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Nativism: Essays in Criticism. Makarand Paranjape, ed. New Delhi. Sahitya Akademi. 1997. xvi + 256 pages. Rs100. ISBN 81-260-0168-2.
Nativism is an immensely important, groundbreaking anthology of fifteen essays, mostly drawn from a January 1995 seminar/conference, "Desivad in Indian Literature," sponsored by Sahitya Akademi at the IIT-Kanpur Creative Writing/Publishing Centre. The present title is the positive term advanced by Marathi novelist-critic Balachandra Nemade in 1983 to start a nationwide literary movement emphasizing India's many regional languages and cultures, a movement just now being widely recognized and challenged (though, of course, parallel and older movements occur both in India and in other multicultural countries). Two reasons for the importance of India's present-day "Nativist" movement are, first, that insofar as it asserts and promotes India's cultural diversity, it may countervail threats to that diversity from the Hindu nationalist movement (Hindutva). (Hindutva has been successfully politicized by the recently elected Bharatiya Janata Party, but the BJP's national coalition so far must make compromising political alliances with state-based parties.) Second, the same assertive "Nativist" thrust toward indigenous cultures may also countervail (slightly?) the juggernaut of economic globalization and socalled liberalization which carry into India's varied cultures a homogenizing set of international values and practices, particularly unbridled consumerism, delusions of free individual choice, and societal and familial dysfunction. The critical social question is, can Nativism reach beyond its initial literary and academic horizons and effectively oppose the other isms-nationalism, Hinduism, consumerism, pseudoindividualism-that threaten India's dynamic multicultural society?
In fact, in his Marathi text (translated in full for the first time here), Nemade used three terms, as the editorcontributor Makarand Paranjape...