Relocating Bakhtin/Preface
PREFACE
For a very long time indeed Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895-1975) has remained exclusive intellectual property of the West. His works have been analysed, appropriated and debated zealously in the last two decades of twentieth century. Interpretations have been absorbing but sometimes at variance with each other. One who had unflinching faith in the dynamics of openness and unfinalizability can never be completely grasped without everrenewable engagement with his never-ending dialogue. But any close and careful reading would reveal that the Bakhtinian postulates can never be confined within any particular geographical domain. On the contrary his developments as a thinker can be easily addressed to our own world of culture. In fact, Bakhtin's famous concept of positionality as determinant of truth proves that we, in Indian sub-continent, can also address and respond to Bakhtin's conceptual world from our historically different perspective and enhance our understanding of the hermeneutics and aesthetics of existence and cultural worldview. Bakhtin been a philosophical activist who sought to enhance the potentiality and efficiency of life by harping on the essential interrelatedness of various ingredients of existence. Thus he provides us an interesting opportunity to compare his concepts as well as the resultant discourses with that of several prominent philosophers and thinkers. Through the prism of comparison, the uniqueness of Bakhtin may become more explicit and one can be convinced about his singular position in the history of human thoughts. His undeniable influence on the contemporary literary and philosophical world of not only Europe, but also Bengali intellectual firmament in the Indian sub-continent is immensely significant. Bakhtin inspires us to transform dialogue, his central key idea, into one continuous text which, in its turn, implores us to erase the division between voices, appearances and contexts. Though meaning is basically contextual, it is always dynamic because of this continuous erasure and repositioning. Now we have to reassess the role of our creative consciousness as well as methodologies of expression and understanding.
With our newly discovered awareness of repositioning and recontextualization, we may now propose to redefine the concept of marginality. In fact, notwithstanding our firm belief in the discovery of the multiple voices from the margin, the perennial distance from the hegemonic centre and the process of inversion initiated through carnival, subtle presence of interrelatedness in historically conditioned existence of late tends to deconstruct the efficacy of given marginal spaces. Sometimes a counterquestion is articulated: marginal to whom or in respect of which space? In the contemporary world, the givenness of marginality is being interrogated and it is argued that even the hitherto accepted margins are at the edge. It is not to claim that hegemonic arrogance has ceased to exist or all the repressed and negated existences have suddenly recovered their cherished spaces throughout the world. On the contrary, in spite of the celebration of inter-relatedness, the decentred spaces remain where they have been. It is only argued here that Bakhtinian dialogics can be profitably interpreted and applied in a completely different non-western cultural context, which has always been the perpetual Other—the margin of the margins shrouded in impenetrable darkness.
Yes, one readily agrees with the famous introductory statement by Clark and Holquist in their widely read book, 'there is always a gap between what someone does and what the world perceives that person to have done.' The perceiver world is never homogeneous and hence the perception and the meaning accrued therefrom cannot be identical. The gap is not only between the import of Bakhtin's life-as-event and life-as-text; it is also between our positions as observers. Therefore, the readers in Indian subcontinent would also deduce their own meanings and interpret the hidden nuances in accordance with the positions they adopt. Bakhtin's constant struggle with himself and also the non appreciative world around for achieving the true dialogics of meaning kindles and rekindles our desire to be the integral part of the constant struggle for meaning. The key idea, that existence is unfinalizable and it is imperative to continue the act of being as ever-renewable addressivity, particularly fascinates us. We tend to understand not only the textual microcosms, but also the dramatics of life in the theoretical context of the architectonics of answerability. The dialogics of self and other promises to be all-pervasive. In the historically determined pluralistic canvas of Indian subcontinent, Bakhtinian concepts of polyphony and heteroglossia as well as the unfading importance of faith in simultaneity of existences can never remain confined to the territories of literature. Rather these concepts promise to be illustrative of multifoliated Indian existence. Besides there is the concept of carnival whose multiple resonances in the socio-cultural milieu on the one hand and the subversive literatures on the other can never be denied. Only the site of Bakhtin has to be revisited again and again for the sake of rediscovering his great relevance in different epochs.
In spite of discrepancies in the facts of his life and belated discovery of his unique achievements as a thinker, Bakhtin has been subjected to close scrutiny by various scholars in last two decades. But these western scholars have been frankly biased against the historical epoch which fashioned his multidimensional world-view. Therefore, some Bakhtinian concepts have been overread while some other basic ingredients of his thought process have been underplayed. One can say that it posits margins of meaning where third world readers can find enough clues for recontextualization of various discourses. The concepts of carnival and polyphony of simultaneities may be cited as two most important theoretical sites for the readers and researchers of Indian sub-continent. Undoubtedly the central concept of dialogue is heavily loaded with political nuances as well. Interpretations hovering on the dynamics of power, ethical imperatives and the domain of cultural politics undoubtedly reveal to us an endless vistas of possibilities. Many a margins amalgamate and proliferate into several architectonics of utterances. Bakhtin teaches us to propel dialogism into a fully blossomed worldview which can be shared by all participant observers. We comprehend meaning of event and objects only by participating in them dialogically.
Our own history has placed us in plenitudes of differences. We have to confront paradoxes, contradictions, discordant varieties, disruptions in linearity in our civil society. We swear by pluralism but nevertheless its manifestations both in public and private spaces even now remain elusive and enigmatic. Bakhtin can be our true preceptor in preparing the existential manifesto as well as the practical manual for the civil society plagued with hitherto unresolved differences and contradictions. However, one has to be aware that the task of reading Bakhtin is not quite easy and simplistic. Even the celebrated experts of Bakhtinian thought have also misled the readers with their biased and opinionated stance. The pronounced enthusiasm of the western scholars to disclaim ideological positions have often dragged them into the aporias of reason. In the wake of postmodernism, anything ideological is either frowned upon or ridiculed. The reception of Bakhtin in the west has been conditioned by this overriding tendency. Some critical observations suggest opportunistic duplicity in Bakhtin which is farthest from truth: "He discriminated between his public activities and his private life of the mind treasuring the last most. In his public utterances he accommodated the regime and its rhetoric. He did not think ill of those who compromised, and he assumed for himself whatever guises political expediency dictated" (Clark and Holquist: 1984:2). This comment is, to say the least, most unfair and unkindest cut. Though the critics quoted here are profound Bakhtin scholars, their self-imposed blindness has blurred insight to a lamentable extent.
Ideology is mere rhetoric for those who submit themselves willfully to the guiles of the hegemonic official positions. They employ all their skill in building up counterrhetoric against any semblance of ideology in the social or intellectual arena. For them ideology is a grand narrative and should be obliterated with cleverly designed rhetoric. That is why they have zealously misinterpreted Bakhtin because that was in the interest of the domineering west. They pretend that those who do not subscribe to the official discourse, they only reduce the apparent scope of his works and fail to see through the authorial disguises in different stages of his career. The various representations of Bakhtin only reveal the eagerness of critics to think on behalf of Bakhtin and thus, in spite of their proclaimed preferences, they ultimately turn out to be covert ideologues of the hegemonic west. Therefore, though it has been subtly alleged that Bakhtin was 'an impassive ventriloquist, for politically acceptable locutions,' the critics themselves prove to be as such. Precisely here there is enough scope for developing a non-western, non-hegemonic, non-official perspective for studying Bakhtin. Let us be mediators but that mediation should not interfere with his life-long dialogics. That is to say, while revisiting the site of Bakhtin, we have to be particularly careful about the existing western interpretations which sometimes seem to choke the original voice of Bakhtin. Our singular motto shall be: Let Bakhtin speak for himself.