book DARKO SUVIN: A LIFE IN LETTERS (2011, 124.330 words) (original) (raw)
Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry
The events of 9/11 and the "war on terror", to cut a long story short, bear all the hallmarks of what Carl Schmittthe anti-liberal German philosopher of the first half of twentieth centurydescribed as a "state of exception". In the present political context, a state of exception refers to the ways by which the major liberal democracies are driven by the growing accretion of discriminatory executive power, increasingly bypassing existing legislative and juridical institutions. The crucial issue is whether the state of exception is becoming a permanent feature of governance across nation-states. And it is here that the political treatise of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben (born 1942) becomes relevant. Agamben refuses to accord modernity any epistemic break in political rule. Instead, he argues that the very same lineage of Western metaphysics of political power runs abated from the classical Greek time onwards; modern political rule, if different, is only so in its manner of ceaseless intensification of sovereign power. He identifies the Camp (meaning, Auschwitz) as the abiding metonym of modern power. Human rights are at best a ruse and at worst grist to an all-powerful sovereign that reduces humans to mere amorphous mass of living bodies bereft of all political claims-bare life or "nude vita" (i.e., nude life), if one goes by the words Agamben uses. Agamben began his career and worked for a long time in classical rhetoric and aesthetics. His turn to political philosophy was only in the 1990s, with the publication of Homo Sacer (1995)the first of his trilogy (or, "tetra-logy" as he prefers to call)the other two being, Remnants of Auschwitz (1998) and a collection of essays, State of Exception: Homo Sacer II (2003). Since his claim as a political thinker rests primarily on these three books, the present essay will be concerned mostly with these. 1
Like the narrator in Antoine de Saint Exupery's The Little Prince, I felt stranded in a desert beside my crashed aircraft-Voices. For over a year I had been trying to reassemble it and escape this void. And then during the ides of March I conjured up images of its withering away. Most disheartening were the spate of outpourings on the virtual media-e-journals, web-journals, on-line journals, a whole jungle of wild-rose bushes-a deluge, a groundswell, that most certainly could wash away my 'rose', so painstakingly nurtured over the past ten years. 'Lord', said I, 'I question whether I can take much more …/ No more afters or before'? Is my Voices just another spoke in an unhinged wheel? In an attempt to break the ennui, I settled my debts and dropped my last coin in the wishing well. And lo and behold, at my singular behest, the genie opened flood gates that could outmatch the webbed tsunami. A texted request and 'Orwell, Foucault and Modernism' came by return mail, to be quickly followed by Sanjukta Dasgupta, Santosh Gupta, Mini Nanda, Anuradha Marwah, Rakshanda Jalil … it was unending and the crashed aircraft is ready for flight! Thank you Prof. Jasbir Jain for this spur to re-begin a stalled journey and what could be more relevant than what Orwell and Foucault stand for, our 'locatedness' in these times of 'virtual' encroachments that goad us on to preserve ourselves, our privacy, despite the traumatising 'progress'. Professor Sanjukta Dasgupta's article on Tagore's poetic psyche replenishes our quest for confidence and creativity in these ambivalent times. Professor Santosh Gupta homes back to the polemics of the prison and how these can become transforming spaces which can empower one to overthrow the victim image and Dr Mini Nanda argues that 'I am' must be asserted for a domino effort so that we, especially women, do not have to succumb to unfairness and injustice. Taking up Indian women pioneers from the 19th century she weaves a dialectic of uprising. From the two nodal points of justice and fairness Anuradha Marwah begins her questioning, the 'why' in Media and Kabuliwala. Spanning her search over nearly two centuries she argues how 'social justice' has become so very critical in our times. It was so when times began and it is so now that I am 'man'! Sunita Agarwal furthers the exploration of creativity by re-contextualizing the innovative folk theatre as a means of reinventing ourselves in these apocalyptic times. The human movement that Professor Jasbir Jain talks of and Anuradha Marwah expounds, Nidhi Singh takes up as myths of dislocation and relocation. Peggy Mohan's Jahagin becomes the beginning of an attempt to decode immigrant experience that forces one to navigate unknown terrains in order to validate the 'self' and combat fracturing 'otherness'. The journey metaphor. continues with Charu Mathur's historiographic narration of the Partition enshrined in Salman Rashid's A Time of Madness which simultaneously posits the literary relevance of a memoir. Charu Mathur sums up by emphasizing a 'fluid relevance' which could undermine fossilized terror. And, what could be more befitting than valorising 'Charal' literature which gives the Bengal Dalits courage to swim against counter currents and live life at their own terms. It is not a giant step to arrive on the threshold of 'feminism', what Mini Nanda began and Nidhi Singh added to is continued in Swatti Dhanwani reading of Sita's Sister by Kavita Kane. The hermeneutical analysis helps bridge opposing contentions about Urmila, the unsung wife of Lakshman in the Ramayan, opening a more validating space for her. Alpana then decodes enslavement and emancipation in Masaan (2015). In analysing cinema as text Alpana ends on the promise of a new horizon of hope. The next section, poetry, works out the myriad colours of 'hope' and 'despair'. Opening with Lakshmi Kanan's '14th of April' there is promise that whenever the Neem buds will bloom it'll be a new year again! Sanjukta Dasgupta too vows to overcome the 'enemy' till 'Doves of hope settle on their open palms in her 'Hope'. However the 'Lockdown Blues' demand a 'New Normal and I' which is bizzare and surreal, where the 'contagion continues to spike and surge' but she ends 'If winter comes, can spring be far behind? echoing the prophetic Shelley. Sandeep Sen's 'Obituary' to the 9/11 victims is as relevant today for 'they were us', all those who died, die and are dying. But lives matter and it is 'Hope' again which can drive the darkness out, and it leaks through unknown spaces. Sen's 'Asthama', 'Quarantine' and 'Saline Drip' seem to be stages where we recognize that 'breathing' is a 'blessing' and in the quarantine that has been imposed one becomes more conscious of the chirping birds, the colours of leaves and skies and also more aware of those for whom we did not 'make time'-family, neighbour, neglected friend. But this 'Saline Drip' will vi • Editorial indeed regenerate, refine and rekindle and soon wash away the fuzziness that has crept over us. Rashmi Narzary takes us back 'years and years ago' and then brings us back 'years and years later' thanking God for a 'blessed life' where fireflies light the night and nature sustains us. Rakshanda Jalil sounds a warning note again in her translation of Javed Akhtar's 'Hum-safar' that the scorching-searing road that we are walking today leads not to bliss but to destitute isolation with no fireflies to light the dark night. The fire in the bellies consumes one's hopes and reduces him to naught as realization dawns that there are only two castes-the rich and the poor. But Manasvini Rai again raises hopes and 'In Continuum' affirms that love's labours would again, perhaps, accumulate and transform the vision where once expanses were parched. Joya Chakravarty writes another 'Obituary' for our own 'plain Janes' who live a death-in-life with no one to hold their hands in grief. But 'plain' you may be yet there is much in a name to make us glide through the tangles and find our roses. The book review section with four intensive explorations makes for critical reading at its best. Professor Mukesh Srivastava unfolds the dialogics of censorship while looking at Rajiv Dhawan's book. Natasa Milandinovic reviews Susheel Sharma's Unwinding Self, a collection of poems, and forays into aspects of knowing and unknowing, of Atman and Man. On a lighter note Anuradha Marwah reviews Jeanie Cummin's American Dirt and ressurrects it from searing criticism. Bandana Chakrabarty's review of Jasbir Jain's Interpreting Cinema: Adaptations, Intertexualities, Art Movements is a literary insider into the book's polyphonic dialogic. Spaced between the poems and the reviews is a memoir, a testimony of those first flushes that dislocation embarrasses us with before we settle down to the graveness of re-location. As a newly transported immigrant Shubhshree flaunts her inherited riches with innocent aplomb till life teaches one to pack 'herself' till more opportune times. A beautiful encounter of a 'dil hai hindustani' with acculturation blues! These pieces sewn together in this volume testify how 'what was invisible to the eye' has been slowly uncovered, layer by layer; what we see is only the shell, what is truly important we connot see-a lesson from The Little Prince again to round it up. Here I would gratefully acknowledge Annanya's depiction of the essence of the book The Little Prince which frame the cover of this issue. For fellow travellers in literature, I hope these 'fire flies' will light up areas of darkness and pave the way for a better knowing. Adieu, till the next issue!