Namvar Singh’s departure from this world marks the end of an era. The magnitude of his interdisciplinary knowledge, his ability to innovate and the elegance of his writing had no rival in Hindi.
Criticism is considered to be monotonous academic work, and critics generally do not have as many fans as artists, but Namvar Singh was an exception. There has hardly been a more talked-about personality in Hindi letters in the past 50 years. His oeuvre includes the books Chaayavaad, Itihas Aur Aalochana, Kahani Nayi Kahani, Kavita Ke Naye Pratiman, Dusri Parampara Ki Khoj, Vad Vivad Samvad, Hindi Ke Vikas Men Apabhramsha Ka Yogdan and Adhunik Sahitya Ki Pravrittiyan, as well as eight collections of essays and lectures edited by Ashish Tripathi. This can hardly be called prolific.
Yet, he was considered the foremost critic in Hindi, the reasons for which were his authoritative debating style, his unwavering connection to the changing creative landscape and his drive to keep his knowledge up-to-date. He rightly said in an interview, “You can accuse me of writing very little, but you cannot say that I have slacked off when it comes to reading.”
Regular visitors to the JNU and Sahitya Academy libraries can attest to the fact that every new book of literature and social sciences would, for the longest time, land in Singh’s office first.
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And Singh’s work bears out this study. When one tries to place his ideas chronologically, one feels that there has been a mistake. In the 1970s, Singh said about the language of criticism:
“It has now become difficult to take language for granted as a medium of expression, because we can now see that language, before being the medium of expression, is first the medium of perception, and thereby regulates and organises our perception. The experience that we take to be our own and personally discovered, how much of it is really our own and how much a result of a common language, to reflect on that question is enough to drive any thinking person insane.”
No other writer of Hindi at the time, in my recollection, wrote about the role of language as the central liaison in our relationship with the world.
In addition, I do not know of any writer other than Singh to have described post-modernism along with its ‘principles’ in 1961. That same year, an essay of his, ‘Fir Kya Hua? Aur Muktimarg’, was published in Nayi Kahaniyan. In it, Singh disagreed with E.M. Forester’s concept of ‘plot’ and ‘story’. “It is possible that causality is necessary in what is called the modernist story, but in the post-modern story, causality is generally elided, and at most indirectly signalled at,” he wrote.
Connecting causality and action-based plot to modernity, science and intellectual development – and acknowledging its many contributions – he pointed out that “the causal-ist position has itself developed its traditions” and that “once again, the story is reacting against the modernist drive towards causality”.
I mention this to highlight how Namvar Singh was well-acquainted with literary and intellectual developments taking place in other parts of the world, and capable of harnessing them to enhance his critical vision. In his hands, Marxist criticism was more than just crude sociological analysis. But for that reason, he was accused of being not a Marxist. In his commentary on Muktibodh’s Andhere Mein (In the Darkness), published in Kavita Ke Naye Pratimaan in 1969, Singh described the poem’s narrator-protagonist as a victim of self-alienation; in response, he was accused of using existentialist vocabulary and concepts.
Singh’s response to those accusations, published in the second edition of the book, is worth reading. He informs Marxists who were unaware of the Marx of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 of the broad scope of the concepts of alienation and self-alienation; capitalism does not just exploit humans economically, it also dehumanises them. Alienation from one’s own creations, from labour as a way of life and resultantly, from oneself, were Marx’s primary concerns.
It is no surprise, therefore, that people find Singh’s writings, other than Itihas Aur Alochana, difficult to classify as Marxist – some want to save Marxism from Singh, and others want to save Singh from Marxism.
Both attempts are misguided in that they rely upon a predetermined idea of Marxist literary vision, whereas new ways of reading and thinking about literature are being fashioned and refashioned constantly in the heat and light of Marxist philosophical and social perspectives.
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Undoubtedly, there is a lack of consistency across Singh’s critical writings and lectures. His various ideas often clash with each other, but one cannot avoid making that mistake when one is always reexamining oneself. The ideas of those who stay consistent to one philosophical position become ossified to the point of becoming uninteresting. The absence of consistency – not in individual works but across the oeuvre – is evidence of openness and correctness. What should one do with the strange dualism that the absence of consistency is both a sign of correctness and of unscrupulousness?
Yet, the dualism is possibly not that strange. One recalls the part of the Communist Manifesto in which the overall changes under capitalism are simultaneously described both as magnificent and horrifying, like one picture seen from two different angles.
Namvar Singh’s legacy as an educator and editor is also significant. As editor of Alochna (Criticism), he sustained its status as the primary intellectual journal in Hindi. Very few magazines of that generation had as central of a role in giving direction to Hindi criticism. Alochana was the journal that kept the world of Hindi letters at pace with intellectual developments taking place in other parts of the world.
Having become the head of the Hindi department at JNU in 1974, Singh mentored several generations of good scholars over the years. The department culture and curriculum he created became a standard, although not one that was widely accepted by other universities. Before that, he faced severe opposition at Jodhpur University for including Rahi Masum Raza’s then newly-published novel Aadha Gaon (Half Village) in the curriculum – to a point where he almost lost his job.
Because he was a communist, he could not work at BHU or Sagar Vishwavidyalaya. His struggle before the permanent job at JNU remained with him like a lesson and the temptation to remain in positions of power prevented his sharp intellect from contributing to Hindi as much as he could have (in the absence of that temptation).
But what Namvar Singh did contribute, no person of average ability can equal – no matter how much effort they put in. He is, in Hindi, the critic most worthy of being read, and in that capacity will remain with us through his writings; he was the critic most worthy of being heard, but we have now been irrevocably deprived of the privilege of hearing him.
This deprivation, in fact, had started five to ten years ago. The memory of his speech is gradually fading away. At talks, it was difficult and painful to see him – at that advanced age – repeat the same thing again and again, lose track of what he was saying and struggle to find words to express himself. When that happened, I would think back to the Namvar Singh of the 1980s and 1990s.
And when I remember him now, it is that Namvar Singh that comes to mind.
Sanjeev Kumar teaches Hindi literature at Deshbandhu College, Delhi University and is the editor of Alochana, a literary criticism magazine.
This article was originally published in The Wire Hindi and was translated by Karan Dhingra.