[Reader-list] aesthetic of indifference

[pratap pandey]

Dear all,

Tarun says (in his latest posting):
"Why discuss poetry (including the P.M.'s) while
> Hindu -Muslim marriages are being targeted in
> Gujarat?"

Absolutely. But I thought the terrain of the
discussion on the List had already shifted on to more
serious matters.

Namely: 

(1)Talking about the Partition, on the political
rationality of the narrative/s of the events that
together and variously constitute the metaphor called
"the Partition"; 

(2)Debating the historicity and constructedness of
this term itself (which domain of discourse does "the
Partition" belong to?" Can it be called a "Civil War"?
Or, an "elite bash-up"?);

(3)Producing new knowledge on the Partition (hence,
talking no longer about "the Partition" but about the
"partition question"); 

(4)A "geneology" of Gujarat.

As far as the question of the "the aesthetic of
indifference in literature" is concerned, karahasan
(whom I haven't read, so hazard a guess), may be
raising a "localised" issue which he then attempts to
"universalise". Nothing that I have read has ever
convinced me that literature is imbued with such an
aesthetic. In any case, literature can always be
viewed as a "polemic". Indeed, we can actually "hunt"
for such texts. I say this with some confidence,
because such texts have always been found.

Tarun quotes karahasan:
       
'The decision to perceive literally everything as an
aesthetic phenomenon-- completely sidestepping
questions about goodness and truth-- is
> an artistic decision. The decision started in the
> realm of art, and went on to become characteristic
> of the contemporary world.'

Surely this is hyperbole. Perhaps Tarun, and you,
would agree with me if I say: let's just counterpoise
this statement to Manto (and many other writers).

I would request Tarun, and all of you who are, and
freely feel are, interested in the Partition (and in
Gujarat, in trying to understand this event and the
words that surround this event, and so the words that
surround that [other?] event, namely Partition) to
explain in further detail the question of "the
unfinished business of partition".

I am not so informed about the Partition, though I do
have thoughts on it. I have spoken of the "hole" into
which the Partition question has fallen. WE have to
look into this "hole". Can all of us, "informed" and
"uninformed", look into this hole? 

This is the nub of the debate:

Those who burnt houses, raped women, are stopping
students from attending school-final exams, are boldly
making statements "about the need to send all the
Muslims of Gujarat across the border", are reviling
Gandhi, justify their actions on the basis of an
argument that goes this way: we are righting a
historical wrong. WE are "avenging" a "wrong" done to
"us". How can such an argument be constructed?

It is clear that this is a constructed argument. It is
a rhetorical argument, one meant to sway. Yet, given
gujarat, it is clear that this argument has served its
purpose.

How well has this argument worked. How come? How did
this argument work so well? How come people in GUjarat
have accepted this argument (if they hadn't, they
wouldn't have bought swords "imported" from
Rajasthan)?        

Every debate has more than one nub. This also is the
nub of the debate:

Is it that the deployment of "memory" and "nostalgia"
as elements in a "postcolonial" understanding of the
Partition has served its usefulness? In this context,
I would like you to think of the political rationality
that issues such as "memory" and "nostalgia" belong
to. How is it that "memory" and "nostalgia" today
belong to -- precisely -- an "aesthetic of
indifference"? How do we separate, here, the voice of
one who has experienced Partition from one that
incites divisiveness? Have these terms served their
usefulness? Have they become so normalised today that
they are no longer able to "explain" the
"problem-space" called the Partition (which is why the
violence of Gujarat seems unexplainable?)? In any
case, whom have "memory" and "nostalgia" as Partition
tropes been useful to? Which interest-groups have
latched on the explanatory power of "memory" and
"nostalgia"? For what reasons? 

Karahasan can speak of an aesthetic of indifference. I
wonder how far the progress of post-colonial theory
can also be characterised as such. How far can
post-colonial understanding of India's past be
understood as "indifferent" in so far as its
explanantory categories refuse to respond to a
strategic criticism that refuses the category of "the
ethnic"? What is the purpose on creating an incitement
of discourse on the trrain of "the ethnic"? Is it that
post-colonial theory refuses to recognise a confusion
between "the ethnic" and the "multicultural"? Is
multiculturalism an agonistic compromise between
residual liberalism and readily emergent fascism? Is
Karahasan prodding us to think of the political
purchase of "memory" and "nostalgia"? Is he asking us
to "debunk" these notions and move on to some other
terrain? Is it that the explanatory categories of
post-colonial theory have been rendered redundant
(especially "memory" and "nostalgia")?

Tarun posts:

"Karahasan allows us to see the ways in which what
happens in language anticipates what happens in the
real world."

My response is: what is the political rationality of
such a statement? Are we forgrounding, to our own
detriment, the "world-disclosing" powers of language
here? May phenomenology possess a limit, please? Isn't
its objectivity always a matter of material doubt?

Now I would like to quote a passage in Tarun's posting
entirely out of context, and purely for exhortation:

"The surfeit of kitsch, the glib climaxes and
formulaic explanations of complex historical phenomena
in much current writing are thus precursors to an a
evisceration of feeling in the domain of human
interaction."

Bugger "evisceration". Its too tough a word, requires
a dictionary to unpack it (I am on a computer, don't
feel like rifling through a dictionary). Tarun warns
us about "much current writing". Let us thank him for
the warning. Let us be a different kind of
"precursors". On a List, the "surfeit of kitsch" is
precisely how opinions are shared. (Here, let us
DEFINITIVELY dismiss Plato, who looked down upon what
he called Doxa, or the circulation of [apparently]
uninformed opinion). Let us enjoy our "glib climaxes",
that are not unintelligent. Let us debate on
"formulaic explanantions" in our own way.

Let us debate Gujarat. Let us debate Partition. Let us
debate everyday life fascism. Let us find out how we
have come to the point that "The aestheticization of
violence is a contemporary phenomenon we have come to
take for granted." (I should like to replace the word
"violence" with "everyday life fascism", a moot
replacement!)

In all this, is it really true that "we shrug our
shoulders and move on tothe next episode of the serial
on T.V" ?

hoping to discuss,
pp     
 



--- tarunksaint <tarunksaint at sify.com> wrote: > 
> 
> Friends, 
> 
> Why discuss poetry (including the P.M.'s) while
> Hindu -Muslim marriages are being targeted in
> Gujarat (eerily reminiscent of Kamleshwar's story
> Kitne Pakistan)? When brazen statements are boldly
> being made about the need to send all the Muslims of
> Gujarat across the border? When Gandhi is being
> targeted once again as the figure to blame for the
> unfinished business of partition?
> 
> Perhaps the clue to the answers to these questions
> may lie in a debate initiated by the Bosnian Muslim
> writer Dzevad Karahasan. Amitav Ghosh (in his piece
> 'The Ghosts of Mrs. Gandhi') cites an essay on
> 'Literature and War' in a collection of essays on
> Sarajevo, in which Karahasan raises the important
> connection between the aesthetic of indifference in
> literature and the contemporary world's indifference
> to violence. 'The decision to perceive literally
> everything as an aesthetic phenomenon-- completely
> sidestepping questions about goodness and truth-- is
> an artistic decision. The decision started in the
> realm of art, and went on to become characteristic
> of the contemporary world.'
> 
> The aestheticization of violence is a contemporary
> phenomenon we have come to take for granted.
> Karahasan allows us to see the ways in which what
> happens in language anticipates what happens in the
> real world. The surfeit of kitsch, the glib climaxes
> and formulaic explanations of complex historical
> phenomena in much current writing are thus
> precursors to an a evisceration of feeling in the
> domain of human interaction. There is no question
> that the PM's poetry is implicated in this process.
> Songs can be sung, or turned off, as at Goa
> recently, at will, in a mechanical attempt at
> manipulation of public opinion. An indication,
> perhaps, of the consequences of writers reneging on
> their commitment to 'goodness and truth', is the
> readiness of so many of us to sidestep the fascist
> logic that this pseudo-sentimentality actually
> conceals, as we shrug our shoulders and move on to
> the next episode of the serial on T.V . 
> 
> 
> 
> Rgds,
> 
> Tarun
> 
>  

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