Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (born 17 August 1932, in Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago), commonly known as V. S. Naipaul, is a Trinidadian novelist and essayist of Indo-Trinidadian descent. He has been called "a master of modern English prose." He has been awarded numerous literary prizes including the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (1958), the Somerset Maugham Award (1960), the Hawthornden Prize (1964), the W. H. Smith Literary Award (1968), the Booker Prize (1971), and the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in British Literature (1993). V. S. Naipaul was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001, the centenary year of the award.
From an “Area of Darkness” to a “Million Mutinies Now”, India has come a long way in Sir Vidiadhar’s reckoning. In other words, Sir V S Naipaul has come a long way from considering India as an area of darkness to recognizing the million mutinies happening in India in 2000. We are talking about the days when Naipaul (not Naipal) visited India for the first time, in 1964 and wrote that terrible travelogue – India: An Area of Darkness. There is a reason to say that he is Naipaul and not Naipal (to point out that he is using the British/English spelling). He followed it up with India: A Wounded Civilization around the same time. Much later, circa 2000, he wrote India: A Million Mutinies Now! The very title India: An Area of Darkness fired me up when I was a youth. It still rankles.
An Area of Darkness is a travelogue detailing Naipaul's trip through India in the early sixties. It was the first of Naipaul's acclaimed Indian trilogy which includes India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now. A deeply pessimistic work, An Area of Darkness conveys the acute sense of disillusionment which the author experiences on his first visit to his native land. True to his style, the narration is anecdotal and descriptive. Naipaul imagines India to be a wonderland, where the rigveda rules the roost. Alas, the India he found on arrival (The Enigma of Arrival) was quite different from the India he thought up to be – a Vedic India. Is it India’s fault?
Literates in India ooze with enthusiasm when they think that VS Naipaul is an Indian in origin. They almost consider him an Indian (and are proud of having somebody of his stature to condescend to reveal his Indian origins). But what did he have to say about India? That it is “An Area of Darkness”. It is a pessimistic diatribe against India which does not match up to his imagination. India celebrated his getting the Nobel prize for literature. But he was indifferent. In fact, when Prime Minister Vajpayee said that he is proud of Naipaul, an Indian, who got a Nobel prize, Naipaul retorted: I am not an Indian (cf. Prof. Amartya Sen).
R K Narayan said, to him, that India will go on. “How will India go on?” raves Sir Vidiadhar. On bullock carts with rubber tyres? On tricycles designed to upturn the rider with brakes in the front wheel (oh, he had been to the National Institute of Design alright). He is a British passport-holder and all doors were open to him. In fact, a whole stream of literature study called Commonwealth Literature was institutionalized so that Naipaul can be coopted into it, because he cannot be categorized as an Indian writer. I met a descendant of the Sri Krishna Deva Raya family in Anegondi who invited him with open arms, and what Naipaul wrote about the dynasty was nothing short of nasty.
Now what is my problem? Let him get the limelight, let him thrive where he is (that is, London: he proudly proclaimed that he is happy to be a ‘Brit’ or at least half a ‘Brit’).
I have a problem when he applies for a Person of India Origin card, and refuses to show proof. Farruck Dhondy, a camp follower, said to the Deccan Chronicle recently, that if the government of India gives him the PIO card, he will gracefully accept it but will not travel to his ancestral village to obtain proof of his grandfather being an India citizen. Let the officials stay on course and ask for proof, let Vajpayee’s enthusiasm go to hell.
Now, how many people apply for the card, I don’t know. Nor do I know what benefits they gain from the card – perhaps right to buy land and build a villa. Or right to be cremated on Indian soil: does Naipaul (‘new paul’) want to have his ashes mixed in the Ganges? Maybe he wants to start a business, at a time long after he reached what stupid Indians call vanaprastha…
This is an open letter to the officials involved not to relent until he produces evidence. Everybody tries to jump on the bandwagon when the going is good. People who are pessimistic when the going is bad should not be given the PIO card. F. Dhondy’s condescension, obvious in his remarks that Sir Vidiadhar will not produce proof shows the arrogance of prodigal sons. It is high time India stopped giving kid-glove treatment to all and sundry ‘foreigners’ claiming Indian origin.
Bottomline: India will go on – Naipal or no Naipaul.
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