The Inheritance of Loss

Loss of Rights in The Inheritance of Loss

In the present context, the concept of Rights has been confined within citizens of state. Who doesn’t belong to state where he is living has to face problems and seeks for permanent way to be citizen of that state. The case is pretty same with minor groups. Here rights means right to the city, rights of man and rights of citizens. In my paper I argue that Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss projects immigrants and minority group seeking for their rights. Her work is an example to explain how immigrants have to face troubles and huddles in life which are caused by lack of rights. The concept of rights exists only among few major groups but immigrants and minority groups are deprived of rights. Those immigrants in Kalimpong and America long for rights provided to citizens as they lack it in foreign lands and likewise minor groups Lepcha, Bhutia, Tibetan, and along with them Nepali who were migrated to Darjeeling during British rule and who were minor in that area are unable to experience man’s rights since it is reduced to citizen’s right. Well, in those cases concept of right to the city is also missing.

Likewise, not only the rights of Man reduced to citizen rights, but also citizen’s rights are reduced to a few powerful citizens, like the judge, his friend Bose and those who enjoy the part of nation-state power structure like Pradhan in the novel. That leads to the question, “Who has the right to have rights to city?” In my term paper I would try to answer the question with reference to different ethnic groups and minor groups as Desai presents in her novel.

What is right to city?

Right to city is very popular slogan which advocates for the freedom and good environment for individual to live. This catchphrase “the right to the city” is stated by Henri Lefebvre. This notion presents the idea about “right to more human life in the context of the capitalist city and on the basis of a representative “democracy””. (315) Novel depicts, right to city and the right to another city in another world is missing in present world.  Lefebvre also denies that right to the city doesn’t only mean to return back to the traditional cities but it also means to get access to renew and transform urban life. In my paper I am going to mention character like Biju who actually doesn’t want to return back to his traditional city but he is compelled to do so since he can’t get renewed and transferred life in America. In fact his attempt to go abroad is some kind of his effort to renew his life but it can’t function as per plan.

Likewise Gyan, A nepali boy living in Kalimpong with three generation doesn’t have proper place to live as compare to judge. His place resembles a slum which is two hours away from Kalimpong. So he is deprived of social and physical space. So he gets involved in Gorkha  movement known as GNLF. The area he lives is described as following:

 “[H]uts perched along eyebrow-width ledges in the thick bamboo. Tin roofs promised

tetanus; outhouses gestured into the ether so that droppings would fall into the valley. . . .

in these homes it was cramped and wet, the smoke thick enough to choke you, the

inhabitants eating meagerly. . . reality skidding into nightmares. . . ” ( 261).

The necessary situation; in order minimize the possibility of separation among various habitants of certain city is right to city. Liette Gilbert and Mustafa Dikeç comment, Lefebvre admits that right to city is a way to cross check rights and on the basis of this once can realize social and physical spaces provided to individual. He declares that to attain a level of rights, new citizens coming to new places should equally benefit with the concept of right to city. He also sees requirement for new societal ethics for new citizens. They say:

Three decades later, Lefebvre’s right to the city as a practice and argument for

claiming rights and appropriating social and physical spaces of the city resonates

loudly in the streets of many French and North American metropolitan areas (among

others). It might be argued that the notion of new citizenship has always been (if

not explicitly) part of Lefebvre’s insistent call for the practice of the right to the

city and the right to difference by urban inhabitants. But Lefebvre’s thinking on

the notion of citizenship became more explicit in his later writings, where he argued

for a new citizenship linked to a new societal ethics. (252)

While talking about the immigrants, the fact that we have to keep in our mind is their choice of the place. Immigrants who migrate choose a place of better facilities i.e. Urban. Those places of salient features become heterogeneous and culturally diverse. In that case proper right for large heterogeneous can’t be experienced. Lefebvre believes people are separated on the ground of groups, ethnic group, ages, sexes, activities, tasks and knowledge. All these are necessary condition to make urban society. But he sees lack of coordination among such people which makes it impossible to experience it. He calls this situation “presence- absence” (152). He further adds:

The urban obsesses those who live in need, in poverty, in the frustration of possibilities which remain only possibilities. Thus the integration and participation obsess the non-participants, the non-imegrated, those who survive among the fragments of a possible society and the ruins of the past: excluded from the city, at the gates of the urban. (152)

Because of xenophobia people are unable to welcome people coming from different places. So despite of the fact that immigrants are there in new land, their presence isn’t felt. So they remain absent even though they are there. This is the reason why most of them have no power and rights. In the novel people from Kalimpong are Lepchas, Begali and Nepali. Neither of them is experiencing rights. Nepali people were migrated to India. In the 1800s they left their village in Nepal and arrived in Darjeeling, to work on a tea plantation. Even after so many years having lived in that area other privileged people call them with disrespect. As for instance a nepali watchman at Lola and Noni’s place is called “Budhoo”. At the same time, they can’t rely upon him because they generalize the robbery case: 

"Budhoo? But he’s Nepali. Who can trust him now? It’s always the watchman in a case of robbery. They pass on the information and share the spoils.. . . Remember Mrs. Thondup? She used to have that Nepali fellow, returned from Calcutta one year to find the house wiped clean. Wiped clean. Cups plates beds chairs wiring light fixtures, every single thing—even the chains and floats in the toilets. One of the men had tried to steal the cables along the road and they found him electrocuted. Every bamboo had been cut and sold, every lime was off the tree.(50)

The writer further adds Budhoo can kill them in their nighties. This perception clearly indicates Indian’s disrepectful attitude toward minor nepali who is there to serve them. And Noni seems to be unable to dismiss him because she fears if he would get angry, he would so something bad and says, “I tell you, these Neps can’t be trusted. And they don’t just rob. They think absolutely nothing of murdering, as well.” So people have some kind of phobia when they are away from associated major groups. This thought has created vast difference among people from different ethnic groups as well.

Rights of man Vs. Rights of citizens.

The concept of right of man is human being’s rights, i.e. according to United Nations definition , “human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination.” (Isin, 3) And when it is reduced to only citizens, whole domain of effective function of rights comes into the question. According to Balibar, in the present context the discourse of rights of the man includes “freedom of conscience or individual security to claim to the right to existence or people’s right to self determination.”(5) He argues discourse of rights of man and rights of citizens remain completely distinct. He claims that equating man with citizen leads to totalitarianism. In that way, we are living in a world where everyday various human being are made refugees and immigrants. Since the time of Greek Stoic, human being is privileged with natural rights. But with the span of time it is narrowed with insertion of citizen rights. Documents like, Magna Carta (1215), English Bill of Rights (1689), American Declaration of Independence (1776), French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789) and Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) are attempts for the preservation of rights. Rather than ensuring every individual’s rights as man these documents are trying to ensure rights of citizens that’s why issues of immigrants and refugees and minor groups are in shadow. Balibar brings an idea of Lock which favors natural rights as foundation for all citizens that provides proper political space but Thermidorean Declaration of 1795, “centered on the untouchable character of property and the reciprocity of rights and duties” that substituted rights of man. With this transformation man is deprived of political space, equality and liberty. That’s why Biju suffers in India as well as in New York. Had it been possible to maintain rights of man, person like Biju doesn’t have to suffer in India because he is from poor background, his father is almost like a slave to judge. He also has to suffer in foreign land because he doesn’t have legal paper and he migrates illegally.

Jacques Ranciere questions the transformation of subject of Rights of Man to Human Rights. He thinks, “the Rights of Man was a mere abstraction because the real rights were the rights of citizens, the rights attached to a national community as such.” (298). Hannah Ardent talks about those population of refugees who moved to Europe after the First World War. They were deprived of their rights because they were just men not citizens. She favors to provide rights to them who don’t have property left and rights of man should be rights who don’t have rights. She fails to argue about the liberty and equality since she is only concerned with rights of state less people. She undermines those people who belong to the country yet they are not refugees but still they are not given rights of equality and liberty as for example the cook, Gyan and Lepchas from the Desai’s novel. In that case, Balibar notion of equaliberty is appropriate. Balibar believes, equaliberty requires mediators in order to be fulfilled with effective result and those mediators are fraternity and property. Fraternity is related to nationalism or communism and property is closely tied to liberalism or socialism. Equaliberty is nothing other than the demand for a popular sovereignty and autonomy without exclusions.

About the Poem Boast of Quietness by Jorge Luis Borges

The novel includes fifty three chapters. Desai begins novel with a poem Boast of Quietness by Jorge Luis Borges. Speaker talks about his homeland in the poem: They speak of homeland/ My homeland is a rhythm of my guitar…/ This line shows the value of being in a place where one has birth rights. The concept of being rightful citizens exists in certain boundaries i.e homeland that’s why we see characters in the novel desire for own homeland. According to Ardent when people became homeless eventually become rightless. In her work The Origin of Totalitarianism, she states:

Once they had left their homeland they remained homeless, once they had left their state  they became stateless; once they had been deprived of their human rights they were rightless, the scum of earth. (267)

 The poet also says: I walk slowly, like one who comes from far away he doesn’t expect to arrive. This line is par with the feeling of immigrants. Because immigrants are the one who feel they are from far away and they aren’t expected in the land they go and are also deprived of rights and values. I believe, Desai starts her novel with the poem to show an importance of homeland which ensures birth rights. This fact becomes clear when we read characters like, Jemubhai, Bose and Biju. They return back from England and America to their homeland.

This concept of homeland inherits the concept of the birth rights for citizen. Because through this concept one is able to enjoy rights in the city- state (as practically believed in this world). According to Aristotle a privileged person who can contribute by words or deeds to run community is citizen. His controversial thoughts for some men being inferior and slave aren’t citizens are seen prevalent in the novel since they are deprived of rights. For example, Cook at Jemubhai Patel’s house who is much like a slave to him and despite of being with Jemubhai for seventeen years, when robbery happens at home he is one who is in suspicion of being involved. I think Desai includes the poem to illustrate the value of being in place where one is inherently associated since birth. One is privileged in the place where one gets birth is a message saved by both novel and poem.

 Characters and Their Proximity to Issue of Right to the City

Jemubhai Patel, a retired judge who had once been in England. He did all to belong to England but he couldn’t belong there though he had abandoned his father and wife in India. He didn’t achieve what he sought in that foreign place hence he got back to northeastern Himalayas, Kalimpong. He lives with cook, Sai (his granddaughter), and Mutt. He adopts living ways of English people. He speaks English as English people do and eats with fork and knife even chapati. He is privileged man in the novel. He enjoys rights at his place. He has a cook who is nearly like a slave serving him for seventeen years. He lives in a better place than other minor group. Unfortunately his exposure to English world has made me alone. He is neither full Indian nor English. His situation is useless. He finds his wife, Nimu grotesque in manner and he is somehow feels he is unable to cop up with her. His fascination over white puff powder shows his obsession with English fairer skin which he wants to be more privileged in Cambridge. He doesn’t like his wife’s face since he believes Indian girl can’t be as beautiful as English girl can be. He is once a right less man when he visits Cambridge. He doesn’t find proper place to get rent near his university. He has to be in unfriendly environment. His landlady doesn’t seem to be friendlier with him. She calls him James instead of his name. He lives in solitude. “He retreated into a solitude that grew in weight day by day. The solitude became a habit, the habit became the man, and it crushed him into a shadow” (39). These instances present daunting attitude of citizens among immigrants which leads right less individuals in the city. He is friendless in foreign land. “For entire days nobody spoke to him at all, his throat jammed with words unuttered, his heart and mind turned into blunt aching things, and elderly ladies, even the hapless – blue-haired, spotted, faces like collapsing pumpkins – moved over when he sat next to them in the bus, so he knew that whatever they had, they were secure in their conviction that it wasn’t even remotely as bad as what he had.” When he gets back to India, his presence is celebrated:

When he returned from England, he had been greeted by the same geriatric brass band that had seen him off on his journey, but it was invisible this time because of the billows of smoke and dust raised by the fireworks that had been thrown on the railway track, exploding as the train drew into the station. Whistles and whoops went up from the two thousand people who had gathered to witness this historic event, the first son of the community to join the ICS. He was smothered with garlands; flower petals settled on the brim of his hat. And there, standing in a knife’s width of shade at the end of the station, was someone else who looked vaguely familiar; not a sister, not a cousin; it was Nimi, his wife, who had been returned from her father’s house, where she’d spent the intervening time. Except for exchanges with landladies and "How do you do?" in shops, he hadn’t spoken to a woman in years. (172)

His living standard in India makes him different from other people: “He was a foreigner-a foreigner-every bit of him screamed” (173-174) He started hating Indian ways which is the result of exposure with foreign culture. He manages to go to Cambridge with his talent and dowry provided by Nimu’s family. His brown skin was not accepted by English people. He becomes minor in Cambridge and feels being rejected so he puts himself away from social activities.

Biju is a son of cook who goes to America seeks for Green Card. He is an illegal immigrant in America. He faces humiliation in foreign land. He doesn’t see the possibility of acquiring Green Card which is an access to the rights. He keeps changing his job for two years in US but he can’t become American wholly, he is remarked unfit by others and himself as well. He is remarked as a smelly guy by a wife of an owner of Italian Restaurant where he works: “He smells,” said the owner’s wife. “I think I’m allergic with his hair oil.” (55) His pitiful living situation forces us to question the notion of city and rights. So, Henry Lefebvre argues that the concept of right to the city should be emancipator y social movements. He supports that to greater extent to favor a man to be eligible to have right to the city as the right to another city in another world as Souza quotes in “Which right to which city?” He is living in woeful place because it lacks basic infrastructure to be called living in a city that respects people right to the city. Souza talks about ideal scenario for the fulfillment of the right to the city; “human and affordable housing” (from “good” housing in a strict sense to “good” infrastructure at the neighborhood level to “environmental friendly” means of transport)+ “participation”… (316) His situation doesn’t match with that because he is living in a “basement of the building at the bottom of Harlem” (58). Basically, right to better human life should be fulfilled but technically it hasn’t been so. That’s why concept forwarded by Lefebvre for the rights to better living standard is hard to attain in capitalist society. Souza advocacy for just and free society is pointless in the case of migrant like Biju because it seems impossible in the novel.

Biju’s friend in America is Saheed. His problem is equal to Biju. He is African Muslim. He has also traveled to US with fake documents. He gets married to a hippy to ensure his green card. Realizing the fact of getting married with American citizen for the green card also strikes Biju but unfortunately he is unable to do so. “Biju continued on his way, tried to smile at female American citizens: "Hi.Hi." But they barely looked at him.”(130) In other words, we can say among xenophobic American citizens, he can’t expect any chance to attain rights.

Gyan, a science tutor for Sai gets involved into Gorkha movement who is nepali. The writer shows concept of rights among the minor groups in India. They are deprived of rights as other people have in that place. Desai says in her novel, “It was Indain- Nepalese this time, fed up with being treated as minority in a place where majority. They wanted their own country, or at least their own state in which to manage their own affairs.” (16) During protest against Indian government, Gyan realizes that he is unable to get good job in Calcutta because he is nepali, a minor group of India. His decision to join GNLF shows his and his ethnic groups frustration.At this stage, the interesting question is why a young, educated man like Gyan decides to join a violent political group like the GNLF.  He also reflects upon the suffering the Nepali minor group of India who have gone through a lot during and in particular the oppression by other dominant nations and the consequent financial difficulties.  If they are treated equal as the citizen of India he would have got better job. That’s why he supports the Gorkha movement. The writer includes in the novel:

A man clambered up on the bench: "In 1947, brothers and sisters, the British left granting India her freedom, granting the Muslims Pakistan, granting special provisions for

the scheduled castes and tribes, leaving everything taken care of, brothers and sisters——"Except us. EXCEPT US. The Nepalis of India. At that time, in April of 1947, the Communist Party of India demanded a Gorkhasthan, but the request was ignored. . . . We are laborers on the tea plantations, coolies dragging heavy loads, soldiers. And are we allowed to become doctors and government workers, owners of the tea plantations? No! We are kept at the level of servants. We fought on behalf of the British for two hundred years. We fought in World War One… (165)

They were disgusted by government. Even though they served Indian government fighting against African, Egyptian and even Persian Gulf, they are not given rights. The man who is involved in the Gorkha movement also mentions that they are now fighting for their rights. He shouts at the middle of the crowd that they are Gorkha and soldiers too, very brave but never been rewarded and haven’t been respected. The man clarifies that they have the feeling of being suppressed. Despite of the fact that they have served Indian government but they aren’t being rewarded. They don’t see any respect from the state. They have served both the governments: English and India but none of the government respected their contribution. Instead of the respect they are ill treated that’s why they have to object the ill treatment. They no longer accept any discrimination imposed upon them. They are seeking for the renewal of citizenship i.e. equaliberty, in Etienne Balibar ‘s word. When the proposition of equaliberty can’t function then power will not be homogeneously distributed across all individual. Balibar asserts, “Such is the very mechanism of the formation of classes or dominant elites, which inevitably transforms power in superpower or hegemony.” (18)

He says as per ideals of modern democracy equality and liberty are prerequisite which means equaliberty. That’s equality for the social rights and political representation and liberty is for the freedom of citizens to compete.

            That’s why when Gorkha movement started in the novel, Father Booty has to suffer. He is an European living in Kalimpong for forty- five years but lack legal permit for residence. At this point his situation is equivalent to Biju in New York:

Father Booty was now found to be residing in India illegally. Oh dear, he had not expected contact with the authorities; he had allowed his residence permit to lapse in the back of a moldy drawer for to renew the permit was such bureaucratic hell, and never again did he plan to leave or to reenter India…knew he was a foreigner but had lost the notion that he was anything but an Indian foreigner. . . . (227)

He has to sacrifice everything he owns in India because of the traditional concepts on right to city only for citizens. He did more development than any locals would do in that hill but during the time of Gorkha movement he has to sacrifice.

 Lepchas, the autochthonous community are also disappearing from that place even though the place was originally theirs as novel mentions: “Lepchas are not multiplying, they are disappearing. In fact they have first right to this land and nobody is even mentioning them. They are displaced as they get deprived of just and rights as other privileged people have in that place. They are brutally mistreated by police administration. They are taken in custody by police thinking they are culprit. Police administrations don’t have sense of respect to them. So during Gorkha movement they are mistreated. They have to suffer because they are minor and they don’t have right to city. That’s a main reason for their poverty and poverty is the reason of their suffering and suspicion of getting involved in freedom movement of nepali. We see in the novel a lepcha woman pleading for the help with judge who doesn’t help her. She and her husband aren’t given proper name. They are nameless character and much treated like existence less citizens in Kalimpong. She looks like, she has been raped and beaten badly. She claims police go hand in hand with culprit but interrogates poor lepcha in a brutal way. Her husband is caught by police to question about gun robbery:

It was the wife, begging for mercy, of the drunk the police had caught and questioned about the gun robbery and on whom they had practiced their new torture strategy…"What will we do?" she begged. "We are not even Nepalis, we are Lepchas. ... He was innocent and the police have blinded him. He knew nothing about you, he was in the market as usual, everyone knows," (270)

They are treated badly by Indian government and at the same time Pradhan, leader of Gorkha movement also tortures them. On the one hand they are suspected by government of getting involved and on the other hand they are threatened by GNLF leaders. They are victimized by both sides:

It was requested (required) that every family—Bengali, Lepcha, Tibetan, Sikkimese, Bihari, Marwari, Nepali, or whatever else in the mess—send a male representative to every procession, and they were also to show up at the burning of the Indo-Nepal treaty. If you didn’t, they would know and . . . well, nobody wanted them to finish the sentence. (200)

Conclusion

           

In conclusion, we can say imbalance in issues of rights in the case of all kinds of people makes life intolerable be it in western world (as Bizu faces in New York) or in eastern world

(as Lepcha, Nepali, and minor group in Kalimpong) as Kiran Desai has presented in the novel, The Inheritance of loss. In order to minimize problem arisen from rights’ issues, plan of Cosmopolitan state should be there. In the Stoic idea of cosmopolitanism as mentioned by J. Sellars, the whole idea of “cosmos is a city, the only true city” (1) In this aspect Stoic are presenting “the desire for worldwide political organization in which all humankinds will be fellow citizens and in which all culture and racial divisions will be transcended.” (1) Cosmopolitan concept is forwarded by Cicero. He believes in worldwide State, governed by single political laws and that law is divine law to unite all human beings. This ambitious idea of Cicero consists of two elements: “all the humans and gods are, by virtue of their shared rationality, fellow citizens of the cosmos conceived as a city ruled by divine reason. The second supplements this theoretical argument with the more practical thoughts that a benevolent  Empire governed in the best interests of its citizens might actually bring about a political State covering the entire world that could embody this humanist ideal” (2) The cosmic world and law, Cicero is talking about is unattainable in present context world. He talks about divine laws but instead of those laws human being needs Natural laws for freedom. He doesn’t seem to concern about freedom rather he only mentions about governing citizens. So his cosmopolitan lacks an ability to be an appropriate theory for all kinds of group a society has. As for instance, in Desai’s novel Biju, migrates to New York as American law has provided rational thoughts for tourist visa but at the same time there is another law for them to return back till visa date expires. So such laws are made rationally in all over the world to maintain benevolent Empire. Because of this prospect Biju has to suffer in foreign land. He has to change his job, live in basement and to stay legally he has to get papers i.e. Green Card. So I think this concept can’t solve his problem.

 According to Immanuel Kant, idea of cosmopolitan can accomplish social state which he regards as a way to provide freedom to all the members of the society. Since freedom of one individual relies upon freedom of other individual, there is co- existence of freedom. He sees problem “on the society founded on the empire of political justice.” (4) Such society is guided by civil constitution-“is the highest problem of Nature for Man: because it is only by the solution of this problem that Nature can accomplish the rest of her purposes with our species.” (4) Equal treatment for everyone in society is very important. We have various kind of people separated on the basis of ethnic group, class, minor and major group as well. To provide them equality and liberty, we should fetch the idea of cosmopolitan as forwarded by Kant.

In the present context world has become complex hole. So there is the problem to deploy the concept of cosmopolitanism. Countries are more focused to save their sovereignty. It is also felt to that they are in the race to be more democratic to any other country. While doing so, we can see countries are fighting each other on the border issues and for their ideological differences. They are powerful countries who advocate for the democracy but at the same time people are not being heard by them. We have migrants, refugees, and minor people within the countries whose problems are not answered by state. It so because states are so much centered in the idea of power and that power is given to handful of citizens within the state. That is the reason for sufferings of migrants, refugees, and minors. Even in a highly democratic state we can see people are being subjugated. This fact is illuminated in the characters like: Poor cook, Gyan(Nepali), Father Booty, Lepchas etc. In this way, we can see people are deprived of rights and some of them are silent and some of them are fighting for the rights (GNFL).Though Desai is presenting the loss of rights in the lives of few characters in a fictitious way, we can say she is presenting current problem in the world.

Works Cited

Arendt, Hannah. The Decline of Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man.” The Origins of Totalitarianism. Harcourt Brace,1973, pp.267-302.

Balibar, Etienne. “Proposal of Equaliberty.” Equaliberty: Political Essays. Duke UP, 2014, pp.     1-44.

Desai, Kiran. The Inheritance of Loss.Canada: Penguin. 2006.

Gilbert, Liette, and Mustafa Dikec. “Right to the City: Politics of Citizenship.” Space,      Difference, and Everyday Life: Reading Henri Lefebvre, edited by Goonewardena et. al.         Routledge, 2008, pp. 250-63.

Isin, Engin F. Two Regimes of Rights.UK: Lisbon, 14-17 April 2009.

Kant, Immanuel. “Idea of a Universal History on a Cosmopolitical Plan (1784).” On History. The Bobbs-Merrill Co, 1963, pp. 1-11.

Lefebvre, Henri. Writing on Cities, Ed. Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas. UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1996.

Ranciere, Jacques. “Who is the Subject of the Rights of Man?” South Atlantic Quarterly, vol.        103, no. 2/3, Spring/Summer 2004, pp. 297-310.

Sellars, John. “Stoic Cosmopolitanism and Zeno’s Republic.” History of Political Thoughts. Vol.XXVIII. No.1. Spring 2007.

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