Gandhi and Naipaul
Naipaul explains why Gandhi failed. Gandhi, as we well know, was born in India and educated in England. He practiced law as a barrister in South Africa for 20 years where he began a civil rights movement and returned to India at the age of 44 as a leader in the struggle for independence. Gandhi’s experience in South Africa lent him distance and objectivity which the other leaders like Nehru, Sardar Patel and Jinnah lacked. Naipual is similarly objective.
Gandhi found untouchability appalling, he could not abide the caste system, and traded suit and tie for dhoti and bare feet. He could deal with the British: The salt march and the days of prayer and fasting were simply brilliant; passive resistance and the search for truth were legal and harmless, at least on the face of it; his arrests for subversion made the actions of British government indefensible to its own subjects.
The others in the Indian National Congress would join Gandhi in jail and support the cause of independance, but why would any leader want to clean a toilet? That job was destined for the harijans, the people of God as Gandhi renamed the untouchables. Naipaul understands well Gandhi’s struggle and his failure to change Indians who were rooted deeply in prejudice, communalism and caste. South African Indians unlike Indians in India could clean their toilets: Gandhi could not have imagined the resistance he met.
Naipaul in Area of Darkness describes his relationship to a time-locked India as captured in his grandfather’s memory and transmitted by oral history as a sacred homeland. Naipaul came to India in the early 1950s and faced bureaucracy first hand: his opened whisky bottles were confiscated by customs and in those times of prohibition, he required more than one signature from more than one office to get back what was rightly his. A doctor’s letter certified that alcohol was medically necessary to prevent withdrawal symptoms. Naipaul persisted where others might have given up, perhaps he really needed that alcohol. Naipaul spent a summer Srinagar in Kashmir where he lived beside the Dal lake in a small unofficial hotel. The owner of the hotel wanted to be credentialed and inspected by the board of tourism, and he induced Naipaul, a foreigner and writer, to go to the office of tourism to plead his case, which he eventually does, successfully.
Naipaul, an agnostic, joined a pilgrimage, a few days walk in ice and snow from Anantnag to see the ice lingam of Shiva, the phallus that is rejuvenated every winter. He comments on the open air toilet that is an integral part of the route: Indians shit everywhere. There are very many Indians and everyone has to shit, lotta at hand but never a spade. This is what Naipaul sees: Indians lack a civic sense, pollute rivers, drinking water, and suffer from water borne diseases. Untouchables no longer carry night soil in the city, but they clean our toilets and we tell ourselves that it is karma. Between the time of Gandhi’s return and Naipaul’s first visit, not much had changed.
Naipaul explains why Gandhi failed. Gandhi, as we well know, was born in India and educated in England. He practiced law as a barrister in South Africa for 20 years where he began a civil rights movement and returned to India at the age of 44 as a leader in the struggle for independence. Gandhi’s experience in South Africa lent him distance and objectivity which the other leaders like Nehru, Sardar Patel and Jinnah lacked. Naipual is similarly objective.
Gandhi found untouchability appalling, he could not abide the caste system, and traded suit and tie for dhoti and bare feet. He could deal with the British: The salt march and the days of prayer and fasting were simply brilliant; passive resistance and the search for truth were legal and harmless, at least on the face of it; his arrests for subversion made the actions of British government indefensible to its own subjects.
The others in the Indian National Congress would join Gandhi in jail and support the cause of independance, but why would any leader want to clean a toilet? That job was destined for the harijans, the people of God as Gandhi renamed the untouchables. Naipaul understands well Gandhi’s struggle and his failure to change Indians who were rooted deeply in prejudice, communalism and caste. South African Indians unlike Indians in India could clean their toilets: Gandhi could not have imagined the resistance he met.
Naipaul in Area of Darkness describes his relationship to a time-locked India as captured in his grandfather’s memory and transmitted by oral history as a sacred homeland. Naipaul came to India in the early 1950s and faced bureaucracy first hand: his opened whisky bottles were confiscated by customs and in those times of prohibition, he required more than one signature from more than one office to get back what was rightly his. A doctor’s letter certified that alcohol was medically necessary to prevent withdrawal symptoms. Naipaul persisted where others might have given up, perhaps he really needed that alcohol. Naipaul spent a summer Srinagar in Kashmir where he lived beside the Dal lake in a small unofficial hotel. The owner of the hotel wanted to be credentialed and inspected by the board of tourism, and he induced Naipaul, a foreigner and writer, to go to the office of tourism to plead his case, which he eventually does, successfully.
Naipaul, an agnostic, joined a pilgrimage, a few days walk in ice and snow from Anantnag to see the ice lingam of Shiva, the phallus that is rejuvenated every winter. He comments on the open air toilet that is an integral part of the route: Indians shit everywhere. There are very many Indians and everyone has to shit, lotta at hand but never a spade. This is what Naipaul sees: Indians lack a civic sense, pollute rivers, drinking water, and suffer from water borne diseases. Untouchables no longer carry night soil in the city, but they clean our toilets and we tell ourselves that it is karma. Between the time of Gandhi’s return and Naipaul’s first visit, not much had changed.
