WAR: Politics of Representations

WAR has always elicited myriad responses from artists, writers and philosophers of all the ages. Let us begin ab ovo. Homer’s fame rests upon his accounts of the Trojan War and its aftermaths. Back home, Valmiki and Vyas have given us the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, wherein the heroism of the ‘heroes’ is based upon their righteousness and valour, as brought out in the battle scenes. Literateurs have always looked upon War as a potent motif. As Schopenhauer says, “Without death there can be no philosophizing”, the writers have found WAR to be a philosophical battleground.

When we talk of the matrimony of War and Literature, the questions of ‘representations’ spring up at once. How is the war to be represented? Whose reality is to be given precedence? What is the focal point of the writer who has seen the war from close quarters and how is it different from the accounts of the “outsiders”? When one aims at a literary representation of war, does s/he, in turn, get represented? How does a representation of war fashion the audience’s response to the parties involved? Who are these parties involved? Too many questions and all as sensitive as the subject itself.

The war in Homer’s The Iliad is said to be undertaken to avenge the dishonourable abduction of a king’s wife. “Honour” is the buzzword in The Iliad, as in all other epics. Is the Trojan War, then, to be naively seen as an attempt to redeem one’s honour and reputation? Of course not. The war between the Greek and the Trojans is just another squabble, though of gigantic stature, aiming at absolute ascendancy. The different narratives surrounding the war bring out its multifarious elements and each narrative has its own focus and inherent politics. The story of Achilles emphasizes upon the ethos of camaraderie, whereas the key element in Hector’s story is ‘duty’. Both Achilles and Hector are pitted against a situation over which they have no control. At this time of crisis, they must act and act ‘heroically.

In the Indian epics the situation is more colourful. The battle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas and that between Ram and Ravan are projected as the archetypal scuffle between Good and Evil, where Good will eventually vanquish Evil. Here, again, heroism of the heroes is brought ought amidst strategies, bloodshed, wiles and victories. In these essentially “masculine” narratives the thrust is upon mental, moral and physical superiority.

The representation of war in any narrative is based upon the writer’s degree of involvement in it. The extent to which a war fashions his/her consciousness affects the manner of its representation. For example, a north Indian priest is likely to see the battle between the forces of Ram and Ravan as a divinely ordained event, facilitating the attainment of “Moksha” by Ravan. A south Indian philosopher, on the other hand, might see it as the Aryan assault upon the sovereignty of a Dravidian kingdom. In our times, an Infantry officer, writing his diary in the trenches, is likely to portray a battle in a variety of colours, which might remain unseen in other accounts of the same event. The works of Sassoon, Whitman, Owen and Hemingway are marked for their distinct perceptions of war.

When it comes to “involvement” in war, one can not wish away the problematics brought in by the women. As Hector tells Andromache in The Iliad, it’s the men who “must see to the fighting”. However, women inevitably find themselves in the middle of this essentially “masculine” exercise, often as victims and sometimes as participants. The victors have a right to ‘ravish’ the conquered city and the womenfolk. One of the greatest incentives for the Greeks soldiers in The Iliad was the prospect of bedding fair Trojan maidens. Coming to the “face” of the Trojan War, Helen, or her counterpart in the Ramayana, Sita, it is clearly discerned that these women are used as pawns. They become a “reason” to give a free rein to terror and violence. Honour, after all, comes with a huge price tag! The representation of women, thus, in the ‘phallogocentric’ narratives is restricted to either as the anonymous victims or, at the best, the ‘known’ victims (Draupadi, Helen and Sita) who have to be avenged. Interestingly, this ‘known’ victim could also be Mother India (Bharat Mata) of the colonial times, appealing to her ‘sons’ to avenge the wounds suffered by her.

In some of the cases, war has introduced women to unprecedented, though short-lived, enhancements of power. The foremost example is that of Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon. The Queen of Argos is in absentia in The IliadOresteian trilogy. She ceases to be a victim and becomes the perpetrator of violence by vanquishing the victor, King Agamemnon. This representation involves another level of politics. The woman in question is often demonized and finds a “deserving” place in the annals of the “wicked women”. Another example is that of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, where the women launch an alternative war against their warring menfolk. Here, interestingly, they use their sexuality as a tool to bring the men back to their senses. This Greek comedy attempts to render war as a futile and laughable exercise by positing the women’s rebellion against it. The ethos of masculinity implicated in the exercise of war is ruptured by the women, when they deny sex to their husbands and leave them feeling less-than-man. but Aeschylus shows her as a formidable ruler in his

The representation of the wars and people involved therein undergoes a transformation when a woman chooses to use war as the background to her story. Scarlet O’Hara in Margaret Mitchell’s “modern epic” is a victim- yes, but her character does not fit in the frame of the archetypal victim, who has no control over the situation she finds herself in. This “weaver of wiles” is someone who avows, caught in the middle of the Civil War, that she will never be hungry again! And this turns out to be true.

In the novels of Bapsi Sidhwa and Liana Badr, the war-torn times are revisited to present the counterhistories of the Partition of India and the Lebanese Civil War. Both the writers have linked the political violence to the intimate violence supporting the structures of patriarchal social space, which the protagonists inhabit. Here the war “outside” is represented as analogous to the one “within”.

The depiction of wars and soldiers in literature and popular culture has undergone a change with the passage of time and the advancement of civilization. I would like to refer to some interesting posters from World War I and World War II. One of the posters beckons the youngsters to enlist, saying “It’s our flag. Fight for it, work for it.” Another says, “It is Far Better to Face the Bullets Than to be Killed at Home by a Bomb”. In the Indian context, till sometime back, the recruitment posters used to bear the challenging question- “Do you have it in you?” Interestingly, in the recent times, the focus has shifted to garden parties, medical facilities, elite clubs and grand officers’ messes, as noticed in the television commercials. The image of a soldier is no more that of a chin-up, burly man. On the contrary, today’s soldier is just another youngster who has chosen “army” as a profession. He goes to a war because he is ordered to do so and, sometimes, realizes its banality.

There are ‘types’ of soldiers in literature and popular culture. In Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, Doctor Slop’s surprised statement “I thought you gentlemen in the Army never said your prayers” points towards one of these types- a fearless, godless, heartless and, perhaps, brainless creature. The next image is that of a strict disciplinarian who swears by his watch and rule-book, a Corporal Himmelstoss from All Quiet on the Western Front. The third type of soldier is one among the “lost generation”. He is the one who has been taught to disconnect his mind from his feelings, keeping his emotions at bay in order to preserve his sanity and survive. Another type is soldier- the tyrant, who represents the autocratic State and is an enemy of heterogeneity and individual will. The artists and writers pick and choose a “type”, which either fits in their scheme the best or with which they can associate themselves. Therefore, the accounts of war poets are found to be replete with the agonies of the “lost generation” whereas, Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown burlesques the soldier in the figure of “Kachhwa Karnail”.

The narrative styles also have a bearing on the representations of war and soldiers. The poems and novels that portray wars heroically are often written in a romantic vein, full of metaphors and symbols. The language is bombastic and rhetoric serves as the key tool. On the other hand, most anti- war literature comprises of the soldiers’ first hand accounts in the form of diary entries, autobiographies and amateurish poetry. In such works, graphic realism is used to counter the heroic notions of war. The use of colloquial language and unconventional verse forms gives these accounts a rugged and earthly feel, which appeals to the sensibilities of the readers and makes the works appear more realistic.

Discussing about ‘wars’ and ‘representations’, one can not, possibly, ignore the effect of the former upon the latter. A war often changes the way one perceives the world around him/herself. It is interesting to note as to how a war scenario leads one to think in terms of “us” and them”. It is no mere co-incidence that anti-Semitism was at its peak during the Second World War. The Nazi propaganda propagated this “them” and “us” belief by terming the Jews as traitors. Similarly, in India during the Kargil conflict, the Muslims were seen as the traitors. In a recent Kannada film by Girish Kasaravalli, Gulabi Talkies, the bearing of the conflict upon the protagonist’s life is sensitively etched. The midwife Gulabi gets transformed into the “boobamma” (the Muslim woman) Gulab Nabi, once the conflict escalates.

The flip, and somewhat relieving, side of the picture is that sometimes it is against the backdrop of war that relationships and some rare bonds are forged and realized. I would like to refer to another film to validate my point. Nightbus by the Iranian director Kiumars Pourahmad is a convincing attempt to show that ‘humanity’ prevails against all odds. The idea emerges during a bus ride, which proves to be a journey of a lifetime for a group of Prisoners Of War (POWs) and the enemy soldiers and the bus-driver. The film ends with the realization of old ties and forging of new bonds. Such a representation of war, the sanity-amidst-chaos mode, is simply in sync with the reality which, though marginalized, does exist.

War remains a complex phenomenon, a centre-stage where almost all the philosophies and ideas get acted out. Wars affect the societies fundamentally and the aftermaths are not only 'historical' but are formative in great swathes of literary and visual cultures, both popular and elite. All forms of the representation of war involve selectivity, politics and power relations. War is represented in different and conflicting manners and each representation has its specific political, ideological and cultural logics.