Social Scientist

Writing to the Moment Politics of the Possible, Essays on Gender, History, Narratives, Colonial English by Kumkum Sangari Review by: Ashley Tellis Social Scientist, Vol. 28, No. 11/12 (Nov. - Dec., 2000), pp. 90-92 Published by: Social Scientist Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3518283 . Accessed: 16/02/2012 16:32Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Social Scientist is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Scientist.

http://www.jstor.org

BOOK REVIEW

Writingto the moment

KumkumSangari,Politics of the Possible, Essays on Gender, History,Narratives,ColonialEnglish,Tulika,pp. 503, Rs. 650 The KumkumSangari's Politicsof the Possibleis a literaryevent. It is arguably the most important book on English/Cultural Studies India.Sangaribelongsto a group of publishedin post-independence academicsfrom Englishdepartments Indian,predominantly female, acrossthe countrywho havebroughtto Eng.Lit. studiesa scrupulously visionandlocatedit firmlyat the heartof socialandcultural politicised productionin India,ratherthan in an airlessNew Criticalurn,where texts are proddedwith ahistorialforks and apoliticalknives.Among these critics are RajeswariSunderRajan, Ania Loomba, Shaswati Mazumdar,SvatiJoshi and Zakia Pathak,and some men like Suvir Kaul, Alok Rai and Aijaz Ahmad. Most of these academics have interventions with sustained combineda politicisedpedagogic practice in the social,culturalandpoliticalrealmwithinandoutsideacademia. The Politics of the Possible comes out of such a conjunctureand offers us an amazingset of essaysthat will keep us thinkingfor some time to come. Two of them deal with The first threeessays are directlyliterary. the fiction of Henry James and the third is the classic eponymous as essay that dealswith magicrealism- principally writtenby Gabriel GarciaMarquez(with a bit on SalmanRushdie)- and examinesthe politics of the productionand the receptionof this writing.Attentive to the ways in which Marquezbuilds his politics into his narratives and finelydisentangling practices froma mindlesspostmodernism his and a market that sells this fiction in a particular way, Sangari delineatesthe dialecticaland dialogicsense of historythat unfoldsin fictions.It is by farthe finestessayI haveevercome across Marquez's on magic realismand on the politics behindthe marketingof 'third world fiction.' The section on Rushdie is not satisfying enough if

91

will only becauseit is too short.One hopesSangari developthis section furtherand look more closely at the more problematicpolitics and position of Rushdie. The essayson HenryJamesofferverycloselycontextualreadings of two centralnovels ThePortraitof A Ladyand the later The Wings of the Dove. It posits that the constructionof women or femininity in Jamesand indeedhis entirestyleis symptomatic variouschanges of in culturaland political processesin Europeand the U.S. at the turn in of the centuryand earlier.Again, what is remarkable these essays is the firm descriptionof James'very particularstyle, which has lent itself to the worst kinds of postmodernist and poststructuralist criticism,as mouldedby the pressuresof historicalformations.The essaythat follows beginsSangari's foraysinto analysesof lesser-known texts which culminate,in furtheressays, with her looking at almost textbooks unknowntracts- conductbooks, romances,prescriptions, - and mining them for an understanding of the complicated,intertwining histories of colonial society.

for looks at two novelswrittena century 'Figures the Unconscious' ChandraDutt's The Last of the Rajputsand Arun apart (Romesh Joshi's The StrangeCase of Billy Biswas) in an attempt to come to grips with "the Indianunconscious"only to discovera multiplicity mediated class, of pressures unconscious, by definingan ever-changing caste and gender,uncoveringpluralhistories.What follows are four long essays (Sangari,along with Sumit Sarkar,is among the most of brilliantrevivers the long essay)on the themesof colonialeducation and the introduction of English studies in colonial India, female misogyny, the role of domestic labour in the rewritingof political economy and colonial policy, and, finally, a very subtle and multilayeredtrackingof consent, agencyand resistanceby women in the of of multiplepatriarchies Indiansociety.The arguments these essays are too manyand too subtleto dwell upon in a briefreview,but, take my word for it, their insights are truly remarkableand the sheer intellectualpleasurein readingthem is unparalleled. What is consistent throughout Sangari'swork is an incredible on to sensitivity caste,to classanda perspective genderthat is inflected Not for Sangariany happy-clappy by these and other coordinates. feminism or an easily oppositional understanding of women's liberation.The combinedattentionto all thesefactorsmakesSangari's analysesvery rich and detailed.More than 90 pages of this 500 odd paged book are just footnotes! What is commendablethroughout her work is the desireto retrieveplural,secularhistories,to give the

92

SOCIALSCIENTIST

lie to hegemonicand oppressiveunderstandings either history or of the present.Behindeach and everyessay in this book is the political need to work towards more interrelated histories all of whose components and genealogiesmust be respected.The essays have a political urgency,they appearas though hot off the press, rewritten till the moment they went to press, respondingalmost immediately to every new manipulation by reactionary and rightwing forces, pressed into the service of a more progressive politics. What is remarkable aboutSangari's work is thatit is nevershortof intellectual and excitement. Even when one disagrees with her, as I rigour sometimesdo (forexample,with herunilinear readingof JaneAusten), she is still mindblowinglystimulatingand persuasive. Finally,some commentmustbe madeaboutherstylewhich many find difficult and about which there has been some tinkeringtalk. is Admittedly,Sangari's not an easy style. Her sentencescan often be a concatenationof clausesstrungtogetherby a chain of commasand colons, her language is dense and borrows generously from contemporary theory and her arguments can appear to get too clutteredtogether and often remainfar too implicit (as in 'Women against women'), but she demandspatient reading.The trick is to readSangari slowly andin partsandthe insightsshe offerswill stagger you. Her prose actuallygets more lucid on closer inspectionand reThe of readingandno reading herwork is everunproductive. cluttered aren't it in fact cluttered but just point to close and arguments simultaneousprocessesthat she attemptsto record in the moment of their conjuncture.

AshleyTellis