Battling the fundamentalist

The Solitude of Emperors
By David Davidar
Weidenfield & Nicolsons, $32.95


There are certain moments of our collective memory that for some of us leave no personal memories, as we are swamped by visuals on television, and words in the press. I have little or rather no recollection of my personal experience of the Bombay riots of 1993, as a 10-year-old. When I think of that period, I am rather filled with images from documentaries, and newspaper articles I read much later in my life.

Yet others are compelled to articulate their emotions, a single voice of the individual, within the multitude of the hysterical cries of the many mass media. David Davidar is one of them. His second book, The Solitude of Emperors, follows a young journalist in Bombay (now, Mumbai) as he witnesses the horrifying violence and then becomes embroiled in a battle against the forces of fundamentalism. He will discuss the book at the Sydney Writers’ Festival in May this year.

Was it daunting to write about an event more than a decade and a half after it actually happened, and has since been extensively addressed in feature films, documentaries and books, I ask him. “It was important to me personally to speak up,” says Davidar in an email interview. “I wanted to write about the Bombay riots because every take on it brings something new to the discussion. I think the more people there are who bear witness to such events, the less likely it is that such events will recur—or maybe I’m being hopelessly naïve.”

Communal riots spread across India after Hindu fundamentalists destroyed a hitherto relatively unknown mosque in Ayodhya, which they claimed was built on Rama Janmabhoomi—the birthplace of the Hindu idol, Rama. The riots, quite unexpectedly, spread to Bombay, where Muslims were systematically murdered, and a series of bomb blasts, brought the city of dreams to a standstill.

The protagonist of The Soltitude of Emperors, Vijay, takes up a journalist’s job in Bombay, simply to escape the small town world of his parents in South India. During the riots, he seeks out some violence, for his big story—an eye witness account of the riots—that he dreams will perhaps earn him an award. What he sees in the back streets of Bombay, haunts him forever. Davidar describes the bloody scene with calculated gory details to shake armchair supporters of communal violence out of their complacency. “Sometimes people who foment religious strife don’t see the actual human cost—often very close to home. ,” says Davidar.

To recuperate from the shock of seeing this violence up close, Vijay’s employer, Mr. Sorabjee, sends him to a small tea town in the Nilgiri mountains. The description of Meham, the fictitious hill station where the rest of the story continues, is opulent unlike the cursory impressions of Bombay that Davidar gives in his book. It is as if the slower pace of life in Meham, gives the author more time to capture the sights, sounds and smells of his environ.

Here Vijay meets Noah, who lives in the local cemetery and quotes Pessoa, Cavafy and Rimbaud, but is ostracised by the local elite obsessed with little more than growing their prize fuschias. However, even this seemingly peaceful small town doesn’t escape sectarian politics. Rajan, who once escaped his traumatised youth in Meham, now a successful businessman in Bombay, is back in town to seek some revenge—his tool, the spectacular shrine called The Tower of God.

Rajan, the shrine, and the unemployed poor who he effectively seeks to deploy for his personal revenge, is really a microcosm of the larger picture of sectarian politics in India. Charismatic politicians, mobilise poor, unemployed men, by giving them a cause, and a visible enemy to fighthis while really only fulfilling their own purpose.

Vijay’s interview with Rajan, is the portrayal of the psyche of these religious fundamentalists—of the madness that drives them, the personal wars that fuels their hatred, which can manipulate all logic into a passion that can destroy a nation.

Equally strong, is the voice of wisdom, peace and reason—in the form of Mr. Sorabjee’s manuscript for school children called, The Soltitude of Emperors—which Vijay reads as he battles sectarian politics in Meham. This mauscript celebrates, albeit in a very simplistic way, three secular men who shaped India in the past—Ashoka, Akbar and Gandhi.

Davidar essentially draws up, thus, a war of the good vs. the evil, the secular vs. the fundamentalist. Characters are really predictable—Rajan with his personal tragedies, Mr. Sorabjee, the ageing idealist, and even Noah, with his quintessentially Indian ‘chalta hai’ attitude, who is finally reformed out of his complacency into taking action. .

The Soltitude of Emperors, much like its namesake manuscript about Ashoka, Akbar and Gandhi in the story, is meant more as an introduction on sectarian violence for teenagers, rather than a layered study of the religious politics of India.