The Gunny Sack By M. G. Vassanji: A Critique Of The Nature Of The Diasporic Mind

The first generation of Indians in Africa do not show any perceptible change in behaviour. What the diasporas do and say are conditioned by their culture which, in the words of Terry Eagleton, means "the affirmation of a specific identity-national, sexual, ethnic, regional-rather than the transcendence of it. " The interaction among different ethnic communities may bring some changes in the normally unalterable cultural identity. Such changes are often visible. In the case of hybrid races-African-Indian, Indian-Canadian, etc. — the cultural identity is fluid, a strange amalgam of cultures, such as we see in the case of Huseni, the son of an Indian father (Dhanji Govindji) and African mother (Bibi Taratibu), or Juma, his son. The pressure for the mingling of races is real in an alien land, and is not easy to resist. Kulsum, the narrator's mother, vainly tries to safeguard her family from the painful experience of cultural hybridization. She is unable to reconcile with the fact that her daughter Begum would marry a White man. To her, it means the abandonment of one's faith and culture. Her angry outburst and threat can be understood in this context: "Over my dead body. Do you want to murder me. Take a knife, go on, take a knife, take these scissors, I'll give you my soul!'". It is impossible for her to accept a man as her son-in-law who must be drinking, smoking and, worst of all, eating pork. But Begum has already made her plans. With a short note, addressed to her younger brother, she elopes with her lover one day. Kulsum is heart-broken. A week later she abandons the store, and goes into long depression and brooding. Years later, she also loses her darling son Sona. When Sona announces his decision to go to America, she looks flustered and angry. Only when she is made to realize that it is a rare opportunity for her son to get education in a prestigious university that she makes the biggest sacrifice of her life. Her commandments to Sona have a cultural significance: Don't marry a white girl. Don't smoke or drink. Don't eat pork. Don't turn your back on your faith and your community. Don't forget your family.

From these moral edicts, it is obvious that a mother's apprehensions about the new world in which her son is to live are quite strong. But it is ironic that if a son faithfully abides by his mother's ethical principles, he will remain forever alienated in a land which has a different set of moral values.

The Gunny Sack shows that it is only in the postcolonial period that Indians feel real threat to their cultural identity. The novel shows how the demands for assimilation of the Indians/Asians crop up in the postcolonial era. In the colonial era, the issue of assimilation was meaningless as the rulers, too, were migrants who were naturally determined to keep their cultural identities intact. In the postocolonial period, the new rulers clamour for asssimilation by the diasporas. The culture-oriented identity of the diasporas come under extreme pressure. Those who demand that it should be discarded in favour of a new identity, or hope it can be done, fail to recognize that nobody can dispense with his cultural past. The questions of assimilation into or accommodation to another culture are vital to the peaceful and prosperous living conditions for the diasporas in any nation of the world. While the majority community demands total assimilation, the diaspora community can only respond with a degree of accommodation, which ought to be acceptable. The idea of complete accommodation is preposterous, especially in the context of non-cooperation by the majority community. This is as much valid in Canada as in Africa.

The Gunny Sack portrays vividly how the postcolonial period with its demands for adjustments upsets the Asian communities. Most of the Indians cannot thinlc of marrying their "fair" daughters to the "black" natives because of the inherent colour prejudice in their psyche. Hassan Uncle, no wonder, gravely mutters: 'They have their eyes on our daughters, mind you'. An interesting debate ensues. The issue of inter-racial marriages provokes one Mr. White to write a letter in Herald, saying: 'Do wildebeest and Zebra mate? Do giraffes mate with elephants, or lions with leopards?'. In response to this letter, the Indian A. A. Raghavji or Nuru Poni makes an observation that even shocks the conservatives like Kulsum among the Indian community : When wildebeest and zebra, or any of the other pairs mentioned by the White mate, nothing happens, but when people of two races combine, beautiful children are bom with the virtues of both races and the prejudices of neither, one must hope. '

In Tanzania, the Revolutionary Council asks young girls of Persian descent to choose their husbands. When they refuse, they are sent to prison. A few days later they are seen married to old bearded sheikhs, two to three times their ages. Naturally, it shocks the Muslim community and a public outcry is raised against this kind of injustice. The natives openly demand that they should assimilate in the mainstream. The response of the Indians is on predictable lines. Those who cannot reconcile with the expectations of the natives, and are zealous to stick to their cultural identity migrate to other countries. Those who stay, face the onslaughts on their culture in different ways. The younger generation of Indians is ready to change. Many youngsters do not find it difficult to wear "kofias" or "khanga shirts". There are many among them who are proficient in Swahili, the native African language. They can easily relate to the natives, and some of them are ready for inter-racial marriages, too. It is, however, pertinent to note that though one's identity is more or less unalterable, the self is changeable.

"The identity of being Indian", as Jasbir Jain points out, "cannot be shaken off, even if India is a lost paradise or an unknown territory, even if the individual has discarded all recognisable traces of Indianness. ' "Thus, those Indians in Africa who take to the native culture of their adopted land remain Indians at heart. They may succeed in changing their appearance or even their self to some extent but they cannot altogether change their cultural identity. Even those Indians who are ready to marry the natives fail to sever their links with their inherited culture. Dhanji Govindji, the narrator's great grandfather, has physical relation with a black woman and sires a child, yet he continues to view the natives as inferiors, and feel proud of his "solar race". The narrator Salim Juma desires to marry Amina and claims to be an African on the ground that he was born and brought up in Africa. Yet to Amina and others, he is nothing but an Indian- 'A clothed Indian among naked Africans'. He has to confess to his distinct identity as an Indian when he tells Amina, to her enquiry as to why he does not remove all his clothes at the river, 'Some of us have a different sense of propriety'.

The questions about identity come into sharp focus when the person concerned is half-caste. For the narrator, Salim Juma, the question of identity crops up at intervals during his recollection and recreation of his past. He is aware of his hybrid identity, but he does not seem to be overtly bothered about it. Unlike his father, he seems to be quite assertive and confident. He seems to be proud of being Indian - African, though he does not like to make a public show of it. Perhaps it is this fluid identity which endows him with a rare objectivity to look at the past and to relate it to his present. Still, he wants to have answers to many of his questions which seem to torment him. For instance, he wants to know how his great grandmother Bibi Taratibu felt in her relationship with an Indian. He also wants to know more about his grandfather Huseni. He wants to analyse his present condition (in Canada) in the light of his past, “The question that comes to mind is : in coming here, have I followed a destiny? Satisfied a wanderlust that runs in the blood? Or do I seek in genes merely an excuse for weakness, an inability to resolve situation? (p. 66)If there is an identity crisis, it is to be found mostly in the likes of Huseni, die narrator's great grandfather, who do not know as to where they actually belong. For quite some time, Huseni continues to consort with the natives and even comes to participate in the Maji Maji activities. Then he tries to accommodate himself to his father's family. Fatima-his father's legal wife-has disdainful attitude towards him from the beginning. She resents the intruding presence of this half-caste creature. Though we are not given a peep into his mind, we know he must have suffered from the pangs of neglect in his own home. When he begins to see his mother and native friends once again, Dhanji scolds him and repudiates his behaviour : 'You fool', said the father in uncontrolled rage, 'you are descended from the Solar Race! What do you have to consort with slaves for?' His response to his father's outburst has obvious racial overtones. In sullenness, he raises his head, spits at his father's feet and walks out, never to return.

Living on the border zone of two cultures is difficult, and has its price. In multicultural societies the mixed families undergo the trauma of inter-cultural adjustments which are not easy to make. Dhanji Govindji's mixed family has to experience all the tension and bitterness of conflicting racial heterogeneity. Huseni, the half-caste, makes repeated attempts at adjustments in a family which looks down upon his mother, Bibi Taratibu, both for her being a black native and a slave. His step-mother Fatima's resentment is a reflection on the family set-up in which Huseni has to fit himself somehow or the other: 'Tell me, what is my sin, that I should inherit this slave's son with my marriage. . . this junglee who stands out like a wart in this family, a bad influence on my children, ruining their good name. . . '. If Fatima regards Huseni as family shame, his father, a proud Indian Shamsi, shows typical traits of a patriarch. He discards his keep Bibi Taratibu, Huseni's mother, without any compunction. He keeps Huseni in the hope that he would imbibe in him the cultural traits of his fatherly side, and would forego all his links with his mother and the race to which she belongs. It is in this context that Huseni's predicament can be understood. For some time, he defies the wishes of his father and continues to meet his mother. He even participates in the oath ceremony of the rebel African group called Maji Maji. When Dhanji comes to know of his activities, he blurts out: And do you think it is right that for the sake of your games and to show your cleverness you endanger the lives of these children? And the water on your back, you think that's the German bullets turned to water, do you? You fool, if a bullet had touched you, you would be meat for the hyenas. It is but natural that Huseni looks hurt; he ignores his father's hidden concern and affection for him. Once his step-brother Gulam is attacked on his way to a village. On seeing Gulam in a bad condition, Huseni is moved and tells the bearers of the stretcher: 'I am also his son. Do you think I'll simply sit while you carry my brother home?'.

The incident helps him to restore himself back to his family. He is married to a respectable lady Moti. But after some years, he again restores his links with his mother and his fellow native friends. Again his father shows resentment. Unable to bear the pain of living in an atmosphere of conflicting loyalties, he leaves home and disappears. The case of the half-caste Huseni exemplifies the problems of persons in the throes of identity-formation. The confusion of Huseni in the mixed home is not one-sided. His father Dhanji Govindji also comes under pressure. After Huseni's departure, he loses his peace of mind. He leaves nothing to chance in his search. He goes to every place where Huseni is said to be seen. He braves all kinds of discomforts, spends money lavishly and loses his grip on his family business. The narrator recalls the worst days of Dhanji: Every time the old man returned, disappointed and tired, more of the business was in the hands of Gulam and his two brothers, all in the control of Fatima. Dhanji Govindji ignored her, she espised him. What savings he had not spent in his quest disappeared, and of the earnings in his absence he was not informed. Slowly he became a guest in his own house, (p. 31) The agony of Dhanji is that of a man who chooses to balance his contradictory affiliations and loses in the process his own recognition. Huseni, too, suffers from a similar agony and meets the same consequences. His search for self-discovery makes him an exile in his own family. Huseni's son Juma, the narrator's father, is another half-caste who has to suffer a lot, mainly because of his hybrid identity, his pedigreee, in the household of Awal (his mother's sister) after the death of his mother: There he grows up, a second-class citizen, nothing more than a glorified servant; whom the family sent away on pretexts when important guests arrived; who never sat in the family car except with chauffeur; who to earn money ran errands for Awal's sons; who more often ate in the kitchen than at the table.

A contrast between the immigrant women of the postcolonial era and those of the colonial days is quite revealing, "Since colonized women almost by definition went unheard within their own patriarchal culture, they were doubly unheard under a colonial regime. The Gunny Sack shows how immigrant women remain unheard of, suppressed and marginalized. Bibi Taratibu is heartlessly abandoned by Dhanji Govindiji. Neither the colonizers nor the social system allows such women to raise the voice of protest. Husbands in the patriarchal system abandon their women and children and disappear, leaving them to fend for themselves. Husseni leaves his wife Moti without caring for her future. So is the case with the narrator Salim Juma who finds a good excuse to get rid of his wife, as he himself admits : "I think I ran away from the marriage, an impossible domestic situation”.

Significantly, Bibi Taratibu, Ji Bai and Kulsum are among those women who, in a colonial era, continue to remain oppressed in an oppressing system. But Amina and Zuleika are women of the new world, the postcolonial world, who resist male hegemony in different ways. They are unlike Ji Bais and Kulsums who remain dependent on their menfolk and subsume their identities in those of their male counterparts. The novel dramatises effectively the consequences of dislocation and the issue of accommodation for the diaspora. Circumstances conspire in such a way as to provide a desired escape to the narrator. After the detention of Amina and her companions on the charge of anti-national activities, he is asked to leave the country without delay. In fear of jail and jailors like Abdulla, the Asian hater, he grabs the offer made by his friend Jogo and escapes to Lisbon, from where he goes to the United States. With the realization that his escape has its association with his familial past, he makes a cogent observation: I think I ran away from the marriage, an impossible domestic situation. . . like my grandfather, Huseni. . . and even his father Dhanji Govindji who went to look for him. The irony isn't lost on me, but is it destiny that is ironical, or is it the ironical in us, a predisposition, that makes us go after a certain fate, a certain pattern-poetry being more real than reality, as Rashid would sometimes quote. Something of both, I suspect, herein lies the crux of the whole problem of dislocation and migration.

To escape from a difficult situation is a characteristic motif in the history of migration. It is ingrained in the situations faced by all the forebears of the narrator Salim Juma, and this is what he realizes in his own case, too. Most of the migrants have this predisposition: to run away from ordeals and seek shelter in a seemingly secure haven. But ironically, the secure haven (an adopted land) again creates problematic situations which the diasporas find difficult to confront. In certain cases, fresh migrations to some other imagined but evasive Edens are undertaken. Seen in this context, The Gunny Sack is a critique of the very nature of the diasporic mind. It does not just report the history of a migrant family, but draws attention to the pattern of migration, to the deeper structure of history itself.