To Kill A Mockingbird

Ever since I learnt its name I wanted to read this book. I learnt about it pretty late in life though. American books weren't so well known in our school or college days except Harold Robins or Robert Ludlum (is he American?). At least I didn't know anyone other than Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain. I think I learnt about the Mocking Bird from one of those must read lists that they publish in various newspapers these days. I thought I would take this Covid19 lockdown opportunity to finish it. Mampu had the book. It is part of her English syllabus in class XII. So here I am. 

I have finished about a third of it so far and hope to finish it soon because I love it (I finally finished it on 2nd May, 2020 having not read the book for a few days in this period). It's a first person account of a young girl growing up with a widowed father and an elder brother in the American South of 1930s. It's a small town that has its prejudices and racial feelings. 

There are two reasons why I like the story. It reminds me somehow of my childhood. Particularly our  long holidays in our ancestral house in Deoghar which was also a small town where every one knew one another. I also love the values that the central character Atticus, this girl's lawyer father, stands for. There are certain sentences in the book that resonate so well with my sense of ethics and values. In fact those are the precise words that I want to tell many of my friends who I suddenly find are also bigoted Hindus - the Indian equivalent of "white trash". 

Let me write down some of those sentences, lest I forget later.

"The one thing that does not abide by majority rule is a person's conscience" - Atticus (page 116)

"Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something that I don't pretend to understand" - Atticus (page 98) 

I am sure I will come across some more as I finish the book and will note them down. I did find more such values expressed but the sentences are too long to be noted down here. (added after finishing the book).

The little girl Scout (she is about nine) and her brother Jem are taunted in school for their father's decision to defend a Negro (that is the word the author uses as it used to be a legitimate word back in the 60s when the book was published or during the time the story is set in. The word Nigger was taboo back then but racist trashes used it to describe Negroes and they had no qualms about calling them Niggers either. The word currently in vogue is African American. If I am not mistaken calling someone Nigger is now a serious criminal offence in America. If someone uses it it is referred to by others as "using the N word").

Personally, here in India I have been told very similar things for defending the Muslim community in various online discussion forums. The Finches were called Nigger-Lovers. We are called Sickulars. The intended insult or the hurt they want to cause is the same. But they don't understand that all these insults strengthen our resolve to fight their hatred. We know we are in a morally superior plane. 

On the whole I can identify with this family, except that we in our family had all the members of the immediate family alive. These children don't have their mother. Also I was younger than my sister.

Now that I have finished reading the book I must say this is one of the best works of fiction I have read in a long long time. I am not surprised that it is in every list of 100 must read books. It should be. It is a morally uplifting book. I am glad it is being taught in class 12 in India as part of their syllabus (I believe in American schools it is a must read). Someone could easily replace the Negroes with Muslims and set the story in a modern day Indian context.

But of course the Indian Muslim's situation is not quite as hopeless as it was for the Negroes in American South in the 1930s. The Indian Hindu Muslim relationship never had a slave and master relationship as it was for the Black and Whites in America. Also some Muslim communities in India are extremely well to do and hold considerable political and economic clout. The far right Hindus have a hatred towards the Muslims that is rooted in various complex historical reasons. It has to do with the 1000 years of Muslim rule in India, forced conversions, loot, arson and rape perpetrated over 1000 years and we all read about those in history books in school. Finally there is this partition of India that happened in 1947 that is a major contentious issue between the two communities not to speak of the various religious differences.

Coming back to the Mockingbird. It's a profoundly good book to read. I should have read it at least 30 years ago, if not earlier. But better late than never.