“There was a time when people used to feel that what sin they committed in their past life which resulted in taking birth in India, is this what you call a country and a government, is this how the people are, let’s leave it and go somewhere else, and people did leave. Now I can say it with firm belief that intelligent people from all walks of life, renowned scientists too, even if they are earning big abroad but now they are eager and happy to come back and settle India for even lesser incomes.”
Cover page of Autobiography of a Mad Nation.
These remarks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have become stale, as far as newsworthiness is concerned. But on the verge of completion of one year in office, that these remarks have come under severe criticism from too many quarters isn’t the case in point.
A journalist from Hyderabad Sriram Karri, whose recently-launched MAN Asian literary prize-long listed novel, Autobiography of a Mad Nation, too thought exactly the same way and he says such thoughts are triggered from agony and not disgust, from patriotism or sheer love for the country and not treachery or anti-national thought.
In an interview with Firstpost about his book, Sriram Karri answered six questions and claims he is no great admirer of Narendra Modi, but feels Modi’s remarks were surely not “off-the-cuff”, but have to be understood as the denouement of the inner churning of an average Indian’s peregrination through an independent India.
Your book begins with the provocative line – I was born in a mentally retarded country. What is the shame either PM Modi or you are talking about?
I would strongly separate the two and reply. While only PM Modi can explain his statement fully, I can speculate on it. It was a rather colloquial line of thought through the 70s, 80s and right up to early 90s perhaps – people used to say I am sad to be born in India, ashamed or unlucky to be born as an Indian for long, especially those who left the country, or even those who tried and failed. You can see it in movies like Naam, where Sanjay Dutt wants to go to Dubai to earn money. But none of this criticism or anger at the system meant you were short on love for your country.
Where I might disagree with the prime minister is the timing of the change in mood – I feel it started with the start of our economic resurgence, since liberalization in early 90s – and 2014 may not be the great era-defining year.
My novel, and its theme and first line, are based on an anger of those who love the country with its occasional and unpredictable bout of insanity – when the country acts against its citizens – and harms its own people – communal riots, carnages, state-sponsored or abetted killings – when we steal the rights of citizens and make them helpless.
Your novel combines fiction with the historic and uses real events like Emergency, anti-Sikh riots post Indira Gandhi’s assassination, Mandal-Mandir disturbances, Babri Masjid demolition, Kargil war and post Godhra riots besides real historic and political figures like Rajiv Gandhi, VP Singh, LK Advani, Rakesh Sharma, People’s President (APJ Abdul Kalam), Salman Rushdie, Narendra Modi, Owaisi, or cricketer Mohd Azharuddin, etc. Are you being too harsh or unfair with historic figures in doing so?
I could have – and was indeed offered a publishing deal – if I changed the entire setting to some lala-land. I don’t think it is not unfair, for example with the comic dealing with Rajiv Gandhi becoming prime minister, written more like a Yes Minister spoof, because history is fair material for fiction. .. as long as you get your facts right. The challenge is to make sure you are using history as canvas and not make it the focus – and the plot remains primary.
Consider this excerpt and judge if I am being critical with history.
I was a toddler when my grandfather was arrested.
In the middle of the night, a humidly warm night.
At the stroke of Midnight.
The hour of Independence had mutated so easily into the hour of illegal arrest . . . the Midnight hour of
Democracy had degenerated into the hour of its rape, but I knew nothing about it. At least not then.
The dark midnight hour of Emergency, no longer the dawn of Freedom, of Independence, or of Rushdie’s children.
“It is an Emergency,” my uncle screamed.
He was frightened, so was everyone else in our joint family, but his fear was different. He merely hoped the
anti-government activities of his own father wouldn’t compromise him or his petty government job.
“Did I not tell him so many times to stay away from the RSS? See where it has brought him and all of us! They
won’t even tell us where he is being locked up!”
“Shut up,” my grandmother told him. “One more word against your father and you can leave my house.”
It was a surprisingly harsh statement coming from her, because my grandmother was no political thinker, not even a woman who cared much for concepts like country, Democracy, Liberty, or Freedom. All her life, she had pleaded with her husband to stop wearing those khaki shorts, to stop carrying that saffron flag, and to stop being associated with the killers of Mahatma Gandhi in any way.
You see, my grandmother used to tell me—when I was merely seven years old—her three commandments of being a good human being.
One, respect Lord Ram, the perfect God.
Two, never hurt or harm the cow; all Gods live inside the cow.
And three, never disrespect the Mahatma. If possible, be like him.
Nothing else mattered to her.
But to my grandfather, other things did matter. He went to attend RSS shakha meetings every week and would return with newer tales to narrate. He would analyze national and global news and political developments.
He would yell himself hoarse against Communists and Socialists, and much later in life, he would start to spit venom against Muslims.
But I could not ever believe that he was party with the people who had killed Mahatma Gandhi, or that he was dangerous to the nation, or even to its rulers, even after they had become vicious to their own country and people.
And yet, one midnight in some month of 1975, he, an insignificant Indian Railways clerk, was taken by the police, arrested to protect the nation against his subversion, to protect the sovereignty of India from internal threat and to salvage the people from any potential treasons he might have conceived.
The last words his family ever heard, addressed to those cops dressed in civil dress who had come to arrest him, were, “Tell that Prime Minister of yours, that she will never become the dictator she wants to be.” He then smiled at my grandmother and added, “You are the only woman dictator I will ever take orders from.”
It is not just politics. Even religion is discussed.
It is a perspective… and part of a literary device. The novel is set in two contexts – the principal plot, where young Vikrant Vaidya, facing a death sentence for a murder he did not commit but has perhaps framed himself for some motive, writes a mocking letter to the People’s President, who orders a personal investigation by his old friend and retired CBI director Dr M Vidyasagar. While the murder – soon becomes a serial political murder mystery – investigation goes on, Dr Vidyasagar is reading the diary of Vikrant, where his personal views of history and politics are presented – the perspective of an angry youngster who was born in a mad nation.
But is MAD NATION not too harsh a view or appraisal of India?
See the events of the last few days and consider. A young boy does not get considered for a job because he is a Muslim. A mother is able to accept that her son is gay, and wishes to advertise for his marriage – a boy is okay but he better be an Iyer.
We thought Khap Panchayats are regressive because of lack of modern education – and then you read a news report about how a techie with best education and global exposure killed his wife for dowry. Won’t you call it mad?
The real theme of the novel is “if I had to choose between letting down a friend or my country, God, give me the strength to betray my nation”.
Yes, that is where the invented plot of the novel fuses seamlessly with the historic and political perspectives. What would do if you saw – as I am sure we all have – a nation destroy us during its bout of madness. How would you fight it? Would you take an oath like that and say – next time a political ambition endangers my rights and my idea of India – would I be able to protect myself and my friends against it. Giving out more would be unfair to the plot.
You have used uncanny humour and a racy style for such a serious context?
Absolutely. The subject is heady, the treatment airy. It is a literary fiction that affords to be popular – by being very readable. And when you are trying to deal with India of the last 40 years, you better have a quick source of laughter nearby…. So the humour and satire are inbuilt.