30r364 boek.qxd:awards book 11 - Prince Claus Fund

Religion, especially the practices of the orthodox Hinduism into which she was born, hasremained a major concern in Goswami’s writing. It has also fuelled her uncompromising, directengagement with violence, custom and prejudice. Her novels have focused on subjects suchas the anti-Sikh pogrom in Delhi after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and animal sacrificein one of Hinduism’s holiest shrines, the Kamakhya temple near Guwahati. Never afraid to takea stand on principle, whether as a woman writing about the sex trade or as a vegetarian con -demning animal sacrifice, she has made her art into a potent instrument of social change. Thishas brought her death threats from fanatics as well as the highest literary awards in India, suchas the Sahitya Akademi Award (1982, for The Rusted Sword) and the Jnanpith Award (2000). Hershorter fiction is equally admired and widely anthologised. She has published poetry in English,though she disclaims the title of poet, preferring to be known as a novelist and critic. She hasresearched the Ramayana tradition, comparing the Ramayana of Tulsidas with an 11th centuryAssamese Ramayana. For many years she was Professor in the Department of Modern IndianLanguages and Literatures at the University of Delhi. Through her creative writing in her mothertongue and her translations, she has brought her native Assamese language to the forefrontof India’s literary scene.But Indira Goswami was not content simply to be a woman writer of exceptional creativityand brilliance. As President of the Nagorik Santi Mancha (Citizen’s Peace Forum) of Assam, shemade courageous attempts from 2004 onwards to broker peace with the banned militant group,ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom) that had, for over two decades and at a cost of nearly10,000 lives, carried on a liberation struggle in the strife-torn state. Despite her own ill-health,and at great personal risk, she even offered herself as hostage to the rebels, many of whoseleaders she visited in jail or in their jungle hideouts. Their respect for her writing, her intellectualleadership, and her espousal of a proud Assamese identity within the fold of the Indian nation,gave her unique authority as a negotiator. Whether or not her efforts meet with final success,her commitment and endeavour are already an indissoluble part of the tangled politics of selfdeterminationin India.For Indira Goswami, then, the political is the personal as much as the personal the political.Her life and work have rendered irrelevant the tired labels of feminist, activist, reformer. In inter -views, she has politely disclaimed attempts to link her with any ideology save the human.Her writing is located as much in the body as the mind, celebrating the physical and materialdimensions of existence at the same time as it explores the realms of intellection and affect. Fora woman to write and act as candidly and fearlessly as she does is a remarkable achievement.But it is not as a woman writer that we should think of her, but as a writer and as a woman, asa person and as a poet, as a citizen and as an activist. In many ways the story of modern India,its pains, its struggles, its triumphs, its self-making, is inscribed on the creative identity ofIndira Goswami. Like the greatest art, it is not finished, not settled, not fixed: it is still in process,as she would admit with her characteristic humour and irony. In her own life, this capacityfor imaginative projection into the lives of others has enabled Indira Goswami to look beyondimmediate disappointment or tragedy to the permanence of art and even – odd as it may seem –the optimism of politics. Let us celebrate it today with something of her own spirit, hercombative, life-affirming, zest.342008 Prince Claus Awards