Monochromatic vision of the country's diversity

Last weekend, my theatre group staged Night’s End in Kolkata, about a forest ranger from Kerala working in a tiger reserve in Rajasthan. Naturally, the protagonist uses a few exclamations in Malayalam.

After the show, one of the spectators said, “I wish I knew your language. But I don’t understand South Indian.” I replied that as a Tamilian I too did not understand Malayalam, anymore than I did the Telugu or Kannada of my other neighbour states; anyway, there is no language called “South Indian”.

Unlike many monochromatic nations across the world, the Indian subcontinent retains its dazzling babel of language, history and culture. Step into any street in urban India and you will hear at least three languages, and more dialects. And yet, it never fails to surprise me that we Indians know so little about some parts of our motherland. A flower seller in Himachal Pradesh thought “Madras” was a foreign country. And how many people in Salem, Shimoga or Surat know anything about Arunachal Pradesh? Or spare a thought for Irom Sharmila? For most Indians, the Northeast remains shrouded in mist. What is labelled as “South India” is equally marginalized. Schools hardly promote an inclusive vision. In the sterilised textbook accounts of royal dynasties, we learn in detail about the Mauryas, Guptas and Mughals. We merely skim through ancient Tamil kingdoms and yes, Vijayanagaram — as a concession to the South. This South is mostly forgotten even in the freedom struggle. Attenborough’s Gandhi had no place for Rajaji. As someone who believes that we can grapple with the present only by grasping the past, I am appalled that so much remains untold, unknown. And even by perceptive historians and analysts.

True, we must map the mainstream. But the question is: just what is this mainstream?  What happens in Lucknow and Delhi may well be nothing more than a ripple to someone living in Madurai or Mangalore. (Conversely, a small cooperative venture in remote Anand, Gujarat, and not so long ago, can set an overwhelming flood in motion).

As a random example, let us look at Rajmohan Gandhi’s A Tale of Two Revolts, a fascinating montage of events on both sides of the Atlantic in the same period — Indian Mutiny 1857 and the American Civil War. Exploring the Indian maze of agitations and protests, charged by thinkers, visionaries and reformers, he selects five such catalysing figures to bridge the old and the new — Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Bankimchandra Chatterji (Bengal), Jyotiba Phule (Maharashtra), Sayyid Ahmad Khan (Delhi and Uttar Pradesh) and Allan Octavian Hume. However, Rajmohan Gandhi did not glance at south India. He did not know the Tamil poet/composer Gopalakrishna Bharati (1811-1896), a Renaissance man and reformist, reflected Dalit aspirations in his enormously influential opera Nandanar Charitram. He celebrated neither king nor God, but traced the odyssey of a Dalit peasant who strives for spiritual strength. Persecution and humiliation cannot make Nandan opt for violence. Why, Bharati’s protagonist prefigures the Mahatma!

Sometimes, we fail to note crucial moments in the past — that can mean much to us in the present — when they occur in less recognized regions. We know all about fratricidal Maurya/Mughal princes. But do we remember that despite the wholehearted support of ministers, generals, merchants, and a hero-worshipping populace, a charismatic warrior prince resolutely refused the crown — because his uncle had a better claim to be king? Only when this uncle died 14 years later, did the prince ascend the throne as Rajaraja I, the greatest of the Imperial Cholas. Can we find a more inspiring role model for physical might and moral power?

The author is a playwright, theatre director, musician and journalist, writing on the performing arts, cinema and literature.