'
Interview
Mulk
Raj Anand
Citizen
of the World with roots in the
Punjab
Mulk Raj Anand
(1905–2004) was an internationally known Punjabi novelist writing in
English. Besides his literary achievements, he also founded the
Progressive Writers’ Movement in
India
along with Munshi Prem Chand and Sajjād Zaheer. He smuggled Marxist
literature from
London
to a whole generation of Punjabi political activists based in
Lahore
. After 1947, he was instrumental in establishing national academies of
literature and arts in
India
on the suggestion of Jawaharlal Nehru.
He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize and visited the
Soviet Union
28 times. He served as chairman of Lalit Kala Akademi (
Academy
of
Fine Arts
) as well as the National Book Trust of India. He founded and edited Mārg
(Pathway), an arts magazine of a very high standard. He was Tagore
Professor of Literature and Arts at Panjab University Chandigarh and the
Institute
of
Advanced Study Shimla
during the 1960s.
Born in
Peshawar
to a Sikh mother from
Sialkot
and a Hindu father from Jandiala Guru, he attended Khalsa College Amritsar.
After graduating from
Punjab
University
in 1924, he sailed to
England
‘personally inspired’ by Iqbal, the poet, to study philosophy at
Cambridge
University
. He received the PhD degree in 1929 from University College London for
his dissertation titled Bertrand Russell and the English Empiricists.
While in
London
he made friends with George Orwell, TS Eliot, Leonard and Virginia Woolf,
Aldous Huxley, Herbert Read and EM Forster. The last named wrote an
introduction to Anand’s first and best-known novel Untouchable
(1935), which was issued as a Penguin Modern Classic in 1986. This novel
and Coolie, published the following year, pioneered realist writing
on the plight of the downtrodden in Indian society. Over the years he was
to write four more novels and his seven-volume autobiography Seven Ages
of
Man.
He published many books on the arts
including Persian Painting (1930), The Hindu View of Art
(1933), Homage to Tagore (1946), Homage to Khajuraho (1960),
Is There a Contemporary Indian Civilisation? (1963), Indian
Ivories (1970),
Ajanta
(1970), Maharaja Ranjit Singh as Patron of the Arts, 1981 (ed.) and
Amrita Sher-Gil (1989).
Reviewing his autobiography Khushwant Singh remarked on Anand’s
‘Punjabi English’ and suggested that he would be better off writing it
in Punjabi. There was some truth in this sarcasm that Punjabi authors
writing in non-Punjabi languages dare not face.
I recorded a long interview with Mulk Raj Anand on some pertinent
questions of Punjabi identity, writing in English, etc. when he visited
London
in 1982. The post-1947 generation of Punjabi writers was not influenced by
his writings, the main reason being that unlike
Lahore
, East Punjab had no cultural centre and many Punjabi stalwarts like Anand
made
Delhi
and
Bombay
their home and thus remained alienated from their roots. The mutual loss
was immense.
–
Amarjit Chandan
Excerpts
from the interview:
Q.
As a writer from the
Punjab
, how would you define Punjabi sensibility?
A.
The Punjabi sensibility is not a fixed notion like that of the British
nation. The British nation only comes to the surface when Mrs. Thatcher
wins the
Falklands
war and the Punjabi nation comes to the surface when the Khalistanis
assert their own ideas of Khalistan. Actually many Punjabis living outside
are as Punjabi as the Punjabis in the
Punjab
. Punjabi sensibility is inheritance of Punjabi culture. This culture
became tender and full of love through Guru Nanak and the Sikh movement.
This movement represents the ethos of the previous centuries, also the
period of Baba Farid.
It
is important that the superficial interpretation in terms of politics
cannot get away from the subterranean influences exercised by the medieval
saints. I think it’s a question of collective consciousness which comes
into people by inheritance.
Since
the Punjabis had to fight for generations, they had to become heroes; also
they were lucky in the sense that they had five rivers and good harvests.
In regard to the cultivation of mind they were led to barbarism too. Only
reformation which has happened in our country against the malpractices of
religious rituals and all that was by Guru Nanak.
The
Punjabi Hindus were saved from dissolution and they have deep respect for
Guru Nanak and Sikh faith. In fact Arya Samāj was only taking on the most
important aspects of Sikhism (anti-casteism etc). The revivalist counter
movements in the
Punjab
in the end of the last century did not really touch the people.
The
communal riots have been part of surface reaction; deep down you’d find
that the reaction by Arya Samāj certainly led to contempt to those
elements in Sikh religion which brought about the reformation. The main
force of Hinduism was Sanatanis who were influenced by Sikh
religion. Because we had not too many outcasts, the problem did not become
acute. The Sikhism had already converted them into the new faith. But I
don’t think one should catch many judgements in this matter. The
important Hindus who were de-established during the Raj were neither Arya
Samājis nor Sanātanis, but were mainly clerical community and they
joined Arya Samāj for fashion and remained open to some of the ideas of
the Sikh faith. But it was a great mistake of the Hindus to declare in
1948 that their mother tongue was not Punjabi. That was their attempt at
the instigation of the British and Hindu Chauvinism to try and capture a
position and power in whole of the northern
India
as the precursors of the Hindu raj. The people involved were from Gurukul
Kangri, and who had affiliations with their counterparts in Uttar Pradesh
and
Gujarat
. One should look into the undercurrents; under the undercurrents are the
Hindu intelligentsia who are guilty about the shameful conduct of Hindu
community in regard to the language controversy, and I squarely blame this
community for having brought on the
Khalistan movement.
Q.
And what about the Punjabi muslims?
A.
The Punjabi muslims were carried away by the economic situation under
British rule. There was no consciousness among them because they did not
come to education very easily. The British were against them because of
the mutiny and Hindus and Sikhs were preferred in the services. The
phenomenon of Hindu- Muslim antagonism was skin deep, actually however
from Iqbal to the most important nationalists like Kitchlew the question
of Hindu-Muslim did not arise until the first Round Table Conference. The
British of course cannot be misinterpreted about their intentions; the
mainstay in
India
was the Hindu-Muslim division. And the Sikhs also joined in wanting p
referential treatment under Master Tara Singh. Ultimately he realised that
the future of the Sikhs lay in
India
not with
Pakistan
. The subsequent history of the Hindu-Sikh rivalry is a different matter,
because in the partition riots they fought together against the Muslims.
The
whole situation depended on the stubbornness of Jinnah and others who were
not Muslims really, who were again dominated by the class position they
occupied in Indian hierarchy and wanted the Muslims of India who were very
backward to enjoy the fruits of state power, which meant jobs, position
and money. I think
Pakistan
was mainly the result of the economic pressures and demands of the Muslims
for a fair deal. I don’t know whether they got it in
Pakistan
or not.
I
think all the religious movements of modern
Punjab
are at least 80% dominated by cash nexus concentrations.
I’m
not inclined to use the word hero when it came to it the Punjabis
(including my father) sold themselves to British army for Rs. 11 a month.
In my novel Across the Black Waters a Sikh turns into an anti-hero.
Q.
How much Punjabi-ness is there in your works?
A.
All my works express the ethos of the Bhakti movement led by Nanak which
afterwards became nationalist and socialist movements before the second
world war. The whole intelligentsia of the Punjab responded to my appeal
and we had the first Progressive Writers Conference in
Lucknow
under Prem Chand with the support of Rabindranath Tagore and Muhammad
Iqbal. The banner of progressive literature was passed on to the
Afro-Asian literary movement. The rallying point of the struggle for a new
consciousness and a new upsurge of protest movement in Asia and Africa
came from the
Punjab
.
Q.
In which language do you think?
A.
Punjabi is my mother tongue. I presume I can write the English language
quite well. But the reason my novel Untouchable was turned down was that
it was in Indian English. I frequently use Punjabi vibrations. Vibrations
of the characters of my landscape, my region could only express themselves
in the versatile movements of the Punjabi speech. I could not perform an
operation on my mother’s mouth to make her speak like an English woman,
as do other writers. I have been doing what Joyce did earlier in making
Irish words in the great book Ulysses; also in the Irish landscape Lady
Gregory had formed a language called Kiltartan, Francis Stuart called it
Pidgin Irish; so I call my language pidgin English i.e. Punjabi English.
Others have done the same. Raja Rao has used Kanada for his sing song
rhythms in the novel Kanthpura.
I
think in Punjabi mostly and transliterate or transcreate in English.
Q.
To which literary tradition do you consider yourself a part?
A.
It’s a mixed business. I was born in
Peshawar
, I lived in
Punjab
, I grew up in the world outside. So I am a citizen of the world. But my
roots are in the
Punjab
.
Q.
Why did you choose to write in an acquired language?
A.
At that time there were no publishers and the books written about
India
, certainly by me, were banned and there was no way by which even one
could express oneself in Punjabi to the people who were around us in the
Indian national movement. Also Punjabi was not used in courts under
British rule, instead Urdu and English were used. Even Puran Singh started
writing in English first. He was the writer of the
Punjab
in English language before me if you like. Bhai Vir Singh was a different
case.
He
belonged to the elitist Sikhs’ Singh Sabha movement and was the source
of the whole movement. He did not express the sentiments of the
Punjab
but of the Sikhs only. I owe to Puran Singh much more than I owe to Vir
Singh.
The
question of language is bound with our national history. Vir Singh did not
get known very far outside the
Punjab
, because he was conditioned to writing mainly on the Sikh revivalism. We
were to go beyond Vir Singh’s generation. Our natural colleagues were
Gurbakhsh Singh, Sant Singh Sekhon, Mohan Singh and Amrita Pritam and the
others.
Q.
So far Indian progressive literature has been on the underdogs but not for
them. Did you choose to write on them out of pity, compassion or
solidarity?
A.
I don’t think anyone who has read my novels or the novels by my younger
companions can say that. The first themes of my novels are certainly about
the miseries of
India
and the Punjabi people. But the trilogy The Village, Across the
Black Waters and The Sword and the Sickle depicts the active
struggle of the underdogs to emerge into a consciousness. In the
subsequent novels you find there is a struggle not only against the
politics of the times, oppression, but it is also a struggle against the
inner resistances offered by religious and rituals against growth. In Shiv
Shankar Pillai’s Chemeen and in Fanishwar Nath Renu’s Maila
Anchal in the books of Ismat Chugtai and Qurtul-an-Haidar, in the
poetry of Faiz and Jafri, Bishnu De, the whole tradition of Bengali novel,
you’d find a living awareness of the natural change. Every novel which
concerns a lonely or oppressed person is a story of protest against it,
because a novel is not an essay against caste oppression. In my novel Untouchable
there is a core of humaneness, because Bakha’s dignity is dishonoured.
Protest in itself becomes a very active part for the removal of
oppression.
You
can’t say that dictionary falls on your head from the shelf and you
suddenly become wiser. It is a question of how many insinuations,
persuasions become possible from vibrations of poetry and the sound of
words and the deeper feeling of tenderness come into conflict of good and
evil, of night and day.
Q.
Has Bakha’s position changed after 50 years?
A.
In Untouchable Bakha becomes aware but is not shown to be doing
very much about it. But in The Road Bikhu, is caught in a situation
where he has to fight back. This struggle is now going on in all part of
India
.
The
Marxists in
India
have overlooked the problem of casteism. Marxism has to have an original
interpretation in
India
, because most of the Harijans are not caste Hindus, and the recent
murders of the untouchables were committed by the landlords who wanted the
Harijans to come to work who refused to do on the basis of payment in
kind, they wanted payment in cash. They fought back and the caste Hindus
murdered them.
The
conversion of the untouchability into the ostracism of a class of people
(workers) itself shows the conversion to at least 60% a class phenomenon.
This is very much evident in Karnataka. Unfortunately this great
emancipative movement in other parts like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and
Gujarat
has not been taken up by the Communist parties. Maybe that is inevitable
that in India the class war will not be fought purely as a class war, but
as a much more important war of the oppressed of all kinds against the
oppressors who include not only the top of Mrs. Gandhi’s government, but
include many of the opposition parties who claim to gain power. Because
the party of Charan Singh the Lok Dal is the party of the upper caste
people. In the voting in Haryana recently they showed their true colours.
In relation to them Mrs. Gandhi’s party seems to me progressive, but
I’d say the solution of this thing may lay in the kind of social
democracy which is emerging in
Bengal
. The Communists of Bengal have shown the way by which they can combine
the two struggles.
Q.
As India is a nation in the making, is there any national identity of
Indian literature being evolved?
A.
It is not possible to conceive
India
as a nation in European terms. Historically speaking there is no
revolutionary situation going in
India
(like the French revolution).
India
is surging with movements of all kinds.
India
as a state is going to last out and may ultimately be able to bring about
a kind of union in the next hundred years, where the different communities
have a national identity. The intelligentsia at the top is certainly
Indian and is united and there is no doubt an Indian tradition of
philosophical heritage. The miracle is that such a vast country is far
more united than
Europe
which has been striving for nationalism for more than 200 years.
The
nationalist movement also gave some ethos. The ideas of liberty, equality
and fraternity, the ideas of class struggle are dominantly present in the
emergence of a new individual in each novel.
Q.
You have been a part of the Indian cultural establishment, and on the
other hand you claim to be the champion of the people’s cause. Isn’t
there a basic contradiction?
A.
I am a minority of one. I’m the only Indian writer who has given his
property away. I have not been part of any establishment. I was Chairman
of Academy of Arts. [Lalit Kala Akademy]. I belong to no party. Nehru
thought I was socialist and capable of organising. The mutually shared
cultural values certainly helped Nehru to form the academies.
I’m
independent judge of all situations in art and culture combined to develop
and promote those cultural processes. I’ve been working with Russians in
the whole movement of progressive writers, and with American
intellectuals. I’ve never shunned bourgeois mainly because they are
bourgeois when the aims are together. My ideology remains a commitment to
the oppressed people everywhere specially my own people. The mechanical
Marxists make a mistake. You have to have allies among the lower middle
classes. On the issue of war I’ll join with the devil to oppose war.
Q.
As a known author you have been entertained here by the white liberal
society and perhaps have not experienced racism on the streets as we do in
Southall or Brixton. In view of this do you feel that you have a licence
to comment on the racism in British Society?
A.
If you’d have heard my speech in the Commonwealth Institute Seminar in
which I simply narrated the story of Untouchable being turned down by
nineteen publishers. Racism is not a new phenomenon. This is part of
imperialist psychology.
Q.
Have any of your novels been filmed?
A.
The film industry of
India
is mostly mollywood, wollywood, kollywood. It perverts the Hindi cinema
and perverts everything that it takes up. The avant garde movement
in our country led by Ray, Sen, Kaul etc., is not dominant and is not
shown on the commercial network. I don’t wish to allow anyone to make my
books into cheap commercial propositions in which the sentimentality of
Hindi cinema projects itself. I’m inclined to do a few films by myself
and other collaborators.
I’ve
made 2-3 small films myself. I filmed my story Lost Child in Kangra
valley, one for the Children’s Film Society in Haryana and for Films
Division. I direct or write the script. If I got support from the
community here, I’d like to make a film on colour and race and shoot it
in Southall; I’ve drafted a novel already on this theme.
Q.
Do you agree with the view that Indian English literature should be
introduced in the British school curriculum?
A.
There are already various text books in Indian universities. They are in
American Universities and also in
Canada
and
Australia
. But the English school course system does not take them because there
are few Indians involved in the system.
I
am much more concerned about the second and third generation of Asians
here. I don’t know in what way they are given orientation in their
background. They should be given in Indian English the ethos of their
culture. And there are many books that fulfil this need.
Q.
What are your future plans?
A.
My past is my future. At the moment I’m writing an autobiographical
novel in seven volumes. The first three volumes have already been
published. The fourth one The Bubble is in the press and I am
working on the fifth one. They’ll be the personal history of a hero,
anti-hero of my self converted into a novelistic form.
Q.
For you does creative expression come from a work routine?
A.
I learnt it from Gandhiji. I wake up at half past five in the morning,
whether I am in
London
,
New York
, in
Moscow
or in Peking or
Delhi
,
Bombay
or my village. I’ve my tea at 6.30 and begin to write for one hour. The
rest of the day I organise, rewrite. I’ve four secretaries, two for my
mail and two for my articles etc.
Q.
Has there been any uncreative period in your life?
A.
After the partition of
India
, I couldn’t write anything for three years. Because I was dumb by the
shock of fratricide on a large scale. It was the death of all the hopes we
had. I only revived because I felt that I had to fight against all the
things which came to the surface.
•
Amarjit
Chandan with Mulk Raj Anand.
London
. 1982.
Photo
by Peter Moxley
[Courtesy: South Asian Ensemble. Vol. 2 Number
3. Summer 2010.
E: editor.sae@gmail.com]
