Dealing with Darlymple, or the Prude Critics

William Darlymple's popularity as a writer of travelogues and popular histories about India in the West is no great mystery; he is a charming, erudite writer with a keen sense of narrative and literary presentation. Why an expat who knows no Indian languages and has arrogantly dismissed Indian historians for not doing enough research (in Urdu!) on the Mutiny Papers in the National Archives, for not writing well enough, and for not selling enough books, should command such astronomical credibility and popularity in India can be more difficult to understand. His Jaipur Literature Festival, incidentally coming up again this month, is a tremendous success that manages to bring together both Indian and Western literary heavyweights. As anyone who's wandered a bit through the bazaars, he sells. A lot. Dalrymple's books are everywhere, and he has become something of an authority of Indian history, much to his own self-satisfaction. And, if he tells a neo-colonial fantasy tale that may be attractive to his Indian middle-class readership, he also is a great lover of Urdu and Muslim culture, which makes him an unusual and welcome voice of reason in the Indian media.

But I digress, because my post is not actually about Dalrymple himself. It's about this essay by Hartosh Singh Bal in OPEN that tries to explain the Darlymple "phenomenon." Indeed, the curious fact of a foreigner's success (and a British one's, to boot) in the post-colonial Indian literary scene troubles Bal. How could Dalrymple have become "the pompous arbiter of literary merit in India?" Mostly, the answer comes down to a lingering cultural hierarchy whereby the approval of British publishers and critics is fawningly sought after by Indians. The Jaipur Festival, according to this view, is only successful because Ian McEwan shows up, not because it showcases good Indian writing. This critique makes a lot of sense, if only because there is still a difference between the audience, resources, and critical attention received by Westerners or expats who write about India and authors who write from within India. With increasing access to media, the Indian reading public may just be accepting a set of standards without much thought. The problem is, however, that good Indian writing is starting to get out through these channels, much of it encouraged by Dalrymple and the Jaipur Fest.

What really gets me about Bal's critique is his astonishing prudishness, otherwise surprising for someone making an argument that might be termed "nationalist" or even somewhat Marxist in its attention to the aftereffects of colonialism. He believes, perhaps rightly, that "constant need for British approval allows writers from the UK to produce and sell books that should be junked in India." He uses the example of Jad Adams's book on Gandhi, Naked Ambition. He doesn't like it because of this quote: "‘When Gandhi was tormented by sexual thoughts, perhaps his impacted colon was pressing on his prostate gland and stimulating him sexually. This would explain why some diets, by reducing his constipation, would help him feel less sexual.’" Essentially, Bal is shocked that a Founding Father of the nation, the most sacred of cows, is being smeared by *gasp* talking about sex. And it's a foreigner who's doing it!

I can't really say what Bal's motivations are - maybe I am misreading his intentions. But it looks like a subconscious prudishness has reared its head. It's a sentiment echoed by the vehement denunciations of Jeffrey Kripal's book on Ramakrishna (which used psychoanalysis to explore the homoerotic dimension of tantric practice) and the hysterical reactions by Hindus to Wendy Doniger's The Hindus: An Alternative History, again because her analysis was deemed "pornographic." We might also see this in the attacks on James Laine's biography of Shivaji, which was banned in Maharashtra from 2004 to 2010. The chief accusation against Laine was that he was spreading "injurious gossip" by proposing that Shahaji was not Shivaji's biological father. In other words, sex and family drama as neo-colonialist backdoor. In each case, the critic assumes that the objectionable parts of Western scholarly books are deliberately sexually titillating in order to symbolically and politically debase a community under siege: Hindus, Hindus who are devotees of Ramakrishna (or maybe even Bengalis as a whole), and Maharashtrians. This is exactly the kind of reaction Bal has to Adams' discussion of Gandhi's sexuality - it's all part of the same old colonialist plot to discredit Indians, successor statements to Churchill's famous condemnation of Gandhi as a "half-naked fakir."

The larger problem is that, even if a Western author makes scholarly errors, particularly linguistic ones (as both Kripal and Doniger were credibly charged with doing by fellow scholars) or displays a more or less subtle Orientalist bias (as both Dalrymple and Adams may very well do), he or she should not be condemned on the basis of a prudish and defensive reaction concerned with upholding Indian-ness, or Hindu-ness, or Marathi-ness. Indeed, if these books were simply bad scholarship the battles would be fought on the pages of specialist journals. They become the focus of popular and media attention only when they are attacked for explicitly or latently chauvinistic reasons. I am not suggesting Western scholars who are being deceitful, careless or even deliberately provocative should get a pass. But they should be evaluated by Indian critics calmly, dispassionately and above all on a case-by-case basis. Sure, Adams's book contains a maybe silly passage about Gandhi's sexuality. But what about the rest of it? Is it a good book on Gandhi, should be the question. We know that Dalrymple's book is mostly a good book on the Mutiny, some would say even a great one. Maybe that's more important than the colour of his skin, his personality, or how much money he makes.