The Modern Indian in Midnight's Children

Following the collapse of European empires there was no chance of returning to the pre-European status quo. Newly independent states had been transformed by European culture, technology, and government, leaving new states in a position to enter a modern world shaped by Europe instead of returning to pre-European traditions. While the betel-nut chewers, who represent a chorus in the novel, represent continuity in the Indian subcontinent, they are not representatives of the new India. The idea of creating a coherent Indian identity required an abandonment of traditional tribal culture and strict Muslim ethics. While these changes are welcomed by the European-educated, they represent an uncertain future for traditionalists.

From the very beginning of Midnight's Children the conflict between Aadam Aziz's European education and traditional Kashmiri culture is a central feature of the novel. His emotions are tied to the landscape even before he knows how society will react to his return, "He also felt--inexplicably--as though the old place resented this educated, stethoscoped return" (Rushdie 5). Where Aadam Azis is curious about his place as a modern man in a timeless and ancient valley, the ferryman Tai is hostile to everything representing modernity. The narrator describes that, "to the ferryman, the bag represents Abroad; it is the alien thing, the invader, progress" (16). To the traditional peasantry modernity represented in a threat because they lacked the skills or resources to take advantage of it. While paying someone to manually push a raft across a lake is not efficient in the modern world, it is the only skill which Tai has and he does not want to see that traditional culture leave.

Aadam's foreign notions also complicate his relationship with his very traditional Muslim wife. Aadam ponders the change that traveling abroad has created in many Indians, "the Indians have fought for the British; so many of them have seen the world by now, and been tained by Abroad. They will not easily go back to the old world" (32). This would become one of the defining features of newly independent states forced to make a decision between modernity and tradition. To Naseem these trips abroad create a serious moral problem in the men, "I know you Europe-returned men. You find terrible women and then you try to make us girls be like them" (32). However, her dramatics are put into context by the fact that a large part of her anger is directed at the fact that her husband simply requested her to move during sex. Aadam gives a directive to his wife when he can no longer stand her traditionalism, "Forget about being a good Kashmiri girl. Start thinking about being a modern Indian woman" (33). The problem is that Naseem does not desire to be a "modern Indian woman," were it even possible to define such a thing.

While these changes seem more like personal issues for the characters in the novel, the scale is greatly increased when they are applied to conditions of the entire nation. The very fabric of India was falling around them, such as "the untouchables being touched" (84). While this seems like an obvious step in favor of progress to the modern reader, to traditional Hindus this would have been shocking. Further, there were great difficulties apportioning land previously nationalized by the British, particularly in a society where there had traditionally been such a strong caste system and in a time when Socialism was very fashionable. Joseph D'Costa is skeptical of independence at all, stating, "This independence is for the rich only; the poor are being made to kill each other like flies" (120). It is difficult to know how the average Indian fared under British rule in India; the statistic has been given that in 1900 the life expectancy in India was 20, which is appallingly low. However, one has to imagine that given starvation, disease, and violence that Indians had never enjoyed a particularly long life expectancy.


Midnight's Children is full of characters traveling through an ambivalent new world free of British rule. The problems with this are shown repeatedly, such as illiteracy, ignorance, a resistance to change, and tribal loyalties. Have the characters in the novel advanced to such a point that home rule is desirable? Further, is it even desirable for an area as large as India, full of varying ethnicities and religion, to be a single state? While Indians by-and-large embraced independence it can be difficult to handle something one has nothing had before.

Rushdie, Salman. Midnight's Children. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin, 1991. Print.