8 Minority Discourses and New Literatures in English

Md Samsujjaman

About the chapter:

The module Minority Discourses and New Writings in English attempts to clarify the idea of ‘minority’ in the Indian context as a background to understand the contribution of the minority writers. Detailed readings of English writings by writers belonging to ‘minority’ groups show how they have tried to articulate their concerns against, within and outside the mainstream discourses of dominant groups in the society. Their writings also explore their existential condition of marginalization and suppression by the dominant group in the society in which they live.

Introduction:

Minorities are recognized as religious, ethnic, racial, linguistic and cultural groups who are different by their culture, religion, ethnicity and language from the dominant or majority section of people who holds power in the society. The discourse about the minority community has been focused on the writing of minority novelists, poets, playwrights and short story writers. Through their literary creations, the minority writers have focused how their community has been deprived and marginalized by the dominant or major community. Besides, the writings of the minority community have focused how they have tried to make a bond with the mainstream discourses of the major community.

Defining Minority:According to the literature introducing the Minorities Commission:

Though the Constitution of India does not define the word ‘Minority’ and only refers to ‘Minorities’ and speaks of those ‘based on religion or language’, the rights of the minorities have been spelt out in the Constitution in detail.

A distinction may be made between two sets of rights of minorities: those which can be placed in ‘common domain’ and those in the ‘separate domain’. Rights in the ‘common domain’ are applicable to all the citizens of our country. The rights which fall in the  ‘separate domain’ are applicable to the minorities only and these are reserved to protect their identity. According to the Minorities Commission:

The distinction between ‘common domain’ and ‘separate domain’ and their combination have been well kept and protected in the Constitution. The Preamble to the Constitution declares the State to be ‘Secular’ and this is a special relevance for the Religious Minorities. Equally relevant for them, especially, is the declaration of the Constitution in its Preamble that all citizens of India are to be secured ‘liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship and ‘equality of status and of opportunity.’

There is another set of non-justiciable rights stated in Part IV, which are connected with social and economic rights of the people. These rights are known as ‘Directive Principles of State Policy’, by non-justiciable is meant that laws cannot be made on these since they are principles directing state policy. They are legally not binding upon the State, but are “fundamental in the governance of the country and it shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws”.

The Minorities Commission literature indicates the significance of these for the Minorities and specifies the parts of the Constitution which cover them. For example, the State is obliged ‘to endeavour to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities’ amongst individuals and groups of people residing in different areas or engaged in different vocations; [Article 38 (2)] and ‘to promote with special care’ the educational and economic interests of ‘the weaker sections of the people’ (besides Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes);

Minorities and Language Rights:

The Minorities Commission of India in its website enumerates the language and cultural rights as follows:

• Right of ‘any section of the citizens’ to ‘conserve’ its ‘distinct language, script or culture’; [Article 29 (1
• Restriction on denial of admission to any citizen, to any educational institution maintained or aided by the State, ‘on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them’; [Article 29 (2)]
• Right of all Religious and Linguistic Minorities to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice; [Article 30 (1)]
• Freedom of Minority-managed educational institutions from discrimination in the matter of receiving aid from the State; [Article30 (2)]
• The special provision relating to the language spoken by a section of the population of any State; [Article 347]
• Provision for facilities for instruction in mother-tongue at primary stage; [Article 350 A]
• Provision for a Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities and his duties; and [Article 350 B]

Thus we see that the preservation of language and culture plays a very important part in the preservation of the identity of smaller groups, and the Constitution recognizes this. This makes the term ‘minority’ relative to location and to the majority group in that location, rather than an absolute abstraction. The assumption that ‘minority’ refers to a particular religious community alone has led to both extreme antipathy towards the group as well as an erasure of differences between the many minority groups that inhabit the plural society of India. The artistic, literary and intellectual creativities of the minority writers have altered us to the experience of discrimination faced by those fewer in number and focused on how they have been deprived and marginalized by the dominant major community

Democracy and Minorities:

The term ‘minority’ being relative to location, religious, linguistic or social groups, which have fewer members have been discriminated against by the group with the strength  of numbers. Democracy is assumed to be the rule of the people, by the people and for the people. Hence domination of a small section of the minority, by the majority of the people, is undemocratic, since it deprives the smaller section of the people of their rights. The Constitution of India therefore attempts to protect the rights of all since it upholds democracy and thus makes multiculturalism and pluralism an inherent part of the social, political and cultural fabric of the country. However, the making and implementation of laws is not enough to ensure substantive equality among the diverse classes, castes and cultures; discrimination has existed in Indian society due to social hierarchies. The division of the population along religious lines at the time of independence rendered a particular religious group a ‘minority’ in India, since partition was meant to separate the two religions into separate states. Hence we have formed the mistaken idea that ‘minority’ only refers to this group. This mistaken idea would lead to a homogenization and a possible stigmatization of that group. For example, the Muslim community, belong to different parts of India and are culturally and linguistically different, and share the same religion. But within the Muslim community there is also a minority in terms of mode of worship and understanding of the tenets of the faith. However, the majority tend to homogenise them It would also lead us to ignore the existence of other minorities, religious, cultural and linguistic.and an as well as  due to between the majority of the people and the smaller groups following different religions. The fact that the rights of minority community is officially implemented, but really still they are being maltreated and discriminated.

Race, Caste and Minorities:

In the western countries, typically on the basis of colour the not-white people are recognized as minorities because they are less in number. The Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Sikhs and atheists are considered minorities on the basis of religion in as Christianity is the dominant religion who rules over the western countries. These minority people are basically diasporic minority. They migrated from to the western countries for various purposes. There writings reflect how they have adjusted to the Christian culture and how they have worked to save their own identity and native culture in order to make balance with the mainstream discourses.

In Indian context, the website of the Minority Commission links economic and social hierarchies with religion:

The social pluralism of India, as fortified by the unique Constitutional concept of secularism, raises the need for the protection and development of all sorts of weaker sections of the Indian citizenry – whether this ‘weakness’ is based on numbers or on social, economic or educational status of any particular group. The Constitution, therefore, speaks of Religious and Linguistic Minorities, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes and makes – or leaves room for making – for them special provisions of various nature and varying import. Except Hinduism all the other religious communities (Muslim, Sikh, Jains, Buddhist, Christians and Parsis) are minorities.  Dalit people are also considered as part of  the weaker sections because of the discrimination against them which is considered ‘traditional’ even today. They are often maltreated by the majority in their social, political and educational life.

Representing Minorities:

Another important aspect of minority discourse is the representation of minority communities in the politic domain and how the minority identity is projected in the public imagination. As we have seen in the theoretical module on Otherness, ‘representation’ is a constitution of the Other from the vantage point of a position that is taken to be that of the subject. The subject constitutes the Other as the not-self, as similar in some respects, but essentially different from the subject. Hence the construction of the minority and its representation in the public mind is from the vantage point of the majority – the minority os negatively defined with respect to the minority, and this deliberate construction is made to seem natural by ascribing opposite values to the subject (majority) and the Other (minority). This distinction is thus made by hegemonic social forces with a view to othering the minorities.

In this module, we will consider the complicated reality that characterizes minority discourse and show how the writings of authors who do not belong to the majority religion or culture or to the powerful social and economic group reveal to us the condition of being discriminated against at every level, rendering their hitherto silenced reality audible and visible both to the members of the minority community as well as to the majority who are oblivious to this reality.

What is Minority Literature?

According to Deleuze and Guattari, in the context of literature, the term ‘Minority’ means lesser or minor (Bogue 104). They have found some criteria and quality on which minority literature is based.. According to Bogue-

One of the original features of the concept of “minor literature” is its rapprochement of three distinct categories of literature: secondary literature, whether it be that of a minor nation or linguistic group in relation to a major tradition, or that of a humble, minor movement or tendency (e.g., American local colourists) within a larger tradition; marginal literature, or the literature of minorities; and experimental literature, which “minoritises” a major language…. By treating Kafka as a minor writer, Deleuze and Guattari call attention to his status as a member of an ethnic minority and citizen of a minor region/proto-nation within a foreign-based empire, while insisting that his formal and thematic innovations in literature have direct social and political implications.

It is a separate question whether this kind of reduction of literature to the ethnicity of the writer or to her class/caste position does justice to literature itself. This is a question we must keep in view when we use extra-literary categories to understand literature.

An important theme of minority literature is that it does not represent the concept of self as an individual, but as collective (Bogue 105). The minority writers who are not only from India but also from all over the world have produced their literary texts (fictional) and also documented their life experience as a form of autobiography and memoir (non-fictional) to make a bond with the mainstream cultures, and issues prevailing in the society (Wynter 209-210).

Minority Writers from Indian Subcontinent: 

Humayun Kabir (1906-1969):

Humayun Kabir is a poet and educationist who contributed immensely to the struggle for Indian Independence. He wrote a famous novel entitled, Men and Rivers (1948) where  the river becomes a metaphor for both the permanence and the flux of the life of Bengali Muslims. He edited the autobiography of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, entitled ‘India Wins Freedom’ which gives a panoramic view of Indian freedom struggle and Maulana Azad’s contribution to the freedom struggle and developing communal harmony between Hindu and Muslim in India. His other books are Banglar Kavya (The poetry of Bengal) (1945),  Marxbad (Marxism) (1951), Mirza Abu Talib Khan (1961), Poetry, Monads and Society (1941), Muslim Politics in Bengal (1943), Rabindranath Tagore (1945) and so on.

Allan Sealy (1951):

Allan Sealy has authored three novels, which are The Trotter-Nama (1990), The Everest Hotel: A Calender (1998) and The Brain fever Bird (2003). The novel The Trotter- Nama narrates the history of seven generations of a non-Indian family founded by the fictitious Great Trotter, descendant of French mercenaries who settled in Lucknow in the 19th century. It combines the plural culture of Lucknow with the European, rather than merely English, culture, showing how the English language can be adapted to plural Indian society.

Cornelia Sorabji (1866-1954):

Cornelia Sorabji was the first Indian woman to get a graduate degree from Bombay University. Then she went to England and took a degree in law from Oxford University. She became the first Indian even British woman lawyer . Sorabji practiced law in Kolkata and in a court of Britain. She inspired women in India to to fight against patriarchal misuse of power over women. She had legalized the entry of women in the court as a lawyer for practicing. Her famous collection of short stories, Love and Life behind the Purdah (1902) tells the life of women in the Zenana and other women in colonial rule in India. Her book, Indian Tales of the Great Ones Among Men (1916) and Women and Bird-People (1916) have depicted the story of Indian legends and narrates folk tales of ancient India. Her other famous books are The Purdahnashin, Therefore (memoir, 1917), Gold Mohur: Time to Remember (a play, 1930) and so on.

Ahmed Ali (1910-1994):

Ahmed Ali is considered one of the greatest Indian novelists. He penned not only novels but also poems, plays and short stories in English. He worked as a diplomat, professor and translator in his life in India, Pakistan, England and United States. He is mainly famous for his great novel, Twilight in Delhi (1940). In the novel he depicts the vivid picture of traditional life of higher class Muslims in Delhi. Here the downfall of the Mughals and the  decay of the hero Mir Nahal’s family are parallel themes intertwined in the story, acting as allegory for each other. Besides, he has written a critical text, Mr. Eliot’s Penny World of Dreams: An Essay in the Interpretation of T. S. Eliot’s Poetry. He translated holy Quran and Ghazals of Urdu poet, Ghalib. His two famous English plays Break the Chains (1944) and The Land of Twilight (1946). Thus Ahmed Ali had contributed to the literature in English depicting some issues related to Muslim families of old Delhi.

Khawaja Ahmad Abbas (1914-1987):

Khwaja Ahmad Abbas is a filmmaker and writer in many languages. Here we wiil consider only English. He worked as a script writer, producer and director of many Indian films in Hindi and English language as well. His scripted English films are Love in Goa (1931) and The Naxalite (1980). The movie ‘The Naxalites’ shows how and why the class and poor class Indians, belonging to different racial and religious background were joining the Naxalite movement. His other movies depict a vivid picture of India’s partition, communal harmony and Hindu-Muslim relation.

His autobiography, I am not an Island (1977) narrates his adventurous life and his contribution to the national movements against British colonization. K. A. Abbas has also written a novel called Inqilab (1958) the realistic depiction of Indian freedom struggle.

Nissim Ezekiel (1924-2004):

Nissim Ezekiel is an Indian poet who belongs to Jewish community. His famous anthologies of poems are The Exact Name, (1960) The Unfinished Man (1965) and Hymns in Darkness (1976). In these poems he talks about the superstition of Indian people, loneliness, love, alienation, sex and Indian culture. Through his poems Nissim Ezekiel has criticized and ridiculed superstitions and irrational doings and the condition of the minorities. He says-

“It’s the language really separates, whatever else is shared. On the other hand, everyone understands Mother Theresa; her guests die visibly in her arms. It’s not the mythology or the marriage customs that you need to know, It’s the will to  pass through the eye of a needle to self-forgetfulness.”

Keki N. Daruwalla (1937):

Keki N. Daruwalla’s anthologies of poems are Union Orion (1970), Apparitions in April (1971), Crossing of Rivers (1976), Winters Poems (1980), The Keeper of the Dead (1982), Landscape (1987) and The Map Maker (2002). He represents the plurality of Indian society in which many faiths and cultures not only live together but blend harmoniously to form a plural Indian culture:

“Migrations are always difficult: ask any drought, any plague; ask the year 1947. Ask the chronicles themselves: if there had been no migrations would there have been enough History to munch on?”

Eunice D’Souza (1940):

Einice D’Souza was born in 1940, D’Souza, of Portuguese ancestry, talks about the ‘hybrid’ nature of her identity in the poem “D’Souza Ptabhu”. She is a novelist, poet, critic and theatre personality. Her poetry volumes include Fix. (1979) Women in Dutch Painting. (1988) and Ways of Belonging. (1990). Her novels are Dangerlok. (Penguin, 2001) and Dev & Simran: A Novel. (Penguin, 2003).

Bapsi Sidhwa (1938):

Bapsi Sidhwa, like Keki Daruwala, also belongs to the Parsi community. ‘The Crow Eater (1978), Ice-Candy-Man (1988), The Bride (1982) and An American Brat (1993)are the novels, written by Bapsi Sidhwa. She has also produced autobiographical pieces like City of Sin and Splendor (2006). She doesn’t talk of politics, or war, or legends, or leaders, but of the silent sufferings of the oppressed Parsi people who were most affected by events which can be considered as extreme moments of modern Indian history. Through these literary texts Sidhwa also tried to give a panoramic narration of the content and position of her own Parsi community and how they were treated by the majority in the society.

Asghar Ali Engineer (1939-2013):

Asghar Ali Engineer is an essayist and commentator on contemporary India. His work centres on communal harmony and about the rights of women in Islam, Islamic theology and Marxism. Jihad and Other Essays (2004) demonstrates the moral and human values of Islam through a collection of more than 40 essays. With these essays, Engineer makes the reader understand the word Jihad in a better way.

His autobiography, A Living Faith: My Quest for Peace, Harmony and Social Change (2011) is testimony to his commitment to peace and amity between the communities. He brings to light the superstitions and malpractices in the Bohra community to which he belonged, in the best traditions of self-criticism and resistance to fundamentalism that misleads and oppresses people.

Agha Shahid Ali (1949-2001):

Agha Shahid Ali was born in India in a Kashmiri Muslim family and moved to the United States of America to study and remained there. His anthologies of poetry are Call Me Ishmael Tonight: A Book of Ghazals, Rooms Are Never Finished (2001), The Country Without a Post Office (1997), The Beloved Witness: Selected Poems (1992), A Nostalgist’s Map of America (1991), A Walk Through the Yellow Pages (1987), The Half-Inch Himalayas (1987), In Memory of Begum Akhtar and Other Poems (1979), and Bone Sculpture (1972). He introduced the ghazall (a traditional form of poetry in India, composed originally in  Urdu) form in American English poetry. The main themes and ideas of Ali’s poetry are the sense of loss, Kashmiri Muslim identity and the confused feelings of exile, which speak of the agony of Kshmiri people displaced or ridden by violence since independence.

Imtiaz Dharker (1954):

Imtiaz Dharker has written six anthologies of poetry Purdah (1989), Postcards from God (1997), I speak of the Devil (2001), The Terrorist at my Table (2006), Leaving Fingerprints (2009) and Over the Moon (2014). The main subject matter of Dharker’s poetry is home, liberty, voyages, geographical and cultural dislocation, pluralism and gender politics.. Besides, Purdah And Other (2011) an anthology of poems, deals with the various aspects of a Muslim woman’s life where she experiences unfair suppression and violence engineered through the culture of purdah.

Firdaus Kanga (1960):

Firdaus Kanga is mainly remembered for his semi-autobiographical novel Trying to Grow (1991) which depicts physical deformity and the challenge of discrimination that a person with deformity faces. Further the novel talks about the destruction of the Persian Empire and the rise of the Islamic domain in Persia thousand years ago. It also narrates how the Persian people settled in the western part of the Indian subcontinent. Later a movie called Sixth Happiness was made on the adaptation of the novel.

Firdaus Kanga’s documentary film, Double the Trouble (1992), Twice the Fun (1993) explored the effects of disability in human sexual life. Taboo, another documentary presented by Kanga, explored religion and disability – for instance, the Hindu notions of karma – exploring how religion can exclude and patronize people of disability.

Samina Ali:

Indian-American feminist novelist Samina Ali has contributed to the discourse of Minorities. Her famous novel Madras on Rainy Days (2004) discusses how an Indian- American Muslim girl Layla’s life has torn apart by clashing identities. Her writings also explore the idea of gender equality, women rights and challenges of women in the society.

Summary

This module has focused on the literary texts of writers of the Indian subcontinent who belong to religious, cultural and linguistic minorities. We have not taken into consideration here the writers belonging to the so-called ‘weaker sections’ or professional and caste hierarchies. These writers have depicted how the minority communities are being marginalized and suppressed by the dominant groups in the society. It also explores the contribution of the minority writers in new writings in English. It also examines the important aspect of minority discourse is the representation of minority communities in the politic domain and how the minority identity is projected in the imagination in the public mind.

Reference

• Arnold, David and Stuart H. Blackburn. Telling Lives in India: Biography, Autobiography, and Life History. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2004. Print.
• Bogue, Ronald. Minor Writing and Minor Literature. Symploke. Vol. 5, No.1, 1997.99-118.
• Datta, Amresh. The Encyclopedia of Indian Literature. New Delhi: Sahitya Academy, 1994. Print.
• Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari. Kafia: Toward a Minor Literature. Trans. Dana Polan. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1986.
• Engineer, Asghar Ali. A Living Faith: My Quest for Peace, Harmony and Social Change. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2012. Print.
• Ramrao, Totowad Ramnath. Minority Literature: A Critique of Retrospect. Epitome Journals 1.1(2015)
• http://epitomejournals.com/VolumeArticles/FullTextPDF/11_Research_Paper.pdf
• Wynter, Sylvia. On Disenchanting Discourse: “Minority” Literary Criticism and beyond.
• Cultural Critique.7(1987) 207-244 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1354156