Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s latest novel, Independence (Rs 699, HarperCollins), is one in a long series of works that have documented India’s Partition, helping balance a literary scale that has tilted to stories from the partition of Punjab at the time of Independence. A lucid narrative of three sisters who are violently separated after the Partition of Bengal — the other state that suffered under Cyril Radcliff’s idiosyncrasy - Independence is a story of love, ambition, envy and innocence. We catch up with the author to know more about the novel’s genesis. What sort of research went into Independence? Spoken tales from my grandfather and my mother really helped me. They were both in West Bengal during Partition and were involved with the Gandhian struggle. In fact, my mother was in Kolkata when Direct Action Day happened in 1946, with its terrible and sudden killings. Tales like that are very powerful, because it's a lived experience, and I wanted this book to feel like one. I also read some Bengali novels by Sunil Gangopadhyay, but mostly I didn't want to read other people’s books because I didn't want to be too influenced. This novel is narrated through the perspective of three women. You have used a similar trio in Before We Visit the Goddess (2016). Did you want to replicate that effect? In both stories, I wanted an element of the folktale to come in. Many Bengali folk tales have that classic structure: “There were three sisters… Here is a river… Here is a country…” I wanted that feel to it. That is also why every section starts like that. Even though the story is of a particular time, I wanted to give a timeless feel to it. We are witnessing a revival of anti-immigrant sentiment. Do you see parallels between today and when you emigrated to the United States? When I immigrated to the United States, people didn't know as much about India, but they were much more open. This new rhetoric in the US really started with the (former US President, Donald) Trump government. Maybe those feelings were lying subterranean, but after Trump, a lot of people have felt entitled to express that America is only for White Americans. But we immigrants are talking back now and protesting together. In both India and the US, there’s a new sentiment that the country belongs to only one group, and nobody else. That’s not true. One of the reasons I really wanted to write this book is to remind ourselves of how we became independent, which is with Hindus and Muslims and Christians and Parsis fighting side by side. The first cabinet that (Pandit Jawaharlal) Nehru created was extremely multicultural. He understood this. We mustn't forget that history, otherwise we will repeat its mistakes. Do you feel that history and mythology are being rewritten today to project biased narratives? Yeah. In India I see a rewriting of mythology that’s focused on one religion, rather than embracing everybody else who lives here. That can be distressing for me as a writer who prioritises bringing many voices into a story. When we silence the multiplicity of voices, what are we left with? You teach creative writing but never formally studied writing. What’s your classroom experience? When I first came to the US, I wanted to be a teacher. I only started writing out of a need to examine my own experience of being an immigrant. Now I teach MFA and PhD writers in a good program, and help them avoid the many mistakes I made. Teachers can’t create talent but we can help them with our experience. We also promote diversity. Many of these students are in their 30s or 40s and work multiple jobs, and have already lived a life out there - that’s a criterion for getting in. The younger writers have good observational skills. Writers didn’t always have such formal programs but they did have groups to share and comment on each other’s work. What’s your take on writers being criticised for inventing characters out of their identity/community? It depends on the writer. If they've done enough research, are being honest about their observations, and have no negative agenda, why can’t they write it? No matter what you’re inventing, the bottom line is that it’s done well. Do sensitivity readings help? Yes, I do that all the time. When I wrote The Last Queen (2021), a professional reader from the Sikh community pointed out mistakes I made despite exhaustive research. If they weren’t corrected, readers from the community would’ve instantly gotten pulled out of the story. For Independence, I consulted a Bengali Muslim reader for one of my Bengali Muslim characters. There’s a small scene in which she’s tucking her saree, and my reader told me that a woman from that time and place would have tucked it behind her ear. I hadn’t known that. So I was very happy to insert that detail.
