Actor-playwright Girish Karnad’s criticism of celebrated writer Sir Vidia Naipaul as “anti-Muslim” is the kind of controversy that gets the chatterati buzzing. Karnad, set to present a theatre masterclass at a recent Mumbai litfest, used the opportunity to berate Naipaul instead for the views, and the organisers for giving the Nobel laureate a lifetime achievement award. There was drama in this, and tragedy too. For whatever may be the truth in Karnad’s criticism of Naipaul, it comes far too many years late.
Among the Believers, Naipaul’s book on Islam, was published in 1981, in which he warns of fundamentalism rising in the Islamic world. He pointed to contradictions between modernity and the fundamentalist worldview, and spoke of the tendency to misuse history in the service of theology. Last week, when Naipaul was given the lifetime award, Karnad was in the audience. He was looking on as a frail 80-year-old Naipaul was helped on stage by two men as he can no longer walk without aid. He was there when Naipaul drifted off into a silent reverie before bursting inexplicably into tears when asked about his early novels.
In Naipaul’s India: A Wounded Civilisation, out in 1977, Karnad finds favourable mention for his role in Samskara, based on a novel by U.R. Ananthamurthy. It was Samskara’s critique of the Hindu worldview that Naipaul wrote approvingly of. Karnad cannot be unaware of this.
It would seem, therefore, that Naipaul has criticised humbug wherever he has found it. And even if Karnad feels differently, he should have spoken out 30 years ago rather than wait for a relatively minor award ceremony towards the sunset of the author’s lifetime.