The African Mind- A Literary Perspective (An Old and Rare Book)

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Africa is the world's second largest continent in area and the third Largest in population. Only Asia has a larger area and Asia and Europe have larger populations.

The African continent is divided into 51 countries with a total population of about 645 million. Despite this importance, both in respect of size and population, much of Africa remains a closed book for most people of the world.

In India, we seem to be generally content with our school text-book knowledge of the African continent's geographical contours, physical characteristics and racial diversities. We do, however, know about the European dominance over the major part of Africa - in 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia were free from colonial rule the racial arrogance of the Dutch in South Africa, the Boer War (1899-1902) in which Gandhiji served as a volunteer in the Indian Ambulance Corps and the birth of Satyagraha in 1907 under Gandhiji's leadership in the struggle against humiliating restrictions on Indians in the Transvaal. But this knowledge is rather meagre and our interest in the continent is fitful. Also our knowledge of African culture, language and literature, and the fine arts is by and large superficial.

Nonetheless, India may take legitimate pride in the fact that we have been consistent in our support to the freedom movements in Africa. We have very friendly relations with the countries of the continent that have emerged into freedom during the last three decades, beginning with Gold Coast (Ghana) which became free in 1957. Leaders like ex-President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Prime Minister Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe are familiar names in India and we hold in great esteem men like Dr. Nelson Mandela who exemplify the Indian ideals of Tyaga and Seva, sacrifice and service. At the Government level, there has been close co-operation; economic and technical assistance has been provided to many countries in the fields of industry, agriculture, transport, communications and education.

Shri V. Sivaramakrishnan, the author of this book, was one of the officers of the Indian Economic Service who was deputed by the Government of India to Tanzania during 1979-82 under the Indian Technical and Economic Co-operation (ITEC) Programme. As an economist attached to the Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO), Tanzania, he was required to plan for and promote the development of small scale industries in four Regions (which are equivalent in area to four Indian States) of Tanzania. Besides attending to his officially assigned work, Shri Sivaramakrishnan took great interest in the life of the people around him and studied most of the available books on their culture. As literature holds up a mirror to life, he concentrated on the novels, plays and poems of African writers who wrote in English or whose writings in French and Portuguese were available in English translations. The result was a series of 16 articles, on about 40 writers, that were published in the Bhavan's Journal during 1981-83. These articles are now collected in this book, which is scheduled for release on the occasion of the visit of Nelson Mandela to India.

One cannot talk of a common culture of Africa as the Northern Arab Culture is quite distinct from the South-Saharan Bantu Culture.

This book is mainly concerned with the culture of the people in the east, the south and the west of Africa. The conflict arising from the domination of the colonial powers and the forcible conversion to alien religions is the central theme of noted African writers like Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Racial discrimination and political corruption are the other subjects of concern to the modern writers who feel intensely and are gifted with wit and imagination. The brief summaries of the novels bear out the comment of a Western critic that some of the African writers are great story-tellers. They tell the stories not so much to entertain as to convey a message and hold up a moral. Satire is their forte and humour they handle with finesse. The comparisons of African and Indian writers brought out in parts of this book should be helpful to students of comparative literature. Much of African writing bears traces of the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and Gurudev Tagore.

The book is dedicated to Nelson Mandela who symbolises the spirit of freedom and dignity of man. His best is yet to be. In agreeing to suspend the 30-year-old guerilla war carried on by the African National Congress, (August, 1990) Mandela and other ANC leaders have made a signal contribution to the world-wide movement for peace initiated by President Gorbachev of Russia.

This historic decision of Dr. Mandela before the conclusion of his negotiations with President F.W. de Klerk shows the significant influence on him of the Mahatma, whose great life-mission began in South Africa.

I realised the truth of Shakespeare's affirmation, of God having a hand in shaping man's destiny when, quite unexpectedly, in July, 1977, I was asked to keep myself in readiness to go to Tanzania on an official assignment. I was then an officer of the Indian Economic Service in a department of the Government of India in New Delhi concerned with the planning and development of small scale industries. I found myself in Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, without my baggage, on a hot after-noon late in December, 1978. I had stayed en route in Addis Ababa for a night and the baggage was lost in transit from Addis Ababa to Dar-es-Salaam. With no second set of clothes for a change, I was in no mood to enjoy the sights and sounds of one of Africa's great cities as I was taken from the airport to the hotel, about 16 km away. The sullen mood changed when, after a day or two, much to my relief, I received my baggage with the contents intact but the boxes completely knocked out of shape.

The period of briefing at the Shirika La Kuhudumia Viwanda Vidogo (Small Industries Development Organisation) was a pleasant one lasting for a month. At the end of it I was to receive a mild shock. I was asked to proceed to Kigoma on the western side of Tanzania and, staying there, prepare plans for the development of small scale industries in four Regions, each of which is of the same size or slightly bigger than the State of Maharashtra or Tamilnadu. The Regions were Kigoma, Tabora, Do-doma and Singida. These Regions were the most backward of the 20 Regions into which Tanzania was divided. The task, as the management jargon goes, was challenging but the prospect of being amidst a people quite unknown to me and who spoke a language (Kiswahili) of which I knew little was daunting. A third factor that caused some uneasiness was my vegetarian upbringing; the Tanzanian, as I found during my stay in Dar-es-Salaam, would only smile from ear-to-ear baring his pearly white teeth or let off a guffaw if he were told that some one would not take meat or fish. And Kigoma was known for its fish caught from the awe-inspiring Lake Tanganyika, the second deepest lake in the world after lake Baikal of Russia.

The lake indeed became a source of joy for me within a short time. Standing on its shore in Kigoma one could see across the lake the hazy outlines of the mountains of Zaire which was only 30 km away from the Tanzanian coast. It was at night that the lake came alive. Lighted boats, like the stars in the sky, moved in clusters of three or four over the waters or stood still at a distance, perhaps six to ten kilometres away. A Festival of Lights! And so it struck me and to a mind accustomed to the delights of Diwali at home, the boats on the lake were a sight not to be missed. They • were beautiful but more than that, they seemed to mock at my fears and apprehensions. Did not the men who ventured out into the deep and treacherous lake every night face great risks to their lives? Compared to them, what kind of risks did I face? None at all.

The feeling of security I acquired, and which gained in strength as the days passed by, was the result of the friendliness of the people with whom I came in close contact. Among these were officials, fellow Indian expatriates, the local 'Asian' businessmen and the simple, open-minded, laughter-loving people of Kigoma. Of the last class, one middle-aged African lady helped to quieten my restless vegetarian soul. She was a waitress at the hotel where I stayed for some time. She took care to see that I got nothing but vegetarian food rice with vegetables or beans and bananas in palm oil. Palm oil, reddish in colour when unrefined, has a pleasing flavour and imparts a delicious taste to cooked beans and bananas. That lady, the Good Samaritan, became the central figure of the first short story I wrote for the 'Sunday News of Tanzania. I called the story 'The Busy Bee'.

With my office closing at 3. p.m., I had all the world to myself for the rest of the day. Thus began my search for books on Africa and by Africans. I collected them from all sources - friends, casual acquaintances, libraries and book-stalls, wherever they were, in Kigoma and the other regions of Tanzania whenever I visited them. I straightaway purchased the books 1 wanted but many, I must confess, I borrowed without feeling a sense of shame even when the lender made a wry face. Chance took me to the principal of a Government school (started by missionaries) who wanted me to re-arrange his school library and introduce a system for issuing books to the students. I felt as if I had hit the jack-pot and so it turned out to be. The library had a collection of precisely the kind of books I wanted.