Yogendra Yadav on Nirmal Verma: A critic of the modern Indian mind

Nirmal Verma (1929-2005) is an unlikely thinker to turn to for reclaiming our positive nationalism. Many would consider him unfit for this project, as his ideas could be appropriated by the other, narrow-minded nationalism. That is precisely why we need to revisit Verma, the thinker, when we mark this October the 20th anniversary of his passing away.
Verma is not a familiar name in what passes for the world of ideas in contemporary India. Very few know about him. Those who do, usually think of him just as a fiction writer. And the few who read his social and political writings tend to be unsure what to make of them. He wasn't exactly an unknown Indian, though. Among the finest 20th-century fiction writers in Hindi — a Jnanpith awardee for a body of work that comprised five novels, a dozen collections of short stories, drama and travelogues and another dozen translations of European classics — he is remembered mainly as a creative writer, not as a 'thinker'. It didn't help that he chose to write in Hindi, though he was equally proficient in English. In the later years of his life, he leaned towards the BJP and was dubbed a Hindutva apologist. He treated such descriptions with contempt, but they stuck because of his controversial takes on the Mandir and Mandal disputes.
While literary critics have written extensively about his fiction and other creative writings, the 10 collections of his reflective essays have remained almost unnoticed. The contrast is significant as his essays are not simply an elaboration of his literary self. As Alok Bhalla notes in the introduction to India and Europe: Selected Essays (2000), the only English collection of his essays, there is an apparent disjunction between the two. Verma's fiction was unapologetically modernist, it explored the 'arid silence that lies between people who have lost faith in each other'. But his reflective essays are an expression of disenchantment with modernity.
The very first collection, Shabd Aur Smriti (1976), laid the foundations of an Indian critique of Orientalist knowledge, before the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism. 'Ateet: Ek Atmamanthan', a path-breaking essay in this book, anticipated what Ashis Nandy was to argue later, that the Indian way of relating to the past is very different, and none the worse for it, from what we call history. His essays in Kala ka Jokhim (1981), Itihas Smriti Akanksha (1991) and Sahitya ka Aatm Satya (2005) could be called cultural critique in the broadest sense and were often preoccupied with themes of literature, art, creativity.
Underlying all his reflective writings is a fundamental question: Can we save Indian civilisation from the inner disintegration it experienced as a result of the colonial encounter? In collections such as Shatabdi ke Dhalte Varshon Mein (1995) and Doosare Shabdon Mein (1999), he posed this question directly via nationalism, secularism, socialism, civilisation and India's encounter with Europe. The depth of his reading and understanding of European literature and art was unmatched by any 20th-century Hindi writer. His 1988 lecture at Heidelberg University, 'India and Europe: Regions of Resonance', (Hindi version published as Bharat aur Europe: Pratishruti ke Kshetra) stands out for its subtle explorations of the colonial encounter and for maintaining an independent voice in the era of 'post-colonial' studies. The publication of Sansar Mein Nirmal Verma (2024), a two-volume collection of his interviews, helps to give a rounded picture of Verma, the thinker. Notwithstanding such a body of work, I could not find a single scholarly book or even an extended essay that goes beyond shallow polemics and offers a serious outline or critique of his ideas. This vacuum needs to be addressed.
Political partisanship comes in the way of filling this vacuum. Verma's biographical trajectory generated a good deal of controversy during his lifetime. He started as a communist but grew disillusioned with the ideology during his decade-long stay in Czechoslovakia. While his fiction stayed away from political polemics, his essays began interrogating the ideals of secularism, socialism and modern development, which were articles of faith at that time. He turned to Indian traditions, to Buddha, Ramakrishna Paramahansa (more than Vivekananda), Sri Aurobindo and, above all, Mahatma Gandhi (not Jawharlal Nehru) for intellectual inspiration. His opposition to the Emergency and then to OBC reservation, and his ambivalence on the Babri Masjid demolition and the Pokhran tests, completed his intellectual isolation. Interestingly, though the left disowned and attacked him, the right could never own his ideas.
Why should we revisit a thinker like Verma? And why do it now? Because he forces us to ask questions that 'progressive' modern Indians have avoided. Because the void left by this silence and indifference has allowed our nationalism to be captured by a fake variant. Because Verma poses these questions in a way that is at once sharp and constructive. Because unless we face these uncomfortable questions, we cannot reclaim our nationalism.
Cultural or rather civilisational issues are at the heart of Verma's intellectual quest. He views the post-Independence Indian nation-state as a successor to Indian civilisation, a modern state that carries the responsibility of forging an alternative to the dominant Western paradigm of development. His unabashed concern about India's unity and its territorial integrity is rooted in this wider non-jingoistic concern. His answer is unclear, and often hints that Hindus are the custodians of national unity and integrity. Yet the question remains: How do we frame and claim the nationalist concern for the unity and integrity of India? His critique of secularism was ruthless and sometimes over the top, yet it offered arguments to critique Hindu communalism as well. It invites us to introspect: Did secular politics not engage in selective amnesia?
Verma offered a deep, if a tad romantic, defence of India's living traditions. His affirmation of these traditions does not suffer from ethnocentricism; for him Indian civilisation continues to carry the integral view of a universe that does not place humans at the centre of the world, something that the modern West has lost. He offered a brutal critique of the modern Indian mind, including the stalwarts of the Bengal renaissance, for their intellectual surrender to the West, for their intellectual slavery. You could say that his story of Indian civilisation accommodates Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism but is equivocal on the role of Islam in India. There is a pronounced unease, if not denial, of the question of caste inequality in Indian society. Yet he leaves a big question with us: Is our critique of colonialism limited to its political and economic consequences? Or are we willing to look at the intellectual and cultural consequences of colonialism on the Indian self? And if we do, how can we not face the cultural heteronomy that has continued to shape the Indian mind since political independence? How do we propose to respond to this continued cultural colonialism that has seeped into our political, economic and educational institutions?
Verma was not the only one who asked such questions and was relegated to the margins of modern Indian intelligentsia. One can think of A K Saran, J P S Uberoi, Ramesh Chandra Shah, Daya Krishna, Dharam Pal and of course Ashis Nandy. Unlike some of them, Verma related these questions to the issues of his times, sometimes polemically. It would be premature to take his answers as the finished product of a new nationalism. But it would be a colossal mistake not to take his questions as the starting point to rethink our nationalism.
The writer is member, Swaraj India, and national convenor of Bharat Jodo Abhiyaan. Views are personal

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