The issue of class has a big impact on Changez’s hybridity and shows the divide between his life in England and his ties to his native country of India. Changez demonstrates and seems to embrace the internalized racism prevalent in British culture and looks down upon other Indians/Pakistanis who he perceives to be inferior to him: “’Look at that low-class person…the reason there is this bad racialism is because they are so dirty, so rough-looking, so bad mannered’” (Kureishi, 210). Changez deems anybody he sees on the street with brown skin to be lower-status and expects them to fully assimilate as fully as he feels that he has. He rejects his past in India and spends his time out shopping for fine things and cheating on his wife, flaunting his new-found Westerness to his Indian relations (Kureishi, 210). Bhabha writes that “the migrant is empowered to intervene actively in the transmission of cultural inheritance or ‘tradition’…rather than passively accept its venerable customs and pedagogical wisdom (McLeod, 253). I feel that hybridity allows for migrants such as Changez to choose which aspects of their former and adopted cultures form their own unique identity. This formation of sense of self is definitely not always a conscious decision on the part of the person and is susceptible to all of the prejudices, institutional racism, and feelings of inferiority that come with being a minority in a society full of privileged others.
Dr. Campbell talks about the concept of hybridity in in the above video and explains how immigrants and those of mixed race descent can create their own unique identities. Changez has embraced all things white and has adopted a white identity for himself, even if he is a person of colour and will never be accepted as white by anybody else. He has kept alive the colonial tendency to view the British as superior and in doing so is actively contributing to the remaining oppression against other people of colour. The chart listed below shows how people of colour have much higher unemployment rates than white British do and can reveal the institutionalized racism that leads Changez to believe that anybody with brown skin is low-class and unwilling to assimilate. With 25% of certain populations unable to find work it is not a surprise that some of these people take the low-paying and not glamorous jobs that don't allow them the luxury of being able to purchase fine clothes or practice to speak with perfect diction. Changez deals with his internal feelings of inadequacy by otherizing fellow immigrants and people of colour and embracing the same prejudices and stereotypes that make him hate himself.
The evolution of Gogol's name parallels that of him growing up and embracing his American identity and furthers the cultural divide between him and his parents and their native culture. The transition from Gogol to Nikhil/Nick created two identities: He is Nikhil to everyone he has known in his American college and professional life yet to his parents, Sonia, and their friends and family in America and Calcutta he will always be Gogol. Gogol will never lose the connection to his Indian heritage yet it is obvious from the reading that he has fully embraced being an American and is more comfortable in the nation of his birth. I feel that the fact that Gogol is not a traditional Indian name may have had something to do with Gogol embracing American culture over Indian. Gogol is a very unique and unusual name and people do not associate it with any specific country of origin and I feel that if his pet name had been something more traditional than he would have been more understanding of his parents culture. Gogol will always be reminded of his pet name from those who knew him before Nikhil and he struggled with accepting that to his parents and sister he will always be Gogol. After Gogol gets married and starts to plan for having children with his wife he realizes that names aren't everything like he had thought when he was a child. The following passage from the novel shows how much Gogol has matured and has finally gotten over his hatred of his pet name: “There's no such thing as the perfect name. I think human beings should be allowed to name themselves when they turn eighteen...[u]ntil then, pronouns” (245).
The Namesake is actually one of my favorite books from when I was a kid and it was really interesting to revisit it again in an academic setting and apply the concepts and themes of postcolonialism and our course to the readings. I first read the story when I was a sophomore in high school and mainly enjoyed the book due to the personal connection that I felt to all of the significant places and locations that Gogol finds himself in throughout the story. I have spent three months of every summer since I was eight attending and then working at a summer camp on a beautiful lake in New Hampshire, I grew up in southwestern Connecticut and know New Haven and the Yale campus well, visit Boston multiple times a year and hope to move there after graduation, and have spent a lot of time in New York City visiting my grandparents in Manhattan and my parents' alma matter Columbia University. It was exciting for me to read about seemingly mundane experiences like taking the train into the city or walking down Newberry Street and being able to picture what Gogol was going through. After reading the book again I can actually see some similarities between my life and Gogol's experiences going "home" to Calcutta and his discomfort in his parent's nation of birth. My dad's family is composed of mainly Polish Jews who emigrated to Canada in the early 1930's and have humorously become some of the most proud and assimilated French-Canadians that Quebec has ever seen. My dad was born in Montreal and moved to New York when he went to Columbia and I still find it strange to think of him as an immigrant and of myself as the son of an immigrant. When I was younger I was always encouraged by my relatives to the north to learn French, similar to how it was lamented by the family in Calcutta that Gogol did not speak Bengali. My relatives are very supportive of Quebec remaining a francophone province and are very protective of what they see as the superior culture of French Canada. The cultural differences differences between America and Canada are more compatible than those between India and America but I feel solidarity with Gogol and our shared experiences of awkward visits to foreign lands.
Balram considers his criminal behavior to be just an act of entrepreneurship because it fits into his world view of the ends justifying the means when it comes to success and making money. Balram has grown up seeing how people who had acted cruelly and take advantage of others acquire wealth, power, and respect from the community. His town of Laxmangarh with its four oppressive landlords/thugs/Animals, corruption in the local government and schools, and terrible poverty and unsanitary living conditions(16-17) is a great example of capitalism at its worst and explains why Balram feels that achieving a “fat belly” validates the you in the eyes of the world and absolves you of past sins. Balram is motivated to succeed because of the dream of his father to have his son become successful: “'My whole life I have been treated like a donkey. All I want is that one son of mine-at least one should live like a man'”(26). He is the quintessential example of an outsider who buys into the fact that capitalism is a rigged game and that those who work the hardest usually do not reap most of the rewards. Balram is willing to do whatever it takes to become rich and realizes that playing by the rules actively prevents him from achieving his goals.
Influencing Balram's morals and behavior is the idea of "crony capitalism", a manifestation of capitalism that sees much of the corruption and government incompetency that we read about in The White Tiger. It is clear from the novel that capitalism is not working for everyone and that Balram and others like him have been exposed to a government and economic system that favors the strong over the weak and punishes them for playing fairly. Much of India's economic growth over the past 50 years has been linked to these problems of corruption and cronyism with the periods of high growth being accompanied by periods of high corruption. The economic situation has led to opportunities for people whose families had been disenfranchised for generations a chance at making it rich yet the newly found social mobility is largely based on gaming the system and exploitation of others, with entrepreneurs like Balram leading the way. Further reading on crony capitalism in India
Chacko means that the family had been indoctrinated to be subservient to the British and lost the connection to the history and legacies of their own ancestors. Describing them as a “family of Anglophiles” (pg. 51), Chacko uses the definitions in the Readers Digest encyclopedia to show the children how Pappachi had turned his back on his culture and embraced the hierarchical system that placed the British above the Indians. It is clear that the legacy of postcolonialism is still strong in India as Chacko describes a “war that has made us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves” (pg. 52). This internal war that he speaks of is the practice of cultural indoctrination and all of the assumed prejudices and normalizations that accompany it. Anglophiles struggled with finding their cultural identity and it becomes clear that the internalized self-hatred they have for Indians leaves them without a sense of history. They lock themselves out of their traditional Indian culture and roots yet at the same time are locked out of ever really being part of British culture by the same system that gave them cause to hate themselves in the first place. I interpret the War of Dreams that Chacko speaks of to mean the belittlement of any accomplishments that an Indian might make in the eyes of the British and the Anglophiles. A person could be the most accomplished scholar, greatest inventor, or creator of wealth and yet their success will not mean much because they are still Indian. The dreams of the oppressors end up becoming the dreams of the oppressed through indoctrination yet the oppressed have virtually no shot of attaining these goals. Chacko explains to the children that through the perspective of the Earth Woman that “we, my dears, are everything we are and ever will be are just a twinkle in her eye” (pg. 53) to show them the vastness of history on Earth and how the true history of humanity is as one.
An enduring legacy of colonialism that has become an important issue recently in India has been the cultural preference for fair skin. In a Times of India article linked below Anup Dhir, a plastic surgeon, suggests the phenomenon is influenced by the years of British rule: "Indians are usually obsessed with fair skin as they acquired this legacy from the British era. As our rulers were fair skinned, we also run after fair complexion." Under colonial rule many Indians internalized the idea that British equals better and began to associate whiteness with beauty. Indians with dark skin face discrimination and advertisements like the image above promise to not only whiten skin but to markedly improve lives as a result of having a lighter pigment. The fact that this cultural bias persists is a testament to the effects that colonialism continue to have on the culture of the oppressed generations after colonial rule officially ended.
The film Slumdog
Millionaire offers its audience a voyeuristic and highly-sanitized portrayal
of the lives of some of India’s hundreds of millions impoverished citizens. I
feel that the lack of first-person narration from the main character Jamal and
any of the other characters turns the film into a vessel for the entertainment
of a privileged Western audience and denies us crucial context and insight into
the lives of those who live in the slums. Without a look inside what is really
going on in the characters’ heads the audience is simply along for the ride, a
visitor into the environment who is just passing through and following Jamal’s
personal journey from afar and many will not understand the legacy of
colonialism that led to the oppression and poverty shown in the movie. The
director does indeed show many deplorable aspects of the lives endured by the
children yet in trying to convey the strength and resolve of the residents of
the slums also glorifies their plight. The audience does not get to smell the
terrible stench of raw sewage running through the streets, feel the hunger
pangs, or double over in pain from the illnesses caused by drinking dirty
water. Without the access to the perspectives of Jamal and the others the audience
can only sympathize and not empathize with any of their experiences in the
film. This film is a great example of the colonialist stereotype aspect of
Bhabha’s ideas on colonial discourse and does indeed both install and disavow
the differences between the people of the Indian slums and the Western audience
(McCleod, 64). The audience is held at arm’s length from the reality on the ground
and is left to create its own opinion about the setting and situations shown in
the movie, something that our privilege and lack of context does not allow us to accurately do.
Making the comparison between Slumdog Millionaire and the industry of poverty tourism in Mumbai can help us understand the more problematic aspects of the film and its relationship to colonial discourse.
In the novel Shame by Salman Rushdie the main character Sufiya Zinobia represents the second-class status of women in the nation. Bringing shame to her family simply by being born, Sufiya’s struggle as a girl and women bring to light the misogynistic nature of a Pakistani society where the word woman has many negative connotations such as weakling, shameful, and foolish (Rushdie, 58). Sufiya is supposed to be a representation of all of the terrible attitudes about women and the violent and humiliating actions taken out against them and of the women’s response to their plight. As Pakistan tries to establish itself as a country and a people the women in the nation experience the same problem that plagues many cultures after they attain their freedom: “Men and women experience national liberation differently…women do not reap equal benefits from decolonization for reasons of gender inequality” (McLeod, 137). In this type of society nothing that Sufiya could do in her life would make her anything but a disappointment and the traditional role of a Pakistani woman does not allow her the same opportunities afforded to men. The women of Pakistan carry the burden of internalized misogynistic self-hate yet also realize that the system and culture are wrong and have the extra burden of feeling shame for their nation as well as themselves. Sufiya’s blushing represents this sentiment well: “Sufiya Zinobia Hyder blushed uncontrollably whenever her presence in the world was noted by others. But she also, I believe, blushed for the world too” (Rushdie, 124). Sufiya’s life gives the whole world a view into Pakistani society’s treatment of woman and her plight does indeed bring shame to the nation.
This video clip is from Al Jazeera English, a news station based in Qatar that provides its audience with a non-Western perspective on global events and often features human rights stories such as the one presented above. I consider their reporting to be fairly unbiased so long as the story is not about the Qatari government and feel that they are able to criticize unjust cultural practices and injustices in other Middle Eastern and Islamic countries where I as a white American cannot. I will let the video speak for itself in showing how women in Pakistan still face institutionalized oppression from the male-dominated government and tribal authorities. It is clear that women have made social, economic, and political advancements in recent years but the second-class status of women as shown in Shame is still the daily reality for the majority of women in Pakistan.
Acid attack victim Fakhra Yunus
I had heard of acid attacks used by men in Pakistan to disfigure and shame their wives, daughters, and other relatives but before I did some reading on the topic for this blog post had no idea of how shockingly common the practice has become. It was both saddening and infuriating to scroll through the pages upon pages of pictures of women who had been assaulted in this manner. In the eyes of the men who commit these atrocities a woman without beauty has no value or redeeming qualities whatsoever and by disfiguring her he has successfully dehumanized her to her community.
Map of the region after Partition showing Lenny's city of Lahore on the Pakistani side of the border
Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa tells the story of the Partition of India by the British from the point of view of the colonized. The novel has a wide array of characters from many different religious, social, and ethnic backgrounds and is told through the point of view of Lenny, a young Parsee girl who lives in the city of Lahore. Through Lenny’s eyes the reader is able to see the country shift from one group united under foreign rule to two opposing nations, fractured along religious lines and divided by a seemingly arbitrary political border. As Partition draws nearer, the feeling of community in Lahore that was so strong for Lenny’s early childhood dissolves as the residents look to the future with uncertainty. At the beginning of the novel Lenny and her Ayah enjoy traveling around the city and interacting with people from all sorts of backgrounds. The community in Lahore is made up of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Parsees, Christians and a whole range of social and economic classes. A place of gathering for all groups is Queen’s Park, a symbol of the British oppression that binds all of the groups of India together under their rule. The different groups are worried about what will happen once the oppression is lifted and have to weigh their groups standing in the new nation of Pakistan against maintaining the multi-cultural community they have now. As the novel goes on, Lenny starts to see many more hostile confrontations between those of different religions: A heated exchange between a British constable and a Sikh shows how the feeling of community is failing:“ if you Sikhs plan to keep your lands in Lyallpur and Montgomery, you’d better start fraternizing with the Muslim League. “If you don’t, the Muslims will throw you off your rich land”. Those of similar religions band together and withdraw from the community, there is no more sense of unity in Lahore anymore and those who were once friends and neighbors turn on each other. As a new nation is created and violence erupts, those who no longer feel like a part of the community leave everything behind in Pakistan and head to India to join their respective religious communities. As people stopped seeing those with differences as part of their community the overall community failed to exist.
The cracking of British India has created a nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan and shows why it is so important for us to view the last 65 years of Indian and Pakistani history as postcolonial rather than after colonial. The feelings of hatred and distrust between Hindus and Muslims and the resulting violence that Lenny describes in the novel persist to this day as India and Pakistan clash over control of the territory of Kashmir. Great Britain threw the region into chaos when they divided the country up and Lenny's account of the events that transpired after Partition show how little regard the British had for the people who actually lived in the two new nations. The situation in Kashmir is a direct result of the colonialist past of the region and threatens the safety and way of life for well over a billion people.
