Member-only story
Explosions
Megha Majumdar’s debut social protest novel illuminates India’s illiberal democratic movement
In “Harlem,” Langston Hughes’ much anthologized 1951 poem, the poet ponders what happens when a liberal society’s promise of equal protection under the law is continuously deferred. His answer is ambiguous. Does it dry up? Fester like a sore? Crust and sugar over? Or perhaps, the poem concludes, might it explode? Megha Majumdar’s new social protest novel, A Burning, published this year by Alfred A. Knopf to great acclaim, asks a similar question. Majumdar’s novel, though, is not so much interested in asking how an oppressed class might react to oppression. The question A Burning asks is what happens when a society itself abandons its commitments to pluralism and political liberalism altogether. Majumdar’s answer is unequivocal: explosions both literal and metaphorical.
The preamble to the Constitution of India holds that the nation shall be a “socialist secular democratic republic” wherein justice, liberty and equality for all are secured in a state of fraternity promoting the dignity of the individual. No power is exercised sinlessly in a sinful world, however, so the Indian government’s record of pluralism has suffered its fair share of stain and disrepute throughout the years. The rapidity with which this record is being tarnished is…