While Singh’s controversial Jinnah biography is competing with Roy’s new one Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy for the top position as a best-seller, we have ample space to reflect on the passion of writing – and independent thinking for that matter – and the author’s affiliation to social institutions, whether it is a political party like that of Singh or the institution of family like that of Roy. Singh has towered above politicians of his rank with the release of his book on M A Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, in which he has apparently written passionately about what he feels about Jinnah. It may not be the case that he did not expect this response from his party once the book was published.
But again the twofold option of writing or madness looks to have been his game too much like for Roy. Roy broke free from the coziness of home at the tender age of 18 and Singh has moved away from the comfort of his party in his old age.
Jean-Paul Sartre declined the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964 primarily for the reason that he did not want to be affiliated to any social institution – the Nobel Prize being one such. Nor would Sartre affiliate himself to any other institutions of marriage, fatherhood, family and others. Sartre represents a heightened form of craving for an individual freedom as a thinker and writer as opposed to an individual’s limitation when s/he is tied-up to an institution. Given that the Indian opposition party BJP is what it is, the action of Singh’s expulsion for his book was not much unexpected. But the question it has triggered – individual free thinking or party politics – is deeper and broader.
It would be interesting to see how certain politicians with a high level of intellectual strength and free thinking capacity would respond to the above question. A formal organization like a political party is a thought police, constantly watching what you think and deciding what you can think and what not. Universities in an ideal setting are an anti-thesis to the political parties in that the former are open spaces for critical thoughts. That is why Marxism in American universities’ social science departments has reached decades ahead than in rigid political organizations.
History is replete with examples where writers, primarily in the aesthetic and philosophical sphere, have preferred writing over madness as Roy would describe it. Writing is about the deep passions one has nurtured within, about the deep emotional commitment that springs from heart to the mind, and the way an individual relates to his/her own self in the most private way. Writing is an aesthetic outlet to intellectual constipation. Singh has confessed the private ways in which he relates himself to the history of partition. When he had this conviction at heart, not writing about it would have been a way to madness. The present is very much an outcome of the past. The present day intellectual mind of India is still struggling to come to terms with the realities of the past of partition.
But on a positive note, the vibrant intellectual discussions in India on issues like this and that of social justice make this scribe jealous while comparing them with the case in Nepal. Amartya Sen’s recent critique of the Indian Left on the issue of abandoning social justice puts the Marxist politics in a modern perspective. At least Marxism in this big Indian nation is debated on philosophical grounds as well. In Nepal, Marxism or Maoism, it has become a mere tool to acquire a political space for certain parties and nothing more. It is true that the debates taking place in India now will gradually have their repercussions in Nepal. But this only reinforces the point that Nepal has not only historically been a small extension of the broad Indian civilization but also in the present day academic discourses.
Writing is a way of taming personal madness over issues of the society that we live in. Perhaps that is why people write at the cost of everything. Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses earned him a fatwa from the Iranian leader but it never deterred him from the act of writing. Existentialists who saw no purpose in human life itself still found a purpose in writing. Thus has the human mind progressed through history. Even if his new book on Jinnah has cost Singh his political career within the BJP, it will surely influence the new generation of the Hindutwa-based party. The book in due course will have its effect to liberate and secularize the party that has its roots in the supposed supremacy of one religion. The particular act of taming the madness by Singh must be appreciated. Long live this madness!
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