Keeping in mind the context in which
Ibn-ul-Vaqt goes through his transformation, being of the upper
class in a colonized country where the power has shifted from his community to
the new incomers, I think we can say that a major instrument of exile for him
was what we would today term cultural assimilation, in the guise of reform. As
the balance of power is in the hand of the colonizers and as they call their
ways “civilized” and “modern” it automatically relegates the ways of the
colonized as “uncivilized” and “backward”. We see that Ibn-ul-Vaqt absorbs this
message much before any of his fellow Indians do (“It was not a secret that in
his view that the very fact a nation had an empire to rule was clear proof of
the superiority of its customs and ceremonies, its habits and thoughts, and
words and deeds, that is, all the conditions collectively if not individually.”)
and that, perhaps, may be his tragedy. In retrospect we can see the effects of
colonization, and later modern day imperialism, which contributed to the
subcontinent’s English school systems and adaptation of “western” clothing—all of
which constitute what Ibn-ul-Vaqt is vilified for and what, at the end of the
day, make him an outsider and a sort of “exile” within his own homeland.
Cultural assimilation in its very
nature is a product of power relations, such as the relation exemplified
between Mr. Noble and Ibn-ul-Vaqt, and assimilation is in fact an admission of
lack of power but for Ibn-ul-Vaqt this admission is excused away when
assimilation is instead called reform—because he convinces himself that he’s
going to lead his community forward toward some abstract concept of “modernity”
he overlooks the erasure of the self that is such an integral part of his “transformation”.
I say erasure of the self because this assimilation consumes such visible,
integral, and intimate things that constitute, and communities and persons use to
express, identity. Here Ibn-ul-Vaqt is eating food he does not much like,
clothes that he has never before worn in his life, living in a manner neither
familiar nor affordable to him and all for what? Because in the end, for
Ibn-ul-Vaqt, his native lifestyle is alienating because of its “inferiority”
and the English life style is alienating because of its literal alien-ness. I
know that by the end of this book you’re supposed to feel a certain contempt or
disdain at Ibn-ul-Vaqt and while that may exist there is also a sadness at the
idea that the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the very home that you live
in, that all these intimate aspects of a person’s life could be turned on their
heads and used as instruments of exile rather than providing comfort and
belonging.
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