This blog is written as a response to a task assigned by Prof. Dilip Barad, Department of English MKBU. In this blog there is discussion on the novel Midnight's Children.
Midnight's Children is a 1981 novel by Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie, published by Jonathan Cape with cover design by Bill Botten, about India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and partition. It is a postcolonial, postmodern and magical realist story told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, set in the context of historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive.
1. Justification of the Title
The novel’s protagonist is Saleem, who was born on the date when India got its independence. On that very night Saleem was born and it was midnight. He also has a power that he can summon the other children who were born on the same day at the same time as he was born. The plot of the novel revolves around the characters born on that day, that is why the name of the novel is Midnight’s Children. Another can metaphorically read that the people of India that were also born or India as a country also takes new birth on 15th August 1947. In the theme also we find that India and the other neighbour countries are the main focus in the novel.
2. Postcolonial Voices: Theoretical Lenses
Through this article I will try to define this point: Postcolonial Voices: Analysing Midnight's Children Through Theoretical Lenses
In the concept of Orientalism Edward Said talks about how western societies think that the East requires control and they are to be taught how to represent themselves. In the novel ‘Midnight Children’ Rushdie uses magical realism, linguistic hybridity, and the very Indian way of using English language. He also tells a story in a different narrative style that shows the Indian way of writing. He breaks the parameters that are set in English literature.
Homi Bhabha gives the concept of hybridity, which is very much common in the novel. There were differences between the coloniser and colonised, that difference is not visible in the novel. IN the Saleem case he is a hybrid character, who belongs to so many communities and cultures. In Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,s observations about Subaltern also reflect in the novel. The story ids about a minor character Saleem who faces the difficulty of a common man who is considered to be deprived in the societies.
Frantz Fanon’s Decolonization and National Consciousness can be seen in the novel where India faces the difficulties of partition and Emergency. There is where we also find the trauma of post Independence India. In Saleeem’s case there we also find how he suffers in post-independent India. The poverty of India is also portrayed in the novel. Dipesh Chakrabarty argues that Europe writes history from the point of view of their side only. Eurocentric history can be seen western way of writing. Whereas in ‘Midnight's Children’ there is a view of India hoe it sees the world. Very indigenous way Rusdie tries to share his views in the novel.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o argues for decolonizing the mind that the author should use indigenous language that reflects the culture of that region. But in ‘Midnight's Children’ the language is used in such a way that it doesn't seem that it 8s colonisers language but it has its Indian version too. It seems like Indian have adopted the language and mastered it. Now it can be used by Indians as their own language. Aime Césaire gives his views on Negritude and Colonial Alienation. That colonized people might have gone away from their culture and heritage after the colonizer ruled over them. But in Midnight’s Children one can observe that Rushdie masterfully portrayed Indianness in his novel. (Postcolonial Voices)
3. The Role of 'English' in the Novel
In the novel ‘Midnight's Children’ Rushdie has used the very Indian way of explaining the things. The chutnification of the various aspects of Indian culture are integrated in the novel with the use of English language. Rusdie’s view regarding the English id that the language does not belong to the Britishers only now it has become the language of India. He uses “Hinglish” in his novel which is a mixture of English and Hindi.
“She (Padma) attempts to cajole me from my desk : "Eat, na, food is spoiling." I remained stubbornly hunched on paper . . . . Padma snorts. Wrist smacks across forehead. "Okay, starve, starve, who cares two pieces." (Rushdie)
He uses this type of english to portray the character who does not know the English language. While Saleem is well educated he uses quite a good English but in his tone also sometimes we find Indianness too.
4. Portrayal of the Emergency (1975-77)
In the novel Midnight's Children Rushdie has portrayed Indira Gandhi as a widow and sometimes Mrs. Gandhi. Rusdie believed that through literature history must be preserved and whatever has gone wrong future generations must know about that. In the novel Rushdie with the original name accussis Indira Gandhi that in Emergency she has played a vital role. Gandhi has also filed the case against Rusdie but the information was true so no actions were taken against Rusdie. He also portrayed how the episode of emergency affected the common people and how they suffered during that time.
He also mentioned the widespread censorship, political imprisonment, forced sterilisation, and other abuses of power. Katherine Frank’s book on Indira Gandhi in the chapter Mr.Rushdie and Mr. Gandhi talks about Indian Festival in London, there Margaret Thatcher has invited Mrs.Gandhi and Mr. Rushdie for having lunch together. But Thatcher was unaware that what was written in the novel here was a harsh criticism on the indira Gandhi and even she read few pages from the novel in front of Mrs. Gandhi. After that Indira Gandhi even filed a case against Mr. Rushdie and the publisher Jonathan Cape for the book Midnight’s Children. Kathereine also tried to find the similarities between Russia and Gandhi. They both were well educated from Oxford university, and belonged to liberal religious families, so there is a rare possibility that their point of views are different not because of different culture, cat or gender but in ideology and way of seeing they differ.
5. Metaphor of Bulldozer:
In ‘’Midnight's Children’’, the word "bulldozer" is used for the government's harsh power during Indira Gandhi's time, especially the Emergency. It shows how the state destroyed communities and people's identities to push its own plans, not for the good of the people. The reference of bulldozer comes so many times that shows the destruction of the physical as well and the destruction of morality and innocence. In one of the references there is a discussion of the little girl who dies in the bulldozer discussion. Through that Rusdie shows how the oppression on the poor people was done in the name of ‘beautification’. That shows that during that time when people oppressed by the powerful structures try to destroy the poovery by reducing them in numbers.
In contemporary times when we hear the word we can also connect with Uttar Pradesh in which the destruction happens on the houses of the criminals. The Supreme court also criticizes the idea that destroying the homes of criminals is justified, there are other people who belong to that house and the other family members of their criminals. (Erasure and Oppression)
Words: 1202
References:
Barad, Dilip. “Erasure and Oppression: The Bulldozer as a Toolof Authoritarianism in Midnight's Children.” Research Gate, August 2024, http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.16493.19689. Accessed 9 September 2024.
Barad, Dilip. “Postcolonial Voices: Analyzing Midnight's Children Through Theoretical Lenses.” Research Gate, August 2024, http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.16493.19689. Accessed 14 September 2024.
Rushdie, Salman. Midnight’s Children. Vintage, 2013.
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