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The Modernist Arrives

Premji’s death last month formalised the end of an era. Together with E. M. S. Namboodiipad and V. T. Bhattathiripad, he was in the forefront of the social reform movement of the 1930s and 1940s among the upper caste Namboodiris. The acclaimed actor, who won the Bharat Award for his role in Shaji N. Karun’s Piravi, was also a poet, social activist, dramatist, short-story writer, and perhaps one of the last links of Kerala’s society with its Renaissance past.

Today’s Malayalam writer, in contrast, shies away from labels. “The age of old narratives is over,” affirms noted critic B. Rajeevan. “Earlier, literature was linked to social movements. It was self-expression plus social commitment.”

Malayalam literary history is intertwined with the history of Kerala’s socio-political movements. The Jeeval Sahitya Sanghom, an offspring of the Progressive Movement led by the likes of Premchand and Mulk Raj Anand, was formed in 1937 and included poets Vallathol, G. Sankara Kurup, and Changampuzha, writer Kesava Dev, and critics Joseph Mundassery and M. P. Paul. Despite the participation of mainstream writers, though, it ended in a fiasco because of political interference of the old CPI, which believed in the Stalinist dictum that “writers are the engineers of human souls.” This stifling politics was too overpowering for creative minds.

But socialist realism continued to retain its hold till the early 1970s, until modernism and later, post-modernism questioned traditional notions of literature. It heralded an era where the writer was no more forced to answer the classical Marxist query: On which side are you?” (Read: The oppressed or the oppressor?) As poet K. Satchidanandan, Secretary, Sahitya Akademi, puts it: “The best writers, while being committed, do not make a shibboleth of commitment, as the Progressives do. The later are prone to defining commitment in the sectarian sense of commitment to the changing ideological stances of a party and also to a form of naturalistic narration, close to, say that of Gorky.”

Yet writers like Thakazhi, Basheer, Uroob and Kesava Dev dominated Kerala’s literary landscape as they admirably mixed craft and commitment. Observes critic V. C. Harris: “Thakazhi’s generation had a rather straightforward understanding of social reality. They tried to take not just a position, but also to criticise it and, if possible, to reform it.”

Defying conventions, the tribe of modern writers began experimenting with form and content in the 1970s. M. T. Vasudevan Nair, Madhavikutty, VKN, M. P. Narayana Pillai, O. V. Vijayan, and M. Mukundan spearheaded the modernist movement. Documenting the highs and lows of the human mind is equally important, the modernists argued. They were more inward-looking. 

“This involves a reduction or refusal of public space,” says Harris. “Today, this modernist agenda seems to have reached either a dead end or fallen into a spiritualist trap.” Comments B. Rajeevan: “The sphere of literary discourse is changed. This is the age of personal responses.” Well-known critic K. P. Appan also observes that the breakdown of the old-fashioned reading of history had created space for new writing and expressions.

The product of the dizzy ‘70s – Anand, N. S. Madhavan, and Zacharia – liberated literature from conventional categorizations. Madhavan’s Thiruthu (Correction) and Mumbai – the former portrays a newsroom of a daily on the day of the demolition of Babri Masjid and the latter is a moving account of a Muslim engineer confronting the threat of deportation in post-Shiv Sena Mumbai – delicately probe the myriad layers of fascism without succumbing to the temptation of posturing.

Rajakrishnan argues the modern writer hits the structure of reality not with a sledgehammer, but obliquely. For instance, in Madhavan’s Vanmarangal Veezhumbol (When The Big Tree Falls), the story unfolds from the viewpoint of a nun – not from that of either the victim, or the oppressor. Still, the terror of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 filters through.

Anand, whom critic P. K. Rajasekharan considers to be the most important writer after O. V. Vijayan, is another representative figure of the era. Vijayan, incidentally, is one writer whose works were attacked by both conventionalists and communists. Then there is VKN, who with his unique combination of verbal corkscrew imagery and intellectual inventiveness transformed the literary experience of the Malayali.

Post-modern literature, though, has its share of detractors, too. Says Rajasekharan: “ A major feature of modern writing is the influence of post-modernist and post-structuralist literary theories. Anand’s Govardhante Yathrakal reflects Jacques Derrida’s theories. N. Prabhakaran’s Bahuvachanam reflects many of the ideas of Roland Barthes.” E. Harikumar is even more categorical. “It is just an imitation without any roots and historical background,” he says.

The certainties that motivated Progressive writers have been relegated to the footnotes of history, modern fiction is more in sync with life as it is. “The present trend is better than the old complacence,” insists Rajasekharan. The rising tide of Hindutva fundamentalism, for instance, posed some difficult questions for the writers. So, even, as Zacharia unleashed an unabashed attack against the Sangh Parivar and targeted his colleagues for their alleged softness towards Hindutva, he drew flak from many quarters that his was merely an exercise to be politically correct. Even Rajasekharan argues that Zacharia is attacking Hindu culture in the guise of targeting Hindutva.

Rajeevan further points out that we haven’t advanced much beyond Nehruvian secularism, so there is confusion about secular slogans. “Writers are depending on the secular stances held by the Left parties and the Congress,” he says. While making the point that “ are-think is needed to ascertain whether these tools are enough.”

Not surprisingly, an early creative response to Pokharan II was in Malayalam – in Zacharia’s Aasariyum Ishtikayum (The Brick and the Mason). A political allegory, it dissects the mindset of individuals who are victims of trappings of society. Says Satchidanandan: “Zacharia shows profound concern for the ethical problems confronting our times – he raises questions of cultural transplantation, of false spirituality, of war and violence.”

But it’s still to early to say if modernity has succeeded in giving direction to the conflicts of reality in the prison bars of everyday life in modern times.

The New Indian Express

Express Magazine

20 September 1998