Customer Reviews

India : A Million Mutinies Now

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

India, A Million Mutinies Now is like going to India with a friend who knows everybody, and takes you to meet everybody: holy men, politicians, authors, princes, revolutionaries, gangsters, women's magazine publishers... At first, the prospect of so many interviews and anecdotes seemed daunting, but as I read on I found that somehow Naipaul was able to drop one after a few pages and go on to the next almost seamlessly, just as a skilled conversationalist moves from one group to another at a party. It's a testament to Naipaul's considerable ability as a traveler and writer.

Although the interviews and mini-biographies are all about his subjects and their lives, there is ever a sense of his presence, at once gentle and piercing, the antithesis of the loud, gauche Western tourist. He is critical without being crass, intellectual without being dreary. When he's finished, a portrait of considerable depth and color has emerged.

I got exactly what I wanted from it: a lot of perspective and innumerable fascinating details. Like the U.S., India is a pluralistic nation limited by its bigotry. Like Israel, it is sitting on a powder keg of ethnic aspirations. Like China, it has way too many people.

How they cope (or do not cope) with that last problem is a recurrent topic. A family of ten can live together in a 10'X10' room by working and sleeping in shifts. A talented young professional must turn down a good job because it requires nine hours of daily commuting through Calcutta. People are loath to walk outside because their clothing and skin gets begrimed with dust and soot in a matter of minutes. Washing is difficult because the supply of water is intermittent, as is the supply of electricity.

Naipaul presents basic facts like these, which any journalist could provide, but then builds upon this framework vignettes and tableaux that are often surprising or ironic or astonishing. India has perhaps the largest collection of slums in the world. Yet, for legal reasons, their film industry (also the largest in the world) must build their own slum if they want to depict a slum in a film. The most cursory reading of Indian history will tell you that the priestly class of the Hindus (brahmins) must keep away from the latrine cleaning class (sweepers). But did you know that a brahmin could be "polluted" by a menstruating woman at a distance of up to fifteen feet? Or that brahmins should only drink water that comes directly from the earth (not from a pipe)? Or that some poorer brahmins, with the rising wages of sweepers, have been reduced to cleaning their own latrines?

There is much affection and empathy in Naipaul's account, as in the description of a family of five riding together on a motorcycle: "father on the main saddle, one child between his arms, another behind him holding on to his waist, mother on the carrier at the back, sitting sideways, with the baby." One sees in a glance the flirting with catastrophe that is necessarily a part of most Indians' daily struggle.

This is a big book about India and its people. When you start to read this book you indubitably bring your own baggage of views and expectations, which color your subsequent grasp of the book and the picture it presents. I am an Indian expat and like many other expats, I am often called on to present my take on my homeland. Having grown up in India I could relate to my immediate experiences and my family. I like most Indians had no sense of history(other than the post independence interpretation found in most books on India), how they came to be and where my people are in relation to the world. India is fragmented into so many religions, classes &castes it is almost impossible for an ordinary Indian to grasp the whole.

This book by Naipaul attempts to paint a picture of the whole and define the crux of what it means to be an Indian(a very modern concept). Naipaul is perfectly suited to this task, with his curious mind and very sharp observations. After having followed India over three decades, he does have a handle on the mentality of an Indian, at the same time he relates to the wider world and has a sense of perspective. This book presents a collage of people from different parts of India, different classes, castes, religion. He attempts to find out what drives them within the wider social context and how they see themselves, their values and their expectations and how they are standing up to the changing times. His portraits are clear, sympathetic and samples the wide spectrum of India. The people we meet are a varied group, a lower caste former Naxalite leader from the south, to a former Nawab of Lucknow, gangsters from Bombay, a disillusioned Sikh, a Bengali Boxwallah... An access into the minds of such a wide cast of people is definitely the best thing about the book. You could take from this selection what interests you; strange cultural practices, triumphs and tragedies of a slum dweller or a struggling Brahman. Fascinating details that an Indian might not spend a second thought on are illuminated by this author of Indian origin. In spite of so many people and interviews, the narrative is for the most part easy going and does not leave you stranded. This is because there is the underlying theme to the book I talked about earlier and Naipaul's skills a great travel writer.

Naipaul's quest is not truly an Indian one, i.e. it is not a quest that an Indian would undertake, as he/she is ensconced in a rich cultural mythology that gives a sense to every ones place which most people accept in the normal course of life or are frustrated by its limitations, but learn to accept it as part of the `tension of living'. Naipaul's quest is an occidental mind's attempt to know India. That is not taking way from it any of its value, as from his unique perspective he sees things that others easily miss. At the same time in many parts of the book, he fails to grasp the underlying thoughts and world view of each of the Indians he meets. He is more in his element when he meets people of the educated class in the cities and towns but fails for the most part in getting to know the peasant. This is sometimes only too obvious when Naipaul meets some of the people to be interviewed in the plush surroundings of his hotel, which some of his interviewees are probably setting foot for the first time in their lives and which they would be talking about long after the author has gone. This is where his occidental mind fails, it fails to see the Indian peasant from how he sees himself and has a condescending respect for his hard life.

In spite of its very few limitations, this is the best book on India I have read(I rank it higher than his earlier book, An Area of Darkness). It is sincere and sympathetic and you do come from it feeling you know the people of India better. This is also an important book that probes the Indian psyche in this time of change. Indians for the most part are opening up to the world and are bucking up to see a lot of changes in their lives & culture, mostly irredeemable.

It is interesting the way Naipaul talks about his motherland, at the same time completely in love with it but in a non-passionate way. He describes the different cultures in a way that makes it easy for an ocidental to understand, something that is quite difficult to be done. The descriptions are so rich that you can really discover the country and learn how to think about it. I recommend specially for those who, like me, want to travel to India: it is possible to collect really important information about how things work there.

Nobel prize winner V.S. Naipaul's masterpiece on India is a must-read for any Westerner seeking a deeper understanding of India. Naipaul tells the story of this incredibly complex country person by person, through in-depth interviews of his subjects not on politics, culture or religion but on their personal lives. Naipaul tells the stories of a wide range of characters--a secretary to a prominent businessman, members of the Bombay underworld, a Marxist rebel. He tells the story of Amir, the descendant of the Raja of Mahmudabad, now living in the palace his ancestors had gotten from the British, lost after Partition, and regained after he became a successful Muslim politician in a Hindu area. And the story of Kakusthan, a modern man who returned to tradition and the life of a pure Brahmin, in a ghetto surrounded by a Muslim neighborhood. And the story of Ashok, who rejected an arranged marriage, managed to break into marketing as a career, and now struggled with the decline of the genteel, Anglo business world he had grown up in. Naipaul's great talent is in ferreting out the details of everyday life--what his people ate, wore, above all where they lived--often in tiny 10' by 10' rooms with wife and children. One comes away with a great appreciation of the notion of caste, so embedded in the society and culture for religious and non-religious alike. One also begins to appreciate what a struggle life in India is for everyone, especially those who live in cities. This book is full of stories of struggle--against tradition, to preserve tradition, between castes, between Hindu and Muslim--and of more down to earth struggles--to find a job, to find housing, to choose a career. Unfortunately Naipaul wasn't able to interview women with the ease he interviewed men--not surprising in this traditional society--and women appear only as shadowy wives and mothers in the narrative. But a great book nevertheless.

This is one of the better books I've read on India. Set in the late 80s I think this book gives a very deep insight into India of that period. Naipaul sees things that very few of us Indians see (I am an Indian who has lived in India almost all his life). I believe one of the reasons Naipaul's perspective is so interesting is because he has the added advantage of someone who is not necessarily tied to the Indian psyche by being involved with India on a day-to-day basis. At the same time someone who has lived with the concept of India since childhood.

The only drawback is that if an outsider hopes to understand contemporary India through this book it will give a good but not complete perspective since much has happened in the last decade.

"India: A Million Mutinies Now" by V. S. Naipaul presents a snapshot of India during 1988-1990. It portrays small on-going struggles at that time through the stories of common people.
The book covers most of the India through observations at the places Naipaul visited and through the stories of people he met. Most of the people interviewed in these stories happened to come from small town or village and succeeded in settling in metropolitans. In that sense, it is not the first hand portrayal of rural India, but an indirect one. The stories, however, do provide an insight into the minds of Indians - this is, perhaps, the unique highlight of the book. With the passage of time, things have changed in India, especially after economic liberalization of 1991, but the psyche of the Indian people will take more time to change. For Indian readers, the book provides an unbiased account of the people from different states and their struggles - it will certainly change their prejudices about different provinces. For non-Indian readers, it provides a snap-shot that transcends the barriers of time, when it comes to depicting a picture of culturally diverse India.

The author returns to the place from which he fled years before with a cultural shock. Now better prepared to face the Indian realities. This time his judgment about India and its people is not so stern, it is more kind - marginally: "With industrialization and economic growth people had forgotten old reverences. Men honoured only money now. The great investment in devolpement over three or four decades had led only to this: corruption, to the criminalization of politics. In seeking to rise, India had undone itself...Policeman, thief, politician: the roles had become interchangeable."
The disruptive, lesser loyalities, such of region, castes and clan now played more on the surface of Indian life.
Again the author travels across the country, travelling a country means to meet people, and he makes his points clear by telling many anecdotes and stories which elucidate the Indian character. India has changed, true.
I have seen this over the years, starting in 1982 on my own sojourns. But I would have rather preferred a view the other way around: that the changes are superficial and under the surface still the Indian peculiarities have survived.
To understand the book one has to understand the background of the Indian Naipaul who is in India just a visitor, educated as a British, raised in Britain and Trinidad in an anglo-india context which is totally different to any kind of life I proper India. Wherever he examines the life conditions in Asia, be it in the Muslim world, India or anywhere else there is much to be criticized, much irrationality. It is easy to fill books with stories of the follies - true or fancied- of the people.
Naipaul is sometimes really funny. The description of the Secretary`s tale could not have been better written from Mark Twain, only that it is true. Typical Indian is to do what the master wants and never ask whether it makes sense! Sweeping the broom from one end of the street to the other and vice versa just for the sake of it!
You will understand a lot about Indian society and how a chaos like this, a chaos of too many people, too many opinions, too many uninspired masters and too many useless regulations works orderly after you read this book. You will realize the criticism of Naipaul when he watches people performing their religious duties, such like puja. The corrupt politician will bring the same givings to the same God as does the victim of his politic. Since the Indian Gods have good and bad characteristics they encompass all principles and competences.
If this is not a good basis for chaos of notions and chaos of spiritual concepts in this wonderland of chaos - mostly friendly chaos! The author wonders with the reader how childlike minded the people are, people who let themselves be dictated by the astrologers. In general, which might be a contradiction, the author flees to idealism when he claims for India a development to more spiritual freedom. This idea is born out of the historic fact that the people have become more and more familiar to the independence of any foreign powers since the creation of the Indian Union. So there seems to be some sort of development which is more than only economic uplift.
The book is certainly an entertaining reading. Especially for those who are no novices as for India. In fact I doubt that you will get more than a certain feeling for India. The real India is only found - how could it else be - when you go by yourself, and please not on a guided tour! Manage to have a cake and eat it too!

The title of the book is apt for the content. Naipaul very delicately writes about the mutinies within and without in modern India. What best way to describe the struggle than to pick characters from different walks of life, explore them objectively and incisively. What you cannot miss is however his love for the country and a passionate desire to learn more about a struggle he could not be part of. This book to me is stripped free of pessimism towards India for which Naipaul seems to be criticized all over the place.

I would recommend this book to anybody who knows fairly well about India. Its not a primer to Indian civilization, its deep and you'd appreciate it only if you can get into the skin of the characters.

Naipul truly did his work for this work. He seems to have interviewed hundreds of people and waited patiently to hear their stories. And the stories which are told to him in all their richness and complexity constitute the real heart of this book. Naipul writes with sharpness and clarity but most often without that sardonic bitter humor which often makes his work entertaining. It seems to me he is all seriousness in this work. The stories he tells are largely of people in transition, people moving from past habits and traditions into modern challenges which force them to compromise those traditions. Naipul provides a vast amount of information, especially I suspect for someone like myself who knows so little of India. His descriptions for instance of the practices of Brahmins and how they have been compromised in the New India are illuminating and informative. Naipul enters and explicates many of India's complex worlds, for instance the world of its Sikhs or of its Muslims. The book is long and it does not have a dramatic center and seems to go on and on in all its richness and variety. But it will no doubt be of great interest and help to anyone who wishes to understand India and its people.

In this book Naipaul takes you through a fascinating journey through India of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Naipaul can really look deep into people's lives, facets and and their backgrounds. I have found this book one of the most interesting and insightful on India. I have lived most of my life in India and feel that Naipaul notices and thinks about things that I've come to take for granted.