Alienation and Boredom as Critiques of

National Ideals
in Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English August

Prashant Parvataneni
Reg.No. - 1424108
 Research Problem

English Novel was central to the colonial project.

‘Novel’ as a form was used to propagate the British sentiments and

attitudes

Novel and nation/nationalism are closely tied together

To explore the relationship of Indian English Novel with the concept of
the Nation

Is this relationship always complimentary or oppositional too?

 Primary Text
English August, Upamanyu Chatterjee (1988)
the urban English world of Agastya Sen collides with that of small town
India when he is posted to Madna as a trainee Civil Servant.

Existing Perspectives on the Text

Novel about the Novel about Small

Slacker Novel – world of IAS Town India
‘Catcher in the Rye’
of India Urban Anglophile
Novel of Limited
Scope
 Research Questions

In what form does ‘alienation’ manifest itself in Indian Writing in

English?

What are the socio-cultural factors that give rise to this alienation in
Indian English Novels?

What is the relationship between ‘alienation’ and a specific emotional

reaction of boredom and disengagement?

Can this boredom be read as a critique of disenchantment with national

ideals?
 Thesis Statement

The feeling of boredom in English, August is a consequence of

socio-cultural alienation of a class of individuals and this boredom can be
read as a critique of disenchantment with national ideals.
 Key Terms
Boredom
n. the state of feeling weary and impatient because one is unoccupied or lacks interest in one's
current activity. (“boredom”)

 ‘Socio-Cultural Alienation’ : Khair in Babu Fictions (2001)

Urban Cosmopolitanism, Class, Caste (and/or Tribe),

Gender, Language

 Disenchantment
n. a feeling of disappointment about someone or something you previously respected or admired;
disillusionment. (“disenchantment”)

National Ideals

‘Nationalism’ – Pride in Nation as a shared common entity

Constitutional Ideals – Democracy, Integrity, Socialism (State),
‘Unity in Diversity’
Pre-Colonial glory of India
Freedom Movement
Progress
 Literature Review
 “The Anxiety of Indianness” (Meenakshi Mukherjee, 1993)
o inability to represent the ‘authentic Indian experience’ in English
o too anxious and futilely eager to represent Indian-ness
o proposes hybridity, pluralism and ‘Indian English’ as authentic tools

 The Fiction of St Stephens (2000)

o Indian writing in English caters to a small elite readership
o In its sensibility, taste, and political position it is alienated from ‘other’ classes
o Criticism of Agastya’s disengagement and lack of initiative in English, August

 Babu Fictions : Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Fiction (2001)

o Socio-cultural redefinition of ‘alienation’
o Alienation based on cosmopolitanism, class, caste, gender, and language
o Need to look beyond ‘alienation as a problem’

 Prose of the World: Modernism and the Banality of Empire (2014)

o Boredom as a critical tool in Modern Novel
o Boredom as a reflection of dispossession, alienation
o Banality as a critique of Grand-narratives
 Chapter 1
Conditions for Alienation: Negotiating an Indian Modernism
Western Modernism marked by disenchantment and disillusionment with modernity

Breakdown of traditional ideals of ‘religion’, ‘country’, ‘progress’, ‘beauty’, and ‘truth’

Late modernity in India – the nationalist passion, idealism of emerging independent nation,
Nehruvian Socialism – belief in state
o Reflection in the Indian English Novels of Narayan, Rao, Anand
o Active engagement with the idea of nation

1970s-1990
o Challenges to the ideals – Emergency, Women’s Movements, Dalit Movements,
Secessionist Sentiments, Corruption, Dispossession, Communalist
o The promise of liberalisation
o Further inequality, state of flux and anxiety – Butter Chicken in Ludhiana (Mishra 1995)

 Contemporary Indian English Novel

o Fragmentation
o Individualism
o Questions of Self and the ‘other’ (not just the colonial ‘other’)
o Urban, Global Aspirations
o Disrupting the grand-narrative of nation

 The case of English, August

o Disengagement, ‘Slacker’ attitude
 Chapter 2
Reading Alienation and Boredom as Critical Tools

 Socio-Cultural alienation of Indian English Author

– Culturally a ‘Babu’ (urban, anglicised, brahminised )

Socio Cultural Alienation

o Not ‘foreign’
o Contradictions and Hostility within a power relation
o Interplay of Discourses – Urbanity, Class, Caste (Tribe), Gender, Language

 Lefebvre (1991) : “there is no social relation – relation with the other – without a certain
alienation” (15-16)

 Recognition of Alienation serves to critique grand-narrative

o Accentuates the differences
o Highlights the distance between Babu and Coolie India
o Critiques ‘Unity in Diversity’
o Limits of ‘Hybridity’, ‘Polyvocality’ – subsumed under an epic, allegorical,
seemingly all-encompassing narrative and language (‘Indian English’)
e.g. Midnight’s Children (1981), The Great Indian Novel (1989)
The case of English, August
o Exclusive focalisation instead of polyvocality
o Agastya’s inscrutability of small town Madna because of
his alienation from socio-cultural ‘others’

 Reading Alienation as a self-reflexive and self-critical tool in English, August

o Agastya’s alienation reflects the crisis of Indian English Novel
o An Indian Story not The Indian Story
o Irony as a tool to critique the protagonist - separating author from the protagonist
– recognises the limitations of Agastya (and the Indian English Novel)
o Doesn’t claim to tell the story of/as the ‘other’

 Urban Cosmopolitanism as a factor of alienation in English, August

o Agastya sees Madna not for what it is, but for what it ‘lacks’ compared to the metropolitan city
o Terse, sparse, indifferent list-like description of Madna
o Avoids romanticising small town India
o Highlights the disinterest of urban individual in small town India (‘other’ experiences)

 Class as an Alienating Factor

o Agastya’s relationship with his servant Vasant
o The author doesn’t speak as/ for Vasant
o Vasant always seen through Agastya’s eyes
o Agastya cannot know Vasant; only speculate and create fantastic /absurd stories
The question of Gender
o Women on the periphery of the narrative
o Women part of gossip or sexual fantasies
o A male narrative in male voice and perspective
o Women’s voices come from ‘outside’ – letters, memories
o These voices highlight the lack of purpose and anxieties of manhood
o Emasculation – masturbation and confusion

 The question of tribals

o Either ‘shock’ or ‘sympathy’ but no equal dialogue and engagement

 Critique of Agastya’s privilege

o Agastya is not a ‘hero’
o ‘Morally loose man, in a morally loose world’ (Chatterjee)
o Agastya’s alienation becomes stifling and a source of boredom and purposelessness

 Boredom as a challenge to privileged assumptions

o Urban life equally boring and purposeless : Character of Dhurbo
o Discomfort of privilege – Agastya resists the association with his father (Governor of WB)
o English language renders Agastya without the capacity to communicate
o English, August – Agastya’s identity defined by English but his surroundings are not
Boredom, disengagement as a critical tool : The Importance of a ‘Slacker’
o Doesn’t fit in to the Bureaucracy : Exposes its redundancy
o Doesn’t relate to Gandhism, ‘National Integration’
o Finds Marcus Aurelius closer to the self than Gita : jaded pre-colonial glory
o Lack of dynamic, relevant ideals
o A critique of the socio-cultural organisation of India

 Boredom becomes a critique of State, notions of national pride, ideas of commonality, shared
experience and unity and the purposelessness and limitedness of the Babu class
 Implications
 Possibility of complicating the notion of ‘the Indian nationalism’

 Going beyond pan-Indian nationalism and authenticity

 Limits of Pluralism, polyvocality and hybridity as narrative tools

 Creative possibilities of Focalisation, Self-reflexivity, Irony, Irreverence

 Possibility to look at how Indian English Novel critiques its own privilege
 Limitations and Scope for Further Research
Is mere recognition of alienation enough?

 Indian novels that do not deal with the Indian nation at all. E.g. Novels of Rana Dasgupta

Impact of globalisation and international acclaim on Indian English Novel

The binary of cosmopolitanism and provinciality

 Alternative modes of engagement rather than disengagement

 Alienation in regional Indian writing?

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