Raj Gaurav Verma

Gandhi believed in the basic human values that had a respect for mutual coexistence. He emphasized that all individuals shall fulfill their duties ascribed to them by the society. A society with responsible citizens will be able to look after the well being of the State. He believed that state should not be based on the conflict of power, but it should act as a “welfare state.” He is known as an “anarchic philosopher” because he opposed the modern idea of state, parliamentary democracy and the idea of majority government. His idea of a nation was not of a “union of states” but of “union of villages.” He spoke of decentralization of power in a Panchayati Raj. The magnitude of his influence on the Indian Constitution can be noticed by the provision of Directive Principles of State Policy in Part V which are largely based on his principles. Indian English Literature bears the stamp of his magnetic personality and thought. This book is a collection of essays dealing with some of the major aspects of Gandhi’s life, his philosophy and ideas and their relevance in the twenty-first century.

This book is a first of its kind, an attempt to bring into conversation the world of an old Indic civilization, with all its manifold homogeneities, diversities and the new India which is rising from a churning of Bharat, Hindustan and Vedic India. This churning is most visible in Indian Literatures in English and English translations of other  languages/ vernacular literatures. This is an academic exercise that is long overdue with regard to the literature that emerges from South Asia, particularly, the Indian subcontinent. The geopolitical convergences in the postcolonial world have created new dynamics of reimagining disrupted identities that is refracted through the literary scape of World Literature. The popular and
the literary appear to meet in the magical space of the novel in any language of the world. The rising popularity of the mythological in fiction is one of the consequences of this attempt to claim space for that which is struggling to be born out of the decay, the revival and the rejection of either the old or the new. It is this fascinating space where young
India is attempting to speak to their parents, elders and ancestors, and at the same time, their children and grandchildren, and generations to come. Of course all authors do not say the same thing, nor do the researchers,
and it appears to be “argumentative” to the conservative, but some things need to be said. This book is a tentative offering to start a line of thought so that the past and present can walk in companionship towards the future.

This book has taken shape as a series of musings regarding the relationship between life and its evaluation at the experiential level which is what art is about. The wind in the hills creates sounds of music, the river flowing gently over pebbles, the jaltarang, the beauty of the human form is felt and recreated in a Venus or Adonis, a burning Troy shows the despair of Helen and the triumph of the Greeks, and a wealth of abundant nature creates the vision of a New Eden. Similarly, the Indian idea of the aesthetic
emerges from the feelings associated with life and its unfolding. A hunted bird causes Valmiki to rethink life in terms of compassion while a thwarted ambition causes a bloody war among families. If Shiva performs a destructive dance unable to bear his wife’s death, the Devi Mahatyam
shows the masculine strengths of the woman. Each epoch of man and nature finds an answer in art and literature. What remains for the receiver of such a wealth of experiential richness is to marvel at the times they evoke and wonder at the ways of their particular worlds. Inevitably, the critic is born.

Diasporic Writings: Narratives across Space and Time explores the area of Diasporic Studies which is still  being theorized and shaped. Not only is this writing creating a new genre, it is also rewriting standard history as it gives personalized accounts of the impact of political manoeuvring. The sheer volume of major works by diasporic authors testifies to the unbounded possibilities and variation in these experiences. V.S. Naipaul, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh and M.G. Vassanji are well-known diasporic authors from India, yet some aspects of their work have not heretofore been written about. There are some emerging diasporic voices such as Siddhartha Gigoo who has been forced into exile from Kashmir and Tenzin Tsundue, a rising voice among the Tibetan diaspora. They provide fresh insight into the diasporic condition of Kahmiris and Tibetans, respectively. The diasporic experiences of women are projected through papers on Taslima Nasreen, Meera Syal and Shauna Singh Baldwin. The essays in this collection will help the reader understand, in human terms, the impact of global movement of populations because the subject is contemporary and relevant. Diasporic writing is concerned with approximately 30 million Indian diaspora residing outside India to whom India is the homeland, which also includes people who may be displaced internally. It is also a politically sensitive area of study
as some of the diaspora are migrants who lost their homes due to colonization, violence, wars or natural calamities. The political aspect affects both homeland and host-land in terms of citizenship and the system of duties and rights affect policies of governments as some papers in this book are able to insinuate.
This book seeks to understand the diasporic  experiences of these people. Displacement is a traumatic experience and creates either a myth of return to homeland or the determination to make the host country one’s own. The essays in this collection show the pain of the diaspora who are in a permanent state of exile; the changing fabric of relationships due to technology; or the diasporic author using memory to retain his or her past. People are carriers of culture and language and this research on specific diasporic authors may help to understand the soft power generated by the  Indian diaspora.