V. S. Naipaul

Rashid Mughal

I think you overused the whole thing about using Naipauls titles in your piece it isnt that clever or impressive. Actually it is like something a sixteen year old would do. Also, it is Sylvia PLATH, not Sylvia PLATT.

Are you really a writer? And an editor? What have you ever edited? Dude, you are a terrible writer.

Naipaul, I can take his early works and pick and choose from the rest. He wrote some cr@p about India, but he wrote some good stuff about other things. I think he sees himself as a Hindu version of Iqbal. Incidentally, he writes cuttingly and intelligently on Iqbal. If he took a step back he might be able to see how people sometimes resemble those they rage against the most.

Rashid,
Naipaul`s negative feelings towards Islam are basically driven by fear and awe at the immense power of a religion that can mobilize one-sixth of humanity and result in an intense collective feeling of being ``different`` from the rest. It is the same underlying sentiment that motivated the clash of civilization hypothesis. At the same time I doubt if he personally hates muslims per se, given that his spouse is Pakistani.
The real question is whether Islam can peacefully coexist with other civilizations. Most secular people like myself, believe that to be the case. The current warm-up of Indo-Pak relations shows that it is indeed possible. Naipaul and others of his ilk (e.g. jay) are pessimists who believe that the ideology behind Islam is too strong to coexist with other ideologies or ways of life. Time will tell, which side is right about this.

You have picked various quotes from people and pasted it. Your own opinions (other than a general negative spin on Naipaul) are mostly missing.

Naipaul, if I recall, is married to a pakistani muslim (interesting that Rushdie is married to an indian hindu!). He cannot be all that xenophobic as you claim. He has, in the past, toured a bunch of islamic countries and called it as he saw it. Not an even handed account to be sure but then he is not an academic or journalist.

One of his main points in his islamic country tours was that islam encourages its followers to disown their pre-islamic heritage actively and aggressively (be it Iran, Malaysia or Pakistan). Would you disagree with his assessment?

He is entitled to hobnob with whoever he wishes be it the BJP, VHP or whoever. Claiming that, as Rushdie does, it disgraces the Nobel is ridiculous. To claim a moral equivalence between the VHP on the one hand and nazis and fascists on the other is extremely questionable.

Naipaul may be a complex, troubled personality but then most interesting, creative people also could be characterized similarly (Picasso, Van Gogh, Dali etc.) His personality does not invalidate his writings.

warpster #3: ``One of his main points in his islamic country tours was that islam encourages its followers to disown their pre-islamic heritage actively and aggressively (be it Iran, Malaysia or Pakistan). Would you disagree with his assessment?``

I don`t know whether you are an Indian or a Pakistani, but I have heard a lot of Indians making the above comment. It is usually made right after pointing out that Pakistan is filled with monsters, waiting to target Indians. The later comment, has been put to death (hopefully) after the Indians have finally had a chance to see Pakistanis, for the first time in real life, through the recent cricket series. I still cannot help smiling, when I see the dropped jaws of my Indians colleagues, when they see Pakistanis enjoying themselves at these matches, and welcoming Indians. It goes completely against what they were originally brainwashed into believing about Pakistanis. All of them are now, ``overwhelmed.`` Even Sunil Shetty, a face regularly seen in anti-Pakistan movies, received a rousing welcome in Lahore.

I am not sure how the second argument will come to rest. It is obviously not true either. Pakistanis, including me, still carry their ancestoral Hindu names. That, in itself, should be enough to put the argument to death. After all, if a person wanted to drop his/her heritage, their names would be the first thing they would change. On the other hand, other than A.R. Rahman, I have not seen any Hindu with a Muslim name.

But what I am more interested in (if you are Indian) is who plants all these fariytales into the minds of Indians, regarding Islam and Pakistan, and what not. Could you highlight.

As for Naipaul: What the hell difference does it make what he thinks. He is one human being, who has his own issues, like the rest of us. If he wants to mouth off on Muslims, it is his right. Doesn`t make any difference, one way or the other. I am a bit concerned about his hobnobbing with the BJP however......

I THINK YOU ARE RIGHT. NAIPAL IS IN CONFLICT WITH HIMSELF. I`VE NEVER READ A MORE NEEDLESSLY DULL AND POINTLESS AUTHOR. IT BEATS ME AS TO HOW HE WON THE NOBLE PRIZE. SOMETIMES I FEEL THE WORLD HAS GONE ABSOLUTELY NUTS!

A.R Rahman isnt a hindu with a muslim name romair?!! what`re you talking about? he`s a devout muslim. he`s a hindu convert yes, but once someone brings the faith to islam, their bond with their old religion is finished forever. he didnt keep his fathers name, true. even doing that would not make him a hindu.

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#1, #3 & #7

Warpster failed to see my own opinion wrapped up in those book titles in my little essay which was more apt around the middle of 2003 when I banged out those words in a stream of consciousness against the clock in what the Zulu punjabber calls the effort of a 16-year-old. I am glad he has seen my youthfulness at work.

V. S. Naipaul fascinates me. I first vocalized the idea of a Nobel Prize for him in 1979 when I reviewed his book A Bend in the River and I was absolutely delighted that he finally picked up the coveted award in 2001.

Before he was bought by the BJP, the Naipaul I knew was one of the most cynically clinical of writers whose truth was pure and his courage rare. He never minced words about what he thought about Hinduism in his earlier works, and he never minced words when dealing with Islam. For a Brahmin, I felt, Naipaul was above religion... until his idea of Islam`s encroachment of Hindu lands and peoples infected the heads of the BJP who have given us rare insights into human animalism involving the Babri Mosque and the Gujarat Burnings. The world has become upside down because no two people seem to be on the same page of the Book of Life. The mind plays tricks with us because everyone tries to be too intellectual, thereby missing the actual.

In the case of Naipaul, we keep bringing Islam into the equation as if that is going to resolve anything. While it might seem odd at first, please think about it. Our viewpoints about religion and the rot in society come from all angles, and many of us who defend Islam and those among us who oppose religion of one sort or another fall into a camp peopled by atheists, agnostics, cynics, skeptics and secular humanists who place their faith in science and in the here-and-now.

Atheism, agnosticism, cynicism, skepticism and humanism are marvellous ideas that have evolved from the crucible of history after so much blood has been shed in the Name of God. A cynic like Naipaul could challenge God, I am sure, if they were to meet someplace -- just as Iqbal made a tryst with God through his ``Shiqwa`` before the people reduced him to one of them!

Literature -- whether it`s the Koran or Winnie the Pooh -- is our only hope of salvation. Sadly, the majority of us don`t read, and those that read do so selectively, precautiously.

Reading Naipaul gives us a wonderful insight into how literature can subvert in pleasantly surprising ways. I wish we were gullible enough to be subverted but, no, we cling to ideas whose time has gone and prefer to die with them.

Thank you, SamiT. I am currently reading Dalrymple`s The White Mughals.

Rashid Mughal

PunjabiZulu # 1

(I think he sees himself as a Hindu version of Iqbal. Incidentally, he writes cuttingly and intelligently on Iqbal. If he took a step back he might be able to see how people sometimes resemble those they rage against the most)

A very apt observation.

One a great poet. The other a great writer.

And both with dangerous theories - one has about the Muslims. The other has about Hindus.

He may be a Nobel laureate, he may be an eminent historian; no, I haven`t read any of his work, and I am not a bit apolegetic about it either, and yet the man does not impress me one bit.
We have a way of putting people on the pedestal and thats exactly what we have done with him more so now that the title sits on his head.
He may rave and he may rant, it does not make any difference one way or the other, as Romair says. So lets just continue to ignore him, shall we?

PS: I don`t intend to read him either!

VS Naipaul on Hinduism:

“The barbaric religious rites of Hinduism are barbaric; they belong to the ancient world. The holy cow is absurd; it is, as Nirad Chaudhuri suggests in The Continent of Circe, an ignorant corruption of an ancient Aryan reverence. The caste-marks and the turbans belong to a people who, incapable of contemplating man as man, know no other way of defining themselves.”

sagittarius aka Rashid Mughal No 10;

Dude, are you really a writer? Your meandering sentences are so convoluted and pompous they make me laugh. I am not trying to be antagonist, I am just genuinely amazed that you can call yourself a writer. Do you get much work as an editor out there in Toronto?

What else have you written?

Naipaul is an anti-Muslim biggott - a characteristic that all hindus share by default. I do not expect anything better coming from a hindu.

#13 PunjabiZulu

I like your arrogance. You meant ``antagonistic`` when you wrote ``I am not trying to be antagonist, I am just genuinely amazed that you can call yourself a writer.`` I could probably teach you, too, a thing or two about writing and editing as I do college and university students here in Toronto.

A man can call himself anything, like you call yourself Zulu. I share my birthday with Chief Dingaan but you wouldn`t know that. Everyone is a writer these days, like yourself. I have worked more years in journalism, writing and publishing than you will ever do if you hurried up and started yesterday.

Rashid Mughal

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