Stirring stories from India’s rural heartland

India has many best-selling authors of international acclaim, including Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra Bannerjee Divakurni and Shashi Tharoor. They tell their stories in English, and to a considerable extent they write from the perspective of well-educated people from upper middle-class backgrounds. Prakash in contrast first travelled to Europe when he had already written many stories. 

He has, however, been influenced by Western literature. He says that Berthold Brecht is one of his favourite authors. Like Brecht, he pays close attention to the social environment in which his characters live, revealing patterns of exploitation and marginalisation. He is interested in systemic power structures and how they affect the masses of Indians who live in poverty and are denied opportunities.

One of his best-known novellas is “Mohandas”. It tells the story of a young man in a rural district of central India. He manages to graduate from college with excellent grades. His low-caste family thinks he will now find a job and they will all escape the misery they live in. They are mistaken.

Mohandas applies for many jobs, is invited to interviews, but somehow never gets employed. A local mining company promises to hire him, and the manager tells him he will surely get the job, but the confirmation letter never arrives. The company does not even return the documents he handed in along with his application.

Mohandas and his wife have two little children, his father is ill, and his mother is blind. His hopes of good employment dwindle slowly, but he keeps returning to the company head office, insisting on getting his chance. Eventually, he discovers that someone else has assumed his name and his job. He challenges the cheater several times, but his opponent belongs to an upper caste and is well-connected. Mohandas is not only denied the professional career that his academic degree should entitle him to;  he is denied his very identity.

Prakash has a home in Delhi and another one in the central Indian village he is originally from. His writing shows that he is familiar with the region where he has set the story.

His novella became the base of a Hindi screenplay of the same name, and the movie was released in 2009. Critics praised it. According to a review in the magazine Outlook, it chronicles “the misuse of power and blatant manipulation of a feeble administration and judiciary” and tells the story of “how those who inhabit the fringes are pushed further to the margins, physically and metaphorically”.

In 2010, Prakash was given the Sahita Akademi Award for Mohandas. This award was established in 1965 and is meant to promote Indian literature in all of the nation’s official languages. He did not keep the prize, however.

The sad truth is that Prakash is feeling increasingly uncomfortable in his home country. He resents the  populist Hindu chauvinism Prime Minister Narendra Modi is fostering. Indeed, for critically minded intellectuals, the climate is becoming increasingly hostile. Prakash returned the Sahita Award in 2015 when the Sahita Akademi did nothing in response to the murder of  M M Kalburgi, who had won the award in 2006. Prakash says the institution is failing to help to protect the authors its prize celebrates.

It seems deeply ironic that Prakash now says he does not feel comfortable using Hindi. He argues that it is a Brahmanic language that inherently serves the interests of the upper castes.

Despite of his criticism of the caste order, Prakash does show some empathy with true believers. That is evident in a novella which is called Dr. Wakankar in German and Aur Ant Mein Prarthana in Hindi. As far as I know, there is no English translation. In India, some of Prakash leftist friends turned against him because of this book. It tells the story of a medical doctor who lives and works in the rural heartland is guided by his Hindu faith. He is appalled by the misery and corruption he witnesses and becomes a member of a Hindu nationalist organisation in the hope of improving matters.

He only slowly realises that his allies are just as manipulative as the political forces they want to replace and that he is being used. In the end, the physician is deeply disappointed and completely isolated. Secular minded critics accused Prakash of lending legitimacy to Hindu chauvinism by casting the doctor in a favourable light, while supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi resent Prakash for pointing out that their party is not a benign force, but actually a quite destructive one. 

Link
http://www.musicandliterature.org/features/2015/3/26/a-conversation-with-uday-prakash

References

German:
Uday Prakash, 2013: Mohandas. Heidelberg:  Draupadi
Uday Prakash, 2009: Dr. Wakankar. Heidelberg: Draupadi

English:
Uday Prakash, 2012: The walls of Delhi (three stories, including Mohandas). Perth: University of Western Australia Press.