India : A Wounded Civilization

" The crisis of India is not only political or economic. The larger crisis is of a wounded old civilization that has at last become aware of its inadequacies and is without the intellectual means to move ahead."


V.S.Naipul , a Caribbean writer of Indian descent has written Indian Trilogy comprising three books respectively - An Area of Darkness , India : A Wounded Civilization , A Million Mutinies Now . Its was on his third visit to India , prompted by Emergency in 1975 that he came to write his second book - India : A Wounded Civilization.


The title itself shows Naipul's concern in his book - neither politics nor economics but emphasis is on the Civilization and that too A Wounded Civilization. Of course the work is critical and analytical as in the beginning he says that "I am at once too close and too far " from India as it is his home and cannot be his home. Well for him its a difficult country and for one who is not Indian , I think India becomes mystical and so difficult.


Its very strange that we are always guided either by "supernatural" or "inner voice". The magic , religion , caste , customs , samskara , karma n alike are so imbibed in our lives that they become us and we are lost in them . One's identity in India is described by them and not what they are actually. That is one reason why in most Indian novels or literary work author tries to find out his own "identity" . In West , individual is individual . So no further complexity.


What Naipul tries to show us is that - Rich Civilization was a past and now India should rediscover its past not by adopting it as it was but by creating something new by moving ahead. He is also critical of Gandhi , he said at one place that " Gandhi swept through India , but he has left it without an ideology." Tolstoy in the last year of his life , said of Gandhi " His Hindu Nationalism spoils everything." This Naipul calls a defect of vision and for it he says Gandhi could give something better and alive to Independent India.

What I most liked about the book is - it has a literary air about it which as Naipul wonders , lacks in Gandhi's auto-biography . It talks about R.K.Narayan's novels and his isolated world undisturbed by 1930s political environment and appreciates the novel Samskara by U. R. Anantha Murthy , as it shows the predicament of individual identity in relation with Indian culture and castes. It also talks about Vijay Tendulkar , a marathi playwright whose works are translated into English. His works are realistic and he is more harsh than other Indian writers. 


The book is thought-provoking as Hind Swaraj of Gandhi but as Gandhi takes us back a hundred years , Naipul shows us the truth of today's reality and dream of future Renaissance .