in 1968, riots in 1999 and anti-war  demonstrations against Iraq war which was planned and waged war destroying large number of   people and many countries  ignoring mass protests. Some called it utopian and terror as real and Hanna and Jamal wondered at the   irony of  horror continued while their father  “was in his own deep fog and these new horrors hardly penetrated through his confusing pain.”(126)

Abbas slowly recalls his college days, interest in the girl on the opposite terrace, scandal , forced marriage at the behest of his sister Fawzia , his sense of dishonour by the family of the girl Sharifa, suspicion of trap by his in-laws and his desertion of wife and child.  When Maryam comes to know the truth from his confession, she feels aghast  knowing that her husband was a bigamist and maintained silence  for so long   and  she invites Anna to visit home once .  On the other hand , Anna leads a happy  life but begins to nurture doubts about Nick’s fidelity and Jamal is attracted and accosted by Lena who spurns his possessive boy friend Ronnie. What we find in the novel are how relationships get soured by  silences, guilt, infidelities and  suspicion of  fidelity of partners.

When a neighbour of his falls on the pavement while  coming back shopping   Jamal and Lena go to help him. Jamal disowns him when the  ambulance woman signs if he could come along and later repents that  what would have happened if his father suffered the same fate on the road  and not even remembering his name.

Both Anna and Jamal visit their home and listen to their Maryam about her early life how she was reared by Ferooz and Vijay. Initial kindness, entrance of cousin Dinesh , discrimination in treatment towards her by Ferooz and Vijay. She also tells how she was molested by Dinesh. While Anna could not bear to listen and wanted to go , Jamal was more understanding and sympathetic. This also shows how alienation grows in a migrant’s family and generational gap . For the fort generation, the burden of the past is hard to shrug off whereas the second generation of migrants struggle to assimilate themselves in new setting.

Anna’s uneasiness and inconvenience are brought out by her passing and negative opinion of two black women migrants at station and her recurring dream of rotting  house and heavy suit case symbolising burden of the past. She remains suspicious towards Nick despite lovemaking  after her return and fantasizes about her achievements. Her struggles to forge her own individuality away from over protective father Abbas and her boy friend  Nick are to be noted.  Anna also senses dislike shown by Ralph and Jill towards her and Ralph’s reference to her father’s bigamy annoyed her.  She   thought that whatever kindness shown “was offered in shame to disguise their distaste.” (228)

Gurnah shows the defensive stance of migrants, how they are  forced to forget, deny or distort their past, history and try to assume hide their restlessness. One example is Harun’s attempt to hide his wife’s photo and display  photos of earlier tenants in his house.  Harun was saved by Jamal and Lena earlier and this made them welcome visitors in Harun’s house. Harun  came from Uganda in 1960’s to  study journalism, made friends with a lecture Allan and later fell in love with Allan’s wife  Pat who educated him out of his timorous  scruples . But Harun didn’t go to his  family in Uganda who didn’t take kindly to his marrying of  Pat. 

At the end the relationship between Anna and nick ends when she finds that he has been cheating her after reading Julia’ s text on his mobile. Nick says back that her family has been gripped by” hopeless  melodrama acting like immigrants” and she failed to understand his parents Ralph and jill. Anna recalls  his  desire for her even before his exit and his colonial extinct to take what he wanted. She readies for her new life.

In the last part called rites we come to know Abbas’s wandering life through his taped  voice listened to by his daughter Anna. Abbas waned to keep secrets of his early life as it was done traditionally   from his family. He recounts how he went to Singapore, Indian cities and Durban, South Africa. He felt pangs of guilt for abandoning his  wife and child back in Zanzibar  on suspicion. He did menial work on the ship and as a scavenger and roamed on his own. He befriended one Ibrahim and was about to fall in love with his sister but left the place after being warned by Ismail. He didn’t want to talk about his fears , simmering hatred, ill treatment of women as merchandise,  tyrannical ways with children in his native land and embracing silence as a way of coping with unforgettable guilt and also Claire, the sister of Pascal whom he befriended in  Mauritius and felt sad to leave the place and at last his destined meeting with Maryam.  Anna recognised it “as a kind of unforgiving honesty , which she did not usually expect to hear in someone’s voice , let alone in her father’s (262)  After her father’s death and listening to his taped voice , Anna could see in her mind’s eye her father’s loneliness, his feeling of bus ride to college and her own similar experiences and him as a college student. This was the last gift from Abbas, the ability to sympathise and empathize cutting across generational gap, fears of migrants’ identity crisis and tryst with their past. At last Maryam  becomes active in her life through acting in and plays  along with her children Hanna and Jamal  visits her foster parents. She comes to know that she was born to a Polish mother and a British soldier a darkie with light complexion. First they surmise that Maryam could be from Jewish father but her name could have been Miryam if it were so. The missing vowel is critical as it denotes changes of nationality and in the novel we also find how  the novelist refers to Hanna  as Anna depending on her location , at home or at outside the home.   

 Jamal writes Anna about his impending visit to Zanzibar, the native place of Abbas. Anna in her reply refers to her dilemma , “ I feel myself suspended between a real place , in which I live , and another imagined place, which is also real but in a disturbing way.” (278) Jamal in his reply mentions her mother’s recovery of zest for life and a story awaiting to be written by him.

The novelist uses  the techniques of third person  narration, memory, confession, depiction of dreams  and letters to tell this very sensitive, pathetic , secretive and significant life of immigrants who struggle to sustain in their new country and amidst conflicting cultures. The tale is narrated in five parts  titled ‘ One Day ‘, ‘Moving’, ‘Flight ‘, ‘The Return’ and ‘Rites’.  Abdulrazak Gurnah succeeds in weaving a story that would create a deep sympathy for the migrants and their anguish to come to terms with the past and the present   in the era of globalization which brings different, hybrid  cultures together to workout a new way of living. The characters such as Abbas, Maryam , (H)anna, Jamal, Harun, Ferooz , Nick linger in memory for a long time .          

Know Your Valuable Rights

 

    The book   The  Rule of law By Tom Bingham    has three parts . The first part deals with topics such as    the importance of the rule of Law   and history of it. In the part two,  issues such as the accessibility, equality before law , human rights,  and its niche in the international Legal Order are taken up for study and part three deals with contemporary issue such as Terrorism and the Rule of Law  and the latter’s relation with the sovereignty of parliament.

   Initially Bingham  refers to Professor Dicey’s coinage of the term and mentions three points, no one can be punished except under established law, no one  is above law and a special attribute of the English institutions. It has vagueness, extended from the U.K. to America, rest of Europe, Australia and New Zealand . Tom Bingham sees the core principle as that “all persons and authorities within the State, whether public or private, should be bound by and entitled to the benefit of laws publicly made , taking effect (general) in future and publicly administered in the court.” (8) He also writes that the hallmarks of the regime sans the rule of law are , “the midnight knock on the door, the sudden disappearance,  the show trial, the subjection of prisoners to genetic experiment, the confession extracted by torture, the gulag and the concentration camp, the gas chamber, the  practice of genocide  or ethnic cleansing, the waging of aggressive war.” (9) many of these characterized  the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy and   Russian totalitarianism.    

    Tom mentions that European commission has consistently treated the democratization, the rue of law, the respect for human rights and good governance as inseparably interlinked.” (67)  He thinks that a savagely repressing or persecuting state in case of some sections cannot be regarded as observing the rule of law despite having  “the detailed laws duly enacted and scrupulously observed.”  (67) While the Soviet Union reduced the principle of the rule of law to statutory laws for the dictatorship of proletariat, Nazism saw law as the will of the nation and realized in Fuehrer. He sees the rights recognised by European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act 1998 are fundamental and protection of them does not elevate individual rights at the expense of community.

The right to life

The article  2 provides every one’s  right to life shall be protected by law and restrictions conditions in which law may be lawfully taken . it is the most basic right. English law has protected this right by criminalising murder, manslaughter, infanticide, causing death by dangerous driving, by having no truck with euthanasia and by imposing civil liability on those who cause death negligently but not criminally.

Suicide has not been a crime since 1961 but abetment to it is a crime. This is in tune with European court of Human Rights which has put obligation on member states not to take life without justification. They are also obliged to  establish a framework of laws, precautions ,procedures and means of enforcement which will protect life to the maximum practical  extent . 

Article 2 is invoked when a death has occurred . it cannot give redress to  the deceased but to the family and close relatives of the deceased who are rightly regarded as victims. They have right to  know what has happened to the victim and to prevent repetition of such incidents in future.

Article 3: The prohibition of torture

This article provides that “ No one shall be  subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

The common law ( followed by statute) opposes torture several centuries ago and the Bill of Rights, 1689 barred the infliction of cruel and unusual punishments.

Article 5: Right to liberty and security : This says no one shall be deprived of his liberty except under cases and the procedure established by law. A person arrested has to be told in a language he can understand the reason and charge against him. He shall be brought before the court promptly and in case of unreasonable  delay in trial, he must be released on bail. A detainee can challenge the lawfulness of his detention be decided quickly and his release ordered in his detention is unlawful. In case of violation of article, he is entitled to financial compensation.

Article 9: Freedom of thought , conscience and religion

Article 10: Freedom of expression  

 This right is there under some prohibitions of statements  such as libel, slander , dishonest criticism of others’ goods, contempt of court, breach of copyright , obscene, seditious, inciting to mutiny, or crime or disclosure of the official secrets.

Article 11 : Freedom of assembly and association

 Conclusion : An awareness of these rights will lead to a vibrant democracy in the world.   Knowledge is a bliss and ignorance is a curse in the present context where common people are facing many hurdles in realizing  their basic rights to call themselves as citizens of the civilized countries.

My appeal to folks

 

Never trust the vested interests

Who promise heaven and

deliver a veritable hell

Once in five years

They need your nod

To sit on throne

They tantalize you

With offers galore

You've to use your reason

To trounce their treason

You are real rulers

Real lions

But select those

Who trod on you

And shed tears in vain

Awaken from addiction

To archaic ideas

And helpless groans

"We ,the people of India"

Need to rejuvenate

Our love for life of liberty

And avoid death sans dignity!

***

Some days

Poetry does not stir

Or moves slowly

Like leaves of trees

It hides somewhere

In the depths

Awaiting and awaiting

To give happiness

Like fresh wind

That elates us

Though comes late

 

***

Poets are travelers

On a railway platform

All ears  to

Announcements

For their train

Of thoughts

Lucky if it comes on time

If delayed

They feel happier

To observe others

To offer better

Poetic thoughts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review of Mo Yan's POW!

 

   POW!  is a novel by Mo Yan , a Chinese writer and the winner of the Nobel prize in literature in 2012. His  novels have become known for their new narrative technique,  Panorama of the  society  in  transition, and fine characterization.     

    The protagonist of the novel is Luo Xiaotong who wants to turn ascetic and narrates his story in a temple where the  Wise Monk Lan  lives. The confessional tone of the boy  mingles with humour, irony, ardent  desire, wonder,  pathos, feelings of irreverence,  family honour, revenge and fictional nature of the mind and explicit description of amorous activities .  

   The boys’ father abandons the family due to his obsession with another woman called Wild mule. The boy’s mother  Yang Yuzhen  works hard to eke out living and to provide at least bare minimum. For the boy meat is everything , his passion, first love and last desire. When the father reappears with a girl  child Jiaojiao, mother first refuses them a stay but later allows them to stay with them. With the help of  Lao Lan, the family survived in the absence of wayward father. But Luo Lan starts  United meatpacking Plant in which the elder Tong , yang Yuzhen  and later the boy join and rise in their position. Luo Xiaotong who spurns school joins the factory, advises on innovative methods of slaughtering , and  wins a meat eating contest as a part pf publicity event. An insulting  remark by one  Yao QI against  Yang Yuzhen and the father Luotong  leads to the murder of the mother and arrest of Luo Xiaotong’s father.  The orphan children struggle for existence and Jiaojiao too dies due to starvation leading to avenging her death by Luo Xiaotong by blowing up Lao Lan and his empire  through  firing shells from an old  mortar bought earlier.

     The novel shows transition to market economy, corruption by the entrepreneurs, tactics by the managers, government  officials,  Chinese festivals , the jealousies of the workers in the factory , the struggle for existence of the families, the stoical nature of  Yang Yuzhen  the kindness coupled with cunningness of characters like Luo Lan , the anarchic and  impetuous nature of the Luotong the sensitive nature of the Wild Mule and the wife of   Lao Lan , the quarrels  among women such as Huang Biao's wife and Fan Zhaoxia to please the powerful Lao Lan and Luo Xiaotong’s obsession with eating, desire, imagination  and revenge that creates an ambience of gloom and doom at the end.    

The novel is racy, hilarious, irreverent, culturally sensitive and  a gripping tale that makes the reader glide on till  the end. POW boys are those whose stories hover between reality and illusion. In the novel one  can also  see the underlying subversion of society gradually moving from  old hierarchy and  market  economy where the Old powerful keep their positions intact whereas the common people struggle without any relief. This is a novel that  startles and delights the readers.                         

The North and the South Greens : A rereading of Ramachandra Guha's Environmentalism

 

    Ramachandra Guha’s book Environmentalism strikes a chord in the heart of every one sane enough to save the planet earth. In his chapter of The Ecology of Affluence, he elaborates the great impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring that fired the activism in many  countries such as America, Germany and Sweden etc. Carson’s crusade against pesticides such as DDT which affects from insects to  plants to animals to humans stirred  not only the conscience but also the brought in legislations such as The Pesticide Control Act ,1972 , Toxic Substances Control Act,1974. Carson called pesticides as ‘elixirs of death’ but we may call them Halahal, the poison born out of the  churning of mountain  Manthan in Hindu mythology.  Carson argued that nature was  ‘ an intricate web of life whose interwoven strands lead from microbes to man.” (qtd. In Guha ,97)  Guha writes  that Carson had not mentioned her predecessors of movement such as George Perkins Marsh, John Muir, and Aldo  Leopold and attributed this to the Age of Ecological Innocence.

     Guha chronicles the movement by writing that after Carson, other biologists who have professional expertise and passion for various forms of life forwarded the movement. Among them Raymond  Dasmaan ( The Destruction of California), Paul Ehrlich (The population Bomb) ,  Garret Hardin ( The tragedy of the Commons) , Barry Commoners ( the Closing Circle). In Europe the noted environmentalists were biologists-  microbiologist Bjorn Gillberg ( Sweden), biochemist  Palmstierma (Sweden), C J BreJe`r, and from the UK they were  Eric Ashby, E.F.Darling, C.H.Waddington and Julian Huxley .

    Guha also write how environmentalists were criticized by capitalists as deviationists from  free market and by socialist as of class struggle. The environmental movement gained numbers in the course of time. The movement which took a  militant turn in 1960’s became involvement tin structures of governance in 1970’s and 80’s and again roots of protest in the streets in 1990’S and early 21^st century. Gandhian ideas of conservation inspired by Thoreau, Ruskin  and Carpenter   revisited by David Foreman, Chris Maile leading to testimony  of “the global and cross-cultural character” (115) of the movement.  Guha also elaborate deep ecology movement spurred on by Arne` Naess  .This movement focused on intrinsic worth of human and nonhuman living and argued for moving away from crude utilitarian viewpoint. While  deep ecologists foused on the wild, another strand called environmental justice movement focused on human habitations and clean -up movement of Love Canal polluted by the firm of Hooker Chemicals   in upstate New York and protest against dump yards in localities where  predominantly black people live  in Houston city .  A sociologist Robert Bullard first pointed out this and Lois Gibbs formed a body called , The Citizens Clearing House for Hazardous Wastes(CCHW)   Women took active part in the movement. In Germany the greens formed a party and gained entrance into their parliament called  the Bundestag . In German greens one strand ‘Fundis’ focused on movements outside whereas another strand ’ Realos’ were ready to participate in government. German greens realised the responsibility of the Western Europe in economic and  ecological exploitation of the third world. The Greens  gave more than 50 percent  representation to  women in their party and parliamentarians  which had  ask “for the cancellation of all international debt, the banning of trade in products that destroy vulnerable ecosystems and most radical of all, for the freer migration of peoples from poor countries to rich ones.”(133). The main stream parties too had to give into  Greens’ demands such as end of nuclear energy,  end of linear growth, unilateral disarmament and proportional representation  of women in all fields.  

   The South  seeks justice    

    While there were arguments that environmental movements are the prerogative of the rich countries , the Global South countries proved it otherwise. The  protests by  the  Penan community in the forests of Sarawak( Malaysia), ‘Narmada bachao Andolan’  against submergence of villages and flora and fauna  under the leadership Of Medha Patkar in Gujarat( India ), the Buddhist-led peasant protest against eucalyptus tree plantation which depletes water level for the benefit of the  Japanese companies in Thailand, The movement led by the poet and martyr Ken Saro-Wiwa against oil drilling by Royal Shell of Anglo-Dutch Conglomerate in the Ogoni region ( Nigeria) and The green belt Movement by Wangari Maathai in Kenya   are a few examples of the ecological consciousness of the global South. There were also movements against mega projects, lime stone mines and  quarries, the high tech trawlers, the Paper factories by the affected sections -tribals, peasants, fisherfolk, communities living downstream respectively. The Peruvian villagers  fought against the mining industry that destroyed their valleys, rivers and forests and their livelihood and Nahuatl Indians in Mexico  opposed  San Juan   dam on the Balsa river. In these movements    Gandhian methods as well as more militant methods are used in case of negligence by the authorities. Baes on native ideologies of justice such as Gandhism.  

    Guha compares Brazilian and Indian movements . while the northern movements focused on quality life, in the global south, it is about livelihood and social justice. In both countries, the struggles are concerned with forests, dams, pollution and biodiversity. In Brazil the  movement comes form the urban squatters and the  indigenous people responding to dramatic degradation whereas in India the rural communities responded to take over of the common resources  by the State or private companies. The professional middle classes in India responded reluctantly to the movement by the peasant and tribals whereas in Brazil, there is more support from them to the urban poor, forest dwellers and dam-displaced people.in both countries this has led to deepening of democracy , more transparency in decision making and more accountability for decision-makers.  The destruction of Amzon forest by  road expansion and logging led to “the most intensive destruction of biomass in world history.”    (161)  Drawing strength from native ideologies such as Gandhism, Buddhism or Catholicism and also by  eco-feminism, the poor redefined development in favour of eco-friendliness  and decentralization. Practical solutions such as small dams, traditional irrigation methods such as tanks and wells and community control of natural forest have been offered by the poor environmentalism  in the place of big dams, and selling of public land by the State to industries.

    While the Northern Greens cared more for endangered species and plants, the Southern Greens drew attention to the rights of the Poor . in Malaysia and India, the corporate-State bureaucratic interests depicted environmentalists as anti-development whereas the latter “spoke truth to power” and questioned ‘’Development at what cost?” (170) 

Today  environmentalists have to make common people and intelligentsia  understand that the real development lies not in privatization of profits  and   pollution form relentless industrialization but  in the socialization of   the surplus value and protection of biodiversity. For this democratic protests as well as  influencing the policy change at the governmental level are need of the hour.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                    

The Unfolding of History and politics in Amitav Ghosh's The Great Derangement

 

                                 

    Amitav Ghosh is a great novelist, essayist and environmental litterateur  who writes in beautiful English language that fires the imagination of the reader . His great trilogy -Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire stand testimony to his power of writing on epic scale. His work, The Great Derangement  about environment degradation proposes the  need for the  political engagement of  intellectuals and common people in saving the life of one and  all and the Mother earth.

    Asian countries suffer the most due to global crisis and among Asians  it is again  the poorest who bear the brunt. In 1991,Bhola cyclone in Bangladesh is thought to have   killed  3 lakh people  and displaced more than half a million people. In 1991, in the same country 1,38.000 people were killed of whom 90 percent are women in a cyclone.

    A significant rise in sea level could  lead to the disappearance of Lakshdweep islands in India and an estimated 50 million in India and 75 million in Bangladesh and aa tenth of Vietnam population  may suffer displacement. Global warming is leading to desertification of 24 percent land in India, abandonment of one lakh acres annually in Pakistan and China is suffering an annual loss of 65 billion dollars by 2016. The melting of the Himalayan glaciers is leading to flood as in the  Kosi river in Bihar in 2008 and the Indus  floods of 2010. In future the melting of glaciers may lead to water shortage and “the lives and livelihoods of half a billion people in South and Southeast  Asia are at risk.” (121) the modernist experiment by Asian countries has made it clear “that  the patterns of life that modernity engenders can only be practised by a small minority of the world’s population.” (125)

   An interesting thing Ghosh brings out is that modernity has been the result of cross-fertilization between  Europe and Asia. He quotes Ganeri and says that in 17th century Indian intellectuals -Muslims, Jains and Hindu  “produced  work of tremendous vitality.”(128)  

    Amitav Ghosh refers to multiple maternities and criticizes the western claim of singularity  of modernity by a historical account of natural gas in China and oil industry in Burma but the British usurped the control over Burman oil industry in 1885. He also explains India’s role in providing man power and technology for the growth of world steam fleet  and beginning of the carbon economy. The Wadias of Bombay could compete effectively with the shipyards of Europe and America. The British were responsible for curtailing Indian  ship building industry thorough their 1835 law.  It was the brute force of the empire which kept the Asian nations at disadvantage in terms of wealth and power all the while blaming the natives for ‘indolence.’ The earlier industrialization of Asia would have led to the  early onset of the  crisis.  Mahatma Gandhi in India and the religious groups of China such as the Taoist, Confucius and the  Buddhist , and the Burmese Statesman U Thant, The secretary General of the UNO during 1962-71  resisted industrialization and consumerism. All humans who lived in the past or living in the present   have contributed to the problem in different degree. Now the problem is global and Asian countries also  cannot,  under the penalty of extinction, neglect the danger of climate crisis      

     Ghosh says that climate change poses a serious challenge to concept of freedom. The era  Enlightenment   treated  those who had not conquered nature are beyond history or not arrived at. Many Asian countries followed the same notion and mode of development and writers concerned themselves with political engagement at the expense of recognition of ecological crisis.  In their striving not to remain backward they embraced many modernist movements such as surrealism, expressionism , postmodernism , postcolonialism but few listened to the archaic rumblings of the earth. In South Asia, political energies have been focused on issues such as identity, religion, caste, ethnicity, language, gender rights etc. but closed to collective survival. When novel is seen as an ‘individual moral adventure’ as John Updike said, the concept “banishes the collective from the territory of fictional imagination.”(170) Both literature an politics have come to be seen as means of self-discovery. But  Ghosh says what is needed is the ability to imagine a different future. He  says that  though it is possible to ask where one was at the time of  fall of the berlin wall or 9/11 incident ,  can we do so in the same vein , where were you at 400ppm[ parts per million]? Or where were you when the Larsen B iceshelf broke up?”(173)

   He also refers to how demonstrations have had little effect on policy of state craft and national  security.   Oil replaced  coal  has become an invisible dispenser of power to the elite of Britain and America. Internet has become a site of view and counter views , the public sphere deadlocked while the real power is exercised by the ‘deep state’ which means ‘’the interlocking complex of corporations and institutions of governance .” (176) Consequently , the Western countries are ‘post-political spaces’ managed by the deep sate and the lack of political alternatives, disempowerment and the  intrusion of market have led to  spectacular violence.  When the moral-political analysis became dominant, collective action is neglected at the cost of inadequacy of the activists’ life style. Amitav Ghosh points out how mahatma Gandhi , the embodiment of sincerity succeeded in dislodging the British  from India but  failed to steer the country in a different economic path. But this can also be attributed to Gandhi’s demise  in 1948 with  in six months after independence and the different approach of leader such as Nehru and Patel.    Ghosh writes the need to get out of the trap of individual imaginary  and the posterity will blame politicians and artist for the failure to address climate crisis.

    The Anglosphere consisting of the US, the  UK, Australia , Canada, New Zealand deny climate crisis in political domain but acknowledge it in military domain. Environmental activism has come under the scanner of the government of the USA. This shows the fear of the establishment and   undeniable link  between the  system and climate crisis.    Global warming is a domestic as well as global problem. Michael Foucault says that “to ignore this challenge would run counter to the evolutionary path of the modern nation state.” (190)

   The dominant counties who want to preserve the existing world order may resort to militarized aggression,  closed boundaries and  to keep political and   climate refugees out. So, Ghosh sees that the distribution of power lies at the core of climate crisis and there is no language to discuss the redistribution of power. Amitav Ghosh sees capitalism and empire as responsible for climate crisis and the poor suffer the most due to this. So, the developed countries have more responsibility when compare to countries like India in lessening the disaster. He writes that in2014 an average Indian accounted for around 20 percent of the average American’s coal consumption and 34percent of those from the OECD .   

   He compares two documents – one by Pope Francis ‘s encyclical letter Laudato Si’  and the Paris Agreement on climate change and finds the latter as more arcane, vague and talks of limitless human freedom but without realization of intended goals  The former  does  realise that human is spirit, will and part of nature. While nation states view  popular protests against climate crisis from security point of view, religious groupings  who believe in the sacredness can ally with popular movements and can give us a new hope. The new generation born out of  this struggle against climate change will rediscover their kinship with other beings and nature and their vision at once old and new will find expression in art and literature.   It is high time that all humans  including  intellectuals and artists and writers took cudgels on behalf of the mother earth.               

 

Book Review of Makarenko’s Learning To Live

 

A.S. Makarenko’s novel  Learning To Live   was translated into Telugu by Renatla Gopalakrishna (1920-1995), a renowned journalist, poet, writer , translator and a winner of numerous awards  . Makarenko (1888-1939) was a soviet educator who wanted to transform and offer a happy and meaningful life to  orphan children and those who have become wayward due to various reasons. This shows the yearning of the infant  Soviet union  to turn out  a humane society which gives a lot of importance and care to children, the future of any nation. This book was published as Vijaya Dhwajam  in Telugu for the first time in 1954 by Navodaya Publishers  and second reprint by Manchi Pustakam publishers  appeared in 2004.

Vanya , the boot polishing boy, Igor, the way ward young man, Wanda, the young girl who gets cheated by another petty thief  Ryzhikov come together in strange conditions. Vanya, the hard working boy  faces harassment from  one who appropriated steals his earnings, Igor himself who  impersonates to get money from post office and Wanda join the Children’s’ colony known as First of May  for rectification from the authorities. Ryzhikov who steals money from Vanya also joins the colony.   Vanya gradually develops into a worker with integrity , much liked by all and even grows in to a commander of  one children’s battalion .Ryzhikov  who initially acts as a good worker even is accepted as commander . Wanda herself transforms into a responsible girl  and leader of other girls in the colony but finds it difficult to stay in the limitations of the colony. The efforts by Ryzhikov to defame Wanda fail and his misdeeds are exposed. Igor, the happy go lucky young man becomes an avid reader and a writer. He and Oksana grow into commanders

The colony children grow from workers in a foundry under hard conditions, earn surplus to build a new factory out of their own efforts. Igor falls in love with Oksana and faces a rival but wins her love. The attempts to damage the reputation of colony by petty thefts  of articles of other mates by  Bankovsky and Ryzhikov come to nothing due to ingenious ploy by Vanya and Filka . The commanders of different children’s battalions such as Zakharov, Klava and, Zyriansky and  others , the obsessiveness of Blum who wants to increase production, the dramatic performances by children during anniversary Volenko who leaves colony  because of suspicion against him and his eventual return after real thieves are caught the novel  portrays  how orphans , the uncared-for children and the young  mould themselves into useful citizens of the nation through taking responsible positions in labouring for production. They saw slothfulness as the enemy in increasing production, meet their targets  and for them the final victory lies in becoming leaders of production. This book is a wonderful lyrical prose in pedagogy .                      

Book Review of Fali S. Nariman's India’s Legal System: Can it be Saved?

                       

    This is a book whose time has come when speedy justice became the urgent need of the people of the country. When  many cases are pending, people  are awaiting quick  justice and the demands  and criticism  against  the  judiciary due to delay in delivery of justice are increasing day by day, it is hearty to note that Nariman has thought it fit to write a small but sharp book on the subject.     

    The book starts with the  concept of the legal system in Pre-British India, its functioning and   transition to independent India, legal system at the Village level , Panchayti Raj, the legal system under the constitution and the link with the English language. Nariman also emphasises the importance of English language and legal system which we have imported but nourished in Indian soil.

    In ancient India the main source of laws were smritis- Manu smriti, Yagnavlakya smriti, Narada smriti. Brihaspati smriti  emphasised the spirit and invoked Equity even against the written law.  They were “a compendium of principles for the regulation of human conduct.” (2) The Arthasastra predated smritis but ceased to function separately subsequent to the Manusmriti. In ancient India the bulk of the administration of justice is done through popular assemblies called  Sabha or samiti which were deliberative bodies for discussing public business and also fora for judging the case brought before them. During the Mughal period ( 1526-1771) , the petty chieftains and big zamindars also had courts exercising civil and criminal jurisdiction. The British courts which initially confined to judge the English extended their jurisdiction gradually and the King’s courts ( later called the Mayor’s courts), Recorders’ courts, Supreme courts superseded one another . The notable feature before 1862 was the existence of two parallel systems- the Supreme courts in the presidency towns and the adalats in mofussil areas.   This disparate system ended with the establishment of the high courts in presidency towns Calcutta, madras and Bombay after 1862.  The Great Codes – The Code of Civil Procedure(1859), The IPC (1860), THE code of Criminal procedure (1861), the Indian Contract Act (1872),The Indian Evidence Act( 1872),and the Transfer of Property Act “form the bedrock of Indian legal system” (19)    After the Government of India Act  1935 came the Federal Court of India  which was replaced  after Indian   Constitution , 1950  by  the Supreme Court  of India.

    After independence Shriman Narayan Agarwal drafted a ‘Gandhian Constitution for Free India’ which received tacit support from Gandhi but completely ignored by leaders of  Independent India. Gandhian idea of indirect and decentralized system was not opted for and the Constituent Assembly preferred parliamentary democracy with a centralized bureaucratic administration. Although article 40 provided  for village Panchayats with powers to function as self-government , this directive principle was not enforceable by any court. The Constitution 73 amendment reinvigorated the Panchayat raj system to an extent only.                         

    The book also elaborates  the  alternative methods of dispute resolution such as conciliation and arbitration, Lok Adalats, and special tribunals. Narman says that “mediation leading to a possible settlement of a dispute, is to be preferred to adversarial litigation in court or before an  arbitrary tribunal.”   (41) Lok Adalats and the introduction of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 and  The telecom Regulatory Authority of  India Act  which provide for decisions of special tribunals have helped the disposal  of cases.

    The different aspects of Justice under the constitution, Criminal Justice system are dealt with in a more detailed way. Referring to the different aspects of  justice under Constitution , he writes “ We have abolished untouchability and outlawed backwardness in the Constitution of India, but alas, many of us have not eliminated it from our hearts.(58)  He also points out that ‘The Constitution and the laws guarantee rights against the state, but not by one group against another- a crying need in these fractious times.” (59)  invoking the judgements of the late  Lord Denning and the  Justice   Krishna Iyer , Nariman says that the legal system based on Anglo-Saxon Jurisprudence does work    “if you only know how to make it work” (76)

    In case of criminal justice system, he refers to the increasing number of pending cases (2,71,76,029 cases administered with a sanctioned judge strength of 20,558 judges in  2016), overcrowding of jails ( above 116. 4 percent in all central jails including 51.1 percent of undertrial prisoners  and over 131.1 percent  in  all district jails including 73.3 percent of undertrial prisoners in the year  2015)

    He refers to deficiencies in criminal justice system such as   outdated laws, lack of comprehensive scheme of payment of compensation ( specifically in cases of victims of custodial crime, rape, child abuse and physically and mentally disabled victims), unsuitable mandatory terms of  punishment  for certain offenses such as food adulteration, treating  the right to silence as sacrosanct  in cases of terrorist related offences, lack of ideal crime-control model. He also mentions the fallibility of judges at different levels in a tiered administration of criminal justice, the absence of the relentless pursuit of truth as prescribed standard for criminal cases , the ‘management’ of evidence by the crafty and the  influential wealthy , lack of ‘robust judgng’  in criminal courts as some of the problems.          

  It also deals with the aspect of  who services the Indian legal system , and how effectively . He opines that lawyers become dishonourable when  they see the profession as business, not appear  for clients  unconcernedly and strike work and paralyze judiciary where public needs their expertise. 

   At the end Nariman  identifies problematic areas such as proliferation of appeals, frequent invocation of Writ jurisdiction of high courts -judicial interference in administrative actions, judicial attitudes- a lack of consistency by the Court a the highest level, excessive burden of case  law, and lack of effective case management and suggests some judicial reforms . He suggests that  written judgments need to be more precise and more brief keeping in view that  “a judgment or order of the highest court is read very closely by lawyers and judges throughout the land.”(137) 

The book offers some measures for  the effective functioning of  the legal system such as  Increasing the number of judges – 50 judges per 10 lakh people in stead of 10.5 judges per  million as in the present as recommended by 120th Law commission report, increasing the sitting time for judges, encouraging arbitration and Lok Adalats ,‘Robust judging’ by the trial judge, reducing the number of appeals /adjournments, separation of forensic and law and order departments, punishment for perjury (  it is 15 Years in  the USA), Case law management—preparation of restatement of law on every topic by a body of learned and wise lawyers after restatement no case law prior to should be cited, formation of three- member benches for important cases,  meeting of Undertrials Review committee  every month in every district  to implement sections 436, 436 A of Criminal Procedure Code, information management system in all central and district jails and  the strengthening of  DLSC at district and state level.

In conclusion , Nariman  writes of the need for  Judiciary to be an exemplar of discipline in approach, lifestyle, in word and deed . The judiciary is described as oxygen in the air which people  take it for granted and do not realise its utility or importance. He also  writes  that at present In a country like India,  “it is not enough for the Judiciary only to be independent of the Executive and of all other external influences. Judges , because of the high office they hold and the plenitude of powers they exercise, must be seen to have noble qualities of mind and heart, and above all, of courage. Nobleness and courage in the highest judiciary begets nobleness and courage all the way down the line.” (147)

  This is one book which all who love  and would like to  see  justice as one of the cardinal ideals along with liberty, equality, fraternity must read and reflect.