On Theorizing Indian Literatures and Cultures

         As a researcher in Indian literarures, languages and cultures, my interest in Semiotics of Culture as a theoretical framework developed by the scholars of the Tartu- Moscow School of semiotics especially Juri Lotman ( 1922-1993) stems from the fact that it:

I) Sees meaning as being essentially ‘translational’ and ‘culture’ as essentially multilingual  by underscoring the fact that no meaning-making system can exist in isolation or can be autonomous ( in contrast to Saussure) ……this core assumption makes it pertinent to Indian society which is mindbogglingly diverse and multilingual

II) sees literature (printed or oral or performative) as belonging to a expansive category of artistic texts thus going beyond the restrictive and colonial print-centric view of literature ..it can allow us to understand the dialogic and translational exchanges between the printed or oral literary texts and  texts from cinema, paintings, dance or music

III) is of significant theoretical relevance to Comparative Indian Literatures.  The notion of vertical isomorphism of the semiospheres existing in dialogic interactions with each other at multiple levels  allows us to conceptualize a heterogeneous and stochastic ‘Indian semiosphere’ ( and consequently Indian literatures as being generated by the Indian semiosphere)made up of multiple semiospheres like ‘Marathi’ or “Gujarati’ semiospheres and these semiospheres can be conceptualized as being heterogeneous and stochastic in their own right, interacting dialogically with one another, different spaces within and interacting dialogically with cultural traditions and cultural histories that are neither specific to Marathi nor Gujarati (Sanskrit, Prakrit,  Perso-Arabic, European, Chinese, and so on).

The notion of semiosphere can also equip us to describe the cultural mechanisms underlying what Dionyz Durisin terms ' interliterary processes'. 

Similarly one can conceptualize ‘South Asian Semiosphere’ or ‘Asian Semiosphere’ or a Planetary Semiosphere that generates ‘ world literature’.

One can also understand gender, class and caste as semiospheres. 

IV) is a radical model of cultural historiography

 

a) It sees cultural historiography itself as a narrative and translational activity involving retrospective narrative reconstruction (translation) of cultural history (which is primarily unpredictable and irreversible) into the explanatory languages of the present ( e.g Habermasian sociology , Butler’s gender studies, Foucauldian analysis of discourse, governmentality or biopolitics )

b) it is a model of cultural change that highlights  differential and non-linear modes of development of the diverse co-existing meaning-making systems…for instance fashion, food and caste change at differential rates and poetry using the poetics of the 1940s ( the Ravi-Kiran Mandal lyricism ) can co-exist with the poetry using the avant-garde poetics of 60s in Marathi

c) It is a model of cultural change that views mechanisms of cultural change as being primarily ‘translational’….. it views the underlying mechanism in the generation of ‘the new’ as being translational

V) It provides tools and ideas for practical criticism of texts and their contexts

 The notions of semantic tropes, ‘the text-within-text, plot , the idea of symbol as plot-gene, continuous- discrete ( visual to verbal) dialogics and so on.

VI)

 The mainstream academic cultural studies in India due to its excessive reliance on French, American and British theories (which are monolingual, deterministic in orientation) has failed to come to terms with multilingual and chaotic social and cultural realities of India . 

Its lack of  critical self awareness can be seen in the fact that as it criticizes modernity ( with the ideas of nation or science) as being universalist, Euro-centric and elite on the one hand it has no  issues  uncritically accepting  ‘ Critical Theory’ whose roots go back to Frankfurt or Birmingham or Paris as if they are non-universalist, non-Eurocentric and non-elite.

The mainstream academic cultural studies have become reductive as it sees ‘political interpretation’ as the absolute horizon for all interpretation’ (as Jameson puts it)…. and extremely predictable almost conventional.  However the conceptualization of culture in semiotics of culture  subsumes the political as it sees cultural as fundamentally i) heterogeneous ii) asymmetrical iii) chaotically dynamic and iv) constructivist in terms of epistemology and cognition (seeing semiotic systems as ‘modelling’ systems)…in a sense subsumes political to the cultural rather than reduce the cultural to the political.

My Articles using Semiotics of Culture for Indian literatures :
 i) Indian Writing in English
ii) Indian Poetry in English
iii) Namdeo Dhasal and Dalit Literature
iv)  Modern and Modernism in Gujarati
v)  Avant-garde Gujarati literature
vi) Poetics and Politics of Self-translation

References:

Lotman,Juri. Culture and Explosion. Ed. Marina Grishakova. Trans. Wilma Clark.Berlin and New York. Mouton de Gruyter. 2009. 

--- “On the semiosphere.” Translated by Wilma Clark.  Sign Systems Studies 33.1, 2005

---‘ The Text within the Text’ . (1981) Trans. Jerry Leo, Amy Mandelker , PMLA, Vol. 109, No. 3 (May, 1994), pp. 377-384

---“ Technological Progress as a Problem in the Study of Culture”, trans.  Ilana Gomel Poetics Today, Duke University Press Vol. 12, No. 4, National Literatures/Social Spaces (winter, 1991), pp. 781-800. 

---Universe of the Mind. A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Bloomington/ Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 1990. 

---‘Culture as Collective Intellect And Problems Of Artificial Intelligence’, trans. Ann Shukman, Russian Poetics in Translati0n,  No. 6, 1979, pp 84-96

---‘ The Poetics of Everyday Behaviour in the Eighteenth Century Russian Culture’, Translated by Andrea Beesing from “Poetika bytovogo povedeniia v russkoi kul’ture XVIII veka,” Trudy po znakovym sistemam, no.8 (Tartu, 1977), pp.65-89.

'The Age of OBCs in Indian Literatures'? Rethinking Indian Literatures and the Question of Caste Identity

The study of relationship between caste and literature in India has primarily been dominated by the Dalit Studies, which justifiably  interrogates the ' Sawarna-Upper Caste' hegemony in literary and cultural studies from the Ambedkarite position. Statistically speaking the Dalits, ( the former ' untouchables') who are usually categorized as ' Scheduled Castes' ( SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) by the constitution of India, form roughly 30% of Indian population as per 2011 census. Approximately 40 % of population in India comprises of a multitude of castes and communities classified as ' Other Backward Classes' or 'OBC'.  The Wikipedia graph about the OBC is informative.

Friends of South Asia or FOSA has put together a website Friendsofsouthasia.org which provides  useful information about this social category. It notes, " The OBCs comprise, by and large, the lower rungs of the Sudras who, in the past, suffered from varying degrees of ritual prohibitions applied to the a-dvijas (literally, those not twice-born) and remain till today socially and occupationally disadvantaged". It also notes, " "OBCs, by profession, being small cultivators, agricultural laborers, artisans and also being engaged in weaving, fishing, construction work, etc. and these occupations being common to SCs and OBCs, the status of OBCs cannot be treated as very much different from that of SCs ....OBCs constitute a majority of poor and backward population which produced a variety of goods and services, but on terms and conditions unfair to them."

However, in the study of sociology of Indian literature, the category of ' OBC' has not received the importance it deserves. One of the most significant statements comes from a renowned Marathi writer Vilas Sarang (1942-). In his provocative essay, " Marathi Sahityatil OBC Yug' ( in the magazine ' Khel' vol. 7, 2007) he attempts to theorize the relationship between this societal category and the poetics practiced by these writers in terms of the questions of identity. The essay is later anthologized as ' Marathi Vangmaiyatil Madhyamvarniya Yug' in his collection of essays Vangmaiyeen Sauskruti ani Samajik Vastav (2011).  

Sarang points out that this mass of ' Other Backward Classes'  is a heterogeneous and scattered one. It lacks any ' face of it's own'.  Historically, the modernist poets of the nineteen forties and the fifties in Marathi like BS Mardhekar or Vinda Karandikar were from the upper-castes. After the sixties, the Dalits and OBCs started making in-roads into Marathi literary world. While the Dalits were aggressive and assertive, the OBC writers were very often on the ' middle grounds'. Sarang points out that Bhalchandra Nemade, a major OBC writer of this period, failed to provide leadership as he remained closer to the identarian politics of ' grameen' writing and 'sub-culture' ( pot-sauskruti) politics.  As the time proceeds, the ' grameen (rural) literature' will give way to the category of ' OBC' literature, Sarang notes. In short, great shift in literary values is under way. 

Sarang remarks that in terms of literary practice, it did not have a poetics of its own. It often used the brahminical upper caste aesthetics, or used the Modernist idiom, or used the Dalit poetics or often followed the poetics of' grameen' or ' rural' literature. After 1980, Sarang argues, however the situation changed and the OBC writers started asserting themselves in poetry. Their preferred mode was 'realism' which gave rise to ' realistic  and unadorned poetry in Marathi.' They could not identify with the poetic idiom of the poetry of earlier generation be it conventional-romantic one or be it modernist one. It seems the OBCs' search for their own identity, their own face and their own voice will be critical for Indian cultural scenario.

Sarang's conceptualization, irrespective of its accuracy, is fascinating and has far-reaching implications for literary studies in India. It is interesting how he changed the title of his essay from ' OBC' Yug (2007) to ' Madhyam Varniya' ( of Middle Varna) in his collection in 2011, probably to avoid controversy. However, some questions need to probed further. For instance, why did the OBCs stay away from Dalit politics and poetics? What was the impact of the Mandal Commission implementation and the rise of OBCs as a force in Indian politics on the way Indian literature was read and written? What is the impact of  the swing of the OBCs towards the erstwhile upper caste party BJP ( see the statistics from the Hindu given below) on cultural politics of India, especially, the identarian ones? Specifically, with the OBC as a Prime Minister who has a thumping support from the upper-castes as well, what will be the trajectory of OBC identity politics in India? 

As the Friends of South Asia website tells us, the OBC is a dynamic category. What we need today is more contemporary sociological framework in the study of Indian literature to explain this dynamics and I don't think we are anywhere near to deal with this. 

On Caste-Based Reservation in Education

As hype around Prakash Jha's forthcoming film 'Aarakshan' grows, we can expect the media to raise its pitch regarding the system of caste-based reservation in education. Here are my views on the controversial subject.


Historically, due to caste system, the access to knowledge in India was restricted to very low percentage of population . So technically, we have always had the system since centuries,only that it worked in primarily favour of the " upper castes". What is the Gurukul system but a system of reservation where only the top three 'Varnas' were allowed to enter( I suspect it was even more exclusive: I havent heard the stories of the Vaishyas being included in the Gurukuls, nor was it open to women- barring over hyped exceptions of course). I am often irritated when people talk about reviving this system as a remedy to the depraved 'Macaulayian' education system. These people forget that if Macaulaying model was not implemented ninety percent of the society would still be living in the dark ages. Nor is the Gurukul system of any use when the nature of knowledge, its processes of production and distribution have altered completely. The Gurukul system may have been of some use when the knowledge was largely produced and transmitted orally. Today, knowledge is produced in research and analysis departments and laboratories,preserved, processed and transmitted by machines on immensely large scale. How can you teach applied physics or mechanics in a Gurukul? Hence, I feel most of the talk of revival of the Gurukuls is a waste of time. 


When the system of reservation was turned up side down after the Independence, there was hue and cry regarding merit from people who have been enjoying the privileges since centuries. Had Eklavyas been 'admitted' on the bases of 'merit' instead of "only upper caste" system of reservation functioning at Dronacharya Gurukuls,we would not have needed the reservation system today.

Caste system is, in essence, " reservation system" which goes back five thousand years on the subcontinent. Reservation applies to who can or cannot be 'touched', who can marry whom, who can eat with whom, who will do which work, who is 'pure' and who is 'impure'. Basically who is 'superior' and who is 'inferior' and all this is decided by birth- no amount of financial or social mobility can erase your 'distinction'. Unlike 'race' where biological markers play a prominent role ( though not always) caste has no biological markers- a brahmin can be dark skinned and a shudra can be fair and yet brahmin remains 'superior' to others.

There are still plenty of cases where children of poor illiterate parents enter educational system and allowing them to compete with students whose parents and grandparents and great grandparents have had the benefits of " upper caste only" system of reservation in India functioning since centuries is simply callous and hypocritical. Reservation in theory is about providing level playing field, though in practice it has not worked very effectively like most of well intentioned schemes in India.Just because something is not being implemented effectively does not mean it should be scrapped. If this were the case we should scrap the traffic rules also.

Reservation is not about being condescending and obliging. It is about giving equal opportunity which all citizens of India deserve. If the thesis is bad than no amount of pestering should be permitted to get it through just because of the caste of the researcher, reservation does not mean breaking the rules, it is about following them.

People who raise hue and cry about reservation dont realize that reservation is given at the level of 'admission' and it is not gracing to pass. An ST or SC might get 'admission' but he/she has to work equally hard as others to pass and if he/she does he is as good as or as bad as others...

In a fundamentally unfair society, there is a 'choice' between injustice at the individual level ( an upper caste student who gets high percentage and does not get admission due to reservation) and injustice at collective level- entire community being denied 'admission' for centuries. Not that I like this predicament myself, but I prefer doing injustice to a minority of individual than doing injustice to entire communities.

It so happens that the most of the people who have access to technology and are articulate against the system of reservation are the people who have belonged to communities which benefited from the 'unofficial' and 'informal' system of reservation and hence they are heard the most on the media ( TV and the Net)...but I do know some people who belonged to the so-called backward castes and have rejected reservation....

( Views expressed on the Facebook community called Netrutva: Teachers for Transformation and Leadership)

RETRIEVING THE SIXTIES:A UNIQUE ACADEMIC EXPERIMENT

We, at the Department of English, MS University, are doing a very interesting and probably unique academic experiment under the aegis of the UGC DRS SAP-I project. Our Dept is granted this project to research the ` Identarian Movements in the Western India in the period 1960 to 2000' by the University Grants Commision. This year we started a translation project called `Retrieving the Sixties: Culture in Gujarati Periodicals in English Translation'. The most interesting part of this project is that around 60-70 undergraduate and postgraduate students of English literature in our Dept are translating articles from Gujarati periodicals which had appeared in the decade of the sixties. The articles range from ones on literary subjects and problems of working women to tatooes, and our students were excited and happy about the idea. The students will work with teachers to finalize their work and we hope to publish it in future.The first stage of the project was the Translation Workshop we had on 29 Aug and it was great fun. The bright idea was Deeptha's and probably what we have on our hands is unique as far as the Dept of Englishes go. The Depts of English are notorious for their lack of direct engagement with immediate cultural environment ( some even complain that they are apathetic towards ANY cultural environment). We seek to remedy it by having teachers and students engaging actively with Gujarati culture.

The Sixties was a culturally exciting decade for many cultures across the globe. Think of the Vietnam War, the Hippies, the Chinese aggression and linguistic formation of the states in India. It was also the moment of Little Magazine Movements of varied sorts.This decade was also momentous in Gujarat. Various issues and debates of this significant phase of Gujarati cultural history are reflected in various periodicals. We felt it is important for the present generation of students to reconnect and reengage with the multiple currents that shaped Gujarati culture of this decade in order to understand some of the key issues of our own time. Translation of articles, which appeared in the sixties, can be a stimulating mode of retrieval and negotiation for the present generation of Gujarati youngsters.

In the post-Globalized world, it is imperative how we `read' the history of twentieth century to understand ourselves. In this light, I think the project becomes a very interesting one.

How to be a good Hindu

I ask myself: Why am I still a Hindu? Because it is difficult for a Hindu not to be a Hindu. Because it is a religion, which is not based on books, but on discourses. In Hinduism, the ins and the outs are not clearly marked. It is a religion without central tenets, prophets and core prescriptions like the Islam or the Christianity. I cannot be a Muslim if I don’t believe in the Prophet or I cannot be a Christian if I do not believe in Christ. I can be a Hindu even if I don’t read certain important texts (like the Bhagwad Geeta or Tulsidas’ Ramayana or some such texts). I can be a Hindu even if I don’t go to temple or believe in God.
The best thing and the worst thing about Hinduism is that there is no Hindutva. It is the best thing because it is difficult for the few powerful people, like priests or politicians to hijack the entire religion for their purposes by usurping the core elements. It is the worse thing because there is no fixed centre to provide moral and spiritual anchoring. Some critics may think that this is a very good thing, this lack of centre, and celebrate this centrelessness in a Nietzscheian way. However, I believe that it is precisely because of this lack of unambiguous central moral elements that there is unbridled corruption in our society. We end up having a society, which does not have conscience.

Dr. Ambedkar and certain Leftist thinkers believed that if you denounce Hinduism you are able to get rid of it. I wish it were that simple. Along with tyrannical and repressive aspects of Hinduism, like casteism or androcracy (a better word than patriarchy?), you also have more democratic and open elements which allow you to critique or denounce the repressive elements. One can see the Bhakti poetry as an example of assertion of more demotic and liberal elements of Hinduism. In fact, you can be democratic even by evoking God, as in Kabir or Meera. In fact, this combination of non-democratic with the liberal components is what makes Hinduism so exasperating. It becomes difficult to be Hindu in entirety and it becomes even more difficult to jettison the whole historical cargo. The step outside Hinduism is not easy one to make.

One can remain within this unwieldy inheritance, in a Derridian fashion, and continue to read the tradition against grain by emphasising the demotic and liberal elements of Hinduism, by amplifying the contradictions within the inherited set of beliefs and complicating the whole issue. One can be a good Hindu by relentlessly asking what Hinduism is and problematizing the unequivocal responses to this question. By continually reminding people that that there is no Hindutva alone, can I be a good Hindu. I can be a good Hindu only by reminding others and myself that there is no the Hinduism but Hinduisms and that there is no single version that is acceptable to all Hindus.

Of `Crowding' and `Purgation'

One of the very senior poet-friends of mine said to me the other day that as his mind was excessively crowded and overburdened due to his family life and social commitments, he watched `blue films' and drunk alcohol in order to relieve himself. I dont know if this remedy is the most effective one for the phenomenon he termed as `crowding'. However, this phenomenon is a real one for writers, especially in India, where one's social, occupational and familial life is cut off from one's creative life. I am undergoing `crowding' myself these days and in fact that my life is so crowded that I cannot even try out my friend's remedies.

For a writer, especially a poet, his solitude, the quality time he or she spends with oneself is precious as it is a source of his or her creative drives. Social obligations, occupational duties and family responsibilities swarm one's consciousness to such an extent that one cannot get in touch with oneself.

If you are a writer, you are using your own consciousness as your material and so your self is one of the chief instruments, the most important `means' to an end, namely the artistic creation. You cannot remain in the chaos of social life and get in touch with your source, you have to opt for the solitude. If India is anything it is this`crowding' of our life, thanks to population explosion and the looney bin of values we term as `Indian culture'. If you are an Indian, you are already crazy, and you cant escape this madhouse. If you run away from India, you will carry her within you.

If art is one of the ways we impose or extract order out of this chaos, no wonder art is thriving in our country. And if it is being overlooked, you are not surprised why.