Introduction:
He was
born in Bombay on 19 June 1947. He was born in middle-class Muslim family. He
is Indian born English novelist, essayist, critic etc. The book entitled
“imaginary Homeland” was published in 1992. It is a collection of seventy-five
non-fictional essay. The main theme he deals with are
In
“Imaginary Homeland”: the collected essays, including discussion of topics
ranging from Indian history, social injustice, literary criticism, and the
publicized threat against his life.
Imaginary Homelands: essay and criticism:
In this
collection of essays from the 80’s, Salman Rushdie reviews authors, past and
present, and political issues, foreign and domestic. Since Rushdie is
originally Indian, now British, “foreign” and “domestic” take on shifting
meanings. He observe that “commonwealth literature” is marginalized in England,
but argues that the English language in India and in other post-colonial lands
has taken on a life of its own, often appropriating British values and using
them better effect than the British did.
He says
that even though the British Empire is no longer, the British have
reconstituted the Empire within England. Former subject peoples from India, the
Caribbean, Africa and elsewhere have migrated to England, and Rushdie notes
that they are treated as outsiders, even after having been in England for
generation. Zadie smith, another writer with a colonial heritage, writer
about the same issues, but always with a relentlessly upbeat and striving take
on them. Rushdie takes a more Olympian and pessimistic view of the same
struggles.
The
essays strongly reveal Rushdie’s faith in secularism and his life views
stemming from his life as a migrant. The essays near the end of the collection
are from after the controversy and make for very gripping reading -first,
the motivation that led Rushdie to write the satanic verses and what the book
was really supposed to embody, and second, the chilling experience of a
man who has been sentenced to death, a sentence which can never be revoked and
who must live in hiding and constant fear from assassins.
“Imaginary
Homeland” is a collection of Salman Rushdie’s writing from 1981 to 1991. They
include essays, book review, interviews, and random musings dating from the
beginning of his popularity after his novel ‘Midnight’s Children’ until the
third anniversary of the death fatwa pronounced on him by the Ayatollah
Khomeini for his book ‘The Satanic Verse’.
As with
any collection of essays, ‘Imaginary Homeland’ is in inconsistent and not every
essay will interest every reader.
However, there’s sure to be a lot of gems here for fans of Rushdie. The
literary legacy of the 1980s is quickly being erased from the popular memory,
and readers today are forgetting the output of that underappreciated decade.
Reading ‘Imaginary Homeland’ is important to refresh one’s knowledge of the
1980s from a literary standpoint. Also, Rushdie proves himself again a man
deeply troubled by oppression. He often mentions Pakistan’s ruthless US-supported
General Zia, and in “A conversation with Edward Said” deals with the issue of
Palestinian identity. His reviews of V.S. Naipaul’s “Among the Believers”, a
journal of travels through the new Islamic states that sprung up in the 80s,
and his two essays on the reaction of Muslims to ‘The Satanic Verse’ are
helpful works to read in this time when dealing with Islamic extremism is such
a driving force in international relations. Critics have often found Salman
Rushdie hard to classify, wondering if he is an Indian or British writer, or a
“commonwealth” novelist, and Rushdie confronts the madness of classifying
everything in “There is No Such Thing As Commonwealth Literature”.
Rushdie
thought his works focuses on the curious position occupied by the migrant or the
exile. The central issue is that Rushdie and other postcolonial thinkers of his
ilk believe that the act of migration is one that profoundly changes the
individual, transforming the relationship of the migrant with both his or her
home country and new host country, and impacting their identity massively as a
result. Issues such as “home” and “belonging” are crucial in this sense, as
migrants find that their idea of ‘home’ becomes detached from their home
country, as they are not allowed to ’belong’ there anymore. However, at the
same time, they definitely do not ‘belong’ in their host country, and this is
often unfortunately manifested through prejudice of racism. However, this new
Diaspora identity, although it is thought of negatively by many, is actually
viewed as potentially a position of
strength. Note the following quote from ‘Imaginary Homelands’.
“Having
been borne across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in
translation; I cling, obstinately to the notion that something can also be gained”.
Dual identities:
in his essay ‘Imaginary
Homeland’, Salman Rushdie raises the point that duality in an author’s identity
provides a highly unique point of view within their work. Rushdie describes his
experience writing his novel ‘Midnight’s Children’ on the basis of his
experience relocating to Britain from India. In regards to the stand point he
has on being an author with a dual sense of identity from both cultures he
says: “our identity is at once plural and partial. Sometimes we feel that we
straddle two cultures; at other times, that we fall between two stools. But
however ambiguous and shifting this ground may be, it is not an infertile
territory for a writer to occupy if literature is in part the business of
finding new angles at which to enter reality, then once again our distance, our
long geographical perspective may provide us with such an angles”. Here,
Rushdie’s point is that it holds true not only for those of dual geographical
or national identity, but for those with intersecting identities involving race
and gender as well. Authors who have personally experienced and grappling with
several components that make up their identity are at an advantage of having a
unique position. Although it may pose challenges within their writing, (for
example Rushdie contemplates writing in English over his native language) it
also enables them to tell a story that is nonetheless distinct and valuable.
For example, being a man of color within a society that functions on white
privilege and is primarily patriarchal and is primarily patriarchal has a
different experience to tell than a woman of color that lives in the same
society that imposes those constructions. Though it may be difficult for the
author, the “territory” that he/she occupies is still valuable and is worth
being read and listened to. Literature has the ability to provide a space for
these stories to add richness to communicating the human experience and I think
Rushdie’s statement within his essay upholds this idea.
Commonwealth literature does not exist:
Nicely
coincides with the idea of strategic essentialism. Like in the fifth paragraph Rushdie
says it’s weird how there’s “a school of literature whose supposed members deny
vehemently that the disempowered or “colonized” peoples are remarking English
itself. He talks about how “commonwealth literature” is category which narrows
“English literature” to be “something topographical, nationalistic, possibly
even racially segregationist” and how it’s divisive. He’s big proponents of a
universal community of writers. And he makes a good case for it. Example?
Rushdie himself was born in India and wrote about Pakistan from England, which
he cites as evidence for “the folly of trying to contain writers inside
passports”. He ends by saying that “commonwealth literature” should not exist
if you set up enough books and appoint enough research students.
The New Empire within Britain:
Here, he talk about the serious
matters like ,
Institutional racism
The racist English language
The willed ignorance shown by the reality of
racism
Racist stain in the attitude of the white
Britons and so on.
Here he also mentioned the incident
in which a judge had no problem with the offensive word for black people
‘Nigger’ because it was his nickname in his school days! Another example is of
Lord were incapable of becoming judge. Why? They came from the society, which
does not follow the moral code of conduct strictly. He exploit of such real
examples makes his writing convincing and effective. The Britons neglected
these facts and counter argued that, “you have voting right, no mass killing of
black happen to PURE the society, the law hasn’t declared the dominance of the
white over the black”. It shows how serious the problem racism has become.
Though the visible is the tip of iceberg, ‘it can sink the ship’ of humanity.
He
gives an example of how black and white immigrants were treated in the similar
two cases. First, an African black
family landed at Heathrow airport and the media made a huge fuss out of it. Second, in the same week, a white
Zimbabwean family came there was no hue and cry. Even though blacks were,
citizens they were denied the right while the white who were not the citizens
and had the ancestors living in Britain centuries before were treated like legal
British citizen. He also talk about English language that how smoothly it has
accepted the hideous terms that we do not find in any other languages. I.e.
wog, frog, yid, spic, dago, so on. And
it is a well known fact he writes,
“A language reveals the attitude
of the people who use and shape it”.
Attenborough’s Gandhi:
In
this essay, he writes that it is Christian longing to have such a spiritual
leader to run politics and the organization of America. Then Gandhi becomes an
ideal for those who did not get a benefit of being a follower of second
incarnation of Jesus Christ. He is defined by Rushdie as a crafty Gujarati
lawyer, who could not run his job successfully because he did not want to do
evil doings. Attenborough wanted to redefine the concept of revolution in words
of Rushdie,
“Revolution can, and should, be
made purely by submission, and self-sacrifice, and non-violence alone”.
Considering
him as a member of minority class bring out post-colonial view point in his
writing that western people always tried to consider Asian countries to be
seen, studied, observed, view, analysiminority regions and always to be
suppressed they wanted to mangle history of India for century. There may be an
intention of selecting only Gandhi in his film, Rushdie, later in his writing
mentions that somewhere, it is not possible to include other freedom fighter of
Indian independence because a selection is a central idea to any work of art.
An artistic selection does not remain sole selection but it creates meaning and
meanings. But one of the critical comments can be mentioned why did not Richard
select the other followers and freedom fighters of India in his documentary?
This can be a post-colonial reading of the text GANDHI that American people or
rather Richard wanted to make Gandhi as a superior, so other as inferior
people.
Then he
exemplifies the whole matter in terms of American massacre and the
assassination of Gandhi to take very critically and suspiciously. Those
innocent and zealous individuals in Amritsar were condemned by massacring and
General Dyer was not condemned. He was welcomed with honor and reputation in
England. These scene were accurately staged and with passion, but why? The case
of Amritsar is miscalculated, he writes,
“Artistic selection has altered
the meaning of the event”.
Considering Gandhi’s
autobiography “The study of my experience with truth” as not a political work
but rather it is based on the experiments that Gandhi made on truth and
non-violence. The event like Brahmacharya and surrounded anecdotes were omitted
by Attenborough in which Gandhi had lied with young naked women all night to
test his will-to-abstain, are well known. The big change lies in Attenborough’s
Gandhi, challenge the idea of master and slave. At the end of the essay Rushdie
mentions that the film, Richard has produced was opulent, lavish and finally
crushes the man from his centre. Oppressor’s language that Rushdie employs in
this essay is more skeptical and crafty. We do not know when it turns from
praising something to criticizing something else.
Conclusion:
Rushdie’s
work is relevant to the question of postcolonial is concerned with question of
identity. He is not obsessed with finding
some kind of proper personal identity as property, as it would reflect both the
self-duping and the oppressive power of humanism. He says that,
“Identity is at once plural and
partial. Sometimes we feel that we straddle two cultures; at other times, that
we fall between two stools.”
And
it is this sense of difference which is a source of writing. He has continued
to write criticism, essays, reviews, and novels that stress the importance of
free speech and religious tolerance. Through a blend of magic realism and
commentary on contemporary issue, Rushdie has secured a place among the most
proactive of modern writers.
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