Midnight' s Children and Saleem Sinai

In this week’s column, I would like to discuss the protagonists; Saleem Sinai of 1981 Booker Prize wining novel, the Midnight's Children (1981) by Salmon Rushdie.

Evidently, Midnight's Children, based on the early life of its author, Salman Rushdie, is considered a blend of fiction, politics, and magic realism. Critics have credited the novel, with making the worldwide literary audience aware of the changes that India underwent throughout the twentieth century. In summary, Rushdie takes readers on an imagined trip to his native country in a way that they never did before.

The novel provides, a political perspective providing the background of India’s history; insights into the tension between the single and many as part and parcel of the nation. Diversity is a cardinal characteristic of one of the fastest growing nation whose Constitution recognises twenty-two official languages and diverse religions such as Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, and Buddhism. India’s culture is hybrid in nature and had been influenced by a multitude of cultures over the millennia. It has been proved that maintaining that diversity in unity is uneasy. India’s division into the Islamic nation of Pakistan and secular but predominantly Hindu State in a process known as Partition is an example for the desire to contain and reduce India’s plurality.

“I was born in the city of Bombay…once upon a time. No, that won’t do, there is no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlika’s Nursing Home on August 15, 1947. And the time? The Time matters, too. Well then: at night. No, it’s important to be more… On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clock-hands joined palms in respecting greeting as I came. Oh. Spell it out, spell it out: at precise instant of India’s arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into world. There were gasps. And, outside the window, fireworks and crowds…”

It was with this memorable opening, that one of the brilliant and complex literary characters was given birth. It is the character of Saleem Sinai which Rushdie developed in his earlier draft of the novel The Antagonist. The protagonist of Midnight’s Children is central to the plot of the novel and to the myriads of issues relating to diasporic existence. Most of the critics believe that Midnight’s Children is Rushdie’s masterpiece and the Saleem Sinai character is one of the brilliantly crafted literary characters and that it is, by and large, autobiographical.

Midnight's Children deals with India's transition from British colonialism to independence. One of the significant aspects of the character is that it functions as a conduit linking rather complex and tumultuous socio-economic events in the pre and post colonial India. Saleem Sinai’s character is considered as a metaphor for India’s history. As Rushdie himself pointed out in the lengthily introduction to Midnight’s Children, Saleem Sinai’s character offered him a wider canvas in which to link Saleem’s life with the events take place in pre and post colonial India, Pakistan and newly liberated Bangladesh.

Saleem as a potent symbol of diaspora

Saleem Sinai is an Ango-India born at the midnight on August 15, 1947 when two nations were born; India and Pakistan leading to constant displacements and separation. The character is inexorably linked to many historical dynamics and some of the cardinal issues of diasporic existence such as identity and cultural otherness. Saleem Sinai’s life is so linked to the history of India that it is aptly described as ‘child of history ‘and who is ‘handcuffed to history’. Sinai was born out of wedlock as a result of extra-marital intercourse.

He is eventually brought up by a Muslim family after being exchanged at birth by his nurse, Mary Pereira. One of the instances where the idea of cultural otherness is manifested is when Saleem Sinai played the role of Zubin Varla in a theatrical version of a novel. Sinai strongly relates the story to himself and to his own family; “His own family hailed from Bombay's tiny Zoroastrian community, and he grew up in Britain with a sense of cultural alienation similar to that of his character”.

Dominant themes

One of the dominant themes of the novel is the single and the many. For instance, Saleem’s life from birth to death associates closely with the major events in the pre and post colonial history of India. In an interesting manner, major events in Saleem’s life reflect and represent the entirety of India. The very notion that an individual could possibly embody a vast land of contradictions and the diversity of India, among other things, suggest that one of the primary considerations of the novel is the tension between single and many. What is obvious from the dynamic relationship between Saleem’s individual life and the collective life of the nation is the fact that the public and private will always influence one another.

In the novel, child Saleem witnessed this phenomenon as protestors attempt to divide the city of Bombay along linguistic lines, an attempt to group in and cordon off multiplicity.

A critic wrote about this phenomenon in relation to Saleem’s character: “ Saleem, a character who contains a multitude of experiences and sensitivities, stands in stark contrast to the protestors who demand their own language-based region, the strict monotheism of Pakistan, and Indira Gandhi’s repression of contradictory dissension. His powers of telepathy allow him to transcend the barriers of language, while he himself—with his English blood, poor background, wealthy upbringing, and eclectic religious influences—reflects India’s diversity and range. The Midnight Children’s Conference that he convenes is, in its initial phase, a model for pluralism and a testimony to the potential power inherent within coexisting diversity, which is a natural and definitive element of Indian culture. In Midnight’s Children, the desire for singularity or purity—whether of religion or culture—breeds not only intolerance but also violence and repression.”

What is manifested by the complex character of Saleem, apart from his telepathic ability to communicate with midnight’s children, is the formation of early Indian diaspora whose birth was triggered off by turbulent political events such as the partition of India and ethno-political violence.