COMMONWEALTH ASSOCATION FOR
EDUCATION, ADMINISTRATION AND
MANAGEMENT
VOLUME 1 ISSUE 4
ISSN NO 2322-0147
DECEMBER
2013
Autoethnographic Fictional Works as Sites of
Resistance: A Reading of
Esther David’s The Walled City
Excellence International Journal of Education and
Research (Multi- subject journal)
Excellence International Journal Of Education And Research
VOLUME 1
ISSUE 4
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Autoethnographic Fictional Works as Sites of Resistance: A Reading of
Esther David’s The Walled City
Muhammed Rafi K
Assistant Professor of English
P.T.M. Govt. College, Kerala.
Email: rafiparal@gmail.com
Mob. 9744044216
Abstract
The post-independence Indian Fiction in English witnessed the surfacing of a number of writers
belonging to different ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, who articulated the angst
experienced by their respective communities battling different cultural issues in India. Fictional
writers from minority communities, who mostly prioritized representation of their communities
over other things in their works, presented diverse ways employed by the communities to survive
amid the dominant classes in India. Writing is adopted by writers representing ethnic minorities as
one of the ways to tackle these onslaughts on their ethnic identity and culture. Ethnic minority
writers in India thus made their works autoethnographic articulations, that is, their fictional works
are locations of self resistance concerning their specific ethnic minority experiences in India. The
present paper attempts a close reading of the novel The Walled City by Esther David, as an
example of autoethnographic writing in fiction in which representation of the community is
apparently the main priority.
Introduction
Writers belonging to ethnic minority communities in India have long been
expressing their community’s angst while surviving in the multiethnic fabric of Indian
culture through their literary works in general and fictional works in particular. Despite the
presence of a polyvocal cultural space the ethnic minority communities often encounter
identitarian issues and open and veiled threats from the dominant groups to ethnically
cleanse them to make them completely acculturated to the mainstream, by attempts to do
away with visible signs of their identity or their specific ethnic features. Writing is adopted
by writers representing ethnic minorities as one of the ways to tackle these onslaughts on
their ethnic identity and culture. Ethnic minority writers in India thus made their works
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autoethnographic articulations, that is, their fictional works are locations of self
expressions concerning their specific ethnic minority experiences in India. For instance in
most of the fictional writings of writers from ethnic groups in India, their respective
communities are the real protagonists. The individual characters in these novels are most
often not autonomous individuals, but devout members of an ethnic group. Writers like
Rohinton Mistry, Farukh Dhondy, Ruskin Bond, Esther David, to name a few, represented
ethnic minority communities in India and used their works to ascertain their ethnic
identity.
In Esther David’s The Walled City, which deals with the Jewish community in
Gujarat, the protagonist and the other characters express their anxiety about the dwindling
strength of their community, and chances of their community’s identity being completely
erased by the influence of the dominant community. One can find several instances in the
novel for resisting external threats displayed by the members of the Jewish community
represented in the novel. The present paper attempts a close reading of the novel by Esther
David, as an example of autoethnographic writing in fiction in which representation of the
community is apparently the main priority. The novel is looked at as an instance of the
community’s proclivity to resist all types of threats to its continued survival in India.
What is autoethnography?
Autoethnography is ethnographic enquiry that utilises the autobiographic materials of
the writer where self is engaged more than anything else. It differs from other self
narrative writings such as autobiography and memoir, as it emphasizes cultural analysis
and interpretation of the author’s behaviour, thoughts and experiences in relation to others
in society. Autoethnography, thus, is the study, representation, or knowledge of a culture
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by one or more of its members which allows them “Telling Our Own Story”, or “Speaking
for Ourselves” (Buzard 61). This mode of narration gives the writer to represent oneself or
one’s own culture or community rather than making a second person representing an
absolute other’s lived world and experiences. According to Susanne Gannon “[i]n
autoethnography, the authority granted to “being there” is condensed in the self of the
(self) researcher (who has at last given of himself/ herself) the authority to speak (47).
Texts, therefore, foregrounds the dialogic relationship between the self and his or her
tenuous and practical social/cultural/historical locations. Autoethnography becomes the
expression of the native voice and a comprehensive account of one’s own culture and
history and ways of people’s’ lives. In short, autoethnographic texts are autochthonic
forms of self representations.
Autoethnographic self representations can have much possibilities in the fictional
works where the narrative allows the writer to incorporate the lived experiences of oneself
and one’s own culture and community. Fiction has proved to be the most effective of the
genres where autoethnographic enquiry method is employed. By making the community
protagonist, the autoethnographic writer includes the ‘self’ throughout the work. Some of
the Indian novels in English can be cited as instances, locating autoethnography in
narrative strategies. In the novel Reaching Bombay Central the writer Shama Futehally
seems to exploit/employ autoethnographic narration by making the community and the
minority Muslim self suffer in a multicultural nation, India. A Flight of Pigeons by Ruskin
Bond also attempts a historical representation of the Anglo-Indian community where
autoethnography is employed.
Resistance
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Resisting social exclusion is one of the salient features of the autoethnographic
fictional writings in Indian context. Ethnic minority communities in India encounter issues
of social exclusion and cultural alienation from the mainstream value systems. In a multiethnic nation like India the small ethnic minority communities like Jews, Anglo-Indians
and Parsis, in certain areas, writing is adopted by its members as a means of expressing the
communities’ anxieties regarding the identitarian issues and cross cultural conflicts.
Fiction happens to be the most popular form of this resistance. The Walled City must have
been born from such angst when Esther David found her Jewish community being
sidelined by the dominant Hindu cultural practices and expired traditional perspectives. In
the novel, for instance, at Pratibha’s cousin’s wedding the narrator was one among the five
virgins to welcome the bride to her new house. All the other four virgins (Pratibha,
Vatsala, mandakini and Ketaki) belonged to the Hindu faith. An old aunt objects, “but that
one is not one of us” (131). Utterly frustrated and lonely the narrator wanted to disown her
name, a name that exposes her. Esther David following Descartes’ famously said dictum
says: “I am what they are not” (131). In fact, these subtle differences make them the
members of an ethnic minority community in India- a land of so many castes (151). The
Walled City may also be read as a literary resistance at one level, when the writer
scrutinizes how people of other religions and communities view the Jews of Gujarath. She
finds certain similarities between Christianity and Judaism and had always felt sorry for
the crucified Christ until her classmate, Elizabeth, had looked strangely at her and accused
her of being the “you people” (29).
Sticking to one’s own religious faith and practices by the ethnic minority
communities in a pluralistic society like India is a veiled, and often practised, form of
resistance. Religion and community feeling can never be separated from Jewish lives. In
The Walled City Danieldada says that to Leah’s father Shabbath was religion and he never
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missed the Friday Prayers with the community. He knew prayers for all occasions, though
not what they meant. At home there was a strong awareness being Jewish, which set them
apart from their neighbours (63). The intensity of being Jewish is maintained by making
oneself a Jew by all means and getting away from what is ‘unJewish’. Once Leah’s father
was transferred to Bombay and “alone with her husband who did not bother too much
about everyday Jewishness and preferred his whisky and cards at the club, Leah slowly
found herself losing interest in rituals...it had been easier to feel more Jewish near the
synagogue” (64). Ethnic minority communities may not allow its members to enjoy the
presence of other religious gods in their house. With a secular view Grandfather allows
Mohun, his caretaker, to have a pooja room for his gods in their house. But narrator’s
mother, Naomi, cannot comprehend the idea having alien gods in, after all, a Jewish
house. All these instances demonstrate how the ethnic specificities of the Jewish
community are asserted by the members of the community during their survival in India. It
is probably this penchant to assert the ethnic identity that makes fictional writings by
writers belonging to ethnic minorities in India distinct.
Ethnic minorities in India in general and Jews in particular constantly fear the
erasure of their ethnic identity as a result of their overexposure to the other Indian cultures.
Esther David also suggests that her community discouraged inter-cultural marriages
presumably because of the fear of tampering with the ethnic purity. There are also
occasions when the Jews in India rated themselves inferior to their counterparts in Israel
and Baghdad as they think that their community is more of a ‘desi’ variant of Jews. For
instance, when the family members were searching for a groom for Aunty Jerusha, Granny
had in mind a Baghdadi Jew. But she says: “It was impossible to find an educated match
for Jerusha. Perhaps a Baghdadi Jew would have been good enough for her, but they
consider us uncultured and very Indian in our habits, rather desi” (WC 108).
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Resisting Erasure of Ethnic Identity
As far as ethnic minority communities are concerned resistance is something done
to stop the erasure of ethnic identity. In The Walled City the elder members are portrayed
as practising many measures to block the channels that lead to the total acculturation of the
Jewish family into the dominant culture. Through these attempts they are able to lessen the
chances of their community’s identity being totally erased by others. For instance, in the
novel, when the narrator was a school girl her mother Naomi did not allow her to go to her
classmate Pratibha’s house. She remembers: “mother doesn’t like my being friendly with
Pratibha for various unspoken reasons (87). Perhaps, such unwritten laws inside the
community’s framework may be read as cultural survival policies upheld by the
community to ensure that the members are unaffected by the visible or veiled forms of the
cleansing of ethnic identity by the influence of the dominant culture.
In Esther David’s The Walled City which deals with the Jewish community in
Gujarath, the protagonist and other characters express their anxiety about the dwindling
strength of their community and thereby their community’ identity being erased by the
influence of the dominant community. The Jewish community in Ahmedabad has less
number of members. In the novel, especially by the elder members of the family express
their angst about the decreasing number of members of the community in Ahmedabad
where they are a minority. Close cousin marriages and marriages between the distant
family relatives are promoted and Uncle Menachem philosophically comments ‘and so the
tribe must increase’ (114).
The community may resist actions and even thoughts of its members if they prove
to be working against the survival of the community. The elders were very much anxious
about the community’s continued existence in India, as they find themselves one of the
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many alien groups here. For example, while making references to the ‘walled life’ of
Jewish women she makes her mother Naomi remark that ‘‘women of the Jewish
community should dress modestly and preserve their virtue. For generations it had been
one of the unspoken rules of the elders that Jewish women should be self effacing; as long
as they did not attract attention, the community was not in danger (59). Strong resistances
like these form part of the survival tactics employed by the community.
Resistance for Survival
In The Walled City the novelist suggests that, as the community in India made a lot
of compromises with regard to their community’s rituals and celebrations, they could not
practice their religion/culture in the way in which they wanted to. Most of the Jews in
India, thus, apparently prioritize mere survival over cultural practices because their main
challenge is to survive the daily oppression and discrimination that they face owing to
their status as members of a minority community which has no deep roots in India. This
process of foregoing religious/cultural identity for the sake of adjusting with the dominant
majority cannot be simply dismissed as acculturation and assimilation; rather they are
forced to forgo their cultural practices as the politico-cultural scenario demanded it.
Therefore, it can be presumed that minority communities like the Jews in India redefined
the basic parameters of their ethnicity in order to make it acceptable to the dominant
groups in India. In the case of the Anglo- Indian community their very culture is well
defined in the sense that they were neither treated as Westerners nor as pure Indians. This
entrapment between two polarities of their origin made problems for their survival in
India. However, many Indians attributed the negative qualities of the Western people as
inherited by the Anglo- Indians.
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Conclusion
It is axiomatic that novels like The Walled City that present ethnic subcultures
exemplify how literature is employed as a location for voicing the distinct cultural identity
of the ethnic minorities in a dominant culture. The resolve to make the community the
protagonist in these novels is to be read as an attempt to make the community’s presence
felt in the scenario of the dominant order of things, and this would in turn help the
members of the community retain traces of their distinct practices alive. Autoethnographic
formations in fiction, thus viewed, are directed at the dominant cultures; it can be seen as a
strategy adopted by the minority groups to inform the dominant groups the persistence of
their respective ethnicities despite the overwhelming presence and influence of the
dominant order of things.
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