BANGALORE: Prof Rahamath Tarikere, who was conferred with the Central Sahitya Academy award for his book Kattiyanchina Dari (2006) (On the edge of the Sword), often says that he has written less about literature and more about culture. Though his contribution to Kannada cannot be purely categorised as literary, it has undoubtedly expanded the dimensions of Kannada literary and cultural criticism.
In his early books Prathi Samskriti (1993) (Counter Culture), Maradolagina Kichchu (1996) (Ember in the log of tree) with its characteristic youthful prose, he redefines the identity of Kannada from the impositions of colonial control, brahminical hegemony, linguistic chauvinism, communal prejudice and fixation for literary excellence and genres.
At the beginning of his literary career itself, Rahamath tried to redefine the parameters of Kannada culture and literary criticism by reading texts keeping them side by side with folklore, history, political ideologies, people's movements, mystic cults and cultural beliefs. Though such studies could be largely termed as 'Postcolonial' in academic parlance, they never lost sight and pulse of the regional.
Slowly his keen interest in decoding the meanings of literary texts expanded into wider explorations of cultures, and lifestyles Karnatakada Sufigalu (1998) (Sufis of Karnataka) and Karnatakada Natha Pantha (2006) (Natha Cult of Karnataka) across religions and regions.
Rahamath believes that Kannada literary context is inseparable from its pressing political concerns. Though Kuvempu, D R Bendre, Gopalakrishna Adiga, Lankesh, Poornachandra Tejaswi and U R Ananathamurthy are best known as writers, they should be primarily considered our finest
political thinkers.
He maintains that Kannada writers have to shape their sensibilities at the point of multiple intersections which are crisscrossed by globalisation, communal bigotry, nationalist rhetoric, casteism, fetish for literary excellence, female subjugation and linguistic chauvinism. Thus, most of his writings seem to draw great stimulus from the knowledge of history, sensibility of literature, wisdom of people, political awareness and the participatory experience in people's movements. He is not a traditional Kannada 'textual' scholar, dipping himself in the multiple editions of some ancient text to ascertain the right 'pathanthara' (edition). Nor is he a visionary genius of 'Navya' phase, who believes in the sudden surge of insights than reading texts in the multiple strands of history, culture and politics.
He is a traditional scholar of a different category, who in his eagerness to find traces of Kannada sensibility rejects the grand system of 'Indian Poetics' for being too Sanskritcentric, merely fashioning itself on the basis of certain select literary genres (poetry) and for being confined to 'rasa', 'dhvani' in its orientation.
Though he learnt his early lessons of social commitment from Bandaya' (protest) movement with its allegiance to leftist ideology, he chose to study the mystic traditions of Sufi and Natha Pantha, without rejecting them as escapist and removed from the harsh realities of mundane life.
He is a very important 'rationalsecular' intellectual of Karnataka; yet for him to be a 'secular' is not to break off from one's own culture, language, religion and belief systems. His ideologies have never come in his way of understanding the world view, lifestyle and creative expressions of masses with greater sensitivity. Rahamath's studies on Sufis, Sadhus of Natha cult, Muharram singers and others have shown the hidden springs of creativity among the masses.
S Siraj Ahmed
m sirajahmeds @gmail.com
