READING REGINALD: PULP FICTION OR NOT?

Anniversaries are good occasions to contemplate and reflect on personalities. As the 102nd birth anniversary of the Konkani writer Reginald Fernandes approaches (14 June, 1914 – 13 November, 1994) reflecting on how his books and writings have been perceived and understood thus far would seem fitting for the occasion.

Reginald’s writing, due to a lack of attention by literary scholars and writers in Goa, is assumed to be in the genre of ‘pulp fiction’. This is largely due to the want of a better term to describe cheaply-produced, pocket-sized fiction for mass consumption, and the fact that ‘pulp fiction’ is understood to be literature of low caliber. Within the Romi Konkani readership, the term romans is used to refer to such fiction – to the extent that ‘novel’ is synonymous with romans. With the formation of Goa’s statehood and the official recognition of nagri-scripted Konkani, one could observe not only a shift of modes of literary production from the organic (romans) to an artificial (kadombori, a term believed to be more Indian in its register), but also a rejection of the very form of the romans for a more modern and literary form of writing based on sanskritic culture.

Apart from linguistic politics, scholars of literature point out, the fuzzy boundaries between ‘pulp fiction’ and ‘literary fiction’ are due to practical causes as well. The immediate criterion used to classify a book as ‘pulp’ or not is its appearance and pricing. Reginald’s books fit this criterion as his books were published on cheaply available paper and these were modestly priced around 50 years ago at 2 rupees and a few paisas. But even by such a criterion, some books by famous novelists such as R. K. Narayan were published in cheap and affordable editions that had the appearance of ‘pulp’. Thus, the idea that books printed on cheap and coarse paper can be termed as ‘pulp’ can at times be misleading. Moreover, in the case of Reginald, the cheap and coarse print quality – almost lurid – can be explained by the fact that the author and publishers experienced financial difficulties with the rising prices, and hence these books had to be affordably priced.

‘Pulp fiction’ is mass-produced. The cheap pricing is meant to attract a reading demographic across economic divisions. It is largely aimed at making fiction accessible to lower income groups, such as the working class Goan population in Bombay. In this sense, Reginald’s books can be qualified as ‘pulp’, especially since 5000 copies would sell like hot cakes in no time. This mass production of ‘pulp fiction’ is not just confined to the print-run but also extends to the number of books an author churns out in his/her lifetime or career. If one looks at the authors who wrote ‘pulp fiction’ in Hindi and Tamil for instance, then the sheer number of books written would strike one as mind-boggling. Reginald’s oeuvre consisting well over one hundred books can easily qualify as ‘pulp’ in this respect.

Qualitatively speaking, ‘pulp fiction’ is supposed to be ‘bad literature’. Pulp follows a formula, the story-line is simple and straightforward, and is written in an effortless and accessible language. Scholars point out that many ‘good’ literary works (such as George Orwell’s Animal Farm) are also written in a simple and accessible manner. On the surface of it, Reginald’s writings, although simple and formulaic, make use of the Konkani language in novel and creative ways. Reginald’s descriptions of the scenes invoking the natural beauty of Goa have a poetic quality to them, and his descriptions of the fantastic and the marvelous leads him to use known words in many different ways.

One reason why writers such as Reginald were and are viewed in contemporary Goa as not literary enough is due to the cultural and political marginalization of the Romi script. Any literary production in the Romi script was viewed as lacking in literary standard by the dominant nagri establishment. One cannot deny that in order to make nagri Konkani the official language of Goa, the vibrancy of the Romi script productions were denied state recognition, apparently for a greater good. In such circumstances, referring to the oeuvre of writers like Reginald as ‘pulp’ may end up justifying such an attitude of ignoring the cultural vibrancy of the Romi script.

Considering the fuzzy boundaries between ‘literary’ and ‘pulp’ fiction, Tabish Khair, a writer, poet, and critic, attempts to define ‘pulp fiction’ in the Indian context: “[P]ulp fiction is fiction that used largely fixed generic features to satisfy the largely fixed reading expectations of as large a market as possible”. Even if in certain respects Reginald’s corpus of writings can be seen as ‘pulp’, one has to be careful given the fraught nature of language politics in Goa. So is there any alternative category that can be used to denote and understand the writings of those like Reginald? The alternative, I think, has been staring us in the face: romans.

Apart from the fact that romans is an organic term used in the context of Romi writings and has a legitimate tradition and history, it also helps us to do away with the artificial distinction between what constitutes literature and what doesn’t. In many languages the novel developed from a tradition of romance literature, so much so that a novel is synonymous with ‘romance’. Moreover, through the route of romans the pulp-esque features of writers like Reginald need not be entirely rejected. This will also allow us to escape the confusion that results from re-labeling romans as kadombori. In the end we can provide a provisional answer to the question in the title: not ‘pulp’ because we have a better alternative in romans.

For more Reading Reginald, click here.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 8 June, 2016) 

TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS AND STATISTICIANS

Some days ago, I came across an article in an online portal titled “Bad Drivers are a Good Indicator of a Corrupt Government” by Christopher Groskopf. This article offered a provocative conclusion: “If you’re in a country where everyone drives on the sidewalk and nobody stops at stop signs, you can be pretty sure the government isn’t working right”.  Most of the studies that Groskopf cited in this article were done by economists depending on statistical calculations, who specialized in traffic fatalities, natural disasters and their link to corrupt or inefficient government services.

These studies can help us in understanding the rampant problem of traffic accidents in Goa, as they attempt to discuss universal factors involved in people losing lives in motor vehicle accidents. Moreover, being exposed to different perspectives would help us see what is specific to Goa and what is not. While the link between corruption and traffic fatalities is important, we also need to read the narrative of ‘corruption’ with social and economic realities in Goa.

In the study titled, “The Direct and Indirect Effects of Corruption on Motor Vehicle Crash Deaths”, Law Teik Hua and others argue that “corruption” impacts the count of road accident deaths in two ways: the direct mechanism, in which corruption reduces the “stringency of road safety regulation and enforcement”; and the indirect mechanism, wherein corruption impacts the per capita income, thereby reducing/increasing motorization and consequently reducing/increasing road accidents. In another study titled, “Factors Associated with the Relationship between Motorcycle Deaths and Economic Growth” by the abovementioned authors, the role of inefficient political institutions is highlighted. Motorcycle deaths were observed to have dwindled as road safety policy measures were enforced by political institutions that were committed to do so. The infrastructure of health services and the response to casualties also influenced the statistics of road accident deaths.

An important distinction is made between ‘legal drivers’ and ‘safe drivers’ by Nejat Anbarci and others in their study “Traffic Fatalities and Public Sector Corruption”. Anbarci and others argue that it is public and governmental corruption that produces ‘legal drivers’ but not ‘safe drivers’. We are provided with a schema of how corruption works to produce ‘unsafe drivers’. Assuming that licenses can be easily procured by a payment of a bribe or that the authorities are lax when it comes to following proper procedure to issue licenses, a driver is more likely disposed to take the easy way out. Thus, he/she has a legal license, but is not skilled enough and is more likely to put himself/herself and others at risk on the roads. Not just road accident deaths, but economists have also written about the links of public sector corruption with natural disasters such as earthquakes. Factors such as substandard materials in construction, lack of checks and inspections, and an inefficient system to respond to natural disasters, all can have links, one way or another, to the levels of corruption in the public sector.

Thus, the idea that public sector corruption impacts directly or indirectly traffic-related and other deaths is credibly established by researchers discussed above. Yet again it is the role of the State that is highlighted as important in order to prevent motor vehicle deaths. In other words, the State should play the role of a neutral arbiter, enforcing a just rule of law. In India, this becomes an acute problem as widespread corruption relating to traffic management is reported frequently, and even acknowledged by high-level government officials. It is said that people end up paying more bribes to traffic cops, although most government offices are dens of corruption. Whether traffic related corruption is higher than other areas is not the issue. Rather we should think about how this traffic related corruption is antithetical to human dignity and realizing a democratic society.

In India and in Goa other factors come into play such as those of class and caste. The poor who are forced to live on the streets may sometimes get run over and become victims of road rage. By the logic and method of the studies discussed above, one could argue that such incidents are related to the income of the poor – they are forced to live on the streets because they have no income or very little income. However, the social structure in India denies the basic right to earn a livelihood to many. Road-related corruption can also be a symptom of the entrenched structures of caste and class, in this case. Thus, if at all income of persons is in any way linked to road accident related deaths, merely building wider roads would not suffice. A social and economic change in the lives of people is also needed. Further, the classist bias of the system in Goa and India is visible in the manner in which roads are seen as a privilege of the high-end car users. The pedestrian foot paths, for instance, are seldom given preference and a large part of these pedestrians come from the socially and economically lower castes and classes. How much a society is willing to accommodate the rights of pedestrians, the least powerful on roads, would indicate the seriousness to address the problem of road rage and deaths due to road accidents.

A holistic understanding of the problem is the need of the hour. All concerned – the individual drivers, the urban planners, and the government needs to recognize how they contribute to the problem of road rage and road accident deaths. Corruption does contribute to the problem, but it is also a symptom of existing societal structures.

Illustration: Angela Ferrao.

(First published on O Heraldo, dt: 25 May, 2016)

RESPONSIBILITY AND GOAN ROADS

Along with the rising temperature this summer, there has been a sharp increase in the deaths related to road accidents. The first half of 2016 produced some truly chilling statistics with the death toll for the month of January and February reaching 59 persons. April 2016 saw a staggering 11 deaths in just 5 days. While one may have heard, and received, cautionary advice at the beginning of the monsoon season owing to the slippery roads, perhaps we also need to caution each other at the start of every summer in a similar way. After all, the rising temperature seems to be making our roads, quite literally, hotbeds for fatal accidents.

How does one discuss the tragic deaths on the roads, and also the general usage of and safety on roads? The obvious question to ask is, “who is responsible?” Is it the State or the motorists? With academic studies and road accident reports reflecting that most accidents are caused by reckless motorists, it does appear that the individual driver is at fault for recklessness on the roads. I do not wish to argue against these findings, rather I would like to add to them so that when we debate the issue of road safety, we do not slip into an ‘either/or’ position.

There was a common thread running through the statements of the many activists working on road safety that O Heraldo’s Vibha Verma interviewed – that reckless driving was the cause of accidents. For instance, Ruan Mendes, an activist, observes, “One should not hold the authorities responsible alone, but he/she [the motorist] should take every precautionary measure and diligently follow traffic rules…” This reckless driving is more serious, it was argued, with persons who operate heavy-vehicles, as they are the ones who cause the most number of accidents. Thus, heavy-vehicles and reckless driving emerge as the deadly combo that is driving the accident rate through the roof.

However, the recent and tragic death of two women at Tilamol, Quepem should make us think about faulty economic policies of the State a bit more critically. This is not the first time that people have been killed at the very same spot in Tilamol. If we go back in time in 2010, a rasta roko was staged by the angry inhabitants of Curchorem and Quepem after a similar incident where a man was crushed to death. This was at the time when mining-related transportation was in full swing. Six years later, another mining-related heavy-vehicle is the cause of two deaths. While the residents of Quepem and Curchorem, then as now, demanded a separate bypass road solely for the purpose of mining transportation, nothing has come of the demand. What this also indicates is that the State is not able to effectively balance between the flow of economic activities – of which transport/roads form a major part – and the everyday life of the common people. Thus, while the person at the wheel of a heavy-vehicle is indeed indulging in reckless and potentially harmful behavior, the lack of foresight and planning on the part of the State aggravates the problem.

Similarly, one can think of road-widening projects as being counter-productive for the general safety on roads. It increasingly appears that roads are widened or repaired so that they would look good, rather than properly regulate the flow of traffic – for the traffic-flow does not improve substantially. What further complicates the situation in Goa is that the tiny or narrow roads in the villages can immediately meet a national highway, and cause confusion in the minds of the drivers. The new bypass roads constructed as an aid to the existing highways are a good example, as they run through rice-fields and villages. That land is fast depleting in Goa should also make us realize that road-widening is not a viable option.

So, we are slowly coming to realize the intervention by the State through policing, fines, awareness campaigns, regulations, and infrastructure development is not helping. Further the suitability of the urban and economic vision of the State, which privileges a neo-liberal, faster-bigger-is-better vision, should really be examined again. Rather than asking whom one should blame, it might be more useful to demand that thorough professionals be employed who are committed to a vision of streamlining and regulating the existing roads in Goa – with their close proximity to houses, trees, and other structures. Possibly, each and every road needs to be studied as to how this links to other roads and what is the best way to regulate it. In other words, the network of village, taluka, district, and city roads need to be studied as a particularly Goan problem, if we would like a meaningful solution. That and providing efficient public transport may be the only meaningful solution to the problems on roads.

I have in the past argued that the experience of Goan roads is marred by the aggression that motorists subject each other to. We need to recognize how individual behavior frustrates the implementation of state policies that are obviously beneficial, and how faulty state policies lead to chaos – and even death on roads. Both are two sides of the same coin.

Illustration: Angela Ferrao. 

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 11 May, 2016)

CONVERSION AS POLITICAL PROTEST

The “institutional murder” of a Dalit PhD scholar, Rohith Vemula in January this year, saw the launch of a fiery protest across India. Rohith was driven to commit suicide due to the institutional harassment meted out to him because he was Dalit. While the investigation into the matter has not proceeded in any meaningful direction leading to justice, the protesting students at the Hyderabad Central University – the epicenter of the protests – have witnessed repeated and brutal attacks by the State to stifle the voice of those who demand strict action against the guilty and those complicit in the violence and discrimination. While the search for justice is on, this year’s 125th Ambedkar Jayanti saw the mother and brother of the deceased Rohith converting to Buddhism. Conversion is usually in the ‘national’ news nowadays only with ‘ghar wapasi’-like incidents in which minoritized communities are targeted, often violently; while violence against such communities continues unabated everyday. The conversion of the Vemulas is, therefore, a very different report and as such should be used as an occasion to reflect on the place of conversion in the social and political landscape of India.

Radhika and Raja Vemula’s actions should be understood as a form of political protest and an assertion of the essential dignity of the human being. The conversion to Buddhism of the Vemulas came after their repeated calls for justice, to the State and civil society, fell on deaf ears. Such a mode of protest is not new to the Dalit movement in India. One can refer to the first of such protests in 1956 when Dr. B. R. Ambedkar along with half-a-million followers embraced Buddhism, in order to walk out of the oppression of the Hindu caste system. Of course this conversion took years in preparation and theological reflection.

This sentiment of protest is precisely what Raja Vemula expressed in his press note before embracing Buddhism. He said that the conversion was due to a desire to change their lives, a life of “[t]he kind…that Babasaheb Ambedkar wanted us to lead. A life without blind belief. A life based on compassion and respect for fellow human beings. A life of dignity and self respect. A life outside the Hindu caste system”.

Though conversion-as-protest has more than half-a-century of history, yet conversions are generally perceived as ‘de-stabilizing’ by the ‘secular’ or left-wing and right-wing elites in India, thus necessitating suspicion. In this imagination, conversion is an act that violates the soul of India.

That conversion movements have been markers of protest against violence and oppression of marginalized communities is something that Indian nationalism has never properly acknowledged. Thus, the violence that has marked – and continues to mark – everyday realities of marginalized groups is conveniently not discussed. Which is precisely why the recent conversion of the Vemulas should remind us of the banal and non-banal violent conditions prevailing in India and that through conversion communities attempt to better their lives.

Following this line of thought, one should also re-think about how we feel and understand the history of Christianization in Goa. That today if we find a Goan landscape dotted by whitewashed churches it is not because of a violent process of proselytization but because Christianization had provided a way out of the violence that had marred the social and political landscape of Goa. Indeed, recent historical scholarship has strongly emphasized this point.

The fact that conversion to Christianity and Islam is seen as ‘de-stabilizing’ while that to Buddhism is not seen as such, exposes the cunning logic of Indian nationalism. The logic operates on two levels. The ‘foreign’ or Abrahamic religions are assumed to be fundamentally violent. Thus, Christianity is represented as responsible for forced conversions and Islam identified as having spread through the sword. However, conversion to Buddhism is understood differently. Buddhism cast as an Indic religion – or a religious tradition emerging from India – and in many ways appropriated as a sect of Hinduism could be used to deflect the radical, anti-caste edge of that re-articulated religious tradition. Mass conversion, whether to Islam, Christianity, or Buddhism, have always been a response to pre-existing violence and oppression of the society, and often also involves a spiritual preparation. These facts are always downplayed. The case of Ambedkar’s conversion in the textbooks is quite illustrative, for it is portrayed as an aberration in an otherwise peaceful Indian society.

Finally, detractors of the conversion of the Vemulas would predictably complain about the ‘ulterior’ political motives and how such conversions lack the necessary religiosity and spirituality fundamental to any religious practice. To them we could, perhaps, point out that religions such as Buddhism and Christianity emerged as political protests: the former against the excesses of the Brahmanical religion, and the latter against the oppression of the Roman Empire. To protest oppression is not to have ‘ulterior’ political motives, but to articulate a utopian and humane vision for the society. In the words of Raja Vemula, “From today, my mother and I will be truly free. Free from shame. Free from daily humiliation. Free from the guilt of praying to the same God in whose name our people have been tortured for centuries”.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 27 April, 2016)