Word: naipaul
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Walcott is perhaps the most celebrated of Caribbean writers currently reaping international acclaim. This group includes other luminaries such as V.S. Naipaul and Jamaica Kincaid. They all are, in part, products of a colonial experience...
Fortunately, there exists another view of the post-colonial Caribbean, one beyond Naipaul's mordant wit and grim aspect, beyond Kincaid's condescension and Walcott's romanticization...
India: A Million Mutinies Now is Naipaul's appreciation of how real, individual freedom, first sighted in the distance with India's independence in 1947, has begun to take hold in daily life, to break down the "layer upon layer of distress and cruelty." The result is messy, since those liberties give rise to a "million little mutinies," the colliding trajectories of countrymen shaking off the old mind-sets of caste and class. To Naipaul's solidly liberal sensibilities, that turmoil is what marks the road to progress...
...ironic, not entirely unhappy victim of those reforms. Brahmans are losing out in India's equivalent of affirmative action, while other castes, including the lowest of the low, are at least partial winners. As testament to that transformation, Namdeo Dhasal, a militant dalit (untouchable) leader and poet, tells Naipaul, "There was a time when we were treated like animals. Now we live like human beings...
...Naipaul has retired the familiar, infuriating, immobile face of India and painted a fresh one of human spirit and dramatic change that should become the new starting point for thinking about the country. What Naipaul does not grapple with is the question of whether India can survive burning so hotly. Hindu-Muslim conflicts are on the rise; violent secessionist movements have paralyzed three states; caste warfare threatens to erupt around the country. Naipaul barely touches on that drift to anarchy, but he helps us understand...