Written during the emergency period almost 50 years ago,V. S. Naipaul makes many interesting observations that are ruined by his bitter tone, scorn and contempt, and the complete lack of any insight or an attempt at analysis. Desptie being a Hindu, Naipual is no different from any other biased western observer of India.

India is indeed a wounded civilization. We have gone through almost a thousand years of invasions and foreign rule by monotheistic or monocultural people, during which our tradition knowledge systems and industry have been systematically destroyed. Especially during the colonial times, the local traditional science, technology and crafts of the lands and people have systematically been exterminated or undermined. This has resulted in self alienation, loss of ideas and a lack of continuity in our arts, architecture, literature and science and technology. This alienation and stagnation is visible throughout this book.

Unfortunately even after independence, under the guise of modernisation, instead of reconnecting to our past and civilizational values we have ended up importing "secular" institutions and modern ideas that are borrowed from the west and completely disconnected from our own past. V.S.Naipaul keeps saying that Hinduism has failed us, but the truth is that the decolonization of Hindu mind and the decolonization of our educational, technological and artistic institutes hasn't yet happened.

Disclaimer: I firmly believe that I have no authority to review the genius of Mr. Naipaul. Therefore, what follows should be taken as a fledgling's understanding and takeaways from a masterpiece.

To begin with, being born in Trinidad and Tobago and educated in England, Mr. Naipaul acknowledges his disconnect with the civilization he was born in. And it is that man, extremely conscious of his roots, but alienated from them due to his circumstances, goes on an expedition of his parent civilization. This expedition perhaps turns into a great disappointment very soon.

The book begins in Hampi, where the author ponders over the circumstances that brought the empire of Vijayanagar to ruins. As the book progresses, one realizes that the state of those temples, the broken deities of the Gods, the ruins of temples with certain islands of masterfully sculpted stones giving a glimpse of their original grandeur are essentially a metaphor of current state of Hinduism. Hinduism, like its temples is broken, almost ruined, at places distorted beyond recognition, having wounds that are too hideous to look at, but certain parts still bearing signatures of a glories past and last of all, somehow still standing. Like the Hampi temples, where destroyed structures stand with no life in them, so does Hinduism, the skeleton stands with its intellectual spirit long dead.

Consequently, his astringent critique of what has become of the Sapt-Sindhu civilization comes from the mismatch he finds between the glorified accounts read by him and the reality he is met with. He seems to be very angry and that too in a very personal and emotional way, the kind generated by extreme disappointment from a loved one, or from someone from whom there were high expectations. Sir Naipaul seems to find the current decay of Hindus as a personal embarrassment and earnestly looks for reasons that led to the decay. This is the very reason anyone interested in an Indic Renaissance must read the book. The reasons for the decay as identified by the author are as follows:

1. Denial of there being a problem: It is always very easy to blame the deterioration of one's civilization on the invaders, and there is obviously some truth in it. But, that should not become an excuse to not investigate what were our weaknesses that allowed invading forces to have an impact on our system.

2. Inability to interpret Dharma: The authors seems to be of the view that it is the misinterpretation of Dharma, intellectual lassitude and cowardliness that has brought the Hindu society to its current state of absolute ruin. The cowardliness manifests itself as very strong inferiority complex in us, that makes us accept other people's solutions to their problems as solutions to our very different ones.

3. Copy pasted revolutions and intellectual poverty : When Mr. Naipaul writes "Naxalism was an intellectual tragedy, a tragedy of idealism, ignorance, and mimicry: middle-class India, after the Gandhian upheaval, incapable of generating ideas and institutions of its own, needing constantly in the modern world to be inducted into the art, science, and ideas of other civilizations, not always understanding the consequences, and this time borrowing something deadly, somebody else’s idea of revolution.", he is not launching a polemic against Naxalism or Marxism, but pointing that the only thing Macaulite intellectuals have been able to do is lazily paste other peoples' solutions to their problems to India, when they were highly unsuitable to her problems.

Not only in terms of political ideologies and systems, but this pattern, arising out of a deep-seated inferiority, has manifested itself in in art, architecture, design, science and in almost every other field. Rather than making an effort to rejuvenate the schools and frameworks indigenous to Bharata, the politically independent Indian state has worked tirelessly on imposing alien institutions on the native people. The author discusses a examples of how this has been done in various fields and how majestically it has failed in its intended motives.

To me, the book seems to be a mourning for a civilization that according to the author is now beyond redemption. The realizations devastate him to an extent that he finds the a swift death of the civilization to be the most hopeful scenario.

While I agree with most of his criticism of the Hindu society, I strongly disagree with the blaming of presence of rules that make the natives live instinctive lives, which to him are lives deprived of thought and curiosity. The directives of the Sanatana Dharma on everyday life are not holy, unchangeable rules coming from a higher authority, being communicated through a prophet. They are formed by research and realizations, perfected by generations of Rishis, codified as directives that one may choose to abide by or ignore. They are similar to formulas and have a derivation. The user of the formula may not always know the derivation and the user's ignorance of the process of derivation does not make the formula unscientific. Similarly, our ignorance of the process that went behind the formulation of our rituals and traditions does not make them superstition.

Further, these directives that make the mundane life instinctive, also free practitioner from thinking about them, and hence allowing him to focus his intellectual energy to build further. Just like in modern day science, where certain findings are formulated and then the formulas are used to investigate further.


In conclusion, the book seems more like call for Indics to get their act together by showing the harm inaction has caused us till now. It presents us with two options, to take up the intellectual challenge of building systems for India from bottom up or to perish.

feeds my absorption into my past, is directly pointed and true for what I have seen in my family and in India myself.

Beyond analysis of India in the Emergency, really interesting political/social observations about a vast country with a huge complex identity and a vague understanding of the past and the present.


10 "In India I know I am a stranger; but increasingly I understand that my Indian memories, the memories of that India which lived on into my childhood in Trinidad, are like trapdoors into a bottomless past."

25 "Out of a superficial reading of the past, then, out of the sentimental conviction that India is eternal and forever revives, there comes not a fear of further defeat and a destruction, but an indifference to it. India will how look after itself; the individual is freed of all responsibility and within this larger indifference there is the indifference to the fate of a friend: it is madness he concludes for him to think of himself as the artist's keeper."

32 "Men had retreated to their last, impregnable defences: their knowledge of who they were, their caste, their /karma/, their unshakeable place in the scheme of things; and this knowledge was like their knowledge of the seasons."

33 "a world finely balanced", "India /was/ the truth", "And India, for all its surface terrors, could be proclaimed, without disingenuousness or cruelty, as perfect."

168 "...the inadequacy of an old civilization which is cherished because it is all men have but which no longer answers their needs."

174 "neither [Gandhi] not old India has the solutions to the present crisis"

I have never thought of A WOUNDED CIVILIZATION as depressing or pessimistic. I found it to be enlightening, but yes, it is hard hitting stuff. The analysis of R.K.Narayanan's novel and Gandhi's writings offer a lot of interesting insights into the Hindu psyche. Naipaul says that Gandhi traveled to the UK but never noticed anything because of his anxiety. Sudhir Kakkar gave a nod to Naipaul's analysis of Gandhi in one of his books about Indian sexuality. I don't know whether Naipaul's idea of Hindu retreat (tendency of Hindu's to withdraw when faced with potential outsider invasion or violation, to maintain purity) is applicable to non-Brahmins. But it is an interesting concept, nonetheless.

Nobody can deny the extreme sense of anomie with which a lot of people live in India. Naipaul's description of the Hindu psyche as one that been shaped by centuries of invasions and defeat and Indians as a supine people who are resigned to their fates is still relevant.

To understand India it takes a lucid essayist like Naipaul. The mahatma, the castes, dharma, mimicry – all fall into one piece. Not a happy ending though, but that was 1976 and now is now.

Almost abandoned!

What the author wanted to convey till the very end is something I couldn't get.

I hope someday I will put here the 1st copy of review I wrote until then my polite views about this is, it is another fodder for west -about the "bhukhe-nange Indian (hungry-naked Indian)". A pessismist delight is what it seemed to me.

May be this was the reality of time he wrote but surely not something I will advise someone interested in India to read.
Not for me.
(Note-I don't group myself among the anti-V S Naipaul category)

This is the second book in Naipaul's 'India Trilogy'. Prompted by the Emergency of 1975, he casts an analytical eye, convinced that India, wounded by a thousand years of foreign rule, has not yet found an ideology of regeneration. The book is remarkable for its clarity and engaging narrative.

It is a scathing criticism of the Indian way of life, Indian spirituality and Gandhian methods and vision. The author exposes the rigid caste system, the drudgery and lack of intellectual capacity, the alien nature of India's ineffective institutions, etc as the reason for India being ossified. It is in his terms, a wounded civilization, devastated by centuries of conquest and defeat. He sees Gandhian model of 'Ram Rajya' like village self-rule and simple life only as a solace of despair.

The solution, he says, is in breaking away from the past to find an ideology of regeneration. In his own words - 'The past has to be seen to be dead, or the past will kill.'

India - A wounded civilization - VS Naipaul.
Rating 5/5

One of the brilliant books by Sir Vidia. What a man and what a writing! I bow in respect to you Sir Vidia.

If you grade a writer on the basis of how many times he hits the bull's eye (target) then Sir Vidia would not fall into that category of writers. With Sir Vidia, we need to see how many times did he miss the bulls eye. And I can say, not many a time.

Sir Vidia hits bulls eye every single time, with his observation, with his criticism, with his knowledge and writing skills. You cannot ask for more.

In Khushwant Singh's own words on Sir Vidia - "Squalor and stench attracted his attention more than scenic beauty and fragrance". This can be summed up as many a people's opinion on Sir Vidia, not mine though!

The book is about Sir Vidia's observations during his travel through India in the 1970's, Hampi, Bombay, Poona, Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi. The book is a serious attempt to decode the cause of the shortcomings of the country, post independence or even for that matter before independence.

Sir Vidia attributes the culprit to be Hinduism, the culture which on the whole, through years of defeat, surrender and invasion has left people intellectually drained. He concludes the lack of progress to lack of intellectual abilities, lack of interest to observe and learn.

Sir Vidia equates Hindu karma to Hindu calm also calling it Hindu killer which calls people to accept fate and adjust and move on with life and in turn leads to self absorption ignoring what is happening around them. He also mentions the missing of an agreement between man and another man and between man and a state.

Sir Vidia is not a much liked gentleman here in India, no wonder such brilliant writing never made it to our textbooks. Sigh! Writings such as these can make men out of boys. It opens up one's own thought process and makes one open to ideas. It is a very highly recommended read and I am sad, I found it only now.

There is mention of RK Narayan and his books with their shortcomings and the reason why RK Narayan chose to keep his world of Malgudi away from political movements. There is mention of Mahatma Gandhi and his autobiography. Also, emergency finds a place, Naxal movement, Hampi - Vijayanagara empire too find a much detailed chunk of Sir Vidia's observations.

This book appeals to people who are interested in questioning stuffs and are having a heart big enough to appreciate an alternate viewpoint.

One thing I realized is people find it hard to accept criticism or shortcomings especially in this part of the sub-continent. This book by Sir Vidia has criticism, but its accurate, spot on, so, one needs to have that intellectual resilience to understand and appreciate Sir Vidia's writing, let alone criticism.

This is the reason why Sir Vidia never got his due in India (or did he?) for his utmost intelligence.

Cheers,

The insights of V.S. Naipul regarding India are breathtaking. This book is a hard criticism of India's inability to adapt to modernity. It was written in the 1970s and perhaps some observations are obsolete. Nevertheless, it allows you to understand India's backwardness and it's inability to become the power house that it should be. For all intents and purposes India should be at or close to the level of China as a superpower but so far it has lagged way behind. Naipaul comes back to the theme that, because Indians are a conquered people, they are incapable of dealing with the modern world therefore they turn away from it and hide in the past, in tradition, in the clan, thus, in their view they maintain their purity. But it is a false purity because the turning away from reality only reinforces the country's backwardness. The cast system which India so stubbornly clings to is a part of that mentality which created order in society as a whole by maintaining a hierarchy that has existed for centuries. However, the modern western mindset for good or ill has changed the dynamics of human affairs around the world and made individual rights and democracy and freedoms a pillar of societies. This renders the cast system as outdated and inhumane. Individual rights are an affront to Indian traditions and this is what India is unable to escape according to Naipaul. Acceptance of the clan and obedience above all are the traits of traditional India which impoverishes the mind and defeats the individual, preventing him from flourishing.

Naipul was a gifted author, I love his seamless style and the way he introduced literature and other writers as examples that reinforce his thesis. This book is a good starting point for those who want to learn about the Indian mind and how Indians see the world.

In a concise but powerful essay, Naipul outlines the decay he sees in 1970s Indian society. His identification of a pervasive, introspective, backwards-looking mentality within this society, and its role in contributing to societal decay, is a little ambitious. I have trouble believing any "Indian mentality", however broadly defined, can apply to a population of more than one billion people and still have any descriptive power.

Interestingly, Naipul wrote this essay during a rather dark time in modern Indian history. An Emergency was declared, the constitution was suspended; undoubtedly, the future seemed bleak. Certainly poverty is still rampant, and caste and religious discrimination still exist, but I wonder if Naipul would modify his thesis considering the steps forward India has made in terms of economic liberalization and (slightly) more transparent politics over the last 20 years.

One of the best books you'll read on India. While the economic constraints coming off in the 1980s ensured a less pessimistic outcome for India, the wounds are still not fully recovered and can be inflamed at any time.