READING RESPONSE

Reading Response

Reading Response

Review of Octavio Paz's book, In the Light of India in relation to the notion of Modernization of India's great Tradition

Octavio Paz first arrived in India in 1951 as a low-ranking embassy official for Mexico and immediately began to explore India and try to get some understanding of it. However, his stay was short and soon he was transferred to the Mexican mission in Tokyo.

Later in life Paz decides to write this book of essays on India. He is careful to tell us that this is not a memoir. He wrote this book quite late in his life, just before or after he was awarded the Nobel Prize. The book is also important because it offers a perspective that is very rarely found in books about India, which are mostly written by Europeans and Americans. Paz comes from a society which has had a somewhat similar experience to India - in terms of dealing with an extremely conservative-minded colonialism, and coming out of that and trying to construct a modern nation state. His is also a deeply traditional society and if you read his The Labyrinth of Solitude you'll find some really interesting similarities between the experience of Mexico and that of India. For someone like Paz, from that kind of background and culture, to be looking at India, not surprisingly he comes up with some interesting and stimulating ideas and insights that would not be possible for someone from an American or European background.

Paz's dominant theme of “his” India is that it is a nation made up of two very different religions and cultures, the Hindu and the Islamic, and that their interface and history have shaped India. Hinduism has existed in India since at least 2000 B.C. and Islam came as an invading army of the 8th century, which established the Mughal (sic) empire by 1526. It created a high Islamic civilization in India. It is a difficult and complex task he has set, and given that this is a book of only 209 pages, it can be seen as little more than a very interesting and well-written introduction. It can, and does, only sketch the bare bones of this nation's history and conflicts.

He tackles each of the two religion/cultures separately, and then turns to the meaning and role of the British in India. His main thrust is the complex story of India's ancient Hindu roots. He believes the cast system is central to understanding India and is rooted in a particular view of the cosmos as without beginning or end, running in an eternal circle of birth, death and rebirth without leaving the circle of return.

Paz explains the four main groupings of Hindu society and how this gives some sense of “place” to the believers of this world view.

While there are some 4,000 castes, the author holds that four dominate:

Brahmins -- priests

Kshatriyas -- warriors

Vaishyas -- merchants and businessmen

Shudres -- peasants, workers, servants

Despite the non-violence and ideology of return-to-village-simplicity, ...