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India Trilogy #3
India: A Million Mutinies Now
A look at India explores the ways different individuals have been affected by the numerous frictions present in Indian society, the contradictions and compromises of religious faith, and more. Reprint. NYT.
480 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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3,926 people want to read
About the author
V.S. Naipaul
138Ìýbooks1,720ÌýfollowersV. S. Naipaul was a British writer of Indo-Trinidadian descent known for his sharp, often controversial explorations of postcolonial societies, identity, and displacement. His works, which include both fiction and nonfiction, often depict themes of exile, cultural alienation, and the lingering effects of colonialism.
He gained early recognition with A House for Mr Biswas, a novel inspired by his father’s struggles in Trinidad. His later works, such as The Mimic Men, In a Free State, and A Bend in the River, cemented his reputation as a masterful and incisive writer. Beyond fiction, his travelogues and essays, including Among the Believers and India: A Million Mutinies Now, reflected his critical perspective on societies in transition.
Naipaul received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded for his ability to blend deep observation with literary artistry. While praised for his prose, his often unsparing portrayals of postcolonial nations and controversial statements sparked both admiration and criticism.
He gained early recognition with A House for Mr Biswas, a novel inspired by his father’s struggles in Trinidad. His later works, such as The Mimic Men, In a Free State, and A Bend in the River, cemented his reputation as a masterful and incisive writer. Beyond fiction, his travelogues and essays, including Among the Believers and India: A Million Mutinies Now, reflected his critical perspective on societies in transition.
Naipaul received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded for his ability to blend deep observation with literary artistry. While praised for his prose, his often unsparing portrayals of postcolonial nations and controversial statements sparked both admiration and criticism.
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November 18, 2013
Two months ago, I’d lemmed this book in frustration and declared passionately on GR that this was the only book I’d abandoned so far with the clear intention of never picking it up. Now you can see that I’ve not only finished it in a day, but also given it a hefty 4 star rating. And that too to Naipaul, a vocal critic of India who later diversified and expanded his tirades against female authors recently.
This book is India personified (bookified?)
Don’t expect it to arrest you with either facts or style. Don’t expect to understand it, and certainly refrain from trying to gauge the direction it is headed in. I lemmed it earlier because I made the same mistake with the book that I’d done with India years earlier. I’d tried to comprehend the whole by looking at a part of it.
No, go with the flow. Take in every chapter without trying to form an opinion. Because every single episode is a personal story, a story ridden with all the chaos India is, but from a closer, and therefore, a much narrower view. To understand and appreciate India, you need to be an Eagle that circles for hours over a large landscape patiently, gradually, imperceptibly zooming in towards the earth in wide, slow gliding movements until you’re ready to swoop upon the target of your choice. Look at India from a giddying height where you can capture the view of the entire land, and you’ll miss out on the nuances that characterize the intricate threads of a maddening world. Zoom in real close, and you’ll notice all the fine weaves, but without the advantage of a fair, panoramic view.
Thus, I chose to give Naipaul a second try, with less expectations this time and more sincerity. To my delight, I didn’t find the Naipaul I’d imagined (this was my first brush with him) � not a caustic Paul Theroux, but a silent and deeply perceptive observer.
Naipaul had earlier visited India in 1962. 26 years later, in 1988, he returned to the place and began his journey from Mumbai, and in this book, unlike either a travelogue/memoir or a historical/sociological analysis, he simply, plainly records the conversations with the people he met not fleetingly, but for days on end, and relates their past stories and present dilemmas as they intersect with the history of India. Through these interesting, widely different stories, we get a glimpse into personalized accounts of the events in different states that formed the backdrop of their lives, and altered the lives of millions of people, and the incompatibilities that plague a diverse and cluttered country.
Partha Chatterjee wrote an amazing essay titled Indian Nation in Heterogeneous Time, deriving his ideas from Benedict Anderson’s brilliant book “Imagined Communities� � I kept on thinking of it all the time. Not only is India a country with fractured multiple identities, it also suffers from living simultaneously in multiple times. I think it necessary to give a little background to explain why India suffers from a Multiple Personality Disorder. Those who wish to skip it need not open the spoiler tag.
It is in the light of such complicated histories that Naipaul tries to dissect a home that is no longer his home. While in Mumbai, he encounters the extremist political wing called Shiv Sena (The Army of Lord Shiv) that controls Maharashtra by its goons, aiming to revive a conservative Marathi culture and driving away non-Marathis. Fraught with violence and under-dog cultures, Naipaul’s keen observation of the dialogues he has with several people is impeccable. With time, he also meets the controversial Dalit poet and activist, Namdeo Dhasal who modeled his Dalit Panther movement on the Black Panther movement in America.
In Chennai he learns the history of the now-forgotten Periyar Self-Respect Movement that was launched in opposition to Gandhi, and which is still a foundation for the North-South divide. There are valuable insights through the conversations he had, into why the South is such a distinct part of India, why it largely resists adopting Hindi, the official language of India, and why it had little part in supporting the pan-India Congress agitation for Independence under Gandhi.
In Calcutta he meets an ex-Maoist/Marxist, an educated, disillusioned man who sheds light over the delicate state of Bengal, and why the Chinese Maoism had a peculiar influence on the state.
In Lucknow, an ex-Prince laments the sudden cultural change when the British left India to empty the Nawabs (Nabobs for the English) under Independent India, and the pains of Partition. With the exit of the British, the Nawabs lost their sleep, and with Indira Gandhi’s regime, they also lost their lands and hefty pensions. The Nawabs suddenly became commoners, and with the Indo-Pakistan war in 1962, the Nawabs finally lost the last vestiges of their former life, realizing that India had suddenly leaped too far ahead into the future for them to cope up with it.
And then in Punjab, Naipaul learns of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 after two Sikh bodyguards assassinated the then Indian Prime Minister, the controversial lady Indira Gandhi. His conversations with a devout Sikh describes how the Sikhs were a segment of the erstwhile Hindu culture, later becoming a religion itself, and the clashes over the Golden Temple issue that culminated into the assassination, followed by anti-Sikh riots that still reverberated with devout Sikhs.
There’s an another interesting chapter in the book, somewhat of a misfit, but yet very apt. Naipaul looks at the various women’s magazines in India, meeting their editors, and listening to their stories of the inception of the mags and their targeted readers, exploring what feminism, in oblique, everyday terms, means to women in India. Tracing the journey and content of the magazines, Naipaul, without concluding, leaves open a fresh field to ponder over.
I’d, however, pinned my hopes on the last chapter � the Kashmir one, where he visits the hotel he had been to earlier, and meets the same people, again prying out their personal histories intertwined with the violent history of the state. I’d wished to know his perspective on the delicate state of Kashmir, a state that had a Muslim population very peacefully governed by a Hindu king, hastily merged into India as it prepared for the Indo-Pak partition on the eve of Independence, while Pakistan playing bloody truant to get hold of it by extremist attacks, spurring non-Muslims to desert the state. Since 1947, Pakistan has annexed a large part of the State, and has been resorting to violent means to grab the rest of the state as well.
But none of that is talked about in the chapter. Rather, it is focused on his friendship with the hotel owners, and on their stories how lives and lifestyles have changed for them with every generation. It is a delicate, heart-warming piece, but the star of the show is missing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Essentially, this book isn’t just one more opinion on India by a foreigner/PIO. Rather, like most of us, Naipaul is still evidently in the process of making sense of the wide array of experiences and diverse histories. Rather than making hasty, ill-informed conclusions, he navigates through their stories with the eye of a keen observer, absorbing quietly what is offered to him without compartmentalizing it.
Reading it is the best hands-on example to not just a foreigner, but also the natives of countries as complicated as ours on how to approach understanding a place. Unlike most people, Naipaul does not falter into making convenient assumptions that gratify his impressions, a malaise most Indians suffer from � they neatly compartmentalize every single issue plaguing the country, right from AIDS to poverty to prostitution to insurgency to terrorism to caste/untouchability to caste-based reservation in jobs and education without ever having had even a single personal experience about the issues.
And Heaven forbid if they happen to have accumulated a couple of experiences � they turn them into grave proclamations of life-long deep association and understanding and blow their trumpets of authority and expertise.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I reached the end of this book, I noticed similarities between Naipaul and me � like me, he shared a racial affinity to a country he belongs to only superficially. Like him, my life consists of physical remnants of my race, my ethnicity, my customs and my negligible, empty rituals that do not make any sense to me, and yet are an integral part of my identity, by virtue of long association and subsequently, some fond, some not-so-fond memories.
Like Naipaul, I stare hard at the India at my disposal to make sense of it, hoping I can, by that act, make sense of myself and the happenings around me. By understanding India, I hope to understand the weird place accorded to me by the Indian society that I detest but cannot escape. Naipaul keeps on visiting India in his quest to comprehend the country he has left behind, but which remains in him. I keep on reading about our past and present in the hope of discovering what ails me, why things happen the way they do, and what I might do about it or at least make peace with it.
Neither of us is charmed by the land. More than anything, perhaps, we are put off by it. Fascinated? Yes. Interested? Heavily. But did we enjoy the process? No. Discerning patterns among a chaotic, blood-soaked and violence-infested history, especially when the past intrudes upon our present is a difficult task.
It is not only pain we encounter, but a continuous challenge � that of maintaining a near-impossible impartial view on history, and subsequently the discourse of ethics that accompanies an evaluation of history, one’s own history. Naipaul, I’m glad, has managed to efface his own interpretations of his trip, and I absolutely adore him for that rare, elusive quality of not intruding over and distorting the conversations he has recorded. And I’m learning to follow in his footsteps.
Note, however, that these are only a handful of the millions of mutinies taking place in India every moment, even as I write. Naipaul has touched only a tiny minority of them, the most obvious ones - it is not a criticism, but only an observation on the book.
Moreover, the book is appreciated better only when you have a reasonably fair, if not deep, idea of key events in Indian histories, and the various issues at hand, apart from the much publicized ones of poverty or gender or religious clashes. Without that, I suspect, this would be reduced to a two-star experience for many.
Also, better not touch this book if you're not keen on reading interesting but detached personal stories and wish for a properly investigated sociological account - on that count, Pavan K. Varma's is impeccable and exemplary. If you are a Middle-Class Indian unable to come to terms with the nonsense around you, this book will tell you where all this drama started.
And a little second note: - 25 years have passed since this book was written, and it has become somewhat dated, with emphasis on somewhat .
This book is India personified (bookified?)
Don’t expect it to arrest you with either facts or style. Don’t expect to understand it, and certainly refrain from trying to gauge the direction it is headed in. I lemmed it earlier because I made the same mistake with the book that I’d done with India years earlier. I’d tried to comprehend the whole by looking at a part of it.
No, go with the flow. Take in every chapter without trying to form an opinion. Because every single episode is a personal story, a story ridden with all the chaos India is, but from a closer, and therefore, a much narrower view. To understand and appreciate India, you need to be an Eagle that circles for hours over a large landscape patiently, gradually, imperceptibly zooming in towards the earth in wide, slow gliding movements until you’re ready to swoop upon the target of your choice. Look at India from a giddying height where you can capture the view of the entire land, and you’ll miss out on the nuances that characterize the intricate threads of a maddening world. Zoom in real close, and you’ll notice all the fine weaves, but without the advantage of a fair, panoramic view.
Thus, I chose to give Naipaul a second try, with less expectations this time and more sincerity. To my delight, I didn’t find the Naipaul I’d imagined (this was my first brush with him) � not a caustic Paul Theroux, but a silent and deeply perceptive observer.
Naipaul had earlier visited India in 1962. 26 years later, in 1988, he returned to the place and began his journey from Mumbai, and in this book, unlike either a travelogue/memoir or a historical/sociological analysis, he simply, plainly records the conversations with the people he met not fleetingly, but for days on end, and relates their past stories and present dilemmas as they intersect with the history of India. Through these interesting, widely different stories, we get a glimpse into personalized accounts of the events in different states that formed the backdrop of their lives, and altered the lives of millions of people, and the incompatibilities that plague a diverse and cluttered country.
Partha Chatterjee wrote an amazing essay titled Indian Nation in Heterogeneous Time, deriving his ideas from Benedict Anderson’s brilliant book “Imagined Communities� � I kept on thinking of it all the time. Not only is India a country with fractured multiple identities, it also suffers from living simultaneously in multiple times. I think it necessary to give a little background to explain why India suffers from a Multiple Personality Disorder. Those who wish to skip it need not open the spoiler tag.
It is in the light of such complicated histories that Naipaul tries to dissect a home that is no longer his home. While in Mumbai, he encounters the extremist political wing called Shiv Sena (The Army of Lord Shiv) that controls Maharashtra by its goons, aiming to revive a conservative Marathi culture and driving away non-Marathis. Fraught with violence and under-dog cultures, Naipaul’s keen observation of the dialogues he has with several people is impeccable. With time, he also meets the controversial Dalit poet and activist, Namdeo Dhasal who modeled his Dalit Panther movement on the Black Panther movement in America.
In Chennai he learns the history of the now-forgotten Periyar Self-Respect Movement that was launched in opposition to Gandhi, and which is still a foundation for the North-South divide. There are valuable insights through the conversations he had, into why the South is such a distinct part of India, why it largely resists adopting Hindi, the official language of India, and why it had little part in supporting the pan-India Congress agitation for Independence under Gandhi.
In Calcutta he meets an ex-Maoist/Marxist, an educated, disillusioned man who sheds light over the delicate state of Bengal, and why the Chinese Maoism had a peculiar influence on the state.
In Lucknow, an ex-Prince laments the sudden cultural change when the British left India to empty the Nawabs (Nabobs for the English) under Independent India, and the pains of Partition. With the exit of the British, the Nawabs lost their sleep, and with Indira Gandhi’s regime, they also lost their lands and hefty pensions. The Nawabs suddenly became commoners, and with the Indo-Pakistan war in 1962, the Nawabs finally lost the last vestiges of their former life, realizing that India had suddenly leaped too far ahead into the future for them to cope up with it.
And then in Punjab, Naipaul learns of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 after two Sikh bodyguards assassinated the then Indian Prime Minister, the controversial lady Indira Gandhi. His conversations with a devout Sikh describes how the Sikhs were a segment of the erstwhile Hindu culture, later becoming a religion itself, and the clashes over the Golden Temple issue that culminated into the assassination, followed by anti-Sikh riots that still reverberated with devout Sikhs.
There’s an another interesting chapter in the book, somewhat of a misfit, but yet very apt. Naipaul looks at the various women’s magazines in India, meeting their editors, and listening to their stories of the inception of the mags and their targeted readers, exploring what feminism, in oblique, everyday terms, means to women in India. Tracing the journey and content of the magazines, Naipaul, without concluding, leaves open a fresh field to ponder over.
I’d, however, pinned my hopes on the last chapter � the Kashmir one, where he visits the hotel he had been to earlier, and meets the same people, again prying out their personal histories intertwined with the violent history of the state. I’d wished to know his perspective on the delicate state of Kashmir, a state that had a Muslim population very peacefully governed by a Hindu king, hastily merged into India as it prepared for the Indo-Pak partition on the eve of Independence, while Pakistan playing bloody truant to get hold of it by extremist attacks, spurring non-Muslims to desert the state. Since 1947, Pakistan has annexed a large part of the State, and has been resorting to violent means to grab the rest of the state as well.
But none of that is talked about in the chapter. Rather, it is focused on his friendship with the hotel owners, and on their stories how lives and lifestyles have changed for them with every generation. It is a delicate, heart-warming piece, but the star of the show is missing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Essentially, this book isn’t just one more opinion on India by a foreigner/PIO. Rather, like most of us, Naipaul is still evidently in the process of making sense of the wide array of experiences and diverse histories. Rather than making hasty, ill-informed conclusions, he navigates through their stories with the eye of a keen observer, absorbing quietly what is offered to him without compartmentalizing it.
Reading it is the best hands-on example to not just a foreigner, but also the natives of countries as complicated as ours on how to approach understanding a place. Unlike most people, Naipaul does not falter into making convenient assumptions that gratify his impressions, a malaise most Indians suffer from � they neatly compartmentalize every single issue plaguing the country, right from AIDS to poverty to prostitution to insurgency to terrorism to caste/untouchability to caste-based reservation in jobs and education without ever having had even a single personal experience about the issues.
And Heaven forbid if they happen to have accumulated a couple of experiences � they turn them into grave proclamations of life-long deep association and understanding and blow their trumpets of authority and expertise.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I reached the end of this book, I noticed similarities between Naipaul and me � like me, he shared a racial affinity to a country he belongs to only superficially. Like him, my life consists of physical remnants of my race, my ethnicity, my customs and my negligible, empty rituals that do not make any sense to me, and yet are an integral part of my identity, by virtue of long association and subsequently, some fond, some not-so-fond memories.
Like Naipaul, I stare hard at the India at my disposal to make sense of it, hoping I can, by that act, make sense of myself and the happenings around me. By understanding India, I hope to understand the weird place accorded to me by the Indian society that I detest but cannot escape. Naipaul keeps on visiting India in his quest to comprehend the country he has left behind, but which remains in him. I keep on reading about our past and present in the hope of discovering what ails me, why things happen the way they do, and what I might do about it or at least make peace with it.
Neither of us is charmed by the land. More than anything, perhaps, we are put off by it. Fascinated? Yes. Interested? Heavily. But did we enjoy the process? No. Discerning patterns among a chaotic, blood-soaked and violence-infested history, especially when the past intrudes upon our present is a difficult task.
It is not only pain we encounter, but a continuous challenge � that of maintaining a near-impossible impartial view on history, and subsequently the discourse of ethics that accompanies an evaluation of history, one’s own history. Naipaul, I’m glad, has managed to efface his own interpretations of his trip, and I absolutely adore him for that rare, elusive quality of not intruding over and distorting the conversations he has recorded. And I’m learning to follow in his footsteps.
Note, however, that these are only a handful of the millions of mutinies taking place in India every moment, even as I write. Naipaul has touched only a tiny minority of them, the most obvious ones - it is not a criticism, but only an observation on the book.
Moreover, the book is appreciated better only when you have a reasonably fair, if not deep, idea of key events in Indian histories, and the various issues at hand, apart from the much publicized ones of poverty or gender or religious clashes. Without that, I suspect, this would be reduced to a two-star experience for many.
Also, better not touch this book if you're not keen on reading interesting but detached personal stories and wish for a properly investigated sociological account - on that count, Pavan K. Varma's is impeccable and exemplary. If you are a Middle-Class Indian unable to come to terms with the nonsense around you, this book will tell you where all this drama started.
And a little second note: - 25 years have passed since this book was written, and it has become somewhat dated, with emphasis on somewhat .
February 29, 2024
Naipaul returned to India in 1988, and redeemed his earlier dispirited account from the Emergency of 1975. "A Million Mutinies Now" is the final volume in the trilogy. At over 600 pages this memoir dwarfs the previous two in length and depth. The bitter vision of his earlier travels is distilled into a more mature outlook. While still surgical in his scrutiny, Naipaul now has empathy and restraint.
The story is told through a series of interviews which weave a fabric of Indian life near the turn of the millennium. Jain trader, Muslim goon, Hindu gangster, Brahmin holy man, a Bollywood writer, Dalit Panther and many others get their due. Beginning in Mumbai, Naipaul flew south to post-colonial Goa, drove east to pre-tech Bangalore and on to Chennai, Calcutta, Lucknow and Kashmir.
There is a dramatic evolution since the initial volume "An Area of Darkness". That was a deeply personal, idiosyncratic view of India by an outsider experiencing a cultural shock. In many ways it was a much more engaging account because it involved his singular viewpoints. Here he is a dispassionate observer, reporting on the lives of others without satire or irony. Sadly, it is less interesting.
In this book Naipaul has exorcised his demons and dispelled the darkness of his decades long journey. Religion, politics, history, architecture, food and friends; nothing was too great or small to escape his notice. The Nobel prize has recognized that his travel literature spanned continents and illuminated the aftermath of empires but above all celebrated the people he met along the way.
The story is told through a series of interviews which weave a fabric of Indian life near the turn of the millennium. Jain trader, Muslim goon, Hindu gangster, Brahmin holy man, a Bollywood writer, Dalit Panther and many others get their due. Beginning in Mumbai, Naipaul flew south to post-colonial Goa, drove east to pre-tech Bangalore and on to Chennai, Calcutta, Lucknow and Kashmir.
There is a dramatic evolution since the initial volume "An Area of Darkness". That was a deeply personal, idiosyncratic view of India by an outsider experiencing a cultural shock. In many ways it was a much more engaging account because it involved his singular viewpoints. Here he is a dispassionate observer, reporting on the lives of others without satire or irony. Sadly, it is less interesting.
In this book Naipaul has exorcised his demons and dispelled the darkness of his decades long journey. Religion, politics, history, architecture, food and friends; nothing was too great or small to escape his notice. The Nobel prize has recognized that his travel literature spanned continents and illuminated the aftermath of empires but above all celebrated the people he met along the way.
October 30, 2007
This is the third book on India by V.S.Naipaul and certainly the most conciliatory one of the three. His earlier books on India were written when Naipaul himself was much younger and perhaps as a result were more scathing and critical of India's negatives. But this book shows a certain mellow tone and compassion. He writes about the 'rage' of each community and caste and religion in India and perceptively observes that one's own rage and historical injustice suffered is more important than other groups' rage and injustices. Still, he manages to talk to far-left revolutionaries, Dalits (the untouchables), semi-fascists and religious upper caste Brahmins and all else and present an interesting mosaic of India today, that is, the India of 1991, when it was written.
Naipaul often evokes strong resentment among Indians, particularly upper caste Indians, about the incisive and critical eye he casts on India's major failings. This book is no exception but it is a must read for all Indians who want to see themselves more objectively. Non-Indians also should find it an absorbing book in bringing the complexities inherent in today's India's march towards greater economic prosperity.
Naipaul often evokes strong resentment among Indians, particularly upper caste Indians, about the incisive and critical eye he casts on India's major failings. This book is no exception but it is a must read for all Indians who want to see themselves more objectively. Non-Indians also should find it an absorbing book in bringing the complexities inherent in today's India's march towards greater economic prosperity.
June 28, 2022
A Million Mutinies Now is an enormous book (both in size and scope) about Naipaul's travels across India some time in the early 90s.
Naipaul arrives in Bombay, where he discusses the rise of the Shiv Sena (a fundamentalist Marathi Hindu political party), meets a disillusioned Muslim youth in Muhammad Ali road and finally interviews Namdeo Dhansal (the famous Dalit leader and poet) and his wife Mallika. Naipaul must have excellent communication skills (though people describe him as a misanthrope)because it is really interesting how various Shiv Sena leaders and Dhansal's wife open up to Naipaul and discuss their whole lives with him (he did have a translator). Naipaul's deductions are sharp and give us a lot of insight into why Bombay is the way it is.
Naipaul disagrees with the general opinion among Indian intellectuals and the media that the Shiv Sena are fascists. He argues that the Sena should be seen as a group of people asserting themselves and getting in touch with their history thereby realizing who they actually are. He sees them as part of an awakening in India. I do not know how to analyze this view as my knowledge about the Sena and Bombay politics are close to nil. I found it to be an interesting view, nonetheless.
After Bombay, Naipaul travels to Madras where he meets a few Brahmins. He is interested in them because their fathers were Hindu priests while they became neuro scientists - he sees this as self improvement. He then discuses the role of Periyar (the anti-Hindu and anti-Brahmin leader of mid-caste Dravidians) in energizing mid-caste Dravidian youth. He sees the DMK (Dravida Munetta Kazhalam) as being a slight failure but nonetheless recognizes the following it enjoyed in the South.
He travels to West Bengal and is unimpressed by the decay of Calcutta. He says the communist party has had a stultifying effect on the city. He also interviews a few middle class Naxal leaders and takes a sympathetic view of them.
Then he heads to Punjab and tries to find out about the origins of Sikh separatism and terrorism. He interviews a few people who were directly in touch with Bindranwalla. He tries to analyze the movement by connecting it with certain aspects of Sikhism.
A Million Mutinies Now is pretty epic in scope and Naipaul's predictions of India's rise came true. It was useful for some one like me who is not familiar with various movements that took place in India after 1947. Naipaul makes comparisons between the various movements and the 1857 Sepoy mutiny. He also discusses in detail the book written by William Howard Russel about his travels across India during the mutiny.
Naipaul takes a favorable view of the country's economic development and thinks India will be restored to its former greatness under the security of the Indian Union.
I wonder what he would say about India now. But he said somewhere that he had already given his last interview about India. Naipaul is someone who has a terrible view of India's history and he might argue that the current situation in India is a lot better than the past when it was continuously invaded by outside forces. I am merely guessing. I wish Naipaul was still around debating with Arundhati Roy and Ramachandra Guha. It would have been interesting to hear what he had to say about their views on India's rapid economic development, the Maoist insurgency etc.
Naipaul arrives in Bombay, where he discusses the rise of the Shiv Sena (a fundamentalist Marathi Hindu political party), meets a disillusioned Muslim youth in Muhammad Ali road and finally interviews Namdeo Dhansal (the famous Dalit leader and poet) and his wife Mallika. Naipaul must have excellent communication skills (though people describe him as a misanthrope)because it is really interesting how various Shiv Sena leaders and Dhansal's wife open up to Naipaul and discuss their whole lives with him (he did have a translator). Naipaul's deductions are sharp and give us a lot of insight into why Bombay is the way it is.
Naipaul disagrees with the general opinion among Indian intellectuals and the media that the Shiv Sena are fascists. He argues that the Sena should be seen as a group of people asserting themselves and getting in touch with their history thereby realizing who they actually are. He sees them as part of an awakening in India. I do not know how to analyze this view as my knowledge about the Sena and Bombay politics are close to nil. I found it to be an interesting view, nonetheless.
After Bombay, Naipaul travels to Madras where he meets a few Brahmins. He is interested in them because their fathers were Hindu priests while they became neuro scientists - he sees this as self improvement. He then discuses the role of Periyar (the anti-Hindu and anti-Brahmin leader of mid-caste Dravidians) in energizing mid-caste Dravidian youth. He sees the DMK (Dravida Munetta Kazhalam) as being a slight failure but nonetheless recognizes the following it enjoyed in the South.
He travels to West Bengal and is unimpressed by the decay of Calcutta. He says the communist party has had a stultifying effect on the city. He also interviews a few middle class Naxal leaders and takes a sympathetic view of them.
Then he heads to Punjab and tries to find out about the origins of Sikh separatism and terrorism. He interviews a few people who were directly in touch with Bindranwalla. He tries to analyze the movement by connecting it with certain aspects of Sikhism.
A Million Mutinies Now is pretty epic in scope and Naipaul's predictions of India's rise came true. It was useful for some one like me who is not familiar with various movements that took place in India after 1947. Naipaul makes comparisons between the various movements and the 1857 Sepoy mutiny. He also discusses in detail the book written by William Howard Russel about his travels across India during the mutiny.
Naipaul takes a favorable view of the country's economic development and thinks India will be restored to its former greatness under the security of the Indian Union.
I wonder what he would say about India now. But he said somewhere that he had already given his last interview about India. Naipaul is someone who has a terrible view of India's history and he might argue that the current situation in India is a lot better than the past when it was continuously invaded by outside forces. I am merely guessing. I wish Naipaul was still around debating with Arundhati Roy and Ramachandra Guha. It would have been interesting to hear what he had to say about their views on India's rapid economic development, the Maoist insurgency etc.
February 15, 2016
4.5/5 My second book and travelogue by Naipaul, the first one being 'Among the believers'. There is a marked difference between the 2 works, this one was written a decade later and d author realised that his commentary should be kept to a minimum and let d people speak more. Also, these travelogues are about people and not geography and sometimes feel like reading historical fiction.
The author deliberately undertook a counter-clock wise journey of India starting with Bombay/Mumbai and I ended up reading the chapters in reverse order. I recently read a Booker-shortlisted historical fiction on Naxalite movement in Bengal and Naipaul drew out d entire story from ppl in his chapter. I wonder if travel-writing gets better esp if u r a history-buff !
The author deliberately undertook a counter-clock wise journey of India starting with Bombay/Mumbai and I ended up reading the chapters in reverse order. I recently read a Booker-shortlisted historical fiction on Naxalite movement in Bengal and Naipaul drew out d entire story from ppl in his chapter. I wonder if travel-writing gets better esp if u r a history-buff !
March 7, 2021
Unlike his previous books on India, this one calmly collects the diverse experiences of many Indians. Rather than giving his own emotional responses to an ancestral homeland, he just captures the emotions and perceptions of others, showing India from dozens of perspectives at the same time. How can these radically different people get along? Naipaul finds this one of the most fascinating questions on the planet.
February 11, 2022
's is the last of the late author’s three books on India. The others are An Area of Darkness (1964) and India: A Wounded Civilization (1977). Born in Trinidad of Indian ancestry, Vidia Naipaul was a British citizen who kept trying to understand the land of his forebears.
India is a land of multiple languages, multiple religions, multiple political factions, multiple ethnicities. In a word it is a land of multiple multiplicities. And it is becoming ever more centrifugal as time goes on. Hardly a day passes without news of massacres, rapes, terrorism, and murders directed at the other guy.
In trying to understand India, Naipaul has helped all of us see more clearly what is an increasingly shattered society, yet one that manages to soldier on despite everything. I, who am so despairing of the split between the Trumpists and everyone else in the United States, am truly amazed that India is able to manage its own chaos so well. For now, anyway.
India is a land of multiple languages, multiple religions, multiple political factions, multiple ethnicities. In a word it is a land of multiple multiplicities. And it is becoming ever more centrifugal as time goes on. Hardly a day passes without news of massacres, rapes, terrorism, and murders directed at the other guy.
In trying to understand India, Naipaul has helped all of us see more clearly what is an increasingly shattered society, yet one that manages to soldier on despite everything. I, who am so despairing of the split between the Trumpists and everyone else in the United States, am truly amazed that India is able to manage its own chaos so well. For now, anyway.
October 2, 2007
V S Naipaul has often been accused of being unsympathetic in his view/portrayal of India, judging from his works. It's quite clear that though this Nobel laureate’s ancestral roots were in India, he never treated it like home and his loyalties were always with Trinidad (the country he was born in) and then Canada, where he chose to settle down.
Even then, Naipaul has had close cultural and literary connections with India and the fact that he has written at least three books on India is testimony to that fact.
Considering this background, I was expecting to read something quite unflattering about India in his Million Mutinies Now...
Heartreningly, the author only takes a dispassionate yet involved view of a changing India through its 80s and 90s, as he travels various parts of the country, meeting people identifying their roots, ideologies and making sense of the various religious, political and social institutions.
Naipaul here takes on the role is a reporter, who painstakingly enumerates what he sees around him.
A fascinating journey into India.
Even then, Naipaul has had close cultural and literary connections with India and the fact that he has written at least three books on India is testimony to that fact.
Considering this background, I was expecting to read something quite unflattering about India in his Million Mutinies Now...
Heartreningly, the author only takes a dispassionate yet involved view of a changing India through its 80s and 90s, as he travels various parts of the country, meeting people identifying their roots, ideologies and making sense of the various religious, political and social institutions.
Naipaul here takes on the role is a reporter, who painstakingly enumerates what he sees around him.
A fascinating journey into India.
March 15, 2019
V.S. Naipaul had a well-known talent for writing damning criticisms of developing societies and their inhabitants. This book, for all its raw criticisms of India, was actually his most positive take on the country. It is the final book of a trilogy about the country, written over the course of three decades. Naipaul traveled the width and breadth of India during the period in the early 1990s, meeting ordinary people and taking notes on what he saw. At the time, the first stirrings of India's economic and political awakening were underway. Naipaul was a well-known critic of the alleged fatalism of the peoples of Asia and Africa. In India he finally saw that fatalism starting to erode. Hundreds of millions of people had begun to reenter history. Improving material conditions allowed them to think about their lives and pasts different, beyond the moment. With their new wealth and learning, people started to develop a new idea of what they owed themselves. This included an awakening to historical grievances and crises of identity. This has now begun to manifest in political movements such as Narendra Modi's BJJP and others. Such is the story of modern India, but also many other emerging countries around the world.
As usual, Naipaul's writing is vivid. The book really feels like taking a trip to India a few decades back in time. He spends a lot of time collecting the small stories of people from different streams of Indian society. There are working-class Shiv Sena members, struggling filmmakers, residents of a Muslim ghetto in Mumbai, demobilized Sikh militants, Bengali intellectuals, Dalit activists and more. There are moving vignettes about ascetic Brahmins who have tried to hold onto their traditions within the maelstrom of the modern world. Two chapters stood out to me in particular. The first was about the Tamil philosopher Periyar Ramasamy, who led a movement of revolt against the Brahmins and their social order on behalf of the lower castes. The second was about the city of Lucknow, which was once a seat of royalty and high Indian Muslim culture. Since its defeat by the British, Lucknow has undergone a slow and melancholy decline. This decline mirrored the fortunes of India's Muslims as whole. Due to my own background, I found this to be a particularly poignant section. Before the partition of the Subcontinent much of my own family came from Lucknow. I could recognize them clearly in Naipaul's writing.
Naipaul lets his subjects talk for themselves, and at length. As a result this at times feels like a book of interviews. When Naipaul does editorialize, it is usually to give his own perspective on Indian history. His viewpoint is very much that of the Brahmin elite. He is subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly contemptuous of the perspective of his Sikh, Muslim and Dalit subjects. The Islamic period of India's history is depicted as not just an age of decline but as somehow a kind of interruption of India's true self. He cannot comprehend that after 1,400 years Islam might be the indigenous religion of many South Asians. Such a view reflects the Hindu nationalist perspective on history, of which Naipaul was a sympathizer.
Despite this, I think that depictions of Naipaul's bigotry are overstated. His genius was his ability to sympathetically express the perspective of almost all his subjects. You can imagine yourself in their shoes. At times it gives you a visceral sense of how these people see themselves in history. The only person I can recall him condemning was the Sikh militant leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Even that condemnation was based on secondary accounts of those who knew him during the Golden Temple siege. For all his dismissiveness towards Indian Muslims and suspicion of Dalits, he has written some of the most beautiful odes to their community that I've ever read. The beauty of his writing overcomes the fact that his histories are often heavily blinkered or even incorrect, charges that were leveled at him on various subjects throughout his career.
Despite running far too long in pages (a privilege granted to famous writers later in their career), I have to say that this is a brilliant travelogue. For those who wan to understand how modern India emerged, for both better and worse, this book is an important guide. As usual Naipaul's beautiful prose makes the narrative flow very easily. From any other writer, I'd assume this book was a condemnation of India. When you understand it in the context of Naipaul's career, you can see that he's actually praising it.
As usual, Naipaul's writing is vivid. The book really feels like taking a trip to India a few decades back in time. He spends a lot of time collecting the small stories of people from different streams of Indian society. There are working-class Shiv Sena members, struggling filmmakers, residents of a Muslim ghetto in Mumbai, demobilized Sikh militants, Bengali intellectuals, Dalit activists and more. There are moving vignettes about ascetic Brahmins who have tried to hold onto their traditions within the maelstrom of the modern world. Two chapters stood out to me in particular. The first was about the Tamil philosopher Periyar Ramasamy, who led a movement of revolt against the Brahmins and their social order on behalf of the lower castes. The second was about the city of Lucknow, which was once a seat of royalty and high Indian Muslim culture. Since its defeat by the British, Lucknow has undergone a slow and melancholy decline. This decline mirrored the fortunes of India's Muslims as whole. Due to my own background, I found this to be a particularly poignant section. Before the partition of the Subcontinent much of my own family came from Lucknow. I could recognize them clearly in Naipaul's writing.
Naipaul lets his subjects talk for themselves, and at length. As a result this at times feels like a book of interviews. When Naipaul does editorialize, it is usually to give his own perspective on Indian history. His viewpoint is very much that of the Brahmin elite. He is subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly contemptuous of the perspective of his Sikh, Muslim and Dalit subjects. The Islamic period of India's history is depicted as not just an age of decline but as somehow a kind of interruption of India's true self. He cannot comprehend that after 1,400 years Islam might be the indigenous religion of many South Asians. Such a view reflects the Hindu nationalist perspective on history, of which Naipaul was a sympathizer.
Despite this, I think that depictions of Naipaul's bigotry are overstated. His genius was his ability to sympathetically express the perspective of almost all his subjects. You can imagine yourself in their shoes. At times it gives you a visceral sense of how these people see themselves in history. The only person I can recall him condemning was the Sikh militant leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Even that condemnation was based on secondary accounts of those who knew him during the Golden Temple siege. For all his dismissiveness towards Indian Muslims and suspicion of Dalits, he has written some of the most beautiful odes to their community that I've ever read. The beauty of his writing overcomes the fact that his histories are often heavily blinkered or even incorrect, charges that were leveled at him on various subjects throughout his career.
Despite running far too long in pages (a privilege granted to famous writers later in their career), I have to say that this is a brilliant travelogue. For those who wan to understand how modern India emerged, for both better and worse, this book is an important guide. As usual Naipaul's beautiful prose makes the narrative flow very easily. From any other writer, I'd assume this book was a condemnation of India. When you understand it in the context of Naipaul's career, you can see that he's actually praising it.
March 30, 2020
Naipaul, revisits India following the path he took in 1962. The journey begins in Bombay, looping south through Goa, Bangalore, Mysore and Madras before heading north to Calcutta and working his way west to Delhi, then to Lucknow, the Punjab and finally Kashmir.
Naipaul’s narrative and insight writes of postcolonial India many revolutions within a revolution. In his travels around India he finds "long buried disruptive peculiarities" in different regions with caste and family clans. The result is a growing factionalism with "a country of a million little mutinies". All of these mutinies or changes are supported by "twenty kinds of group excess".
Naipaul’s dislike of the caste system and the power of Brahmins is evident. He sees hope in the sectarian excess, religious excess, regional excess changing to something more democratic. Albeit slowly with India’s new wealth and in part openness in society. The chapter on woman’s magazines illustrates this evolution.
This book was written almost 30 years ago and so is a little dated. However, the "mutinies" have resulted in change and made India a better place in parts. Although there are still a million problems to resolve still around caste, disparity of wealth and corruption.
The nine chapters are built around conversations with people’s memories of the changes over their lifetime. Naipaul sought out many of the people he met on his first trip. He asked them questions about the changes in their lives and attitude to those changes. He also met individual’s who were part of the revolutions within India. The chapter on the Sikh Bhindranwale and his takeover of the Golden Temple is fascinating. His and the followers motivation was around religion and wanting more power. Ultimately, it failed when the army stormed the temple and he was killed. This also lead to the assassination of Indra Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.
Naipaul celebrates the unpredictability of everyday life, how people continue to overcome and live productive and happy lives despite the chaos, disorderliness and poverty. The travelogue links the emancipation of millions with the Mutiny of 1857.
The book optimistic about the country and the people.
Naipaul’s narrative and insight writes of postcolonial India many revolutions within a revolution. In his travels around India he finds "long buried disruptive peculiarities" in different regions with caste and family clans. The result is a growing factionalism with "a country of a million little mutinies". All of these mutinies or changes are supported by "twenty kinds of group excess".
Naipaul’s dislike of the caste system and the power of Brahmins is evident. He sees hope in the sectarian excess, religious excess, regional excess changing to something more democratic. Albeit slowly with India’s new wealth and in part openness in society. The chapter on woman’s magazines illustrates this evolution.
This book was written almost 30 years ago and so is a little dated. However, the "mutinies" have resulted in change and made India a better place in parts. Although there are still a million problems to resolve still around caste, disparity of wealth and corruption.
The nine chapters are built around conversations with people’s memories of the changes over their lifetime. Naipaul sought out many of the people he met on his first trip. He asked them questions about the changes in their lives and attitude to those changes. He also met individual’s who were part of the revolutions within India. The chapter on the Sikh Bhindranwale and his takeover of the Golden Temple is fascinating. His and the followers motivation was around religion and wanting more power. Ultimately, it failed when the army stormed the temple and he was killed. This also lead to the assassination of Indra Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.
Naipaul celebrates the unpredictability of everyday life, how people continue to overcome and live productive and happy lives despite the chaos, disorderliness and poverty. The travelogue links the emancipation of millions with the Mutiny of 1857.
The book optimistic about the country and the people.
May 2, 2020
India: A Million Mutinies Now is the third book of Naipaul's Indian trilogy. The first two books were the product of shock and revulsion, which greeted Naipaul's arrival in India. These books were gloomy and painted a picture of deterioration, poverty and destitution (which was valid to a certain extent). India: A Million Mutinies Now, on the other hand, is optimistic in its tone. In this book, one can see that Naipaul has accepted the Indian condition and, with this reconciliation, he can see the dynamic changes which the India of 1980s was experiencing. In this journey, Naipaul is travelling to the same places and some times meets the same people which he had met earlier some 26 years ago. Naipaul writes about the change which was taking place in India at both physical as well as psychological level. He shows that these changes have brought, long-buried internal conflicts, out in the open. Through seemingly unconnected stories, Naipaul skilfully depicts these internal conflicts and tensions. From the linguistic chauvinism of the Shiv Sena to the Sikh terrorism of Punjab, the major problem of the 1980s, are narrated brilliantly. In all these stories, two stories for me stand out as the most important. These two stories tackle issues which are still present in India.
Naipaul, through the character of Dipanjan, depicts how the Communist movement had shaped and influenced the lives of its foot soldiers. The story of Dipanjan is a tragic one. There was a point in the book in which Dipanjan talks about the conversation he had with a factory worker during his revolutionary days. He is taken aback when he learns that the factory worker willingly left his home in the village in pursuit of a better life in the city. This information, which to us seems trivial and obvious, was a great revelation to Dipanjan and contradicted the Marxist belief that workers were in more miserable condition than peasants. Naipaul, through Dipanjan, was able to show how there was a complete disconnect with the reality, the theoretical from the practical.
The Character of Rashid is equally fascinating. There's an absolute honesty in him. He is a practising Muslim and is distraught with the Muslim history of India. The decline of Muslim power, which began with the rise of the British power in India and culminated in the partition of India, has had a significant impact on him. He is nostalgic about the lost glory of the Awadh Nawabs. The Partition of India and the subsequent changes which it brought with it has moulded his world view. Although he is nostalgic about the Muslim past, he is also critical of Muslim society's and its reluctance to embrace modernity. Through Rashid, we see the dilemma which plagues the Muslim community, the struggle between memory and experience, past and present.
Naipaul believes that the Indian Independence was a revolution and the conflicts which India of the 1980s is facing are part of that revolution. For Naipaul, these conflicts are "little revolutions". He believes that, for India to progress, these conflicts are necessary, they are the part of the great transformation. Through these seemingly unconnected stories, Naipaul shows that these "little revolution", which India is experiencing, is the harbinger of something new, a kind of re-birth. He writes "the mutinies were not to be wished away. They were part of the new beginning of a new way for many millions, part of India's growth, part of its restoration."
Naipaul, through the character of Dipanjan, depicts how the Communist movement had shaped and influenced the lives of its foot soldiers. The story of Dipanjan is a tragic one. There was a point in the book in which Dipanjan talks about the conversation he had with a factory worker during his revolutionary days. He is taken aback when he learns that the factory worker willingly left his home in the village in pursuit of a better life in the city. This information, which to us seems trivial and obvious, was a great revelation to Dipanjan and contradicted the Marxist belief that workers were in more miserable condition than peasants. Naipaul, through Dipanjan, was able to show how there was a complete disconnect with the reality, the theoretical from the practical.
The Character of Rashid is equally fascinating. There's an absolute honesty in him. He is a practising Muslim and is distraught with the Muslim history of India. The decline of Muslim power, which began with the rise of the British power in India and culminated in the partition of India, has had a significant impact on him. He is nostalgic about the lost glory of the Awadh Nawabs. The Partition of India and the subsequent changes which it brought with it has moulded his world view. Although he is nostalgic about the Muslim past, he is also critical of Muslim society's and its reluctance to embrace modernity. Through Rashid, we see the dilemma which plagues the Muslim community, the struggle between memory and experience, past and present.
Naipaul believes that the Indian Independence was a revolution and the conflicts which India of the 1980s is facing are part of that revolution. For Naipaul, these conflicts are "little revolutions". He believes that, for India to progress, these conflicts are necessary, they are the part of the great transformation. Through these seemingly unconnected stories, Naipaul shows that these "little revolution", which India is experiencing, is the harbinger of something new, a kind of re-birth. He writes "the mutinies were not to be wished away. They were part of the new beginning of a new way for many millions, part of India's growth, part of its restoration."
May 13, 2018
Before I started reading this book, I was completely unaware of V.S. Naipaul’s existence, let alone his worldview. After finishing the first few chapters, I was not surprised to learn that he was a winner of several accolades in English literature, given how well he expressed and visualized his experience, and the experience of others in this travelogue of India. Reportedly, this is the conclusion to a trilogy of books detailing Naipaul’s visits to India. I have not read the the first two books, and will likely never read them.
From the very beginning of the book, one starts to receive hints of Naipaul’s personal views and political sympathies. He is a staunch Anglophile, and reportedly, this is the first book where he began to showcase an inclination towards the Hindutva narrative of Indian or South Asian history. Based on my reading of this book, Naipaul is of the view that everything great about India and Indian civilization was Brahmin and destroyed by Islam and the Mughals, and that everything great about India today is the result of British colonialists, whose legacy must be preserved and protected for India to redeem itself. The latter part of this historical narrative has kept him from receiving a complete warm embrace from the Hindu Right.
Normally, the works of writers who espouse such views are unappealing to me, but this book turned out to be exactly what I never thought I wanted. Unbeknownst to him, Naipaul’s gradual embrace of Hindu nationalist narratives in the early nineties, and the political views of the diverse groups of Indians he showcased in the book, perfectly encapsulated the political and social changes that took place in India right before the liberalization of the Indian economy. It provided clarity to the origins of the tragedies that took place since economic liberalization, such as the destruction of the Babri Masjid, the Kargil War and the 2002 Gujarat riots, and in turn contextualized the current turbulent political climate of Modi’s India.
This book is a great resource for people hoping to gain more understanding of the thoughts, concerns, anxieties and ambitions of Indians right before the third wave of globalization, even though this was not the author’s primary goal or intention. It can, however, get boring at times continuously reading about ordinary people and their short narratives.
From the very beginning of the book, one starts to receive hints of Naipaul’s personal views and political sympathies. He is a staunch Anglophile, and reportedly, this is the first book where he began to showcase an inclination towards the Hindutva narrative of Indian or South Asian history. Based on my reading of this book, Naipaul is of the view that everything great about India and Indian civilization was Brahmin and destroyed by Islam and the Mughals, and that everything great about India today is the result of British colonialists, whose legacy must be preserved and protected for India to redeem itself. The latter part of this historical narrative has kept him from receiving a complete warm embrace from the Hindu Right.
Normally, the works of writers who espouse such views are unappealing to me, but this book turned out to be exactly what I never thought I wanted. Unbeknownst to him, Naipaul’s gradual embrace of Hindu nationalist narratives in the early nineties, and the political views of the diverse groups of Indians he showcased in the book, perfectly encapsulated the political and social changes that took place in India right before the liberalization of the Indian economy. It provided clarity to the origins of the tragedies that took place since economic liberalization, such as the destruction of the Babri Masjid, the Kargil War and the 2002 Gujarat riots, and in turn contextualized the current turbulent political climate of Modi’s India.
This book is a great resource for people hoping to gain more understanding of the thoughts, concerns, anxieties and ambitions of Indians right before the third wave of globalization, even though this was not the author’s primary goal or intention. It can, however, get boring at times continuously reading about ordinary people and their short narratives.
April 28, 2014
Bleak and dispiriting.
In the final chapter Naipaul concludes that "Independence has worked for ...people more or less at the top" but that by 1990 "the freedom [independence] brought has worked its way down. People everywhere have ideas now of who they are and what they owe themselves."
That's a telling phrase: "what they owe themselves". Few of the men portrayed here seem able to spare much energy for those around them, even their own families. Most of the men (and in Naipaul's book we hear almost exclusively from men) seem utterly self-absorbed--locked in mental prisons of disappointment, bitterness, ideology, and tribal/caste/class resentments. They seem terribly petty, these men, unable to escape a sort of pervasive inwardness, some convinced of their own rightness, others simply caught in a thought pattern too long held.
But Naipaul says it could not be otherwise: "The liberation of spirit that has come to India could not come as release only. In India, with its layer below layer of distress and cruelty, it had to come as disturbance. It had to come as rage and revolt. India was now a country of a million little mutinies."
If true 'liberation of spirit' requires some ability to transcend the self, then liberation is hard to find in this book. I can only hope that things have gotten better in the 25 years since this book was written.
Yet, despite the bleakness, V.S. Naipaul's great gift is that he can stand back and let those he interviews speak for themselves. He also has an artist's eye for tiny details of dress, surroundings, speech patterns. In the end the reader emerges with a vivid sense of having been there too.
In the final chapter Naipaul concludes that "Independence has worked for ...people more or less at the top" but that by 1990 "the freedom [independence] brought has worked its way down. People everywhere have ideas now of who they are and what they owe themselves."
That's a telling phrase: "what they owe themselves". Few of the men portrayed here seem able to spare much energy for those around them, even their own families. Most of the men (and in Naipaul's book we hear almost exclusively from men) seem utterly self-absorbed--locked in mental prisons of disappointment, bitterness, ideology, and tribal/caste/class resentments. They seem terribly petty, these men, unable to escape a sort of pervasive inwardness, some convinced of their own rightness, others simply caught in a thought pattern too long held.
But Naipaul says it could not be otherwise: "The liberation of spirit that has come to India could not come as release only. In India, with its layer below layer of distress and cruelty, it had to come as disturbance. It had to come as rage and revolt. India was now a country of a million little mutinies."
If true 'liberation of spirit' requires some ability to transcend the self, then liberation is hard to find in this book. I can only hope that things have gotten better in the 25 years since this book was written.
Yet, despite the bleakness, V.S. Naipaul's great gift is that he can stand back and let those he interviews speak for themselves. He also has an artist's eye for tiny details of dress, surroundings, speech patterns. In the end the reader emerges with a vivid sense of having been there too.
June 13, 2011
This was the first book I read upon arriving in India. It was recommended to me by my friend, Jay, who said that this was a great representation of his first experience being in India, so I had it added to my directed readings course contract.
It is hard to sum up 500 pages worth of words, but I’ll try my best. This is about modern India, but a slightly dated version at that. While it is interesting (most of the time), thorough, and great at painting a sort of portrait for the reader of the complexity of this country, it is also very dark. It has a very negative tone to it and appears to be Naipaul’s trip to explore his own Indian heritage but at the same time note the “million mutinies� and overwhelming problems the country faces. I wonder sometimes if his commentary on Calcutta, about it being a dying city, and recognizing that because everyone is suffering is actually his opinion on the whole country (325). In general I would have liked to see if he had any positive experiences that were just not recorded here.
A question I would ask Naipaul is how he came up with enough notes to get these extremely detailed scenes. Every word and every line and every wall color is noted. Yet, towards the end of this book we get a confession that the first book he wrote about India he did without keeping any kind of field journal (367). Being on a field experience myself and trying to do some creative writing about India I cannot imagine not keeping a journal. For this book he says he also took no tape-recorder (14). It makes me seriously question how much of these stories he includes are fiction. How exactly did he get the “Ideas� and abstracts to “become books…clothed with people and narrative� (13). In general, as a field student, I would have liked to see more of what his experience was getting this informants and what the field work part of this traveling looked like. One thing is for sure though, as I am quickly starting to realize, “in order to write about India…you had to spend a lot of time in India� (297). Sometimes I wonder how I am going to be able to really write what I would like to write based on just over three months of experiences here.
I did enjoy his images, especially of the crowds. While my experience in India might not be as similar to my friend Jay’s, many of these scenes have played out before me. The traffic. The modern India, the one that has Gandhi’s face all over rupee notes but no more homespun cloth or trace of his seemingly archaic politics. It is just all very fascinating what has happened since India’s independence, and I appreciated Naipaul’s commentary. I would like to know more about where India is now, especially given the GPD that is supposed to pass China. It does not seem to be in such a negative position as this book would lend us to believe, though the country clearly faces serious problems in the near future—population, food, fuel, jobs, etc.
Would I recommend this book? Probably. But would I read it again? Definitely not. It was a great history lesson, but it was a difficult read.
It is hard to sum up 500 pages worth of words, but I’ll try my best. This is about modern India, but a slightly dated version at that. While it is interesting (most of the time), thorough, and great at painting a sort of portrait for the reader of the complexity of this country, it is also very dark. It has a very negative tone to it and appears to be Naipaul’s trip to explore his own Indian heritage but at the same time note the “million mutinies� and overwhelming problems the country faces. I wonder sometimes if his commentary on Calcutta, about it being a dying city, and recognizing that because everyone is suffering is actually his opinion on the whole country (325). In general I would have liked to see if he had any positive experiences that were just not recorded here.
A question I would ask Naipaul is how he came up with enough notes to get these extremely detailed scenes. Every word and every line and every wall color is noted. Yet, towards the end of this book we get a confession that the first book he wrote about India he did without keeping any kind of field journal (367). Being on a field experience myself and trying to do some creative writing about India I cannot imagine not keeping a journal. For this book he says he also took no tape-recorder (14). It makes me seriously question how much of these stories he includes are fiction. How exactly did he get the “Ideas� and abstracts to “become books…clothed with people and narrative� (13). In general, as a field student, I would have liked to see more of what his experience was getting this informants and what the field work part of this traveling looked like. One thing is for sure though, as I am quickly starting to realize, “in order to write about India…you had to spend a lot of time in India� (297). Sometimes I wonder how I am going to be able to really write what I would like to write based on just over three months of experiences here.
I did enjoy his images, especially of the crowds. While my experience in India might not be as similar to my friend Jay’s, many of these scenes have played out before me. The traffic. The modern India, the one that has Gandhi’s face all over rupee notes but no more homespun cloth or trace of his seemingly archaic politics. It is just all very fascinating what has happened since India’s independence, and I appreciated Naipaul’s commentary. I would like to know more about where India is now, especially given the GPD that is supposed to pass China. It does not seem to be in such a negative position as this book would lend us to believe, though the country clearly faces serious problems in the near future—population, food, fuel, jobs, etc.
Would I recommend this book? Probably. But would I read it again? Definitely not. It was a great history lesson, but it was a difficult read.
August 15, 2011
V.S Naipaul is probabling still dodging feminist bullets after his comments on female writers in july this year. Its not hard to see why so many 'intellectuals' and public figures find his non fiction a little unsettling. his eassays are sharp , witty and intensly personal. In ' A million mutinies now' he Chronicles pre -liberalized India. the book is a memoir of his travels between 1988 and 1990. born in 1991, I was curious about the not so distant history which was more or less the gestational period for the 'New India' - result of economic reforms and rapid socio-political mood swings.
During the late 80's , my mother was just settling into her new home in a tiny bank staff quaters in Lokanwala Mumbai. Around the same time Naipaul lands in the city on the eve of Ambedkar's birth anniversay. In then Bombay (now ofcourse Mumbai, don't want to upset the MNS) he explores the politics of the Shiv Sena . the underworld, the ghettos and the Dallal street businessmen with sobriety rarely seen among contemporary opinion leaders. Down south he gives the reader in depth insights on Dravidian politics, the Periyar 'rationalist' movement and (much to my delight) a birds eye view of yesteryear Madras (now Chennai, again no offence) . In another chapter titled ' The end of time' ,Naipaul narrates the story of a Shia Muslim man from a Lucknowi royal family, his enthusiasm for a moderate Islamic state of Pakistan and the subsequent dissapointment. My favorite chapter is ' Women's era' ,about the popular women's periodical targeted at middle class women.Naipaul painstakingly gathers opinions from different women from various walks of life. This is especially juicy now considering the sticky situation he finds himself in now.
Naipaul's writing seems incredibly slick and charming. There is something distinctly unpretentious about it without a trace of the stereotypical patronizing western observations usually dished out. He is critical yet compassionate in his observations with a steady supply of wit. In 'Shadow of Guru' and 'A house on the lake' he explores the militant movements in Punjab and Kashmir. When he finds a picture of the Golden temple hanging in the reception of Kashmiri man's lobby he senses a ideological comradery between the two separatist movements while a contemporary left wing leaning critic would point to a symbol of unity and defiance against the common enemy ( i'm only guessing after enduring numerous editorials of our day and age).
At several points in the book i wondered how Naipaul would have written about the current situation and i guess not much has changed but many other issues have come to light and conflicts have multiplied. But one thing's for sure if he writes another one i'd queue up for it. facebook page says "LIKE" !
During the late 80's , my mother was just settling into her new home in a tiny bank staff quaters in Lokanwala Mumbai. Around the same time Naipaul lands in the city on the eve of Ambedkar's birth anniversay. In then Bombay (now ofcourse Mumbai, don't want to upset the MNS) he explores the politics of the Shiv Sena . the underworld, the ghettos and the Dallal street businessmen with sobriety rarely seen among contemporary opinion leaders. Down south he gives the reader in depth insights on Dravidian politics, the Periyar 'rationalist' movement and (much to my delight) a birds eye view of yesteryear Madras (now Chennai, again no offence) . In another chapter titled ' The end of time' ,Naipaul narrates the story of a Shia Muslim man from a Lucknowi royal family, his enthusiasm for a moderate Islamic state of Pakistan and the subsequent dissapointment. My favorite chapter is ' Women's era' ,about the popular women's periodical targeted at middle class women.Naipaul painstakingly gathers opinions from different women from various walks of life. This is especially juicy now considering the sticky situation he finds himself in now.
Naipaul's writing seems incredibly slick and charming. There is something distinctly unpretentious about it without a trace of the stereotypical patronizing western observations usually dished out. He is critical yet compassionate in his observations with a steady supply of wit. In 'Shadow of Guru' and 'A house on the lake' he explores the militant movements in Punjab and Kashmir. When he finds a picture of the Golden temple hanging in the reception of Kashmiri man's lobby he senses a ideological comradery between the two separatist movements while a contemporary left wing leaning critic would point to a symbol of unity and defiance against the common enemy ( i'm only guessing after enduring numerous editorials of our day and age).
At several points in the book i wondered how Naipaul would have written about the current situation and i guess not much has changed but many other issues have come to light and conflicts have multiplied. But one thing's for sure if he writes another one i'd queue up for it. facebook page says "LIKE" !
June 19, 2022
Reading this for a second time, the book as brilliant as I remember it.
“To awaken to history was to cease to live instinctively. It was to begin to see oneself and one’s group the way the outside world saw one; and it was to know a kind of rage. India was now full of this rage.�
“To awaken to history was to cease to live instinctively. It was to begin to see oneself and one’s group the way the outside world saw one; and it was to know a kind of rage. India was now full of this rage.�
December 23, 2023
Is India more than the sum of its parts, or less?
In preparing for my first, Dec 2023, trip to India I read Rushdie and Mistry, The White Tiger and VS Naipaul’s India trilogy of essays/travelogues he put together over the course of three long trips between 1962 and 1988.
Before reading Naipaul, I first read “Midnight’s Children� about a year in advance. I wrote in my review of that novel “I felt there was no conclusion or thematic resolution. Maybe that is intentional. Maybe the only lesson is ‘India coming out of The Emergency was in a really uncertain and fraught place, as opposed to where people had hoped to be in 1947 independence.� and “Is it intentional that the whole doesn't live up to the sum of its parts? If those are the essential themes, then maybe the ending has to be unsatisfying?�
So I was unsurprised to see in Naipaul’s first two India books [An Area of Darkness and A Wounded Civilization], a big emphasis on Indian disunity and lack of collective agency. While Naipaul discovers an array of individuals with diverse, fascinating and rich inner-lives, this inward focus is sometimes presented as a curse.
Naipaul has been accused of ‘Orientalism� and its easy to see why: he literally describes India as, well, a “Wounded Civilization�. After the mathematical, literary, and other great achievements of the Rajput era (around 6th to 12th century) Naipaul sees millenium-long dark age. The wounding of India was its rule by the extractive and regressive Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire and East India Company.
Naipaul thinks that India was so easily conquered by these small bands of invaders for a few reasons. First, he points towards an Indian introspection, languor and quietism, borne of their spiritualist religions that can prevent collective action. This is Naipaul at his most orientalist. I don’t necessarily think that’s a fair accusation (if used in the pejorative) -- if you want to talk about cultural differences you have to be open to talking about strengths and weaknesses of different cultures. And, at the risk of being too 4X-game about it, it makes sense that if you put too much of your social resources into discovering new religious technologies (as important as these are to ultimate human flourishing!), you might fall behind in the military and commercial game. Beyond the focus on meditation and prayer, Naipaul sees this theme in India’s weirdly labor intensive approach to wasteful and symbolic tasks. Servants spending all day wiping a corner with a dirty rag, while around them people disrespect the commons with trash (saw both of these, including ubiquitous roadside trash and trash-burning on my trip).
Next he points out that there wasn’t really an “India� that people perceived as potentially worth working together to protect before the 18th century. Before the concept of nationalism, the Islamic Umma was the most powerful collective idea in the region. Later the British Empire's (which Naipaul relates through the eyes of Times of London Sepoy Mutiny war correspondent Russel) ideas also provided more unity than India could summon to overcome.
A brief aside about the British Empire in India. While Naipaul has nothing but bad things to say about what he sees as terribly regressive and extractive Mughal Empire (little time is spared for the IMHO fantastic architectural achievements of the Taj Mahal etc.) he is more balanced about the British. That was my sense of the contemporary view here too. While the Red Fort was covered in nationalist posters emphasizing the brutality of the English (from execution strapped to cannon, to death by force-feeding, to the Andaman cellular jail) and the cravenness of His Majesties� allies (from the Nizam of Hyderabad to the Raj of Jaipur), the museums I visited in these particular areas took the opposite stance, emphasizing their role in development and the World Wars as British allies.
Indian academics I talked to were also ambivalent -- the British were brutal sure, but they weren’t as bad as the Mughals or as bad as another colonial empire would have been, and many of India’s best functioning institutions today (e.g. the Post Office, the train network, English language instruction, constitutional government etc.) they partially credit to the occupiers. One funny anecdote: in the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad -- the museum of the Nazim’s prime minister -- the BEC’s conquests are described as leading to a ‘splendid mixing of the accidental [sic] and Oriental�.
Perhaps most ironically, it is the western ideas of Nationalism and Socialism that finally allowed India to have a vision of itself as a collective and allowed it to finally join the world stage. (Though the mixing of Indian legacy with western style nationalism also leads to plenty of stupidities -- e.g. this hilarious article I read in the Hindustan Times during my visit: ).
VS Naipaul delights in the delicious ironies that he discovers in India. The idea that it took western ideas to make a strong independent India is just the start. There is the marketing executive for cigarettes who claims it would be unethical to create unnecessary desires in a poor country; the movie writer who is sad to see his slum set torn down; the Brahmins who are too purity obsessed to do basic cleaning; the strident Marxists who hold back the Bengali poor; the deceased radical atheist leader whose grave becomes a pilgrimage site where famous lectures are chanted. The figure of Gandhi himself, who discovered himself as the essential new Indian guru as a lawyer in South Africa. And the homespun cotton Congress uniform meant to show poverty and humility and now signifying unresponsive power.
The third reason that Naipaul thought India was so vulnerable was its fractiousness. These are the “Million Mutinies� that he refers to: Atheism vs piety; Sikh vs Hindu vs Muslim; Jain hand-wringing over their lack of bloodlust; dead-end bengal commies vs Bombay capitalists; Navayana Buddhism vs. dalit-ness; Adhyatmika (the realm of spirit) vs Vyavaharika (the domain of pragmatism); Naxalites vs liberals vs corruption and landlordism; dethroned princes trying to find a place in the new india; the overpopulation of Kashmir idyllic ruralness; Brahmins vs toilets; Caste traditionalists vs progressives; philanthropists vs. slums; feminists vs conservatives. More recently I could add Congress vs. BJP.
Having read several other books that end right around the Emergency (plus “The White Tiger�, which, though set in the 2000s, is one of the most ressentiment filled things I’ve ever read) maybe it’s unsurprising that I saw these tensions pulling in a thousand directions as a destructive force. But in “A Million Mutinies Now� Naipaul takes a more optimistic tack. Rather than being petty squabbles over resources (mostly) he sees these intellectual tensions as symbolic of a country “waking up� and starting to, mostly non-violently, develop the ideas that will propel them in the 21st century.
Coming home from a visit to China I was impressed by its scale, wealth and sense of itself. The giant capital projects. It was a country all pointed in the same direction and in 2016 it felt that direction was world leadership.
Leaving India in 2023 I have the impression of a much less unified place, but also a more intellectually fecund place. A place with an extremely high level of “social and intellectual biodiversity� if you will � more so than the USA even and certainly China. (One small counter example- I saw much more of Modi in newspapers and posters here in 2023 than I saw of Xi in China in 2016). This may have disadvantages, but it also makes me optimistic about its ability to adapt to an uncertain and dynamic future.
At the end of "A Million Mutinies Now", Naipaul claims that India is more that the sum of its parts. His idea that India’s disunity actually signifies a deeper strength is the final and most profound irony he identifies. I hope and want that to be the case. Modi’s populist vision of a Hindustan is certainly not to my taste -- even if I understand the desire of some for a leader to bring a little more cultural unity to this incredibly diverse place.
It’s more than a cliche to say there’s “strength in diversity� -- as a liberal I think and hope that’s true. Here’s hoping that Naipaul is right and that India continues to be more than the sum of its parts.
In preparing for my first, Dec 2023, trip to India I read Rushdie and Mistry, The White Tiger and VS Naipaul’s India trilogy of essays/travelogues he put together over the course of three long trips between 1962 and 1988.
Before reading Naipaul, I first read “Midnight’s Children� about a year in advance. I wrote in my review of that novel “I felt there was no conclusion or thematic resolution. Maybe that is intentional. Maybe the only lesson is ‘India coming out of The Emergency was in a really uncertain and fraught place, as opposed to where people had hoped to be in 1947 independence.� and “Is it intentional that the whole doesn't live up to the sum of its parts? If those are the essential themes, then maybe the ending has to be unsatisfying?�
So I was unsurprised to see in Naipaul’s first two India books [An Area of Darkness and A Wounded Civilization], a big emphasis on Indian disunity and lack of collective agency. While Naipaul discovers an array of individuals with diverse, fascinating and rich inner-lives, this inward focus is sometimes presented as a curse.
Naipaul has been accused of ‘Orientalism� and its easy to see why: he literally describes India as, well, a “Wounded Civilization�. After the mathematical, literary, and other great achievements of the Rajput era (around 6th to 12th century) Naipaul sees millenium-long dark age. The wounding of India was its rule by the extractive and regressive Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire and East India Company.
Naipaul thinks that India was so easily conquered by these small bands of invaders for a few reasons. First, he points towards an Indian introspection, languor and quietism, borne of their spiritualist religions that can prevent collective action. This is Naipaul at his most orientalist. I don’t necessarily think that’s a fair accusation (if used in the pejorative) -- if you want to talk about cultural differences you have to be open to talking about strengths and weaknesses of different cultures. And, at the risk of being too 4X-game about it, it makes sense that if you put too much of your social resources into discovering new religious technologies (as important as these are to ultimate human flourishing!), you might fall behind in the military and commercial game. Beyond the focus on meditation and prayer, Naipaul sees this theme in India’s weirdly labor intensive approach to wasteful and symbolic tasks. Servants spending all day wiping a corner with a dirty rag, while around them people disrespect the commons with trash (saw both of these, including ubiquitous roadside trash and trash-burning on my trip).
Next he points out that there wasn’t really an “India� that people perceived as potentially worth working together to protect before the 18th century. Before the concept of nationalism, the Islamic Umma was the most powerful collective idea in the region. Later the British Empire's (which Naipaul relates through the eyes of Times of London Sepoy Mutiny war correspondent Russel) ideas also provided more unity than India could summon to overcome.
A brief aside about the British Empire in India. While Naipaul has nothing but bad things to say about what he sees as terribly regressive and extractive Mughal Empire (little time is spared for the IMHO fantastic architectural achievements of the Taj Mahal etc.) he is more balanced about the British. That was my sense of the contemporary view here too. While the Red Fort was covered in nationalist posters emphasizing the brutality of the English (from execution strapped to cannon, to death by force-feeding, to the Andaman cellular jail) and the cravenness of His Majesties� allies (from the Nizam of Hyderabad to the Raj of Jaipur), the museums I visited in these particular areas took the opposite stance, emphasizing their role in development and the World Wars as British allies.
Indian academics I talked to were also ambivalent -- the British were brutal sure, but they weren’t as bad as the Mughals or as bad as another colonial empire would have been, and many of India’s best functioning institutions today (e.g. the Post Office, the train network, English language instruction, constitutional government etc.) they partially credit to the occupiers. One funny anecdote: in the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad -- the museum of the Nazim’s prime minister -- the BEC’s conquests are described as leading to a ‘splendid mixing of the accidental [sic] and Oriental�.
Perhaps most ironically, it is the western ideas of Nationalism and Socialism that finally allowed India to have a vision of itself as a collective and allowed it to finally join the world stage. (Though the mixing of Indian legacy with western style nationalism also leads to plenty of stupidities -- e.g. this hilarious article I read in the Hindustan Times during my visit: ).
VS Naipaul delights in the delicious ironies that he discovers in India. The idea that it took western ideas to make a strong independent India is just the start. There is the marketing executive for cigarettes who claims it would be unethical to create unnecessary desires in a poor country; the movie writer who is sad to see his slum set torn down; the Brahmins who are too purity obsessed to do basic cleaning; the strident Marxists who hold back the Bengali poor; the deceased radical atheist leader whose grave becomes a pilgrimage site where famous lectures are chanted. The figure of Gandhi himself, who discovered himself as the essential new Indian guru as a lawyer in South Africa. And the homespun cotton Congress uniform meant to show poverty and humility and now signifying unresponsive power.
The third reason that Naipaul thought India was so vulnerable was its fractiousness. These are the “Million Mutinies� that he refers to: Atheism vs piety; Sikh vs Hindu vs Muslim; Jain hand-wringing over their lack of bloodlust; dead-end bengal commies vs Bombay capitalists; Navayana Buddhism vs. dalit-ness; Adhyatmika (the realm of spirit) vs Vyavaharika (the domain of pragmatism); Naxalites vs liberals vs corruption and landlordism; dethroned princes trying to find a place in the new india; the overpopulation of Kashmir idyllic ruralness; Brahmins vs toilets; Caste traditionalists vs progressives; philanthropists vs. slums; feminists vs conservatives. More recently I could add Congress vs. BJP.
Having read several other books that end right around the Emergency (plus “The White Tiger�, which, though set in the 2000s, is one of the most ressentiment filled things I’ve ever read) maybe it’s unsurprising that I saw these tensions pulling in a thousand directions as a destructive force. But in “A Million Mutinies Now� Naipaul takes a more optimistic tack. Rather than being petty squabbles over resources (mostly) he sees these intellectual tensions as symbolic of a country “waking up� and starting to, mostly non-violently, develop the ideas that will propel them in the 21st century.
Coming home from a visit to China I was impressed by its scale, wealth and sense of itself. The giant capital projects. It was a country all pointed in the same direction and in 2016 it felt that direction was world leadership.
Leaving India in 2023 I have the impression of a much less unified place, but also a more intellectually fecund place. A place with an extremely high level of “social and intellectual biodiversity� if you will � more so than the USA even and certainly China. (One small counter example- I saw much more of Modi in newspapers and posters here in 2023 than I saw of Xi in China in 2016). This may have disadvantages, but it also makes me optimistic about its ability to adapt to an uncertain and dynamic future.
At the end of "A Million Mutinies Now", Naipaul claims that India is more that the sum of its parts. His idea that India’s disunity actually signifies a deeper strength is the final and most profound irony he identifies. I hope and want that to be the case. Modi’s populist vision of a Hindustan is certainly not to my taste -- even if I understand the desire of some for a leader to bring a little more cultural unity to this incredibly diverse place.
It’s more than a cliche to say there’s “strength in diversity� -- as a liberal I think and hope that’s true. Here’s hoping that Naipaul is right and that India continues to be more than the sum of its parts.
December 14, 2021
Just finished, I probably have to write a detailed note on this sometime, but highly recommend this all Indians especially Hindus. To get the full emotional depth if this book do read the first 2 books in the India Trilogy.
He is so much like my fathers generation of Indians, he is madly in love with India and his writing reveals it but he never utters the word. He was a homeless (figuratively) Indian in his first 2 books by the third you can sense or may be even smell that he has finally found a home. India is being rebuilt from the ruins of thousand years of invasions. The Phoenix will fly again.
He is so much like my fathers generation of Indians, he is madly in love with India and his writing reveals it but he never utters the word. He was a homeless (figuratively) Indian in his first 2 books by the third you can sense or may be even smell that he has finally found a home. India is being rebuilt from the ruins of thousand years of invasions. The Phoenix will fly again.
March 19, 2015
It's probably not a coincidence that the only time Naipaul ever managed to be really optimistic about a developing country, it turned out to be India (reading this made me wish he had visited some East Asian country during its climb up the productivity ladder). That said, I'm more struck by how much more zero-sum status competition seems to be in India's fractured social landscape. The elaborate ceremonies of caste allow for economic and even social cooperation in very cramped spaces, but at the same time weigh as a very heavy dead hand of the past upon original and productive labor. Naipaul's 'million mutinies' are, to him, myriad efforts to throw off this burden, but India has absorbed such mutinies before (Buddhism, Sikhism). Abandoning caste ritual, these innovations seesaw between violence and appeasement. We will all have to find a new way to live together.
June 23, 2013
Naipaul's trenchant and precise language is luxurious and intoxicating. He presents a variety of personalities and situations from across India, a rather casual sampling considering the vast population of the country. While he manages well to describe and give a feeling to the various regions, cities, desperations and exultations of the country, he does not quite manage to pull the picture together in any regard save the historical. And the historical insights he gives are extremely valuable, perhaps providing the only clue to the continued fate of the Indian people.
February 18, 2012
I thought the prose of a Nobel laureate would be quite intimidating and complex. But I think the beauty of Naipaul’s prose is he never shows-off his vocabulary and provides a radical insight on some common practices in India. I think Naipaul loves India in his heart, but tries as much as possible to provide a balanced (maybe sarcastic) view towards some of the problems faced by the country
June 5, 2017
An interesting stream of interviews, each of them a standalone story. But together? At first I thought this to be monotonous and lacking a core. Then I reconsidered: lacking a core is what the book is about- a million concurrent mutinies against a thin, frail, embryonic core. Well done.
July 28, 2008
Caught my attention from the beginning and held it too. I was traveling in India at the time and it went right along with my experience.
November 22, 2018
I’d read Naipaul's India Trilogy when I was in my late teens and at that young age, it did fill me up with profound hatred for the writer who in my opinion was spewing venom against my beloved country. Naipaul and Nirad Chaudhary were the two literary villains I grew up with, though my impression of Nirad Chaudhary being utterly devoid of depth, remained the same but as I grew older, I started to admire the faculty of observation Naipaul was gifted with and also by his fearlessness to write exactly what he observed. When I heard the news of Naipaul’s demise, I decided to reread his India Trilogy as a tribute to the great writer. Naipaul died in late summer this year and I bought these books on the day of his demise but I could not start the trilogy till November, but finally have been able to complete it now.
The first book of trilogy evoked strong sentiments in my youth and generated a lot of hatred for the author who was hellbent on telling me the obvious truth and reality of Indian life. Nobody has ever written so courageously and truthfully about India and his portrait of Indian psyche lays bare the banality and stupidity with which Indian mind has been riddled with since last millennium. But he was sympathetic of the reasons and correctly nailed down the deprivation of Indian thought on the Islamic invasion which terrorised Indian spirit. The first book of the trilogy was also a personal discovery for the author and its fascinating to walk with the author on his solo journey and to read first hand, his impressions of his native land, eccentricities of people he encountered and his bewilderment at the strange rituals and customs of the land that he was exploring. Naipaul was critical of Indian weather, Indian landscape, Indian arts, Indian science, Indian religion, almost everything that India had to offer but I beleive, not because these were deficient in any way but rather because he expected more or perhaps was expecting something different. India is a strange land and one either loves it or hate it and Naipaul ended up hating it in his first attempt to understand it. But I don’t blame him, India is so different and Naipaul who had till then only seen simple societies of Caribbean & Europe was not ready to fathom the intricacies of a complex social construct of an ancient land. It would take much more time for any outsider like Naipaul to understand the diversity and spirituality of India. It's not possible to understand India with western lenses that Naipaul kept on during his first sojourn to India and ended up labelling it, wrongly in my opinion, as an area of darkness.
When Naipaul visited India again during emergency few years later and wrote the second book of this trilogy, he saw the country in a different light but still could not understand the conflicted society where everybody was out fighting the system whether these were Naxal revolutionaries or Hindu fundamentalists or Muslim gang lords. The second visit invoked the feeling in Naipaul that India has been wounded first in his mind by Islamic invasions and then by an onslaught of modernity over an archaic society with hypocrisy of the political class not helping in any way. India was going though a perfect storm at the time of Naipaul’s second visit with emergency being declared and country going through the turmoil with desperate attempts by political class to rescue democratic norms from clutches of dictatorship which thankfully it finally succeeded in saving. On this second trip, Naipaul encountered first hand the hostility & pain of an angry society and that’s what he ended up depicting as a wounded civilisation.
Naipaul's third and final sojourn was most sympathetic to India, he understood the challenges the country was grappling with and he made an attempt to unravel these. In the last book of this trilogy, Naipaul wrestled with the aftermath of the terrible partition of India leading to the creation of Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan and also made an attempt to understand Dravidian and Sikh conflicts. Naipaul also did something unique and decided to traverse the path taken roughly a century earlier by war correspondent for Times, William Russell during Indian mutiny of 1857. Naipaul had read Russell’s India diaries earlier but could not comprehend it fully so now that Naipaul was at India, he picked up the book again and moved along the trodden path by Russell and compared the landscape and society of that era with the present. Naipaul ended up concluding that Indian mutiny in some form was still going on, the Sikh insurgency or Dravidian revolt or Naxal class struggle, in author’s judgement were just progression of that century old mutiny as witnessed by Russell. I think what Naipaul observed as million mutinies during his third visit to India were nothing more than the birth pangs of a new nation which was undergoing metamorphosis from an ancient civilisation into a modern state. Now more or less that transition phase is over and India is now rightly marching forward to the league of strong and cultured nations. Naipaul never got an opportunity to write another book about new modern India but I’m sure he would have admired the progress and stability that India achieved in the last few decades.
This trilogy is important to understand India and Naipaul’s excellent rendering makes it without any doubt a pleasure to read. The world lost a courageous soul and a superlative writer but he has left us with his writings that I’m sure will keep us informed and entertained for long long time to come.
Rest in peace, Naipaul.
The first book of trilogy evoked strong sentiments in my youth and generated a lot of hatred for the author who was hellbent on telling me the obvious truth and reality of Indian life. Nobody has ever written so courageously and truthfully about India and his portrait of Indian psyche lays bare the banality and stupidity with which Indian mind has been riddled with since last millennium. But he was sympathetic of the reasons and correctly nailed down the deprivation of Indian thought on the Islamic invasion which terrorised Indian spirit. The first book of the trilogy was also a personal discovery for the author and its fascinating to walk with the author on his solo journey and to read first hand, his impressions of his native land, eccentricities of people he encountered and his bewilderment at the strange rituals and customs of the land that he was exploring. Naipaul was critical of Indian weather, Indian landscape, Indian arts, Indian science, Indian religion, almost everything that India had to offer but I beleive, not because these were deficient in any way but rather because he expected more or perhaps was expecting something different. India is a strange land and one either loves it or hate it and Naipaul ended up hating it in his first attempt to understand it. But I don’t blame him, India is so different and Naipaul who had till then only seen simple societies of Caribbean & Europe was not ready to fathom the intricacies of a complex social construct of an ancient land. It would take much more time for any outsider like Naipaul to understand the diversity and spirituality of India. It's not possible to understand India with western lenses that Naipaul kept on during his first sojourn to India and ended up labelling it, wrongly in my opinion, as an area of darkness.
When Naipaul visited India again during emergency few years later and wrote the second book of this trilogy, he saw the country in a different light but still could not understand the conflicted society where everybody was out fighting the system whether these were Naxal revolutionaries or Hindu fundamentalists or Muslim gang lords. The second visit invoked the feeling in Naipaul that India has been wounded first in his mind by Islamic invasions and then by an onslaught of modernity over an archaic society with hypocrisy of the political class not helping in any way. India was going though a perfect storm at the time of Naipaul’s second visit with emergency being declared and country going through the turmoil with desperate attempts by political class to rescue democratic norms from clutches of dictatorship which thankfully it finally succeeded in saving. On this second trip, Naipaul encountered first hand the hostility & pain of an angry society and that’s what he ended up depicting as a wounded civilisation.
Naipaul's third and final sojourn was most sympathetic to India, he understood the challenges the country was grappling with and he made an attempt to unravel these. In the last book of this trilogy, Naipaul wrestled with the aftermath of the terrible partition of India leading to the creation of Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan and also made an attempt to understand Dravidian and Sikh conflicts. Naipaul also did something unique and decided to traverse the path taken roughly a century earlier by war correspondent for Times, William Russell during Indian mutiny of 1857. Naipaul had read Russell’s India diaries earlier but could not comprehend it fully so now that Naipaul was at India, he picked up the book again and moved along the trodden path by Russell and compared the landscape and society of that era with the present. Naipaul ended up concluding that Indian mutiny in some form was still going on, the Sikh insurgency or Dravidian revolt or Naxal class struggle, in author’s judgement were just progression of that century old mutiny as witnessed by Russell. I think what Naipaul observed as million mutinies during his third visit to India were nothing more than the birth pangs of a new nation which was undergoing metamorphosis from an ancient civilisation into a modern state. Now more or less that transition phase is over and India is now rightly marching forward to the league of strong and cultured nations. Naipaul never got an opportunity to write another book about new modern India but I’m sure he would have admired the progress and stability that India achieved in the last few decades.
This trilogy is important to understand India and Naipaul’s excellent rendering makes it without any doubt a pleasure to read. The world lost a courageous soul and a superlative writer but he has left us with his writings that I’m sure will keep us informed and entertained for long long time to come.
Rest in peace, Naipaul.
July 27, 2020
The final Book of Naipaul’s India Trilogy. I’m actually a bit sad to finish it. No matter, they hold up very well to rereads so I shall be to back to book 1 soon.
India’s million mutinies, each caste, clan , religion and region as separate and distinct from each other as different countries. Each group has a clear view of their problems, history and apparent threats but seems blind to the same for the other. Some of the groups highlighted include the scheduled castes, Brahmins, shiv sainiks, Jains, Sikhs, Lucknows regal Muslims, Bombay slum Muslims, Mumbai dons, erstwhile Calcutta boxwallas, naxalites ands Kashmiri muslims. It’s a long book. I’m sure I missed a few. All these groups are really angry. They all feel wronged. They all have a seething rage. Hence the title.
I am so glad he went back to the hotel liward(leeward) to check in the the beloved folks from his previous India trip. That was one of my favorite chapters from that book and the revisit was a sweet moment.
My advice is take your time reading this. Let it sink in, absorb. A lot is packed into the details and between the lines. It’s glorious, gloriously depressing. But in the best way.
India’s million mutinies, each caste, clan , religion and region as separate and distinct from each other as different countries. Each group has a clear view of their problems, history and apparent threats but seems blind to the same for the other. Some of the groups highlighted include the scheduled castes, Brahmins, shiv sainiks, Jains, Sikhs, Lucknows regal Muslims, Bombay slum Muslims, Mumbai dons, erstwhile Calcutta boxwallas, naxalites ands Kashmiri muslims. It’s a long book. I’m sure I missed a few. All these groups are really angry. They all feel wronged. They all have a seething rage. Hence the title.
I am so glad he went back to the hotel liward(leeward) to check in the the beloved folks from his previous India trip. That was one of my favorite chapters from that book and the revisit was a sweet moment.
My advice is take your time reading this. Let it sink in, absorb. A lot is packed into the details and between the lines. It’s glorious, gloriously depressing. But in the best way.
February 15, 2025
Een indrukwekkend boek van V. S. Naipaul over zijn tweede lange verblijf in 1989 in India, het land van zijn voorvaderen. Op zoek naar de ziel van dit intrigerende land heeft Naipaul vele interviews met een doorsnee van mensen uit alle lagen van de bevolking: kastenlozen, Sikhs, (politiek) militante Hindoes, Jain, brahmins, anti-brahmins. Hij duikt diep in de maatschappij met indringende gesprekken. Je kunt merken dat hij een romanschrijver is (en bovendien Nobelprijswinnaar). Wat een prachtige beschrijvingen van de steden en het land (je ruikt en hoort het gewoon), geweldige karaktertekeningen!Het boek vraagt wel enige voorkennis en je moet hard werken bij het lezen. Maar dan doorvoel je dit fascinerende land zelf.
July 22, 2020
"It is ironical that...the first account of the splendours of 19th-century Lucknow should also be its destruction. It is ironical, yet not unexpected: the history of old India was written [first] by its conquerors."
Review | India: A Million Mutinies Now
During the isolation of the masses and incompetence of the leaders, I set foot in India (through reading) to learn, as Naipaul, the author, implied: the most enigmatic country ripped into a million mutinies. The book, I humbly claim, is one of the most challenging I came across. This biographical work about India and its unsung histories, had put me up long enough because of its length (520 pages, and another one for the acknowledgments), and of course, I was only a wanderer in a foreign land: everything's almost unknown past the land you were born. Aside from these obvious distinctions, Naipaul himself is enigmatic here. Critics claimed him to be the Joseph Conrad out of Trinidad heritage; with The Swedish Academy calling him as "the modern day philosopher." These questionable honors could point out the insensitive but nonetheless, brave approach of Naipaul, which had a searing emphasis how and why his homeland became a home after being pillaged by white and blue eyed-generals.
In his long run of investigation of his "home away from home," Naipaul is both distant and objective. But at the same time, he swings near towards the answers of the people he interviewed, scrutinizing the futility of events. In solitude of writing, he opened up his own upbringing in comparison. He relentlessly described the dark crevices of India, and though his writing is far from journalistic, neither of a literati, more so from a scholar, he ventured far enough to find the country's underworld, its people, and its million mutinies in an era of double-edged progress where faith and family are put in danger. Naipaul successfully raised the bar, almost creating a new way of writing in travel, history, and even anthropology: that to search one's soul is to seek society's sins. Here he puts, as large as the map of the country itself: the history of India is more dangerous than its present. Even if Gandhi and Tagore put their lives in the line to keep India known and safe; these torchbearers who had ceased to live in their successors, could only be kept as a pride of the past and were no longer integral to the progress of the present. While the religion and caste, which forms India's primal identity, are complicated—not complex, as the ties of tradition and faith are not as human for the outsider. Much more to the opposition: either with religious or political inclinations. And here, the contrasts led to an overwhelming bloodshed in the past centuries. Which in a surprisingly detached soul, Naipaul ferried across to find a million ruins out of a million mutinies. And soon the author left again, bidding perhaps his last to India. He would then see all the blood flowing into his own lake of memories.
Review | India: A Million Mutinies Now
During the isolation of the masses and incompetence of the leaders, I set foot in India (through reading) to learn, as Naipaul, the author, implied: the most enigmatic country ripped into a million mutinies. The book, I humbly claim, is one of the most challenging I came across. This biographical work about India and its unsung histories, had put me up long enough because of its length (520 pages, and another one for the acknowledgments), and of course, I was only a wanderer in a foreign land: everything's almost unknown past the land you were born. Aside from these obvious distinctions, Naipaul himself is enigmatic here. Critics claimed him to be the Joseph Conrad out of Trinidad heritage; with The Swedish Academy calling him as "the modern day philosopher." These questionable honors could point out the insensitive but nonetheless, brave approach of Naipaul, which had a searing emphasis how and why his homeland became a home after being pillaged by white and blue eyed-generals.
In his long run of investigation of his "home away from home," Naipaul is both distant and objective. But at the same time, he swings near towards the answers of the people he interviewed, scrutinizing the futility of events. In solitude of writing, he opened up his own upbringing in comparison. He relentlessly described the dark crevices of India, and though his writing is far from journalistic, neither of a literati, more so from a scholar, he ventured far enough to find the country's underworld, its people, and its million mutinies in an era of double-edged progress where faith and family are put in danger. Naipaul successfully raised the bar, almost creating a new way of writing in travel, history, and even anthropology: that to search one's soul is to seek society's sins. Here he puts, as large as the map of the country itself: the history of India is more dangerous than its present. Even if Gandhi and Tagore put their lives in the line to keep India known and safe; these torchbearers who had ceased to live in their successors, could only be kept as a pride of the past and were no longer integral to the progress of the present. While the religion and caste, which forms India's primal identity, are complicated—not complex, as the ties of tradition and faith are not as human for the outsider. Much more to the opposition: either with religious or political inclinations. And here, the contrasts led to an overwhelming bloodshed in the past centuries. Which in a surprisingly detached soul, Naipaul ferried across to find a million ruins out of a million mutinies. And soon the author left again, bidding perhaps his last to India. He would then see all the blood flowing into his own lake of memories.
February 13, 2020
The book is very informative, and touches upon the concept of India. It talks about the different conflicts, both non violent and violent.
The author is well placed to offer commentary on India, however a little besotted with the British.
The author is well placed to offer commentary on India, however a little besotted with the British.
April 9, 2024
Fue denso pero disfrutable. Toca muchos temas y te deja con una perspectiva más amplia.
November 11, 2021
What I really like about the book is that author doesn't endorse any of the opinions held by the characters in the book. He tries to present a balanced takes of many controversial ideas like Periyarism, Sikh militancy, Naxal movement, the rise of Shiv Sena etc. The only opinion that the author does endorse is that India as a country is truly changing and that many struggles / movements that we see in this land, is but a sign that India is coming out of darkness and it's people are becoming more assertive about their rights and well being. I do find ideas like Periyarism and Communism very extreme but we have to try and understand why these extreme ideas found takers. Overall, a very interesting read!
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