Heralding winds of change.Les Miserables and Kerala society

HERALDING WINDS OF CHANGE:

How Nalapat NarayanaMenon’s Malayalam translation of Victor Hugo’s LES MISERABLES transformed the Kerala society.

(On 7.10.2000,Vijayadasami day was the 113th birth anniversary of Nalapat.It was the 75th year of his translation of LesMiserables .This paper written to commemorate the occasion was presented later in the Department of foreign languages ,at Cochin University).

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In history we often find perceptions of some beings translated to the aims of many.To analyse how the perceptions of Victor Hugo through his translator Nalapat ,influenced the pre-independent youth of Kerala ,we have to first analyse the Indian scenario at that time.

The Indian Scenario.
For practical purposes the Indian scenario can be divided into four eras.(methodology followed by M.K.Naik in his A history of Indian English Literature.)
1.From vedic times to 1857 revolt
2.The winds of change (1857-1920)
3.Gandhian whirlwind(1920-1947)
4.Postindependent Era.

Nalapat (1887-1954)belonged to the second and third era with the fag ends of his life spanning over to the post-independent period.During the winds of change phase ,the Indian ethos gradually underwent a seachange from the shock of defeat and frustration and the trauma of inferiority feeling to a newfound selfawareness and confidence.The confident authenticity of Vivekananda ,Aurobindo,Tagore,Tilak,Gokhale and Ranade vivified the sociopolitical scene.India’s rediscovery of identity became a vigorous and allabsorbing quest and she learnt enough from the west to progress from imitation to assimilation and creation.
During this period ,Nalapat established his confident but silent discourse and identity .He learnt Sanskrit ,the veda,jyothisha,occult sciences,became a member of the theosophical society (1917),translated Edwin Arnold’s light of Asia,wrote biographies of vivekananda,Dayanandasaraswathy,Vallathol and went to Almorah for renunciation,and took an active part in Indian National congress and its activities.He had translated even part of Leadbeater’s occult writings dealing with visualization of angels with kirlion photography.An ardent vedanthin and theosophist ,practitioner of truth and nonviolence throughout his life,a solace and strength to the women and children around,he combined the personality of thinker/poet/philosopher/scientist/reformer rolled in one.He had internalized the Indian Rishi and the Budha ,before he came across Christ in the form of Monsieur Francois Bienvenu Myriel, in Les Miserables And he lost no time in recognizing in Monsieur’s model Christ ,his own ideal rishi and the Budha.

Gandhi returned to India in 1915.In 1920 the nationwide nonco-operation movement was launched.Nalapat,an ardent Gandhian ,chose to stay away from the movement because he had started to translate his magnum opus the very same year.The decision to translate Hugo’s classic (Nalapat named the translation Paavangal,which means the poor)at the most historic moment in the Freedom struggle of India shows his commitment to to the cause as well as his personality ,as E.M.S.Namboothiripad,the Marxist thinker has rightly put it.To Nalapat,like Hugo,the Republic was the mother of all citizens.And he wanted to educate the young men and women of his times on Hugo’s philosophy.To change a degenerate political and social system ,the cleaning up should start at individual level and then spread horizontally.Collective thinking of society is a late manifestation .Romanticism,relism,liberal humanism and the revolutionary ideas of Hugo were ideal tools to be used to educate a decadent society and sow the seeds of action in its youth.Nalapt used it in the most needed hour of India’s history.The preface of the translator reads thus.”The proud boundaries created by men are of no value to God.National histories may differ.But human history is always the same.”The book ,as Hugo puts it”,will be useful to any society where ignorance and misery prevail,where women sell themselves for food and shelter ,where children lack love,home and education”.


Social influences and the women’s issues

In the neighbouring Tamilspeaking provinces E.V.Ramaswami Naicker had become a strong influence and was raising a Dravidian /feminist discourse. The selfrespect marriages conducted by him were asserting the Dravidian concern of gender equality .Gandhi stressed the need for emanicipation of women and the downtrodden.But many did not consider the women’s issues seriously.This was not the situation in kerala.The women of the lower castes were comparatively better in status than the Brahmin counterparts.There arose a series of reformations in the Brahmin society in which the Dravidian matriarchal equality rights were granted to women.The social activist instrumental in this reform was V.T.Bhattathirippad.He was influenced by Nalapat and Hugo as we see from his autobiographical writings.He wrote:I was aware of the state of women in my own community.Early widowhood resulting from marriage of little girls to old men.How can I stop it?Who am I to stop it?”Again to quote him,”I was gropping in the dark corridors of Brahmanism.Nalapat took my hands and brought me out.He taught me that the aim of my life should be destroying that corridor.From that day onwards I understood that if a Brahmin joins hands with a shoodra there wont be any catastophe.I was in front of all revolutionary events in the Brahmin community,like removal of ghosha(purdah),mishrabhojan(inter-caste dining),widow remarriage ,and intercaste marriages.But Nalapat was behind all these “.V.T.Bhattathiripad cites examples from his own experience to prove the revolutionary behaviour of Nalapat and his family,including his own mother.He also quotes profusely,references from Paavangal in his autobiography.Hugo knew that one could assess the level of civilization of a man in society by his/her actions to women ,children and the weaker sections of society.His Monsieur Beanvenu and Jean Val Jean were examples of this excellent civilized behaviour.They loved and served people irrespective of class,gender,political/religious beliefs out of compassion .Hugo and his translator wanted this to happen in their society.And in fulfilling this aim,V.T.was chosen by Nalapat ,to create a social change.

Political influence-E.M.S.Namboothiripad
The social impact made by Les Miserables was direct but the political inflence was indirect.E.M.S.Namboothiripad,an active member of the yogakshemasabha (a council of namboothiri Brahmins of which V.T also was a member)and the Indian National Congress in its early days and who turned socialist/communist/Marxist ,was responsible for the political impact.Though located in his classical Marxist position ,E.M.S attempted a wholistic approach while looking at Nalapat’s personality.He observed that Nalapat ,conscious of the need of the time ,as a true social thinker revolutionized not only the Malayalam prose style prevalent at that time,but also the viewpoint of a whole generation of Malayali youth ,including himself.The revolutionary whirlwind in Hugo’s mind was transferred through the mind of Nalapt to the new generation and E.M.S. feels that Nalapat had succeeded in his endeavour ,judging from what followed in the political history of Kerala.According to E.M.S ,Paavangal hastened the revolutionary pace in Kerala and evoked intense social changes.It made young men and women active participants in the process of social change.
The aim of Nalapat ,as E.M.S rightly guesses,was not a movement with extreme leftist ideology and like Hugo ,he was not a proponent of a bloody revolution as that of France.Here the speech of swami Ranganaathaananda ,made in Sylhet,East Pakistan ,inMay 1949,can be recalled.Speaking on the role of religion in politics he said, “Behind the government ,the constitution,the state ,lie the society ,the matrix of all forces,the womb of constitutions,and revolutions,placid like a calm lake at one period,erupting like a volcano at another.A moving,changing,struggling mass constituted of ego-centers belonging to varying levels of intellectual ,moral,and spiritual evolution.Political revolutions and even social revolutions engineered by politico-economic forces ,such as a socialist or communist revolution of these types may upturn states and shake up societies.But only for some time.After a few years ,the impulse looses its dynamism and societies resume their even course as before with only slight modification and changes.This was the lesson of the French Revolution ,as is also the lesson now becoming slowly evident of the mighty Russian revolution.The price we pay is out of all proportion that leads us to view a violent revolution as the product of historical necessity or as a factor of social progress.The only revolution initiated by a great spiritual teacher and the ideology and movement proceeding from him,gently but steadily ,shapes human desires and emotions and judgements in terms of certain lofty and spiritual values realized and taught by the teacher.It alters the ratio of social forces through profound transformations in individual men and women and effects an all-round refinement in human morals and manners”.
This profound change induced by Bienvenu in Jean Val Jean and its effect on many individual lives(of Fanteen,Cosette,Fushalwang,Javert,people of M city)is the theme of Hugo.Nalapat being an advocate of nonviolence ,was never in favour of bloody revolutions ,which proudly shows up the list of their martyrs to exploit public sympathy.His path was more spiritual and in this he resembled Bienvenu.

Literary Influence.
Prof. Joseph Mundassery (the first education minister of Kerala and noted literary critic)Kuttykrishna Maarar(literary critic)Novelist P.C.Kuttikrishnan have remarked how the style of Malayalam literatute was revolutionized by the translation of Paavangal.Mundassery said”It made thoughtless people think,silent people talk”.A critic ,M.R.Nair alias Sanjayan said that the elegy Teardrops written by Nalapt is a first class poem by a second class poet.Probably this is the best example of a longlasting comedy of the entire Malayalam literature.On this remark,a series of critics and academics have wasted time,quoting this wherever they could,and argueing whether Nalapat was first class or second class.But none of them seems to have realized that Sanjayan has taken that phrase to criticize Nalapat from Nalapat’s own translation of Hugo.In Les Miserables Hugo describes the battle of waterloo as the first class victory of a second class general(Lord Wellington)and Nalapt had faithfully translated it.This phrase was taken from Nalapt,to criticize Nalapat,to compare him with other poets of Kerala by a critic.This ,if we look at closely is a real tribute in disguise,to give the poet the satisfaction of a last laugh.Maarar,the eminent critic ,who never had any direct contact with the western literary methods was benefited by his contacts with Nalapat,and evolved a system of criticism in Malayalam ,based on the western style and benefited the branch of Malayalam literary criticism.The use of colloquial language styles in novels and short stories is perfected by many writers in kerala such as Uroob,M.T.Vasudevan Nair,Madhavikuuty.This style of using Malabar colloquial language was first introduced into Malayalam literature by translation of Paavangal by Nalapat .Hugo’s use of soliloquy and freeflowing narrative has come to stay in Malayalam literature after Nalapat’s translation.
In 1925,when the first edition of Paavangal came into print ,society was awakened.The young men and women of the time took up the challenge .At present ,in the time of separatist forces ,Les Miserables gives us an intellectual and humanistic solution to our problems.The silent discourse of Nalapat ,like the character Bienvenu in the classic he translated ,gives us new insights.The year 2000 ,marks the 75th birthday of the translation.The message of Hugo is still valid to us,the Paavangal of India and kerala,who still suffer the atrocities on the poor,downtrodden,the child and the women,and this book and its ideas come and knock at our door to awaken us from a slumber and make us elect only those who are morally perfect and humanistic to our powerpositions,in politics,in society and in all departments which deals with the nation’s economy,education and defence.