Chapter one introduction

CHAPTER TWO

ALIENATION AND CLASS CONFLICT IN

BABU FICTIONS

Babu Fictions: Alienation in the Contemporary Indian English Novels is the Ph.D. thesis of Tabish Khair, which was published in 2001 by Oxford University Press. The book is divided into three sections and thirteen chapters which includes a critical employment of the concept of ‘alienation’ and of ‘Babu Fictions’. The book contains overlapping and exfoliating discussions of certain specific issues. And these issues describe by the author in relation to certain famous writers of Indian English writing. The book carries a clever division of chapters/sections, so that the study will become more interesting. Hence khair himself writes; “no insulted and artificial division which may falsely suggest that a topic like the treatment of industrial landscape can be discussed in isolation, say, caste” (Tabish, Khair, 2001, 12).

The title of the book is Babu Fictions: Alienation in the Contemporary Indian English Novels. The ‘Babu’ term used in the book has applied to Indians who belong to upper caste/ elite class. According to Tabish Khair these Babus are those people whose “discursive affiliations show a bias similar to that demonstrated by Bayly’s ‘new munshis” (12). The book made a clear distinction in Babu and Coolie which is marked across socio-economic and discursive maps. Khair referred Babu to those people who belong to the elite class or upper class or middle class, mostly urban, Brahminized and westernised with strong culture and they also speak fluent English. The Coolies are referred to those people by author as non-English speaking, not significantly westernised, nor or less Brahiminized, economically weak and culturally marginalized, rural/ migrant urban, low class people.

The use of these two different terms ‘Babu’ and ‘Coolie’ made a clear distinction in the study of Indian English Fiction. While commenting about the use of these specific terms Khair claims; the two emblematic terms Babu and Coolie, suggest many possibilities of discursive and socio-economic alienation that have to be addressed by any study of Indian English Fiction (10).

With the use of ‘Babu’ and ‘Coolie’ terms author tried to focus on the impact and meaning of ‘alienation’ in the Contemporary Indian English Fiction. Therefore it could be said that the book examines ‘alienation’ in the contemporary Indian English novels in relation to Babus and Coolies. The root word of alienation is ‘lien’, which means connectivity/ link/ bondage. Here ‘a’ stands for ‘not’. Therefore the literal meaning of the word ‘alienation’ is no/lack of connectivity/ no bondage. And the meaning of the word clearly defined by writer in many different aspects.

Khair has defined the term ‘alienation’ in several different perspectives dealing different parts of social system like, theology, philosophy, Political economy, sociology, and psychology. He claims that there are some factors or reasons which effects alienation such as, ideology, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nationality, literary and philosophical trends etc. These factors reflect an impact on alienation and also on the various states of alienation.

The author claims according to his understanding of Marx, the ‘alien’ in ‘alienation’ does not stand for ‘foreign’ but for contradictory and hostile within a power relation. Khair did not define alienation on the symbolic level. There are two factors/reasons described in the book which relates the specific disciplinary objections and the subject of the book. The first one is the nature of super structure and the difficulty perceived by Marx in basing explanations merely on symbolic factors. The second one is the obvious fact that this book is not an analysis of philosophical text, a political economy or even a psychological entity (5).

There are certain definitions and interpretations of the term ‘alienation’ like, in the terms of “Theology is considered as, “denoting a rupture between God and Human” (5). In the Marxist sense of political economy, it is taken as the result of the worker’s disaffection from the product of his labour; in the ‘Hegelian philosophical sense’ it is taken as a consequence of subjects objectification, and in the Lacanian psychoanalysis, as the formation of identity in the ‘mirror stage’.

But Khair offers these applications and interpretations of alienation in a broader theological sense, the Hegelian sense, Marxist sen0se, and the Lacanian psychoanalysis sense etc. This may be valid in certain different contexts. Here he examines ‘alienation’ in Indian English Fiction more or less in terms of its own reference. Khair highlights the same in his book, Babu Fictions: “---as a construct of literary devices and practices that seeks to record, explicate, build upon, expand and/ or critique Indian and other realities or reality as accessed by Indians, whether stay-at-home or diasporic” (5).

The major concern of the book is alienation in relation to certain specific areas like objectification and alienation, alienation and the symbolic fields, dimensions of alienation. While talking about ‘objectification and alienation’ Khair claims, from Adam’s alienation (from God) to the use of alienation in Hegel. The term alienation made a path which Marx originally takes from Hegel. Actually ‘Marx criticises Hegel’s definition of alienation as the natural consequences’ (23). Both Hegel and Marx believe, ‘human beings exit by objectifying themselves in the world’ (23)

Subsequently, Khair is talking about ‘alienation and the symbolic fields’. The feeling of alienation also gives a sense of freedom. This freedom could be through the consequences of the on-going conflict of several discourses. The writer’s concern in this text is not a relation between the writer and his text but it is about the relations within the text, which also includes the relations of the writer with the society.

The writer maps Indian English fiction through Babu-Coolie terrain but this Babu-Coolie terrain is conceptual and discursive. It shows a remarkable similar landmark across the old and new generations. But the identities of Babu and Coolies are not remaining the same. This means recognition of some differences and changes in the identities of Babus and Coolies and their relationships across the time and spatial distances. These changes have been focused by Khair in the book with reference to some specific writers such as Raja Rao, R. K. Narayan, V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, and Amitav Ghosh.

Before novel, short story was a recognising form of the Indian English literature. Shiv K. Kumar in his Introduction to a Landmark Anthology of Indian English Short Fiction describes, “The short story, written in Indian languages, acquiring the form of a distinct literary genre, emerged only in the first quarter of the nineteenth century” (40). The maturity of Contemporary age is associated with the rise of the novel in the Indian English Fiction from 1930s to 1950s, right from Mulk Raj Anand to R. K. Narayan.

Some writers followed the tracks of Indian English criticism and focused on some earlier texts like Vasavadutta. This text focused upon the complexities of the cultural forms of Indian criticism. It brings an argument in a simple way and the novel is a subsequent exposure to the English language. In the year 1790 Nashtar was written, it was an autobiographical novel which highlights a hybridised use of prose. It was the earliest Malayalam novel written by Chandu Menon in 1889. The novel was an attempt to write in “one’s language a novel written after the English Fiction” (42). Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gate achieved his place by the realms of poesy in an amazingly novelistic form. Ravindranath Tagore in Bengali and Premchand in Hindi and Urdu literature established great examples in the Indian English Fiction. Apart from the codification of certain regional languages, there is an introduction along with the development of English.

There is a close connection between the propagation of English and in the rise and development of the novel in Indian English Fiction. Bankim Chandra’s Raj Mohan’s Wife (1864) considered as the first published effort in any Indian language. Raj Laxmi Devi’s The Hindu Wife (1876), Toru Dutt’s Binaca, K. K. Lahiri’s Roshinara (1881), and Khetrapal Chakravarti’s Sarata and Hingana are some notable names in different phases in the development of English novel. There are some prominent poets who contributed in the various regional literatures as well as in the Indian English literature such as Arun Kolatkar, Kamala Das, and Jayanta Mahapatra etc.

Actually the correspondence and the gap between regional and English literature also marks the alienation in the Indian English writers. From the perspective of alienation, the differences in Babu Fictions are related to the relation of these writers to others and to the society. Because there are some issues and attitudes treated by pre-independence writers and might be used by the writers of the post- independence writings. These writers define ‘alienation’ in their narratives with the help of some specific issues such as rhetoric of exile, hybridity, class, caste, gender, tension in mind, and the problem of mapping language.

The book describes these issues in an impressive way. Such as while dealing with the ‘rhetoric of exile’, Khair suggests “the rhetoric becomes doubly inaccurate when one recalls that an Indian English writer who has immigrated to London or New York might well be less of an exile” (67).When the other writer who was living in provincial town in India and exiled to some other country. Literally he divorced from the Indian English writing facilities and even the experiences of language of his own choice. But they still continuously publish their writings through Indian publishing houses. The writers of Indian origin treated the term ‘exile’ in their narrative differently. They extended the term to cover their characters and stories along with the portrayal of their living experience in the west and of course their experience of a return to India. Tabish Khair in his works also reflected the same either in the terms of story, or in the terms of characters. He beautifully describes his own lived experiences of India and there is also a kind of nostalgia in his writings toward his native land India.

C. D. Verma in his The Exile hero and the Reintegrating Vision in Indian English Fiction considered alienation as a by-product of exile because the character experiences the alienation as a forced/ voluntary exile from their native homeland. From this exile on term comes in front of us is the exile character, which needs to discuss. The term indicates those people who exiled from their land, culture, and society and they have to inhabit an alien culture. The book also suggests that alienation and exile are interrelated terms. Such as the alienation of Adam and Eve from Eden garden. As they alienate themselves from God by the act of plucking the forbidden fruit. The action of exile starts right from that reaction.

The exile of character has been portrayed by a number of writers in their narration such as Raja Rao’s The Serpent and the Rope (1960),Balchandra Rajan’s The Dark Dancer (1959), Arun Joshi’s The Foreigner (1967),and Anita Desai’s Bye Bye Blackbird (1971) etc. The character of Ramaswamy in Raja Rao’s The Serpent and the Rope reflected the traits of an exiled character. He was an Indian, who was fully involved in the Indian culture, society, his family and land but he exiled to abroad. Khair suggests Ramaswamy was not alienated with family and society but he was alienated from the pre-modern aspects of Indian society. Amitav Ghosh’s novels The Circle of Reason (1987) also brings an example of an exile-character.

Babu Fictions also gives certain more examples which directly deals with the theme of exile like Timeri Murari’s The Marriage, Sarosm Cowasjee’s Goodbye to Elsa, Bharti Mukherjee’s The Tiger’s Daughter and Wife, Shiv K. Kumar’s The Bone’s Prayer, Bhabhani Bhattacharya’s A Dream in Hawaii, V. S. Naipaul’s A Bend In the River, Mimic Men, and A House for Mr. Biswas, Salman Rushdie’s The Satantic Verses and The Moor’s last Sigh, Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English August and Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines etc. The above list of the works of the writers of Indian English Fiction reflect that how ‘alienation’ remain a constant factor throughout the stories and in the life of the central character/ protagonists of the novels of Indian English Fiction?

In the Indian English there are some specific features which affect the activity of alienation. These features reflect a sense of loss of reality, as the book suggests, “these symptoms includes loss of reality on the part of the subject which leads to explanations on appearances instead of on the internal relations that constitute reality” (75). Babu Fictions specifically focuses upon the socio-economic basis of ‘alienation’. Khair also mentions that socio-economic aspects are not separate from symbolic factors, especially in the Indian perspective. Because after post-independence the disappointment of Indian English expressed by several writers such as V. S. Naipaul, Anita Desai, Upamanyu Chatterjee etc. and their descriptions were largely based upon the fact that the discourse will be either inimical as religion or a tangent.

The fact which reflected in the book is Khair is in the opinion that the narration of exile is portrayed by the older Babu writers of Indian English fiction in which they faced the element of hybridity as well. Khair also claims that hybridity settle the issues by avoiding or employing the rhetoric of exile. Identity marks a relation between alienation and hybridity. According to the writer the meaning of hybridity is, “subjection to cross breeding, interbreed” (79). Actually hybridity assumes a conjoining which comes from the perspective of socio-linguistic issue. It comes from two different cultures or various cultures.

The author highlighted two main issues which work as an advantage of being a hybrid rather than alienated. The first kind of hybridity is familiar, self-congratulatory construct whereas the second one is the notion of hybridity. It is a process in which two different or separate oppositions come and meet and finally becomes one. When we talk about hybrid/ hybridity in the Indian perspective, it has a great history of precursors right from the colonial nations. And there is a relation between the earlier theories and ideas of the writers of contemporary age in relation to the hybridity. The wholesome idea of the author is that besides knowing all the facts prevailing in the Indian society he talks about a cosmopolitan identity.

There is one more problem which comes in front of a migrant/ exiled writer while dealing with the mapping of language. Problem of language and dialogue mapping is the major problem which comes across a diasporic writer. Khair specially raises the problem with reference to certain writers and along with their specific texts. The book is basically dedicated to the problem of language. Actually Indian English writing is criticised for using a foreign medium by Indian writers since a long time. They claim that Indian writer does not use proper English in their writings. And therefore in their writings we find a great white hunter of grammatical errors. In the book author defines two major reactions regarding this criticism. The first one is, “a staunch denial of alienation as a term of analysis and second is the collapsing of the conflicts of alienation into a blurred hybridity” (98). According to Khair these two issues implode the lines of alienation in Indian English fiction.

Aijaz Ahmad has also faced the difficulty in the mapping of language and dialogues in his narratives. He has written about this ‘difficulty’, in the context of English as a language. Ahmad claims,

“the knowledge of Indian literature is produced this gap between the ambience and structure of English and other Indian languages creates at least two major problems for the Indian English writer-the problem of dialogue and the problem of mapping”. (1992, 249-51)

Khair has aroused elegantly about two major and basic problems often found in the writings of the writers of Indian English fiction. On dealing with the first problem Khair marks a question i. e., “Does the novelist reproduce authentic Indian dialogue in English?” (100). Here the question arises because English is always treated as an alien language, therefore there is always remaining a gap between the written and spoken English by the Indians.

But the writer replies on his own question that English is not be compared and evaluated either on the basis of reality or on the basis of grammar. And there is no need to translate Indian language dialogue into English. Because it creates a great problem in front of the writer as we have seen in the certain works of Raja Rao, Khushwant Singh, Bharti Mukherjee, Anita Desai, and Salman Rushdie etc. All these writers faced different sets of problems and they have tried to solve the problem in their language/ narrative in their own specific ways. Such as Salman Rushdie solved his problem by trying to “evolve a seemingly pidgin Indian English that develops the tradition of literal translation into a type of artistic echo- language, a language un- English and Indian” (100). The writers like Mark Twin, Emily Bronte, Thomas Hardy and George Eliot tries to attempt the reverberation of real dialogue.

While dealing with the problem of English language in Indian society Tabish Khair is of the opinion that English emerged in India during the nineteenth century whereas there are enumerable Aryan and Dravidian schools of language prevailing in India from the time immemorial. So most of the Indian think in their mother tongue and then they translate the same in English language. It indicates that English is not a first language in India. Therefore the cultural, physical and geographical territories are yet to be established in India. Being official language no doubt it links the whole country and also country to the globe. But the problem of dialogue leads in English language in all over the country.

Even Indian English novelists like Anita Desai and Salman Rushdie also faced the problem of translation in language. Even the works of Ravindra Nath Tagore are written in Bengali Language and later translate into English. Vijay Tendulkar, Girish Cornad, Mohan Rakesh and Badal Sircar has written their plays in their respective regional languages like Marathi, Kannada, Hindi and Bengali; later on they all have been translated into English. According to Khair Rushdie, “takes the ironic pidgin English spoken sciously and very occasionally in certain middle class circles in and outside India” (102).

Salman Rushdie’s English is also a product of consciously mocking and hybridity, related to a cosmopolitan babu/ upper class generation. Actually Rushdie merged English into a new Indian language commonly known as “Angrezi”.It is an established fact that English is known as ‘Angrezi’ before Rushdie being the language of elite class society in the North India. But the treatment of Rushdie with English (Angrezi), not invented as a creation of a new language. The Babu fictions often claims on the use and mapping of dialogue or language which is Indian English spoken by Indians but it is not a very well spoken language in India. It is because India is a land of different regional languages and Hindi is the mother tongue of India. So it could not become a well-spoken and well written language in India as it is spoken in USA, Australia and the Caribbeans. Therefore, English has always been an alien language in Indian English Fiction and for the writers of Indian English Fiction and their narratives.

Khair often claims that the “ Babu and the diasporic both of whom speak or write correct and textual English try to create an English pidgin for the classes that speak English grapholect” (124). Therefore it could be said that English is always being a legitimate choice for the writers to express their thoughts. And English would be alien oneself from what actually exists in India. This is also a reason of the failure of writing Indian English. But the book does not defines any proper reason for the failure of writing Indian English and why English cannot get his specific place as Caribbean English gains from its oral heritage.

The book also focuses upon the problems of identity, language and agency. And these problems are represented in the narratives of Indian English Fiction. Khair mentioned three related issues in relation to previously discussed above mentioned issues; these issues are caste, class and gender. Babu Fictions certainly deals with the unique issue of Caste prevailing in the Indian social system which nowhere found on this earth. He has given an interesting name of the chapter which is, ‘Caste: The Hiranyagarbha syndrome’, in which he describes the severe condition of caste system prevailing in the Indian society. The title itself indicates that the caste system prevailing in India is a great issue of discussion in Indian English Fiction which can be observed through the works of Raja Rao’s Kanthapura, Mulk Raj Anand’s The Cow and the Barricades, Sudhin Bose’s The Frame of the Forest, Mahashweta Devi’s Draupadi and R. K. Nararayan’s The Financial Expert etc

The reference of Hiranyarbha syndrome is used in connection with the novels from Mulk Raj Anand to Arundhati Roy in which the central character belongs to alow class people but intertextually, spiritually and morally they are super. The term Hiranyagarbha is used in connection with soul which is hidden in the safest place in human body which can never be seen through naked eyes. However the relevance of the soul can- not be ignored for any living being. Tabish Khair is of the opinion that the so called low caste people may be treated as marginalised but their contribution in the growth and the development of Indian knowledge can- not be ignored. In Indian history great works like Vaids, Mahabharata, Ramayana and other scriptures have been written by low caste people. Shudras may be treated as slaves during the Mugal period but they have been given equal rather great deal of respect in Indian history and in the Contemporary novels also. In Indian English fictions we find centrality of downtrodden people especially in the works of Mulk Raj Anand and Arundhati Roy. In some of the novels central characters are upper caste Hindus because they represent elite class society. Irfan Habib in his Essays in Indian History has written about this typical caste system prevailing In the Indian society and Indian fiction as well. He writes,

“Caste is a fairly well marked, separate community, whose individual members are bound to each other through endogamy (and hypergamy) and very often also by a common hereditary profession or duty, actual or supposed.”(1997, 161)

Khair approaches caste as a “complex system of social stratification growing out of the three early Aryan classes (Varna): the Kshatriya (warriors/ rulers), the Brahmans (priests), and the Vis (masses)” (134). This caste system is very dominated in India. Actually caste and class are linked with each other. Therefore Khair has written that he is very much aware about the difficulties which come across the identification of caste with class. Hence Ania Looma says:

“Caste was of course a concept that becomes familiar in England from colonial experiences in India, and it marked a social, economic and religious hierarchy overlaid with connotations of purity and pollution, similar to those that shape the idea of race”.(1998, 107)

The Babus are at the highest position on the economic ladder of the society. In this particular chapter of Babu Fictions he focuses attention on Indian English literature and caste. And it also highlights how non-Babu classes to breach the cultural walls of Indian English literature.

The author claims that the Indian English focuses upon urban classes and upper caste because they represent the creamy layer of the Indian society. Khair’s discussion is dominated by Babu Vision on a pan-Indian caste system. But some writers took lower caste people in their narratives such as Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable, Raja Rao’s Javni etc. Such examples favoured the argument that the other caste is not fully ignored in Indian English Fiction. Here a question arises that all these writers are from Babu Class and they portrayed the low caste characters in their narratives. Therefore there is a kind of lack of communication seen between these two different classes. This is because how a person of high class could write properly about a class from which he is not familiar. He is does not knows the actual problems, needs and the difficulties which they have to face in their routine life. They does not belong to the sufferer class, they are Babus who certainly belongs to upper/elite class. Therefore Khair claims focussed about this, “there remains a problematic lack of independent lower-caste character in Indian English fiction” (139). Hence it could be said that lower caste people have always been a lack of proper presentation from the hands of Babu writers.

Along with the portrayal of non-Babu class from the writers of Babu Class, Babu Fictions also includes the changes and pollution arising in Indian English literature. Such as in the writings of Salman Rushdie we have an ambivalent attitude to change towards Indian socio-cultural changes. The most important reason which Khair has mentioned that, “one relates to Marx’s prognosis that industrialisation and modernisation would lead to a breakdown of the caste system” (140). Rohintan Mistry as a protagonist also narrated Indian caste system as highly exploitative in caste and class terms.

Khair has mentioned that, “Contemporary Indian English writing is a proof of irrelevance of caste in contemporary India and the irrelevance of caste in the social circles to which these authors belong” (145). Hence we have seen the certain problems faced by Babu Writers in presenting the lower caste in their narratives. And therefore sometimes these kinds of representations of lower caste from the hands of upper/ middle class looks more fictitious.

However it is not just ‘other’ castes which do not get a smooth presentation by the writers of Babu Classes in the post-colonial Indian English writing. Along with that there are also some other certain tensions which face the same sets of problems. The one of the major problem is the portrayal of villages is often seen in the Indian English writing. These Babu writers are always criticised for their negligence of Indian villages in their writings. And rural landscape still wants a legitimate justification. Perhaps the reason of this negligence of the writers is because they born and bought up in the urban cities/ towns. Therefore they took the urban issues and problems to present in their narratives. Khair has given some extracts from some specific texts of certain already mentioned writers to proof their view. But there are also some exceptions that has described/ narrated different landscapes in their narratives. Like k. R. Srinivasa Iyengar included industrial landscape in his narrative. While commenting about the Iyengar’s attitude towards the Industrial portrayal Khair writes;

“He is indicative of certain critical and creative attitudes to industrialization. On the creative side, Iyengar correctly notes the presence of embassies and clubs in the work of Jhabvala and the implicit absence of factories, car –dumps, dams, hydroelectric units etc.” (162).

Just like Iyengar, Nayantara Sahgal in The Day in Shadow, 1971 focused upon the industry of Delhi, Its locality, and residency etc. But there are some exceptions too in the Indian English writing who hardly mentioned industrial landscapes such as Raja Rao, R. k. Narayan, Bharti Mukherjee, Anita Desai and Mulk Raj Anand etc. Therefore Khair has written about these writers that who has ignored industrial landscape in their narratives, “they write about the occasional village, about small towns where strangely industry does not appear to have arrived, and the furnished drawing rooms and bedrooms” (167).

Actually there is a fact that the industrial landscape reflected in the Indian English Fiction generally places an author into certain problematic situations between several discourses. Such as R. K. Narayan deals beautifully by engraving a believable small town of human activities. He also describes clamshell of the degradation of Indian village in the colonial era. Narayan‘s writing reflects a hesitation in the representation of a ‘extreme’ industrial aspect. His Man Eater of Malgudi 1961 reflects a kind of tension between the middle class and the industrial class. English August 1986 presented a picture of hybridised landscape. Hybridised landscape is often known as a place between, a polluted industrial zone.

The displacement between gender and class is one more important issue in relation to contemporary Indian English Fiction. The author focuses our attention on the women writers; their writing technique and displacement in Indian English Fiction. Malashri Lal in her The Law of the Threshold: Women writers in Indian English argues, “Women’s personal lives are often disguised in Indian English Fiction as narratives of a depersonalised time and place” (quoted in khair 2001. 176)

When we talk about Indian women writers we could see a kind of tension between their constitution as gender subalterns and as a class subject. Hence Khair argues, “the Babu elements in Indian English Fiction in general experience a further torsion in the context of English language fiction by women writers” (177). The tension/ problem become more complicated when the status of the language is employed and the different rambling positions that it puts the writer into. The difference of class marks progressive difference in the portrayal of women. Khair brings a reading of Indian English Fiction by women as screen or open motions of subversion by the displaced gender as well as illustrates of speech by members of a well-placed class.

The fact about the Indian English women writers is that they belong to a professional Babu/ dominant class. Anita Desai is also of same opinion because according to her Indian English women writing, “Discloses the Indian English women writer in the context of her actual and much –obscured social positioning” (179). We can say that all the major highly educated and professional class writers belong to the Babu society of Indian English Literature. So it has widened the gap between economic and cultural status. Therefore, Tabish Khair has noted that, “these place the Indian English women writer in a place of power and dominance” (179). But in spite of belonging a highly educated, professional and dominating class, their gender comes across as a tension/ problem in their representations. Their gender displaced them to own their socio-economic power of the class to which she belongs. Because we all know India is a male dominating country since a long time. And the lives of these female writers are still controlled by men.

Therefore we find a dilemma and tension related to their identity, gender and about their alienated condition in the society in their narratives such as Sashi Deshpande in The Dark Holds No Terrors reveals the great Indian dilemma related to identity of women in male dominated Indian society. While raising the question of refinement and reality Khair said that within the definite territories of Babu Society in concern of Indian English literature from the hands of women writers, the leading protagonist shares the qualities of Babu Stardom along with a superior degree of refinement/ sensitivity. Such as in the portrayal of Anita Desai we have seen an ‘aestheticism’. And the character carries the quality of an ideal and sentimental removal that reflected an alienated experience. Khair has noted that this kind of alienation brings dangers of community and isolation. Keeping in the mind to Anita Desai there are three major elements which bring alienation. The first one is the ‘danger’ as a perception of connection. The second is ‘desire’/ ‘wish’ to connect her own terms and the feel of realization which is unlikely to happen. The third one is the falling as a defence. These steps works as a turning away is a physical enactment of an operation of aesthetics in the Indian English writing by women writers (183).

There are some more examples of women writing in Indian English Fiction who faces the same sets of problems in their narratives. Such as Anita Desai’s Fire on The Mountain (the central figure is clearly disdainful), Where Shall We Go This Summer (shows an image of crowd as a terror and it is often a reflection of low class people with the help of animal imagery). Bharti Mukherjee and Nayantara Sahgal reflected an implicit distinction between the people. These kinds of writers have done this on the basis of innate culture. This concept of culture (refinement) is essentially a demarcation within the class.

Many of leading characters of Nayantara Sahgal, Bharati Mukherjee and Sashi Deshpande reflect an opposition just like Anita Desai, which connects in an interesting way with another middle class humanist element that characterises the central protagonist. Anita Desai’s Cry, The Peacock 1968, Nayantara Sahgal’s The Day in Shadow 1971, Bharati Mukherjee’s Wife 1975, are based on the structure on a humanist and Babu Class concept which is the ‘individual’ and the ‘essential’. Bharti Mukherjee’s novel presents a distinction between themselves and other.

Here the question rises why these writers mostly portrayed such kind of characters, who always forced to feel and create distinction. These protagonists create an atmosphere of incorporation and marginalization of women in Indian socio-cultural society. According to Khair, “this tension remains distinctive of Indian English Fiction by women” (178). And the “domination of women in a largely patriarchal society should not be taken to apply to all Indian women regardless their class and caste positioning” (187). The portrayal of female characters in the writings of Salman Rushdie, Nayantara Sahgal, Anita Desai, Hanif Kureishi, and Bharati Mukherjee reflects that female empowerment is primarily associated with the educational and cultural factors. The chapter mainly defines the speeches of the members of a privileged babu Class.

The above discussion especially of female writers and their portrayal indicates the fact about the myth noted by some definite kinds of Babu Fictions. And this fiction shares both a national middle class and colonial location. The first one is the traditional discourses of caste and the second is the modern discourses of class in constituting Babu Realities. According to Khair, “gender tension that often prevents Indian English women writers from accepting the Babu Bourgeois codes of achievement” (195). This is true that the place of Indian English women is not one of the privilege in comparison to their male writers. Therefore they need to effort to speak up from a subaltern gender position.

Subsequently Babu Fictions defines the different ways of narration of certain Babu writers in Indian English Fiction such as, Raja Rao, R. K. Narayan, V. S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie. Tabish Khair addresses some general areas of their writings, tension and occlusion of the discursive narrations of these four major writers. All these writers share a confined Babu Fields of discourses and experiences. Khair has noted about the discussion on their ways of narrating. To quote:

“The chapters outline the variance within Babu Identities across temporal and spatial distances, while also underlining the fact that these variations are aspects of the same Babu-Coolie relationship, of the common activity of alienation” (197).

In the writings of Raja Rao we find the experience of the two prominent periods of Indian English Fiction, Because Raja Rao is a writer of colonial/ post-colonial period. He belongs to an upper caste Babu class but he has given voice to the Subalterns and marginals. Khair has noted Rao’s two major ways of narration of the writing style of Raja Rao. (1) Raja Rao was a Subaltern who speaks up for certain realities of India, Which was behind the curtain since the colonial period. (2) Being an upper caste Babu Rao located certain institutional ideological location related to the Indian realities.

Raja Rao raised his voice for marginal, who are marginalised in the process of colonization and modernisation. He has done this with the help of Sanskritised/ texualised elements. And his language is dabbled largely with these elements. Therefore he uses these elements in his narratives. According to khair, “Rao combined the both the orientalist and Hindu reformist perceptions of India as degraded over the centuries” (205).

Tabish Khair describes the techniques and qualities of Rao’s narration with the help of his certain texts as examples. He has portrayed ‘alienation’ from the society and from the family in many of his writings Such as Javni, The Little Gram Shop etc. Alienation affected the lives of the protagonists of his narratives in many ways. As The Little Gram Shop represents the story of a person exiled from his birth place, his relatives, home, Son and moreover from himself. As we have already mentioned Rao’s narrative technique is characterises by the Sanskritized philosophical approach to India which makes him enable to narrate India’s rich and lively portrayal of Brahmin- Sanskrit traditions. According to Khair Rao’s “Gandhian tendencies combine with his class and caste affiliations to create an India” (222).

R. K. Narayan also shares a Brahminical background Like Raja Rao. Narayan also speak for a certain silenced Indian middle class. There are certain common aspects of Rao’s and Narayan’s writing like they both give their voice to certain Indian class and they both are Subaltern and Brahmin and a post/colonial Babu. Narayans’s writing is not only Babuized but also greatly Brahminical in its social setting. But the fact is Narayan is concerned with the Brahminical culture only when it encounters with middle class. Khair has noted the quality of Narayan’s fiction while saying, “the reality of Narayan’s fiction as experienced from a Brahminical/ upper caste perspective by individuals involved in the secular business of living in a more or less urban (modern) setting”(227).

R. K. Narayan does not make claim while presenting the coolie speech. He describes the real structure of a confessedly Brahminical, middle class and small town. His Malgudi is the best example of this kind of techniques. Many of his characters belong to a traditional, middle class family and they also reflect ‘alienation’ as a result of the influence of stronger characters. Most of the protagonists of his novels reflect a degree of existential self- estrangement. Most of the time the leading protagonists of Narayan’s narratives are directed by other. Sometimes this other directness brings existential ‘alienation’.

Actually Narayan’s Fiction is a placement of an upper caste Babu in a post-colonial context. Hence Khair commented that, “both privileged and Subalternity in his case, as in that of Rao, can be located in the terms Brahminized and Babu. However, neither has Babu been a static concept nor is the Brahmin/ized Hindu the only kind of Babu” (240).

But there is a fact that the New Babu writers are quite different from the earlier writers such as the writings of Raja Rao and R. K. Narayan are different from the writings of the writers of the Contemporary age. These writers of contemporary age are not overtly Brahminized and Sanskritized and highly cosmopolitan, like V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Upamanyu Chatterjee, G. V. Desani and Anita Desai etc. Such as Khair has defined, the relationship between V. S. Naipaul’s art and his ‘alienation’. Khair has placed some particular discursive structures which took place in Naipaul’s narration.

V. S. Naipaul is often called an Indian English writer but many of his writings reflect that west as a part of Indian English literature courses. But in fact there are certain writers who are living in abroad since a long time such as Raja Rao, Salman Rushdie, Anita Desai, Meera Syal and Nirad C. Chaudhary. This is the reason that Naipaul has less knowledge of Indian languages but still he is writing about Indian language, culture and traditions. Therefore here we find a kind of alienation in his writings. Some times in the terms of language. But we can not deny with the fact that in spite of these drawbacks Naipaul is an excellent writer of Indian- Caribbean writing. And he is one of the authors in the study of ‘alienation’ in Indian English fiction. Khair has noted on this, “in order to highlight the pitfalls of the kind of thinking that enables Naipaul to hold centre stage as an expert on India and Indians” (244).

But there is also the recognition of the discursive structures in Naipaul makes him able to narrate his world in our world. And therefore he continues to be taught in courses of Indian English literature in abroad and he becomes an expert for Indian and Eastern. While reading of Salman Rushdie we have seen certain colonial- metropolitan discursive structures encountered and removed postcolonial newness, openness, multiplicity and hybridity. Rushdie privileged newness. He has given the answers of certain Naipaul’s discourse.

There is a common thinking about Rushdie that here is the ‘celebration of newness’. Some elements are often celebrated in his writings like controversy between authenticity/ mimicry, old/ new celebration, and centre/ margin. His idea of ‘migration’ is well reflected in his Shame 1983.The second version of Shame reflected Rushdie’s ‘Worldview of multiplicity’. One of the finest quality of his writing is he goes beyond the dualities along with staying within discourses.

Here is one more Contemporary writer who explored the disjunction of Babus and Coolies. As Khair claims; “writings of Amitav Ghosh reflect Babu-Coolie disjunction marks a socio-economic and linguistic line of division” (303). Ghosh vanished from direct encounter with colonial discourse. There are certain issues of colonial discourse which often found in the writings of Amitav Ghosh such as Ir/ rationality, In/ comprehensibility and lack of History (divisibility). His works deal with the people of different class, religion and regions. In many of his works he connects the obscured, unknown and dichotomized parts of the Orient.

Khair commented on his presentation of coolies, “Ghosh tries to tackle the issue of agency and alienation but the language of his creativity presents a dilemma of presenting Coolie agency” (330). His The Calcutta Chromosome being a novel reflects the strategies of suggestiveness and ambivalence of creative writing for the management of Subaltern agency.

The complete analysis/ discussion of Babu Fictions highlight some issues. The first one is the Contemporary Indian English fiction is presented with the element of alienation in it either in terms of treatment of language or in the terms of class division. And the authors discussed in Babu Fictions by Tabish Khair are certainly talked about the psycho, socio and cultural condition on account of alienation. Most of them belong to an upper caste Babu class. And in their writings they are talking about the low caste Coolies class of India.

Therefore the question rises here that how the writers of Babu Class write properly about the sufferings, experiences, problems and pain of Coolie class which they have not faced in their lives and they are not familiar. In another words we could say that it is a kind of dishonesty in the representation of this particular low class of the society. So the first and foremost issue is how these Babu mostly Urban/ Westernised/ Brahminized/ English speaking Babu Class could write properly about the psychology of non or less Brahminized/ non Westernised/ non or less English speaking Coolie Class. But we can- not deny the fact that this writer raises his voice for a particular silenced class of Indian society.

The second issue is, in the opening pages of Babu Fictions Tabish Khair mentioned that the book brings the study of Contemporary Indian writing in English. And it also sets out to study that how it is possible to write in English about people who often speak less/ no English. But we all know that in India the standard of English Education is not up to the mark. The people living in rural areas are not able to understand even the common words of day to day life of English language. So in that condition when they are not able to understand properly the English newspapers or magazines, how would they comprehend and follow the creative works of these eminent writers. Therefore we could say that these writers have written for their pleasure, and satisfaction. And they have adopted the language in which they are comfortable. Not for the people of little or no English speaking Coolie Class.

The central issue of the book is ‘alienation’ and ‘class division’. Both the words are directly related to the concept of anti-colonial discourse. The book talks about the alienation in terms of language. The word reflects a great importance in the life of a diaspora writer Such as Raja Rao, R. K. Narayan, V. S. Naipaul, and Salman Rushdie and Tabish khair. These writers employed the term in their writings in different ways.

Babu Fictions focuses upon the word ‘alienation’ with reference to certain writers and with the help of their certain texts as examples. The portrayal of ‘alienation’ in the narratives is very old tradition in the Indian English literature. And Tabish Khair is the predecessor of this tradition. Actually Babu Fictions is a study of Contemporary Indian English writing in English and the target audience is certain middle class or less English speaking class.

The book defines ‘alienation’ in the terms of language not in the terms of narratives and it also highlights severe condition of ‘class conflict’ underpinned in the Indian society. Class and Caste are interrelated terms and both affect each other. These writers of Babu class deal with the issues such as alienation, caste, class, Gender, Hybridity, Rhetoric of exile, Industrial landscape, Identity and Language in their narratives. And they have employed low class people as their characters or protagonists to portray such kind of issues whereas the experiences of these characters become the source of the development of the narratives.

Babu Fictions essentially deals with the narration of ‘alienation’ in terms of treatment of language. But Khair also highlights some major aspects which brings alienation in the society. Such as while talking about Anita Desai Khair mentions the elements which brings ‘alienation’ more specifically in the women narratives. The portrayal of alienation from the society and from the family is very depicting in Raja Rao’s Javni and in The Little Gram Shop.Class division is a prominent signifier of racism. Early it was based upon the colour of the people as White people were considered as superior to Blacks. Subsequently the thinking became change the Indian society was divided on the basis of ethnicity, caste, and on the social, religious and economy.

Hence it is foremly mentioned that class division became one of the prominent and primary signifier of racism and racism is one of the important and major characteristic features of Ant-Colonial Discourse. And the racial superiority can easily be translated into the terms of class. But there is also a fact that the racism was not determined merely by economic distinctions, rather economic differences are determined by the ideologies of the class.

The description of certain Contemporary writers with the help of their narratives approaches towards Anti-Colonial Discourse, because they certainly employed the above mentioned issues more specifically the ‘alienation’ and ‘class conflict’ in their narratives. And these issues are effectively involved in the concept of anti-colonial discourse. Hence we can say that Babu Fictions is an ultimate example of Anti-Colonial Discourse.