Franz Fanon & V. S. Naipaul - Colonialism & Culture of Conversion

Fanon's seminal book "Black skin, White masks" had a profound influence on N.R.Narayana Murthy, when he was wondering why after Independence, India's progress was tardy. In his book "A better India, a better world", Murthy writes that he realised that the colonial mindset of 'the dark elite in white masks' in a postcolonial society, the mindset that the ruled & the rulers have different sets of rights & responsibilities with a huge asymmetry in favour of the rulers, struck him as the reason for the skewed state.

Similarly, Naipaul in his two books, "Among the Believers" & "Beyond Belief" (a sequel written 17 years later), examines the mindset of the converted in Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan & Malaysia. He wonders how can one convert a personal faith into the apparatus of a state without settling for a personal tyranny. He feels that the people of these countries are mentally, physically & geographically torn between two worlds, similar to the ruled & the rulers in Fanon's "Black skin, white masks'." If colonialism has created the dichotomy in Fanon's work, conversion (white mask) has done the same in these four countries, with the same result.

To end on a lighter note, the saying "More loyal than the King" can be applied here in two contexts. One is that English Literature is studied more in India than in England in a post-colonial scenario & secondly, while Arabia itself is liberalising it's stringent laws, the converted countries are becoming more fundamentalist!