Literature

The recent clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the Galwan Valley has unleashed a new wave of anti-China sentiment and violent rhetoric in India. Can literature help us respond to the China–India border clash more ethically. Krishan Chander’s 1964 novel Ek Gadha Nefa Mein (A Donkey in NEFA), based on the 1962 China–India border conflict, offers a way of denouncing the destruction of war without leaving unquestioned the inherently violent task of drawing and defending national borders. The satirical novel tells the story of its protagonist, a talking donkey, caught in the front-lines of Tawang, and bearing witness to the atrocities of war. Through his witty and wise donkey, Chander challenges us to shift the terms of our outrage beyond national categories and to stand instead on the side of a humanism that knows no national borders.

The Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Chauhan and the Indian Past, 1200–2000 by Cynthia Talbot, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017; pp 316, $99.99.

In novel after novel, Gurdial Singh (1933–2016) created sensitive and memorable vignettes of how multiple forms of oppression worked through our social structures, often crippling those who remain trapped within. He won the Jnanpith award for Parsa , the second Punjabi after Amrita Pritam to win the prestigious award. Singh’s work is arguably among the best of world literature.

The National Board of Secondary Education has obviously not heard of Premchand and so when it found that a book by him had been prescribed for one of its courses, it promptly had it removed. But when writers are unconcerned about what murky deals are struck in connection with a 'vishwa' conference of and in their own language, they should not be surprised at what has happened to the Premchand text.