2009-10 AM Fictions of India - Expert Group on Nation (India)
Expert Group on Nation (India)
Group: Representations of India
Kim
- Crowded societies composed of very different ethnic and cultural groups that live in mixed communities or close proximity
- Less social tension between these groups than between single individuals (cf. Lurgan Sahib‘s hatred on Kim) or between different nations (cf. British vs. Russians in the Great Game)
- British colonial power ensuring harmony?
Untouchable
- High social tension between outcastes and upper castes
- Most prominent example: Bakha touches an upper caste member by accident (cf. p. 46)
- Outcastes forced to announce their approach when they leave their colony
- Social exclusion of other minorities apart from low-caste Hindus (e.g. Mohammedans)
- Injustice and discrimination exerted by upper castes
- Few exceptions (eg. the high-caste Hindu Charat Singh, cf. p. 105-110))
- Counter-movements (Only the Ghandian movement is portrayed in the novel!)
- Role of British colonial power in this conflict?
Midnight's Children
- Multiple ethnic and social groups
- At the beginning of the novel: relative peace between those groups
- Considerable change of this relative harmony as the plot unfolds
Group: Similarities and Contrasts in Kim and Untouchable
Kim and Bakha are symbols for the ongoing national change (Modern India)
- Kim is not in a caste and therefore behaves freely
- Bakha is trying to life like a British
Discussion result:
- are Kim and Bakha passive or active acting towards the national change?
- is their way of acting determined by the caste system?
Discussion result:
- The topic of Nation is closely connected to the term „Caste System“.
Mulk Raj Anand "Untouchable" (Group: Impersonal narration and the ideology of the text: The representation of India and of Bakha's consciousness)
1.)
- India: Mother India
- Characters: Bakha's mother /Sohini (B.'s sister)
- Features: the essence of India; essentially good; knows what its men need; caring; vulnerable
- References:
→ p. 14 („Indian to the core […] so loving, so good, and withal generous,giving, always giving[...]kindness personified.“) → p. 23 („She had sensed with her deep woman's instinct the feeling in her brother's soul. He was tired. He was thirsty.“) → p. 31 („Her father was abusing her“)
2.)
- India: Father India = Old India
- Characters: Lakha (B.'s father)/ Rakha (B.'sbrother)/ Gulabo
- Features: fearfully obeying the British; hierarchical thinking (passed down the generations;sometimes distant from Hinduism (under colonialism)
- References::
→ p. 12 („he is afraid of the sepoys“); 13(„attend to the latrines, or the sepoys will be angry.“)
→ p. 17 („that trait of servility […] he had inherited from his forefathers, the weakness of the down-trodden“)
→ p. 85 („ They all ate from the same basket […] not apportioning the food in different plates as the Hindus do, for the original Hindu instinct for cleanliness had disappeared long ago.“)
3.)
- India: Empire in India
- Characters: The „Tommies“ - patronizing India(ns)
- Features: influencing India; imposing a different worldview on India
- References:
→ p. 121 („of the band of Christian missionaries“)
→ p. 9 („The Tommies had treated him as a human being“)
→ p. 9 („he had learnt to think of himself as superior to his fellow-outcastes.“)
Christianity: Colonel Hutchinson
4.)
- India: Modern India
- Characters: Bakha / Chota / Ram Charan / Havildar Charat Singh / Babu's sons
- Features: admiration for the British; copying the British; slightly false in their demeanor; not living strictly after caste hierarchy
→ p. 9 („had been caught by the glamour of the ' white man's ' life“)
→ p. 10 („Bakha was a child of modern India.“)
→ p. 11 („he tried to copy them in everything“)
→ p. 96 („they were not altogether unconscious of the falseness of their istinct“)
→ p. 97 („among the trio they had banished all thought of distinction.“)
5.)
- India: Liberal India
- Characters: Gandhi / The poet / Barrister-at-Law
- Features: taking (positive) British influence back to India; humanitarian; educated; highly estimating fairness & equality; desire to revolutionize India
- References:
→ p. 155 („the flush system […] a casteless and classless society“)
→ p. 145 („The British Government sought to pursue a policy of divide and rule in giving to our brethren of the depressed classes seperate electorates“)
→ p. 147 („a sin to regard anyone bon in Hinduism as polluted“)
→ p. 141 („We are willing to do all we can