V.S. Naipaul is a great travel writer His two earlier books: An Area of Darkness, and India-A Wounded Civilization about India are brilliantly written. India A Million Mutinies Now is touted as not her master piece. But this book turned out to be a banal, boring, narcissistic with no application to the sensational tile. The book is divided into 9 sections. Excerpts from section 8 were published in The New York Review of Books 67:69-76 D 20, 1990)-a lengthy article authored by none other than Naipaul himself. The section 8“The Shadow of the Guru: is about the Sikhs, a main focus of my review.
Naipaul introduces Vishwa Nath the publisher of Sarita, who revealed: “The Hindu religion is a conglomeration of 500 religions. We have had reformist movements from .the dawn of civilization against orthodoxy every reform movement degenerates into a sect, Buddha rebelled, Mahavir rebelled. Guru Nanak, the founder Of the Sikhs, rebelled.” With a sight Hindu twist to Nathsebellion of breaking away had been prompted by the horrors of the Muslim invasions.” For all practical purposes, Naipaul oversimplified Sikhism, neglected to pay attention to the Sikh theology; Sikh and the social, religious, al upheavals of Nanaks 15th century Punjab.
Naipaul portrays the present Sikh struggle for independence as a movement a view shared by the mainstream Indian Press. Naipaul sidetracked politics of issues, and focused obsessively on personalities particularly to that of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Since Naipaul never met Bhindranwale himself, he does what others foolishly tired contact Indian Journalists. In case, Naipaul presents Dalip (n0 last name given), who is journalists for a Indian weekly and a correspondent for a Canadian paper. Which ones? Not mentioned.
Dalip claims to have met Bhindranwale (5 times, I counted in the narrative) in the Golden Temple premises. Two visits alone, one visit along with a friend, and last two visits with a group. Of those on three visits, Dalip briefly chatted (even friendly chats) with Bhindranwale. Dalip depicts Bhindranwale as a “killer man with angry eyes, red eyes when angry, and dangerous.” Dangerous because in Dalips own words, Bhindranwale looked “lean and hungry.” If looking lean and hungry is the criteria of being dangerous, no wonder India indeed full of them, What caught my attention about Dalip was his abdication for journalistic ethics, least of which one expects a journalist to ascertain and report the truth, For example, Dalip published two articles against Bhindranwale, One on Naxalites in Bhindranwale inner circle and the other one more menacing-where Dalip conducted a popularity poll-n his own mind and published the article, “The Sant in Isolation.” As a result, Dalip claims Bhindranwale threatened to kill him when they saw each other on the 4th visit But, then, on 5 visit (which is along with some local journalists), Bhindranwale offered Dalip-and only Dalip-a piece of sweet and a banana to eat. To Dalips way of thinking, “he (Bhindranwale did not like many more.” Dalips testimony doesn’t stand the rigors of even a simple scrutiny. Dalip is inconsistent, Jacks interpersonal and communication skills, professionally incompetent, and therefore unreliable, But Naipaul isn’t incompetent. He is known for his excellence in asking probing questions, analyzing remarks of those he confers face to face. Why didn’t he examine Dalip?
Naipaul accompanied by a correspondent from Hindustan Times visits Jaspal village where 48hours earlier, Buta Singh, his brother, mother, father and grandfather are murdered. Bonafide Sikhs are blamed for this crime because a witness named Joga recognized” the killers (at night time), “the tone of voices convinced him that they were the boys, the Singh’s”,” The author couldn’t find police or any official in the village or at the massacre site, Nor did he pursue as why happens routinely in Punjab, the Police hardly ever conduct formal investigations into them as scares. Another murder site visited, where the author solved the crime all by himself in a matter of seconds. Ranjit was one of political prisoners held at Jodhpur prison. The day he was released, his brother was killed, The author writes, “Ranjit didn’t say who his brother had been killed by.” Therefore, Naipaul concluded rather smugly, “this suggested that his brother had been killed by the boys.” Crime solved. Culprit-the Sikhs. At two places, the author showed his lack of attention to the details. First, describing the 197 incident of Bhindranwale preaching tour in Gayanagar, Rajasthan, Second, on page 456,” mayordom of the sixth Guru.” The corrections are Ganganagar, and fifth Guru, respectively.
In the feat of sheer imbecility, Naipaul appears to blame the Sikh bodyguards for the massacre of thousands of Sikhs which followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination, Gandhi was murdered $ months after the Operation Bluestar and a week before the launching of Operation Shanti-an operation that was to be the Sikhs Final Solution. Again, Naipaul opted the simple way out-castigate the dead bodyguards. Naipaul ignored much frequently available evidence that the Sikh killings were premeditated, and pre-arranged with the complicity of the ruling Congress Party senior members, and the security forces.
In India-A Wounded Civilization (mid-70s), Naipaul referred Indian journalism “a gracious form of clerkship” with no craving and capability for conducting any social inquiry or investigative work. Ironically, state “80sandearly “90s presented a contrasting picture Naipaul tactically glued together with the Indian journalists. As a consequence of that, not to any one’s surprise, The Shadow of the Guru is a rambling hodgepodge of ill-conceived Hindu-invented ideas, rife with distortions, and stander of the Sikh Nation, This section is highly ambiguous, essentially one-sided, incomplete, Jacks intellectual insight and objectivity, devoid of substance, strewn with errors, and anti-Sikh.
Taken into consideration the seven title of the book, what is more disturbing is not how and what Naipaul wrote, but what he omitted. Especially those events that occurred during the authors travel time in India-December 1988 to February 1990. Since Punjab was off-limits to foreign travelers, under what terms of agreement Naipaul entered Punjab we will never know, There is not even an indirect reference to the political unrest of Assam, Nagaland, and other secessionist states; no mention of uproar in Tamil Nadu against Operation Pawan-the Indian army assault in Sri Lanka; no mention of extremely violent 1989 parliamentary elections; and no mention of the beginning of mass uprising in Kashmir. This is only a glimpse of a long list of extraordinary political events the author chose to selectively bypass. Come to think of, not even the name-Rajiv Gandhi-is stated from one end of the book to the other.
In summation, there is not much in this book pertaining to what the title says: India A Million Mutinies Now. It is essentially a retarded innocent account of the tumultuous India, I would not recommend this book to anyone desiring learn-Political India, But, at the same time, Naipaul’s books (on India are valuable to me being inquisitive to learn the complex Hindu psychology, and its interrelationships with the ever-changing outside world.
SUBJECT: Politics of Playing Hindu
Indian leaders would like us to believe India-” world’s largest democracy” -practices doctrine of tolerance for all religions. Nothing could be further from the truth. In 1950, under Nehru’s watchful eyes, India adopted a “secular democratic” constitution; Article 25 of which stated, “Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism are a part of Hinduism.” Thus, millions of humans to their dismay were converted en mass” to Hinduism, The Hindu Code of 1955-56, four Acts of Parliament comprising Hindu Marriage Act, 1955; Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956; Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956; and Hindu Succession Act, 1956were enacted, enforcing Hindu personal rules on Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains, India other minorities Christians and Muslims felt relatively safe-having escaped the official induction into Hinduism. But they feel safe and no more-thanks for the rapid rise of Hindu fundamentalism in the Indian Polity. For example:
L.K Advani is a leader of Opposition and former President of right-wing Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya an at a Party (BJP) second most powerful party in Indian parliament. Invoking Hindu dharma of consciousness, he looks at the world a Hindu Muslims, Hindu Christians, Hindu Sikhs, and so on In other words, everyone is a Hindu,
Murli Manohar Joshi is the President of BJP. Using his sacred tongue, he portrays Muslims a5 “Mohammadiya Hindus”; Japanese Shintoism “nothing but a far eastern form of Hinduism”; and officially renaming India as “Hindustan” the land of the Hindus.
The real enigma is how to define Hindu or Hinduism, Even though it is an impossible take, the Republic of India defines Hind as an Indian, without revealing the outermost parameters pertaining to the evasive terminology-Hindu. But leave that to the present day breed of Indian leaders to answer. And they do answer in full Joshi says, “Hindu empire ex: tended from Afghanistan to Indonesia in ancient times.” Recently, he posthumously converted Julius Creaser into a Hindu thereby ex ending the Hind a frontier to the Mediterranean India’s constitutional name is Bharat-a name given after a Hindu ruler who ruled the entire world in Pre-historic times. Not only. Indian leaders but unfortunately many decent educated Hindus have entangled themselves in the web playing Hindu game-tirelessly expanding Hindu frontier to include the entire world.
By:
Y V. S Naipaul
G B Singh
Waynesville, GA
Article extracted from this publication >> March 27, 1992
