Lesser Breeds- a novel.  – Nayantara Sahgal
375 pp. Harper Collins. Rs. 395  ISBN:81-7223-444-9
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If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe-
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law-

These lines from Rudyard Kipling’s poem Recessional, printed on the first page of Mrs. Nayantara Sahgal’s latest novel- Lesser Breeds suddenly arrest our attention providing a hint of what lies ahead in the next three hundred and fifty odd pages.
The so called Lesser Breeds struggling against the self-decreed superior ones, is, what a considerable pat of human history has been and it is to this breed-mania that racism, imperialism and colonialism owe their parentage. Mrs. Sahgal’s novel is set in a period when these evils were rampant in the world and the struggle of the oppressed against the oppressors was the fiercest.
This struggle was on with all the might in the colonies in Asia and Africa but there was something different with it in India where the struggle was on with a weapon that the world had never seen or heard of before: the power of soul. This power soul was supposed to combat the power of bayonets, machineguns and bombs. This was the weapon of the ‘new creed’ which the world was watching evolve with awe; a creed which declared: “If blood must be shed in this battle, let I be your own”.
The world was watching with wide eyes, the prophetic Mahatma proclaiming this mantra to millions of India’s men and women. “If the enemy realized,” he was telling them, “you have not the remotest thought in your mind of raising your hand against him even for the sake of your life, he will lack the zest to kill you.” Gandhiji’s Great Experiment of Non-violence was definitely being watched by the world with awe, but did it work or was it just a lunatic’s fantasy or dreamy idealism? Does it have any significance for us today?

Mrs. Sahgal’s novel brilliantly discusses these still burning questions that history has put to us. The novel opens in early 1930s, one of the most turbulent epochs in Indian as well as world history. Nurullah, the protagonist, is a young man of twenty three who arrives at the historic city of Akbarabad to teach English literature to the ‘first years’ at the university. For nearly ten years since 1932, he lives with a non-violent family, actively involved in the freedom struggle in their once splendorous domed mansion which, after the family’s plunge into the quest for freedom, has now become a ‘national monument’. It is during his stay here, that Nurullah feels the heat of the freedom struggle and gets closely acquainted with the ebb and flow the movement through Bhai or Nikhil, the head of the family who himself is a freedom fighter and a firm believer in Non-violence.

Nurullah, however, is skeptic about this new creed. Such things as the power of soul verses the power of bayonets and such commandments as ‘Love will disarm the enemy’ are beyond his comprehension and throughout his stay with the family and his later life, he remains a stubborn non-believer in non-violence.

But Edgar Knox, an American journalist, faithfully believes that non-violence matters. During the Salt March of 1930, Gandhiji’s command to, “Let the fist, holding salt, be broken but let there be no voluntary surrender of salt”, sounded to him as “something new under the sun” and intrigued him to come to India. Wonderstruck, he watched on the beaches of Dandi, unarmed, non-violent people getting their bones crushed under ruthless blows of unscrupulouslathis and butts with their faith in that new creed – “If blood must be shed in this battle, let it be your own” – remaining unshakable. Spellbound to see this great drama, he inevitably becomes a firm believer in the new creed.

The character of Edgar Knox is enchanting and leaves a lasting impression upon us. He is a firm believer in democracy and the freedom of the individual. His conscience is awake, unlike most of the people of his race in that age and he has a heart full of sympathy for those who are suffering undeservingly in the furnace of colonialism and he fully understands that what is going on in India, Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia and Africa is history in the making. We appreciate him as a visionary when he says:

“I tell you, these are legendary times in Asia and these men are living legends, heroes to their people. Now is the time to befriend them.”

All in all, one feels but compelled to admit that the character of Edgar Knox is a remarkable achievement on the part of Mrs. Sahgal.

Afterwards, the fate of both Bhai’s family and Nurullah is caught in the whirlwind of the turbulent strife of freedom struggle. Nurullah, however, remains stubbornly opposed to non-violence- after all, he has seen Bhai go into hiding and break the principle of the new creed: “We don’t work in the dark. We have nothing to hide.” The first part of the novel ends in 1942 with a moving account of Bhai’s arrest during the Quit India movement.

The second chapter opens our eyes to the New World – An Island called America which is for far away from all the tumult in the rest of the world and is virtually undisturbed. Dr. Sahgal describes with great dexterity and profound insight, the America of 1940s giving us even the most subtle details of their lifestyle, their attitude towards life, love, sex, relationships and their way of looking at things happening with their fellow beings. Shan, the daughter of Bhai is in America for higher education and many times we see the land from her perspective. We subtly pursue the American life of the 1940s, their obsession with ‘dating’- that has become their ‘exhausting national way’, their preoccupation with sex, their frequent cries of Putchorarmsaoundmehoneyholdmetight, their Saturday night goodnight ceremonies- all of which go to show the grossly materialistic and hollow life that they are leading. Edgar’s sister Leda comments eloquently on this hollowness of contemporary American life describing America as an island where-

“…victuals are sectioned and served for giant, not human appetites, where sexes meet in combat at Thermopylae, where men fall in love with butcher cuts of women and the plight of the American woman arouses the traveler’s heart to pity.”

Apart from being a thought provoking discussion of the relevance of non-violence, Mrs. Sahgal’s novel is also a whipping satire against racism and colonialism which were horribly rampant during the first half of the twentieth century. The strain of this satire runs as an undercurrent throughout the entire narrative and the satire is almost always well meant. We counter the ugly face of British colonialism and arrogant racism in British India in the first chapter-Company Bagh and the same hideous face of racism is to be seen again in An Island Called America where the dark skinned people cannot walk around after sunset. Leda’s haunted love affair with a ‘nigger’ adds a pathetic perspective.

The horrible ancient racism is reminded to by the novelist who often walks in the past lifting curtain from the barbaric ways which the so called Superior Breeds have followed to establish empires and colonies. The savagely hostile manners of the After Columbus Americans adopted to get rid of the primitive inhabitants of America being but a part of it all.

Towards the end of the novel, we see the war hysteria at its peak. We are taken aback, when Shan’s father Nikhil, the non-violent freedom fighter, is hanged back home in India for sabotaging a military train- a crime which he has not committed. This was the justice in British India where-

“Jungle justice was justice enough for all that was not Europe, where punishment need never fit the crime or wait for the crime to be committed.”

The novel ends in1968, when the world is in the grasp of another war- the Cold War, when disarmament has remained a mirage and Edgar Knox has lost the power of his pen and the favour of his government and has been labeled as a communist. But he is still championing the cause of the oppressed colonies, and making fearless pleas for them .Nurullah, however has come to terms with what matters the most- himself, and is living peacefully in Akbarabad in a house which has been left as a legacy for him.

In 1968, Peter Ryder, a young American student of politics, researching non-violence and its use of soul force, comes to India, searching for its remnants and meets Nurullah to have, what he calls, “impressions from the players on the scene.” Nurullah has narrated him the whole story. He is still as stubbornly opposed to non-violence as he was in its heyday. He believes that the paradise has been forever lost and there is no hope of regaining it. We read Nurullah prophesying in the end that,

“Oil and allied treasure will exact a more terrifying price that pepper, gold, nutmeg or teak and diamond ever did. Asia, and who knows, Africa, will be the battle fields of war immemorial.”

Today, with the economic imperialism staring the world in its face, we have seen this prophesy has come true in the form of the Gulf War- II.

Timely and relevant, Mrs. Sahgal’s novel is a journey through turbulent waters of history, at the end of which, one is left with questions that have still remained unanswered.

Mrs. Sahgal, the doyenne of India English fiction, has progressively mastered this difficult art. She moves dexterously through the narrative. The plot- construction is almost impeccable and one never yawns except while reading a few digressions and descriptions that are too minute. She recreates the atmosphere of the 1930s and 40s with such richness and fullness that we seem to be living through the turbulent era. One is not surprised by her exceptional grip on historical facts and her deep understanding of the currents of history, particularly of the Indian history, as she belongs to the ‘first family’ of India politics. Her mastery on the English tongue and her marvelously keen knowledge of the Western and particularly American lifestyle and culture of 1930 and 40s certainly command our praise.

It is quite a while since her last novel was published, but she has come up with a truly awesome piece of fiction- a moving tale of paradise forever lost.
[This is a review of Mrs. Nayantara Sahagal’s novel “Lesser Breeds” published in 2003. I wrote it in March 2003.]