IN THE SHADOW OF THE EMPIRE
An Arab friend once told me that the best thing that could happen to the Arab lands would be if they ran out of oil. By the same token, the best thing that can happen to Indian writing in English today is if it runs out of well- meaning British patronage.
This seems to be a rash thing to say just three decades after Salman Rushdie and then Vikram Seth finally made British publishing take serious notice of ‘ Indian’ writing in English. For the first time, British publishers delved deep into their pockets, and other ‘ international’ ( including American) publishers followed suit. Consequently, for the first time, ‘ Indian’ writing went beyond the usual small circle of discerning readers ( British, American, Indian, whatever) who were already familiar with R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao or Anita Desai, and ended up on the society pages of glossy magazines and the display racks of bookshops. Major British ( followed by other international) agents removed the bargepole that they had kept on their desks until then to deal with Indian English writing.
Sophisticated young Indian writers rushed to British and American agents and carefully cultivated sympathetic British editorial contacts. British agents and literary editors rushed to India, and still hold an annual durbar at the Jaipur literature festival. It helped that all this happened in decades when social class, which united most of these people across nationalities, had ceased to be discussed.
It was too good to be true, partly because the British have a relationship with India. They often care for that relationship. In this they are different from Americans, who do not really have a relationship with India. Actually, Americans only have a relationship with America. This makes them far less dangerous as influences in our context. They expect very little from Indian writing in English, unless it is what they expect from any other writing: That somehow it should be about America or Americans.
The British scene is different. It has expectations from India and Indian writing in English. It feels that it knows India. And actually it does know India, but in historically fixed and limited ways. British patronage of Indian writing in English distorts and often obscures some of the best of Indian writing in English largely because of this half- knowledge.
It is a double- edged sword, and it often slices off the best on both sides. The problem is not just that good Indian writers are ignored because they do not fit British-facing ideas of land or literature, but also that good British-plucked Indian authors are at times dismissed in India for all the wrong reasons. This affects serious writing much more than pulp: One of the reasons why I champion the Chetan Bhagats of India is that they do not ( and actually cannot) go the route of British patronage. It is the serious literary writers who seem to need to do so, alas.
If the Indian scene, with its westward- looking chatterati, is bad, the international scene is worse. Excellent Indian writers, even those of the calibre and seniority of Shashi Deshpande, do not get a fraction of the attention abroad that far lesser Indian writers do, because they do not write novels conducive to well- meaning British patronage.
Moreover, unlike their American counterparts, major British agents are clearly reluctant to be sub- agents to Indian literary agents. Is this due to colonial prestige, especially in shining white- washed India, along with the desire to continue to be cultural kingmakers in the ‘ society’ spheres of South Asian English- language publishing? Or is it just because UK is a small cluster of islands off a dwarf continent? It simply does not have the market to sustain ‘ different’ literary publishing, especially in these days of high corporate- style ‘ overheads’. British agents and publishers need the Commonwealth market ( of which India is the biggest component) in order to make a real profit on certain kinds of publications. And here we are not even talking of the ‘ international’ stuff, most of it thoroughly unreadable, that is dumped ‘ cheaply’ on the Indian market by British publishers.
Indian writing in English has come of age creatively and critically; it needs to be able to stand on its own commercially and internationally too. There are Indian writers who are doing what they can, and there are even Indian critics who are trying to read such writers on their own. But Indian opinion- makers, TV hosts, editors of glossy supplements, owners of fashionable bookshops, society hostesses etc still need to overcome our historically induced colonial tendency to tail- wag: Let Indian readers choose for themselves by allowing more general and public visibility to literature that has not been approved by the invisible ink of British patronage.
It does know India, but in historically fixed and limited ways. British patronage of Indian writing in English often obscures some of the best of Indian writing in English largely because of this half- knowledge.
Tabish Khair’s new novel is How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position