‘PARIA’, ‘INTERLOK’ AND A NATIONAL BEST-SELLER.
…‘INTERLOK’ WAS CRITICIZED BY SOME INDIAN HINDUS FOR EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE REASONS WHY THE NOVEL WAS SELECTED BY THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO BE USED AS REFERENCE FOR FORM FIVE STUDENTS.
By Mansor Puteh
DOES ONE NEED A STICKY CONTROVERSY AND A CONFUSED M.I.C. OFFICIAL NOT WELL-VERSED IN MELAYU LITERATURE TO HELP SELL BOOKS IN MALAYSIA?
IT’S DISGUSTING HOW THE INDIAN HINDUS IN INDIA AND IN MALAYSIA STILL WANT THE PARIAHS TO BE UNKNOWN ENTITIES WHO CANNOT EXIST EVEN IN LITERATURE SO THEIR FEELINGS ARE SHARED BY MANY OTHERS.
THIS IS HOW DISGRACEFUL THEIR BEHAVIOR IS.
So no wonder the pariahs are still the untouchables and the unclean.
The whole issue surrounding the novel by Abdullah Hussain boils down to this, that the Indians in the upper caste do not want the pariahs to be given a life for themselves, but they are too scared to admit it, so they want to blame the Melayu author for it.
If the African-Americans could declare ‘Black is Beautiful!’ then why can’t the pariahs of India declare ‘Pariah is Noble’?
What shame is there for them to be so described?
After all they have already been marginalized so no new and fanciful term of Harijan or ‘children of god’ can change that as long as the attitude of the other Indians of the different classes continue to treat them differently than they do to their own kind.
The word Pariah is not like the other words such as Nigger, Red Indian, Pale Face or Jap, which were created by other humans to denigrate other humans; it was a word in the Indian system.
Somehow the term ‘Mat Salleh’ for the White Folks said by Malaysians is not derogatory now.
So to say that the word pariah is demeaning and it is derogatory, reflects poorly on the things that had caused it to be created. It was definitely not created by the Melayu or any author.
It is therefore strange how they had been so condemned and being branded pariah for so long, yet, they are now not allowed to be so described as such?
Those who did not like to be pariahs forever have left Hinduism to revert to Islam or the other religions where they are given a new identity and life.
Please bear in mind the Melayu and Muslims in Malaysia do not have any negative feelings or attitude towards the pariah.
Because in Islam everybody is equal. After all the Arabs and Muslims were the first people in the world to accept the African Blacks or Negroes, long before White America could see them as human beings.
So if there is a Melayu and Muslim author who uses a character in his novel who is a pariah, his intentions can be said to be noble.
So who are the ones who are demeaning the pariahs – the Melayu author or the Hindus themselves – because they did not want people whom they call pariahs to be heard and seen or be used as characters in novels, so that they are taken out of their caste system?
So that a member of the pariah caste cannot be used and highlighted in any literary work, so they are pushed aside so they do not exist.
Who then can be charged for wanting to push them aside, the Melayu author who gave his time to profile him or the few vocal and confused and poorly trained Indian leaders in Melayu literature?
Also, was it not the Melayu in ancient times who had willingly embraced Islam because they did not believe in the religion or religions of their ancestors?
I remember when I was in secondary school; the history lessons gave a very detailed description or analysis on why the Melayu in Tanah Melayu and throughout Southeast Asia rejected the religion or religions of their ancestors.
If I list some of them here, some angry Indian leaders will become angrier. The reason being they are not able to accept historical facts and accept them in their proper context.
There must be a few hundred million Indians who are Hindus who are in this group in the Hindu caste system in India today.
Where are they? They are not known; they are not seen or heard.
They are supposed to suffer in pain and not allowed to be portrayed in any feature film in India which only highlight the plight and anxieties of the higher class of Indians – those who are fair and educated as well as cultured – they who are in the cities and other urban areas but not those who are still stuck in the rut in the same form since the last few centuries.
There were many others who had left it by reverting to Islam or other religions, including becoming atheists or free-thinkers.
And how so often writers of Indian origins living outside of India look down on their own kinds in India.
Look at Nobel Laureate V S Naipaul’s novel, ‘A house for Mr Biswas’ where he says so in more graphic details and with a lot of vehemence.
Whereas the word pariah or ‘paria’ in ‘Interlok’ the novel by Abdullah which was first published in 1971 didn’t. It only tries to do the contrary, which is something the Indians or Hindus in Malaysia do not care to do.
This novel somehow became a national best-seller forty years afterwards.
Maybe it is a novel idea to use one or two words which can cause some others in the M.I.C. and even M.C.A. to feel uneasy with, so they can be enlisted as promoters for the book.
This can be the new trend to get the M.I.C. and M.C.A. to promote those books.
And all of that happened because of just one word – ‘paria’.
What other words that is deemed to be offensive? They do not say, so no one knows what they are until they are used and then all hell will break loose.
The success of ‘Interlok’ was also helped when one M.I.C. official became a critic of the novel.
The title of the novel can give a good idea of the main intention of its author.
One suspects he had not read the book in full or who has any knowledge in literature to appreciate it better than to condemn it.
He even went overboard by withdrawing the novel as a students’ reference book for literature when it is not his duty to do so.
‘Paria’ is not a word invented by the Melayu. It is an Indian word which has been accepted into the English language.
So the discourse on ‘Interlok’ has locked some into a debate which is at the pariah level.
Many works of art, other than novels have used the word, including a music album which has it its title.
The Melayu being Muslims do not care if there are pariahs anywhere; they do not believe in the caste system which is inherently Hindu.
The Indians accepted them as it was in their Hindu teachings.
And if there are those who find the particular group of people whom they call pariah, it is the Hindus and not the Muslims who use them the way they are described by the Hindus themselves.
Therefore, some Hindus in Malaysia find it offensive that the word, ‘paria’ or pariah is used in a novel written by a Melayu author, it is not because they want to look down on this group of people.
On the contrary, the author only wants to welcome them to the world so they are accepted for who they are.
Therefore, it is just the Hindus who find them to be offensive so they are not allowed to be touched, and they are also not allowed to be mentioned even in novels because they feel guilty with themselves, if there are pariahs whom they look down upon, which they own religion had created.
The reason why Hinduism had created the pariah together with the other groups in their caste system is to show the division amongst their brethren.
Did Hinduism encourage this system to continue? Or, was it to make them come together?
This is for all the Hindus to answer.
But the truth is many Hindus who were pariahs left the religion if they want to get out of the stigma of being a pariah which is still frowned upon by many Hindus in India as well as in Malaysia and elsewhere.
So one can say the controversy which arose from the use of the word ‘paria’ in ‘Interlok’ was due to an unqualified literary critic who can be also described as a pariah literary critic.
By Mansor Puteh
DOES ONE NEED A STICKY CONTROVERSY AND A CONFUSED M.I.C. OFFICIAL NOT WELL-VERSED IN MELAYU LITERATURE TO HELP SELL BOOKS IN MALAYSIA?
IT’S DISGUSTING HOW THE INDIAN HINDUS IN INDIA AND IN MALAYSIA STILL WANT THE PARIAHS TO BE UNKNOWN ENTITIES WHO CANNOT EXIST EVEN IN LITERATURE SO THEIR FEELINGS ARE SHARED BY MANY OTHERS.
THIS IS HOW DISGRACEFUL THEIR BEHAVIOR IS.
So no wonder the pariahs are still the untouchables and the unclean.
The whole issue surrounding the novel by Abdullah Hussain boils down to this, that the Indians in the upper caste do not want the pariahs to be given a life for themselves, but they are too scared to admit it, so they want to blame the Melayu author for it.
If the African-Americans could declare ‘Black is Beautiful!’ then why can’t the pariahs of India declare ‘Pariah is Noble’?
What shame is there for them to be so described?
After all they have already been marginalized so no new and fanciful term of Harijan or ‘children of god’ can change that as long as the attitude of the other Indians of the different classes continue to treat them differently than they do to their own kind.
The word Pariah is not like the other words such as Nigger, Red Indian, Pale Face or Jap, which were created by other humans to denigrate other humans; it was a word in the Indian system.
Somehow the term ‘Mat Salleh’ for the White Folks said by Malaysians is not derogatory now.
So to say that the word pariah is demeaning and it is derogatory, reflects poorly on the things that had caused it to be created. It was definitely not created by the Melayu or any author.
It is therefore strange how they had been so condemned and being branded pariah for so long, yet, they are now not allowed to be so described as such?
Those who did not like to be pariahs forever have left Hinduism to revert to Islam or the other religions where they are given a new identity and life.
Please bear in mind the Melayu and Muslims in Malaysia do not have any negative feelings or attitude towards the pariah.
Because in Islam everybody is equal. After all the Arabs and Muslims were the first people in the world to accept the African Blacks or Negroes, long before White America could see them as human beings.
So if there is a Melayu and Muslim author who uses a character in his novel who is a pariah, his intentions can be said to be noble.
So who are the ones who are demeaning the pariahs – the Melayu author or the Hindus themselves – because they did not want people whom they call pariahs to be heard and seen or be used as characters in novels, so that they are taken out of their caste system?
So that a member of the pariah caste cannot be used and highlighted in any literary work, so they are pushed aside so they do not exist.
Who then can be charged for wanting to push them aside, the Melayu author who gave his time to profile him or the few vocal and confused and poorly trained Indian leaders in Melayu literature?
Also, was it not the Melayu in ancient times who had willingly embraced Islam because they did not believe in the religion or religions of their ancestors?
I remember when I was in secondary school; the history lessons gave a very detailed description or analysis on why the Melayu in Tanah Melayu and throughout Southeast Asia rejected the religion or religions of their ancestors.
If I list some of them here, some angry Indian leaders will become angrier. The reason being they are not able to accept historical facts and accept them in their proper context.
There must be a few hundred million Indians who are Hindus who are in this group in the Hindu caste system in India today.
Where are they? They are not known; they are not seen or heard.
They are supposed to suffer in pain and not allowed to be portrayed in any feature film in India which only highlight the plight and anxieties of the higher class of Indians – those who are fair and educated as well as cultured – they who are in the cities and other urban areas but not those who are still stuck in the rut in the same form since the last few centuries.
There were many others who had left it by reverting to Islam or other religions, including becoming atheists or free-thinkers.
And how so often writers of Indian origins living outside of India look down on their own kinds in India.
Look at Nobel Laureate V S Naipaul’s novel, ‘A house for Mr Biswas’ where he says so in more graphic details and with a lot of vehemence.
Whereas the word pariah or ‘paria’ in ‘Interlok’ the novel by Abdullah which was first published in 1971 didn’t. It only tries to do the contrary, which is something the Indians or Hindus in Malaysia do not care to do.
This novel somehow became a national best-seller forty years afterwards.
Maybe it is a novel idea to use one or two words which can cause some others in the M.I.C. and even M.C.A. to feel uneasy with, so they can be enlisted as promoters for the book.
This can be the new trend to get the M.I.C. and M.C.A. to promote those books.
And all of that happened because of just one word – ‘paria’.
What other words that is deemed to be offensive? They do not say, so no one knows what they are until they are used and then all hell will break loose.
The success of ‘Interlok’ was also helped when one M.I.C. official became a critic of the novel.
The title of the novel can give a good idea of the main intention of its author.
One suspects he had not read the book in full or who has any knowledge in literature to appreciate it better than to condemn it.
He even went overboard by withdrawing the novel as a students’ reference book for literature when it is not his duty to do so.
‘Paria’ is not a word invented by the Melayu. It is an Indian word which has been accepted into the English language.
So the discourse on ‘Interlok’ has locked some into a debate which is at the pariah level.
Many works of art, other than novels have used the word, including a music album which has it its title.
The Melayu being Muslims do not care if there are pariahs anywhere; they do not believe in the caste system which is inherently Hindu.
The Indians accepted them as it was in their Hindu teachings.
And if there are those who find the particular group of people whom they call pariah, it is the Hindus and not the Muslims who use them the way they are described by the Hindus themselves.
Therefore, some Hindus in Malaysia find it offensive that the word, ‘paria’ or pariah is used in a novel written by a Melayu author, it is not because they want to look down on this group of people.
On the contrary, the author only wants to welcome them to the world so they are accepted for who they are.
Therefore, it is just the Hindus who find them to be offensive so they are not allowed to be touched, and they are also not allowed to be mentioned even in novels because they feel guilty with themselves, if there are pariahs whom they look down upon, which they own religion had created.
The reason why Hinduism had created the pariah together with the other groups in their caste system is to show the division amongst their brethren.
Did Hinduism encourage this system to continue? Or, was it to make them come together?
This is for all the Hindus to answer.
But the truth is many Hindus who were pariahs left the religion if they want to get out of the stigma of being a pariah which is still frowned upon by many Hindus in India as well as in Malaysia and elsewhere.
So one can say the controversy which arose from the use of the word ‘paria’ in ‘Interlok’ was due to an unqualified literary critic who can be also described as a pariah literary critic.
Comments