Jnanpith Award for Tamil – Some Reflections by Jeyamohan

 

This is an English Translation of the article “Ki. Ravukku Gnanabeedam- Indraiya Thevai” written by famous writer Jeyamohan. This article is available in his website www.jeyamohan.in.  Though the title of this article is about Jnanpith award for Ki.Rajanarayanan, (This article was written when Ki. Rajanarayan was alive. He is no more now), the concerns raised by the author are still valid even today. Jeyamohan has offered an elaborate account on Jnanpith award, politics around it, why Tamil writers are not considered for this coveted literary award after Akilan and Jeyakanthan and what ought to be done in this regard.  This article has been translated and published in this blog with the permission of Mr Jeyamohan. This is 2nd English Translation in prose series published in this blog.

I have written comprehensively in my earlier two articles on why Tamil hasn’t been given its due place, at any point of time, in the collective dialogues witnessed in modern classic literature namely Indian Literature. (Sevviyalum Indhiya Ilakkiyamum and Kaalkal paathaigal). One of the major reasons for this indifference is that none of our famous writers has ever won national level recognitions like Jnanpith award.

Of late, in the recent years three prominent writers, Ashokamithran, Ki. RajaNarayanan and Indira Parthasarathy are being considered for Jnanpith Awards. However, it gets postponed repeatedly due to our inadequate efforts to bring them to the fore and the internal petty squabbles of some populist writers having political back ground. It is a very big loss for Tamil. We need to ensure that required remedial measures are undertaken at this juncture so as to bring Jnanpith award to Tamil.

Why Jnanpith?

Jnanpith Award is a non-governmental award instituted by Jain Charitable Trust. But all the writers who have been awarded Jnanpith till date, are indeed, very renowned, main stream writers. Thus, the Indian intellectual arena generally accepts the total population of these writers as the embodiment of Indian Literature. Just because of not winning this Jnanpith award, most of our prominent writers were not given national level attention. Resultantly, the due place of Tamil in the array of classic works in Indian Literature remains still non-existent.

Classic literature is a robust resultant appeal of continuous dialogues on individual preferences and selections placed in a public domain. We can term it an external assessment stemming from the internal preferences and selections. It is this making of classic literature constitutes the continuous intellectual existence in every phase of literature.

“A classic” compiles the accomplishments of a culture till a period of validation, explains its crux, gives a clarion call to the next generation to raise above the standards set by it and makes assessment of the works thus coming out of it. We can understand this from the fact that ‘the classics’ associated with the ancient literary works in all the languages of India were nothing but the robust result of literary dialogues engaged for centuries. In Tamil too, we have such a huge body of classic literary works. We all know that Kamban, Valluvar and Ilango are sitting at the top in the list.

There had been such collective dialogues in the modern Indian literary milieu during the last centuries and as a result of it, a ‘modern Indian classicism’ has come to the fore now. Tara Shankar Banerjee, Manik Bandobadhyay, Bibhuti Bhushan Bandobadhyay, Prem Chand, Yashpal, Amrita Pritam, Ismat Chuktai, Sivaramakaranth, Byrappa, Anandamurthy, M.T. Vasudevan Nair, Basheer and Thagazhi are holding their due place in this array. No one from Tamil has a place in it. Jeyakanthan is remembered for name sake.

It can be assertively said that subtle and refined works of art, different types of creative spaces of Tamil literature are not found in other languages in the Modern Indian Literature. But Tamil hasn’t received even a trace of recognition that Bengali literature, Malayalam literature and Kannada literature have managed to get today. There is no any visible contribution of Tamil to the dialogues on Modern Indian Classic literatures as well.  

The important reason for this gap is that our worthy literary works have not been placed in the foreground at the national level. The ones which were brought to the foreground were all just commercial and education department trashes commanding no literary merit. In this manner, we have had prescribed ourselves our own recipe for disaster during the last centuries. Thus, when a Tamil writer finds no place for him in a national level forum and his language is not respected in any manner there, he would feel that the treatment meted out to him is nothing but a part of that insult. But at the same time, he knows very well that his stature is taller than anyone else who have assembled there. A modern writer keeps on registering this mental discomfort consistently.

Only at this juncture, recognitions like Jnanpith awards assume critical importance.

The mistakes not made and the mistakes made     

There are people here, saying that awards are denied to Tamil by North Indians easily  without understanding the manner with which dialogues originate in literature and counter action witnessed in the making of classic literature. We approach everything with an element of inferiority complex. This makes us imagine that the entire world is conspiring against us. The question of others respecting our writers can have a space for introspection only when we respect our writers and celebrate them. It is a truth that the writers who should have been taken by us to the international forum had actually lived their life without respect and died without recognition. Only from here, they can raise to the national level and then to the international level. The platform where they have set their foot strong is our cultural milieu. We have failed them, not offering them an exclusive space in it.

Ka. Na.Su, Sundara Ramasamy and Venkat Swaminathan had kept on insisting this point for more than last fifty years. Now we have come to a critical juncture where we need to tell it with much more force in the present literary milieu. Because, when they told this, it was just a warning. Today it is a big loss, orchestrated in front of our eyes.

This biggest betrayal to Tamil has been executed in two ways. Firstly, it is our Education department. Be it Tamil Departments in the universities or the whole of our Education department. They have just become a gang which has lost something called intellectual integrity, knowing nothing other than corruption. No place for anything other than power politics, caste politics and corruption there.

So, the one who is adept in utilising these negative aspects in his favour and uses the Education Department to bring himself to the foreground becomes successful. Due to this reason, the chances of our Education Department getting near to our literary geniuses have become pathetically bleak. Perhaps, there could be some people having taste and intellectual appeal towards literature. But they exist either without voice or power.

Secondly, for more than sixty years, the Government of Tami Nadu hadn’t come forward in any manner either to respect the true champions of literature or encourage them or recognise the modern literature as a whole. They have just been bringing the persons who actually align with their political ideology to the fore as litterateurs. Not only the Dravidian Government encouraged this ignominious trend; it was evident even in the earlier Congress period too.

There is an academy known as Kerala Sahitya Academy in Malayalam, run by the government of Kerala. But it has been running as an autonomous literary body for more than last sixty years. The awards given by this academy have the innate principles to guide the awards given by Kendriya Sahitya academy. The honour and importance accorded by the Government of Kerala, play some inherent vital role in bringing the writers to the foreground at the national level.

Tamil doesn’t have such Government sponsored literary body or award. All that we have here for literature are just awards instituted by the individual associations working for the development of Tamil. They also have the dubious status of being auctioned. The creative writers feel it insulting to receive those awards given to the political sycophants who don’t know anything about books.

Even a cursory glance of the list of Tamil Development Association awardees in the recent past will show you the absurdity involved in the awards. We can understand where we stand at present and where the core of our wretched existence lies when we look at what those who shout for the Tamil literature and those who receive crores of rupees as donation for the development of classic language have done and who they have promoted.

Thirdly, the mass media here. All through the yester years, we had only been repeating the stupidity of promoting commercial writers writing in popular media as literary writers. Malayalam, Bangla and Kannada languages had more powerful and influential commercial writers than those found in Tamil. But even the magazines in which they wrote, gave importance to M.T Vasudevan Nair, U.R Ananda Murthy or Adin Bandobadhyay. Even Malayala Manorama, the most influential popular Malayalam weekly which stands top in India in terms of commercial turn over would never publish its populist writers on its cover. They published either M.T. Vasudevan Nair or O.V.Vijayan. As our media is not sensitive enough to assess even this tiny difference, we had been celebrating commercial writings repeatedly as literary works. We insulted ourselves by introducing them in the Indian literary arena.

What should be done?

What should be done to make the Tamil Literature hold its due place in national level literary discussions and Indian Classic literatures? Winning the national awards is the only way to bring our writers to the foreground. How to go about it?

It is important that a literary genius becomes a moderately known figure in his society. His popularity among his readers is not just enough. Even those who don’t read him in that society must be aware of him. That society must create a collective consciousness about those writers. Only in this manner, a writer becomes a symbol of its cultural identity; he becomes the flag bearer of his language. Only after that, he gets accorded with national level importance. His stature of representing Tamil language in Indian literary dialogues thus grows. He then attracts the awards like Jnanpith.

If we examine how many intellectually oriented persons working in departments dealing with knowledge society are aware of the names of literary geniuses of Tamil Nadu, we will be left grossly disappointed. How many of our younger generation are aware of Ashokamithran, Ki.Rajanarayanan and Indira Parthasarathy?

I have seen the pictures of Literary masterminds painted on the walls of elementary school in a small village in Karnataka. One may ask what purpose those pictures could serve. The elementary school children are not going to read the books of those literary figures. The number of direct readers of those literary writers is also relatively less there because a serious literary works shall be read only by the readers who are equipped with the required precocity, training, patience and importantly quest. But, what do those paintings mean? They mean that a society, as whole, recognises those writers as an embodiment of their culture and voice.        

Once they are identified in this manner, their stature cannot be belittled in any national level literary discussions. Their names will occupy an indelible place both in Indian cultural milieu and Indian Classic literary works.

We have failed to do this. Putting in other way, it seems to be extremely difficult to explain even the educated and informative people that such things do exist and need to be taken care of. There is a flock of stupid people which keeps arguing that Ki.Ra, Ashokamithran, India Soundara Rajan and Rajesh Kumar write in their own styles. After all they belong to a genre called “writing”. Let the reader choose what matters to him, makes him interested. We are in a critical situation where we ought to establish a state of mind recognised worldwide by subduing this herd of ignoramuses.

A regal path called Jnanpith

When a writer gets Jnanpith award and his works are available both in English and Hindi, they enter the dialogues known as Indian literature. Their due place is ascertained through these dialogues. The place of Tamil in Indian Classic literary canon can be conquered only through such mode. However, such thing will happen only if the awardee is worth the prize. With his Jnanpith award, Akilan became a subject of lasting ignominy, got insulted in other languages and eventually he brought the same ignominy to Tamil. If all the efforts are capable of winning, amidst bringing further ignominy, Vairamuthu might prove that the selection of Akilan was excusable. Such things do happen even in Jnanpith awards, very rarely though. Another notable example is Assamese novelist Indira Goswamy. She is just like our local writer Sivasankari.      

It is a general perception till date that reading in Tamil is confined either with popular writings or Marxist ideology oriented writings when it comes to dialogues in Modern Indian Classic literature and further said that there is nothing called modern Tamil literature beyond this line. A Bengali critic, after reading one of my short stories exclaimed, “It is wonderful. Even in Tamil, there are writers writing like this!” I asked him, “Who have you read?”. He replied, “Akilan, Sivasankari, Naa. Parthasarathy”.

Had La.Sa. Ramamirtham, Sundara Ramasamy, Ashokamithran, Ki.Rajanarayanan and Indira parthasarathy won Jnanpith award, this question wouldn’t have arisen. It would have been established irrefutably that diverse literary traditions are existing in Tamil. We have missed so many rare opportunities. The most important opportunity in our hand at present is Ki. Rajanarayanan*. Next comes Indira Parthasarathy.

Why Ki.Rajanarayanan?

It is extremely important task for all of us that we must try our best to bring Ki. Rajanarayanan to the foreground at this juncture. If Ki. Rajanarayanan is introduced properly, he will win Jnanpith award easily. Below are the reasons for it:

1.      His writings are purely Tamil in its essence. It combines both Nattaar dialects and modern literature. This individuality shall be taken into consideration.

2.      His simple and straight narrative style will have far reaching effect as they will not cause much of compromises in translations. Since he has a technique of narrative called “story inside stories”, it can withstand the vagaries of translations.

3.      A concept called “progressive” is considered important at national level dialogues. Ki.Ra’s stories have this innate “Progressive” aspects in it.

4.      As Ki.Ra’s stories have the finite form of “Nattar Story”, they have a tendency to become immortal. Unlike the stories written, aligning with intellectual movements, his stories are wary of being archaic.

What are the advantages if Ki.Rajanarayanan is given Jnapith award?

Ki. Rajanarayanan won’t be benefitted much with this award. Even the amount of the award won’t be of much help for him today. For an old man like him, these recognitions and fame would have become meaningless long ago. He might accept it with the loving smile. That is it.

By awarding him, we place Tamil in front of a national debate. His unique style of writing would reach there as an identity of Tamil. When Ki. Rajanarayanan is discussed in Indian literary debates, we would be able to establish that a new genre of writing is present in Tamil.

If the writings of Ki.Rajanarayan reach the literary circles throughout India through Jnanpith award, the type of aesthetics employed by him in his writings shall be established as the identity of Tamil language. It is a link road connecting modern literature with Nattar culture. It will be completely a modern literary work and at the same time completely deep rooted in the ancient Indian tradition of Nattar culture.

His “Gopalla Kiramam” approached modern history by standing at its roots in Nattar traditions. It is a work of art in which all the cultural upheavals of India are being assessed by the people of Gopalla village in the background of their rustic life. His powerful short stories are capable of taking both our Nattar traditions and the life force which the modern literature derived from that traditions, to the national level platforms. When there is a discussion to prepare a list of writers writing aligning with Nattar traditions, Ki.Rajanarayanan’s name will have an unavoidable place in it, just like Chandra sekhara Kambar of Kannada.

Guiding directives

Jnanpith award is not something that one needs to beg or demand. The eligibility of the awardee must be established beyond doubt by the people who are associated with him. As a person who had tried his best to bring this award to Ashokamithran, I think it is pertinent to elucidate those requirements here now.

Firstly: On behalf of our Education Department, at least five or six seminars must be organised for debating Ki. Rajanarayanan’s works. It will be an added advantage if they are organised at the national level. A seminar, in which most prominent writers from Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali and Hindi participate, shall easily bring Ki. Rajanarayanan to the fore at national level.

Secondly: Three or four exclusive journals must be published in his name. The articles about him written by other writers must be published in those journals. The articles written by those from different cultural back ground may also be published in it. These journals must be brought in English as well.

Thirdly: The accurate English translations of his works must be made available. Articles about these translations must be published continually in English newspapers. Articles about him must come out in Hindi also. Putting shortly, within a year, at least ten or twenty articles must have been written about him and his works.

It is an extremely difficult proposition indeed. The English newspapers, The Hindu and The Indian Express published from Tamil Nadu, look down upon the Tamil writers as unworthy. The ones who just dump the fourth rate English commercial stuff on our head will never help us out in any manner to bring our creative writers to lime light. Despite their attitude, we need to beseech them by hook or crook, and make them publish a considerable number of articles on Ki. Rajanarayanan.

It is a well-known fact that The Hindu will never cooperate in this enterprise. But the newspapers published from the North India such as The Times of India and The Pioneer offer an exclusive space of literature. Long ago, Venkat Swaminathan consistently wrote articles in English about Tamil writers in newspapers like The Pioneer and could manage establishing an image that a different genre of writing was thriving in Tamil. We are in need of writers who can write like that.

The ones who went from here and spoke about us at the national level in the previous generation were all none but some empty heads having no tinge of literary taste and the politically cunning, opportunistic educationists. Nothing mattered to them other than their personal successes. In the present younger generation, there are writers who could write in English with depth. They must write about Ki. Rajanarayanan and other Tamil literary geniuses as frequently as possible in English.

If all this happens, we can easily take Ki. Rajanarayanan to Jnanpith award. Once the name of Ki. Rajanarayanan is given an irrefutable place in the Modern Indian literature, it will become obligatory that he must be given Jnanpith award.

Still we are not late. Ki. Rajanarayanan is with us.* It is our duty that we must win Jnanpith for Ki. Rajanarayanan. Our educationists and the writers writing in English must pay some attention to it. Still I have a hope that there must be some in this group having basic taste for literature, minimum amount of conscience and penchant for Tamil culture and traditions even now. These words are just an outcome of that hope.

***End***

Translated from Tamil by K. Saravanan

Source: Jeyamohan’s article “Ki.Raavukku Gnanabeedam- Indraiya thevai”.                 

Notes:     

 

*Jeyamohan wrote this article when Ki.Rajanarayanan was alive. Now he (Ki. Ra) is no more.