West Indian Writers and Cultural Chauvinism
Jerome Teelucksingh
Satya P. Mohanty, in “Literature to Combat Cultural Chauvinism,“ identifies some of the obvious flaws within ’Indian literature’ and ’world literature’ and offers options for writers to consider deviating from cultural chauvinism and chart a new path. His ambitious goal is similar to Caryl Phillips, one of the noteworthy writers among the Caribbean diaspora, whose seminal collection of essays in A New World Order skillfully dissects the challenges to the status quo embedded in the mediums of activism, song, literature, ideology and film.1 Mohanty questions the ability to ever be truly objective. Both literary realism and philosophical realism seek objectivity and he contends that objectivity can be achieved “…by looking at the epistemic implications of different subjective perspectives, of our cultural biases, ideologies, and social locations.“ Mohanty expresses admiration for Chha Mana Atha Guntha, the novel by Fakir Mohan Senapati, as a critical and analytical text which could be considered both postmodernist and realist. But, one wonders if this novel is the ideal text only for India. Would it also serve as a blueprint to defeat cultural chauvinism in other countries that possess different conditions? An analytical and critical text by someone from the Indian diaspora, such as Naipaul’s India: A Wounded Civilization, also has the potential to be worthy of contributing to eradicating cultural chauvinism within India’s literary world. Interestingly, Mohanty posits that British colonialism partly contributed to cultural chauvinism as “a defence against cultural denigration.“ This is true but this becomes complicated when one considers that regions as the Caribbean and Africa had multiple layers of colonialism due to the presence of different European countries. The cultural denigration also existed in the Caribbean. During the 1950s, Caribbean writers began to be recognized abroad. However, West Indian novels such as Children of Kaywana by Edgar Mittelholzer and Turn Again Tiger by Samuel Selvon were not on the curriculum of secondary schools because they were neither recognized by the Cambridge School Certificate examination2 nor the British West Indian teachers. Mohanty must be commended for acknowledging that Indian modernity did not originate with colonial rule. His realization that there is a need to examine literary texts utilizing alternative modernities is a much needed tool for a new discourse. However, a considerable number of academics and non-academics are neither equipped nor willing to adopt this mode of writing and thinking. In the quest to move beyond ethnoculturalism and cultural relativism, Mohanty puts forth the challenge to revise our views where writers digressed. He is accurate in noting that the answer to this problem of cultural chauvinism cannot be limited to the theoretical level and acknowledges there is a need for an ideal inquiry involving a “non-positivist, supple, and complex notion of objectivity.“ Pages: 1 2 3 4 |
Essays in this Forum
Rethinking the Global South
by Mukoma Wa Ngugi From Indian Literature to World Literature: A Conversation with Satya P. Mohanty by Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar and Rajender Kaur Asia in My Life by Ngugi wa Thiong'o The Global South and Cultural Struggles: On the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization by Duncan Mceachern Yoon The Fault Lines of Hindi and Urdu by Sanjay Kumar Reframing Colonialism and Modernity: An Endeavour through Sociology and Literature by Gurminder K. Bhambra Varieties of Cultural Chauvinism and the Relevance of Comparative Studies by Tilottoma Misra Literature to Combat Cultural Chauvinism: A Response by Shivani Jha Is There an Indian Way of Thinking about Comparative Literature? by E. V. Ramakrishnan Modernity and Public Sphere in Vernacular by Purushottam Agrawal West Indian Writers and Cultural Chauvinism by Jerome Teelucksingh Oral Knowledge in Berber Women’s Expressions of the Sacred by Fatima Sadiki |