Construction of Nation

In this continuous series on postcolonial literature, I would like to further explore the theme Nation as diverse postcolonial literature constructs the nation. The central concern of creation of nation was linked with the postcolonial literatures that emerged from Canada, Nigeria and other postcolonial nations.

The presence of European Other resulted in the unity of varies tribes, clans and minorities in the ‘Third World’ country during the violent passage of nationalist and anti-colonial struggles in now postcolonial nations. Following political independence, there was a need to build the nation and the resistance and anti-colonial struggles in African and Asian nations assumed a broader role than merely a movement against imperialism.

It was, essentially, a liberation movement of the native culture from its own oppressive structures. In other words, revolutionary struggles were movements for social transformation of the native space. The task became extremely complex and hard given the fact that in most instances, the country constituted of countless fragments. For instance India and Nigeria had over 100s of ethnic groups in addition to diverse tribes and people belonging to different castes. The question of nation building was a primary concern of writers such as Achebe and Soyinka.

Sense of place, community and identity

The very perception of nation associates with territorial imperative; territorial sovereignty, boundaries, maps, routes and a sense of place is part and parcel of the idea of nation. One of the important concerns of most postcolonial writers is space as it links with the issues of community, cultural identity and nationhood. C.L. R James argues that if postcolonial writer deals with nation, he or she should be located within the space of home.

It has been pointed out in his essay entitled The Artist in the Caribbean (1977) that writers like Lamming or Naipaul are ‘ objectively circumscribed’ and that they do not qualify as ‘great’ since they live ‘abroad’ and write for a ‘foreign audience’. According to James argument, some of the Sri Lankan diasporic writers such as Michael Ondaatje and Romesh Gunasekara can also be described as not ‘ great’ writers as they live ‘abroad’ and write exclusively for a ‘foreign audience’.

One of the salient characteristics of postcolonial writers is that they locate themselves within communities and their spaces. For many this space is a lived space brought about through relationships, emotions, histories and memories. Pramod K Nayar observes that ‘In the case of Indian poets and novelist, the site of family within its myriad emotional bonds and personal relationships are almost specialised.”. It is obvious that community lives are connected to the space of land.

Citing Bhabani Bhattacharya’s social realist fiction, Pramod K. Nayar examines the way in which space, community, identity and nation are dealt with in postcolonial literature. “Bhattacharya thematises a major debate on post-independence India: the choice between rapid modernisation (Where modernisation may be destructive of the rural way of life) , or continuation of traditional rural scheme( which runs the risk of not being able to meet the demands of either the international community or India’s growing population). Bhattacharya, however, does suggest his preference for the quiet pastoral India, while remaining conscious of the exploitative structures of rural society.”

Although Satyajith’s Gandhigram almost comes close to the ideal rural community envisaged by Gandhi, Nayar observes that ‘Gandhigram stands as a contrast to India’s modernisation programme’. Bhattacharya describes Gandhigrama in Shadow of Ladakh as;

“The village lay spread to the left and right-mud houses, each with a vegetable patch behind a hedge and a bamboo gate..There were other values Gandhigram stood for …the apparently insignificant village was building a model for the whole of India. The new community of people was creating a social order in which all were truly equal. All land belonged to the cooperative. Food from the field distributed according to needs. ” Naturally such an Idyll is not the complete picture of rural India. Nayar states, “Bhattacharya is fully aware of extreme tenuous structures that hold the village and the feudal houses together. He is aware, for instance, the very oppressive and exploitative structure that became necessary to retain the rural ‘way of life”. Nayar points out that Bhattacharya suggest that ‘the coherence and peace of the rural Idyll is based upon the complete silencing of the labourer, the woman and the youth of the village community’. According to Nayar, Bhattacharya’s fiction is important in that they use ‘space to critique the modernising and ‘development’ programme of post-independence India.

Sense of belonging

A sense of belonging is one of the dominant themes of postcolonial literature. Many diasporic and postcolonial writers have extensively dealt with issues pertaining to the sense of place and identity. Nayar states, “The sense of belonging and community is best illustrated in Nissim Ezekiel’s ‘Background, Casualty’. In a way, it is a change of skies on the part of the protagonist. The protagonist after having a hard childhood goes off to London to commence a new chapter in his life. After two years, he discovers that he has ‘failed’. “On his return he faces with the biggest question:

How to feel at home, was the point

This is the perennial issue that often deals with in postcolonial literature. The protagonist does not feel at home despite the presence of family, the community and his own ancestry and the fact that he is a Jew in India. The protagonist needs to situate himself in better relationship with his space. He achieves this objective through literature.

“The Indian landscape sears my eyes.
I have become a part of it
To be observed by foreigners
They say that I am singular
Their letters overstate the case”

I have made my commitments now
This is one: to stay where I am,
As others choose to give themselves
In some remote and backward place
My backward place is where I am”

Nayar states that ‘the speaker’s location is both physical-spatial and metaphoric. The discovery of place is also discovery of selfhood, identity, and belonging. Ezekiel’s poem underscores the centrality of location to a postcolonial identity”. What is obvious is that the nation is an ‘imagined’ space often created and valorised through literature.