The spat between S.L. Bhyrappa and U.R. Anantha Murthy has thrown up a whole host of important questions. Unfortunately, many of them lie buried under the rather simplistic secular-fundamentalist, good-bad, ‘tu-tu-main-main‘ stands both sides have taken.
In this churumuri.com video, Prof Rajendra Chenni of the Kuvempu University’s English department and sahitya akademi award-winning Kannada writer Abdul Rashid of All India Radio, Mysore, broach some of the critical issues raised by the debate.
The debate is 20 minutes long, and was held at the Kukkarahalli Lake in Mysore. The audio is infrequently interrupted by the divine evening breeze.
thanks for this inititating, recording & then sharing this discussion.
Thanks for good video.
Abdul Rasheed has point when he say “secularists should talk less to maintain communal harmony”, as he rightly rightly pointed out URA is giving overdose of progressive medicines when there are very few takers !
I hate to shoot the messenger (apologies for the Shakespearean cliche), but I think Krishna Prasad’s questions are rather presumptuous.
Professor Chenni’s eloquent responses show it’s futile to debate whether Bhyrappa is good or Ananthamurthy better. In any case, it’s cheeky to talk of good and bad when we really need to discuss right and wrong.
KP tries to frame the controversy as one involving “secularists.” His view is as legitimate as Ananthamurthy’s reported opinion of Bhyrappa, except Ananthamurthy makes a case while KP doesn’t bother to do so.
Realistically, the “communal” and “secular” camps — terms used by Abdul Rashid upon KP’s goading — are non sequiturs. It’s already established that legitimate criticism is seldom bereft of ideology — for example see Terry Eagleton’s “Criticism and Ideology,” a classic on the Marxist influence.
When KP asks whether the current controversy will benefit Bhyrappa more than Ananthamurthy, Abdul Rashid hits the nail on the head: “Media will take the benefit.”
On the other hand, Abdul Rashid himself says stuff that left me scratching my head. He spouts, “I don’t need to confess that I’ve not read Bhyrappa, because there are better novels in Kannada which have come [out] recently,” and goes on to name five other authors and their works. Huh? How does he know those are better works if he has not read Bhyrappa too?
Later he adds, “If I am going to read Bhyrappa’s this new novel (sic) I will have to read [it] after reading all these better novels.”
That’s almost as presumptous as KP’s secular-communal question and the other comment about Ananthamurthy’s “social conscience.”
Another uppity question is whether the controversy has “polarized” Kannada readers. It prompts Professor Chenni to quip that Kannada readers have “viveka” — more viveka than the interviewer seems to grant them.
C’mon KP, your frame is showing!
@Nikhil Moro – you say…”His view is as legitimate as Ananthamurthy’s reported opinion of Bhyrappa”. “Reported opinion”? I have a recording of URA’s entire speech which I downloaded from somewhere and I can mail it to you if you want. URA is very clearly attacking SLB as being ‘communal’ etc.,. He draws the lines clearly between the ‘kommUnals’ and the ‘seKKulars’.. its not something KP is making up.
URA’s criticism.
SLB is a debator. Amartya Sen wrote an entire thesis, received with much adoring applause, on the Argumentative Indian. So what is the Indian to argue about, if not about his politics, the variations in haagalkaayi gojju recipes? The essentially political debates between sankara & boudhas and the dvaita rhetoric against both of them complete with ridicule & sarcasm, would have put these piddly modern day arguers to shame.
If such debates between darshanas are allowed, then why is it not possible to have a debate between islam & darshanas? Forget islam, one cannot even critically examine a historic character with an Arabic name without a whole library of clichéd faux secularist tomes falling on him. Take URA’s response for example, apart from personal stories, there is nothing specific to avarana or SLB in that response. The same response, with a few editorial flourishes, can be reused in any other situation that attempts to examine the status quo in Indian secularism.
Instead of insight, URA offers us obfuscation by drawing equivalence between Aurangazeb & Sir Mirza Ismail. To begin with, Goethe idda antha Goebbels maryakk aagalla. In any case, apart from the Arabic names these two prolly shared nothing in common and this argument basically amounts to the worst form of stereotyping & sort of stems from a pavlovian view of humans, who display the ‘right’ behaviors only when in state prescribed ‘right’ conditions. So it then becomes important & urgent to don pavlov’s garb for themselves, play god, and prescribe conditions on the lab rats called masses. Yoor heLi naav maaDbeku. ili svargadind iLidu bandroo, idella ili mele ili experiment.
namagella devasthaana keDvidd Aurgajebanigoo anjaneya swami guDili makkLige taayta kaTso bibigaLigoo vyatyaasa gottilla noDi. As Rashid said, yoor heLi naav tiLibeku. yaav secularist siddha heLda antha shareefa bardru saar?
To enlist recruits to his cause, he then employs the well used strawman of the capitalist & globalization by narrating the story of continuous read by NRN. Globalization did not start with Infosys daNi. One can argue that Marxvaada, Maovaada, are the greatest products of globalization, ideas on which he sought ballot. If a global product like Marxvaada is acceptable because it is a better or even a correct system, why not the idea of global market? After all there is some empirical evidence to the fable that trading countries don’t war. Atleast with lee jeans & mtv I have a choice. I could live in a corner of my world singing shareefa in my panche, but what do I do with the hegemony of the big brother? Text books, history books, etc are filled with it. Talking of local ideas & creativity, has not marxvaadi history writing killed the purana tradition, forget other non Marxian writing? MarxvaadigaLa rajyadalli puraNa bardor esTh jana kayyigge runDa kuTilla yooru.
There is no separating politics from literature in this kaanDa, but just to play the devils advocate, would the same literary criticisms be valid for Mahashweta Devi & her ilk, & their tomes? How about MK & his ilk? The displacement & violence due to politics in them is no less than what happened in GJ. The prey on which these folks feed upon suffer from the same disease of disenchantment & ignorance, even if one enjoys marginally better amenities than the other.
Basically what they are saying is, be secular because you are ignorant not because you are aware.
We could have celebrated SLB’s work, but SLB disappointed & repulsed by accepting felicitations from Togadia.
yaav secularist siddha heLda antha shareefa bardru saar? yaav secularist siddha heLda antha ishT dina jana adanella haaDkonD bandru saar?
I am unable to understand the Prof. chenni’s contention that character in SLB’s book are not autonomous and are contrived. It is like telling in real life Mr. Vajpayee is not an autonomous character or Mr. Mani shankar Iyer is contrived. They are what they are. You may not like it but that does not make them caricatures. After all a character in Novel is writer’s own baby and end of the day a Novel can be good or bad but to say it is not a Novel is too straight jacketing the Concept /Medium itself. This whole business of calling a Novel right wing , centrist, Left wing ideology oriented is too contrived. In the same breath one can also tell URA’s Samaskara is equally contrived or Author’s idealogical mouth piece.
It appears in India only one shade of opinion is intellectual and the other is contemptuous.
I am unable to, understand Nikhil Moros umbrage against KP.
sisya… sarcasm kaNla adu
Editor:
Please post the complete transcript (text) of this useful conversation. The video is very slow and unwatchable for a person with an ordinary internet connection.
Ella Okay….Hinglish yaake!
The following quotation that appeared this week in TOI seems relevant.
” You have to show violence the way it is. If you don’t show it realistically, then that’s immoral and harmful. If you don’t upset people, then that’s obscenity.” — Roman Polanski
Hi KP
Thanks for exclusive and xcellent Video interviews of S L Bhyrappa and Rajendra Chenni. Interviews are done very professionally. Keept it up.
M K Vidyaranya
Rathnajeevi
I am unable to understand Prof. Chenni at all. Let me confess–I haven’t Amartya Sen but I can see the difficulty ahead if I ever meet him in person. Chenni is cut from the ‘same cloth’–all secular logic and no ‘Right’ commonsense…He is way too complicated in his analysis–makes me wonder and I can even hazard a guess–Chenni might have read a precise total of 13 and a half novels in his academic life:)
I have words of praise for Cheeni. To me Chenni represents the best definition of a critic, I read somewhere…here goes,,,”A critic is a eunuch in a knocking shop: he hears it being done; he knows it is being done; and he has even seen it being done. But unfortunately cannot do it himself!”
As we say over here, Way to Go Chenni
Rathnajeevi
I am unable to understand Prof. Chenni at all. Let me confess–I haven’t met Amartya Sen but I can see the difficulty ahead if I ever meet him in person. Chenni is cut from the ’same cloth’–all secular logic and no ‘Right’ commonsense…He is way too complicated in his analysis–makes me wonder and I can even hazard a guess–Chenni might have read a precise total of 13 and a half novels in his academic life:)
I have words of praise for Cheeni. To me Chenni represents the best definition of a critic, I read somewhere…here goes,,,”A critic is a eunuch in a knocking shop: he hears it being done; he knows it is being done; and he has even seen it being done. But unfortunately cannot do it himself!”
As we say over here, Way to Go Chenni
Doddi Buddi
Shows that your reading is not even 0.000003 and half books. Chenni is lucid and straight and puts things in perspective and unlike Rashid does not take any rigid stands. However, when creepy crawlies start calling writers names just because their intellects are sub human, one wonders at the reason why worms are allowed inside blogs at all
one suggestion – try to read, at least once every ten years and at least news papers, if nothing else.
How do critics whotalk about Rabindranath Tagore’s GORA. Has gurudev not tried to explain Indian Philosophy using novel’s characters.
Also comes to mind is TaRaSu’s Chandavlliya Thota. This novel is clearly in favor of undivided family. How about Munshi Premchnad’s GodAna. As far as story telling is concerned we grew up listening to stories and talking about moral of the story. Do we say the MORAL is hidden agenda??
Abdul Rashid says – “If he has to read Avarana then it will be after reading better novels by Tejaswi, Kambara etc”
That means he has not read Avarana and also the other novels which he lists. Yet he can say for sure they are better novels than Avarana. How? Magic?