Salman Rushdie : Imaginary Homelands

 Introduction 

We all are live in Imaginary Homelands 

~Salman Rushdie 

If we want to write about Salman Rushdie then what will we call him? An Indian writer or a British writer? Or something else? But can we not consider him as just an English writer or just a writer? We all have a sense of homeland, an illusionary feelings towards our motherland or homeland. But do we really belong to any particular land? 

Well, we have not such a type of questions because we have one particular homeland. Which we claim as our homeland. But what about diasporic writers ? And what about those who have to leave their homeland? Salman Rushdie used to live in India, England, New York, and Pakistan. Now which is his homeland? People are not considering him as an Indian. He has to leave India. Well, we consider him as a British - Indian writer. He still considers India as his homeland but it seems him to be an Imaginary Homeland. 

Salman Rushdie is one of the most controversial Indian writers. He is also known as a Postcolonial writer. He has won the Booker Prize for his novel Midnight's Children. 'Imaginary Homelands' is a collection of essays and seminars which he has given between 1981 to 1991. The collection of essays includes many essays. But here we are taking some of the selected essays.  As follows…

Imaginary Homeland

Commonwealth literature doesn't exist

Attenborough's Gandhi

New Empire Within

On Palestine

This presentation is about one of the essays from Imaginary Homelands. 

Unreliable Narration in Mid... by Nishtha Makwana

This is Salman Rushdie's Interview on Imaginary Homelands, where he talks about his experiences and quest for homeland.  He also talks about Diaspora. 

Now let's briefly talk about some of his essays. 

Imaginary Homeland

As we know the title of this collection of essays, but there is one essay which is titled 'Imaginary Homeland'. This is also the first essay. With a reference to L.P Hartley's novel 'The Go-Between he started his essay. He tooks the opening sentence of this novel..

'THE PAST IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY'

But it reminds him that his present is foreign country, then he starts talking about his journey in Bombay. Bombay is his native place, where he spent his childhood. But he has not remembered everything. His memories are like a broken mirror. In his Midnight's children he used this broken memory, the fragmented allegory to represent India as a colonized nation. We are more at faults when we abuse Britishers, Rushdie criticised his own nation. 

Commonwealth literature doesn't exist 

Here the question is what we call literature? Commonwealth literature is a new category of literature, which is a false category. Now let's see what is Commonwealth literature? Simply it is the literature written by that country which was once a part of British Empire. In India we have Dalit Literature, now written by any other caste people that is colled literature, but Dalit Literature is marginalized. Same in the world literature, commonwealth literature comes in periphery, so Rushdie questions this notion of post coloniality. He has met one gujarati regional writer Suresh Joshi, who says that he would like to write in Hindi instead of Gujarati, because it was a language under threat. 

Attenborough's Gandhi 

Indian people have this disease to make one person a Godly figure. The current example is in this Corona Crisis Indian people have made Doctors as their God or saviour.  Gandhi was a political leader who contributed to free the nation from the rule of British Empire. Richard Attenborough made a biographical film on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 1962.  The movie has won Oscar awards and other awards and is very much popular. But Rushdie uncovered many layers which are hidden in the movie. Rushdie is not criticizing Gandhi but he is criticizing Attenborough's Gandhi, the movie which portrays Gandhi in such a way. 

New Empire Within Britain 

In this essay Rushdie talks about the Racism in Britain. He starts his essay with this given statement Britain is not Nazi germany. Rushdie criticised the British writers who are not still free from colonial state. One has to purify his or her language. He blamed the British Empire which is still in the mind of white population.  Which need to be clean. Further he talks about labels, stereotypes and identity.  

Work cited 

Nemeth, Veronika. "A critical summary of Rushdie's 'New Empire Within Britain '." https://www.academia.edu/30203179/A_Critical_Summary_of_Rushdies_The_New_Empire_Within_Britain_, Veronica Nemeth, 31 Mar. 2016.

Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981-1991. 1st American ed. London : [New York, N.Y., U.S.A.]: Granta Books ; In association with Viking, 1991.