Normalising totalitarianism

One of the perils of moving on in age is that even the deep past appears to be so yesterday though decades may have passed. I cannot believe that it is almost four decades since Vikram Seth published his first book of prose — a fascinating travelogue through China and Tibet. He was still a doctoral student, alluding to a dream of completing his PHD at

Stanford (which he never did!); and had only published two small books of poems that did not get much attention. With the book From Heaven Lake, he announced the arrival of a powerful writer of prose as well. Given the heightened interest in China and the atmosphere of the Big Brother watching all over, this is an interesting book to go back to.

Mr Seth does something hard to imagine. He abandons the idea of taking a flight via Hong Kong to reach Delhi. Instead he decides to hitchhike his way on the surface to India. Starting with Turfan, he befriends truck drivers and carries out his journey through the rough and tumble of potholed roads and crumbling bridges of China to reach India, via Tibet and Nepal. The regime in China is no different from what it is now. Mr Seth has to report himself on small move, has to seek permission for each leg of the journey — with a Damocles sword hanging over his head: He may over-stay his visa and cannot exit the road route, which is too remote to reach Hong Kong to catch a flight. This is quite an adventure for someone who is not known to be a compulsive traveller. His knowledge of Mandarin, and the fact that he can read Urdu and sing songs from Raj Kapoor movies helps him to navigate through the process. The soft power of Bollywood is not restricted to Soviet Russia, but spills over to China, which has its own share of Hindi film fans. A fan wonders how Raj Kapoor is a capitalist who owns a studio while his film appear so communist. Another gives Mr Seth the news that Nargis is dead, a piece of information that he had completely missed.

The political context of China that follows the publication of this book is interesting. Deng Xiaoping was the paramount leader, with the beginning of economic (but not political) reform. Hu Yaobang had favoured widespread reforms and fell out of favour. That was the time that Gorbachev was talking of Perestroika in Soviet Russia. The events that follow Mr Seth’s journey, show that there are no fundamental changes in China in the relationship between the State and the citizens. In the 1990 edition, he writes a new foreword in the context of events leading up to the Tiananmen Square protest.

He says: “When the numbers in Tiananmen Square had with the passage of time dwindled and would very probably have continued to do so, instead of letting things take their natural course, the authorities decided to show their might” and he ends with: “How many hundreds of ordinary, decent, patriotic, peaceful people died in the massacre of June 4 and the days following we may not ever know. Nor can anyone guess where these events will lead.” That protests needed to be put down with such a heavy hand that generations would not even think of raising their head again is evident with the hindsight of history. India now shares more than a border with China.

Ultimately the journey: In each of the stopovers Mr Seth encounters the power of the totalitarian regime. He has to report his arrival, his papers are scrutinised closely, questions are asked about his travel endorsements, his antecedents and his plans. Each of the officers asking the questions do so, not with the conviction that they need the information, but because that is what the rule book says. The regime has become so internalised that these questions seem quite normal. On the other hand, he encounters helpful people, the truckers who let him in without much fuss, and during the journey he does not even pay for his trips. He has meals with them and develops friendships. There are breakdowns of vehicles, and the usual problems of getting stranded. What is fascinating about all the people

Mr Seth encounters is that beyond the check boxes of the regulatory requirements, nobody seems to question him as an alien. They are all willing to go out of their way to help and just connect as fellow human beings. We get a glimpse of a multicultural society, the diversity and richness of the countryside.

Mr Seth never encounters a murmur of dissent against the regime, as he travels through the countryside. It is only when he enters Tibet that he first hears some voices of dissonance. The normalisation of totalitarianism is so deep that even the Tiananmen Square event looks unreal. Once it is crushed life is back to normal. This happened when Xi Jinping was not even on the horizon. But life continues and rubs off on the neighbour. The thought is chilling.

Vikram Seth never encounters a murmur of dissent against the regime, as he travels through the countryside from China to India. It is only when he enters Tibet that he first hears some voices of dissonance