By Dr Tariq Rahman
Like sweatshops the world over the call centres of Pakistan are the new sites for the extension of globalised capitalist market practices and the ideology which underlies them. –File Sweatshops exist because workers in poor countries take lower wages to do the same kind of labour as their counterparts in developed, postindustrial societies. Corporate investors can get their products manufactured cheaply and sell these at a much higher price with their brand name.
Call centres are also based on this basic principle. They exist because the rapid development in communications, especially the telephone and Internet, make it possible to communicate all over the globe virtually almost without any time lag.
What makes them exist and multiply is their contribution to maximising profits of corporate giants. As wages for call centre employees are higher in the US and Europe it is cheaper for entrepreneurs there to hire workers in Asia who are paid a lower wage.
Call centres perform two functions: they receive calls from abroad, providing services to western customers, or, they call clients in western countries to sell them goods and services (outgoing).
Pakistani call centre workers are referred to as Customer Services Representatives (CSRs). They try to adopt either an American or a British accent when they interact with foreigners on the telephone in their daily work.
Most call centres have business dealings with America. Clearly it is the American accent which serves as linguistic capital for call centre workers since it can be sold in the market for a job with higher wages than would ordinarily be available to young people of their age in Pakistan.
The situation is akin to the days of British colonialism when people aspired to ‘received pronunciation’ (RP) — or ‘Oxbridge’ as it was sometimes called in India. They were appropriately called ‘brown sahibs.’ A response of dominated groups everywhere is to accept the norms, values, tastes, cultural and linguistic superiority, etc., of the dominant group voluntarily, according to Italian philosopher and political theorist Antonio Gramsci.
Linguistic ideology makes us believe that certain languages and accents are superior to others. This determines our attitudes and it is in the context of linguistic attitudes that the linguistic policies and practices of call centres should be understood.
First, a number of young people acquire the desired foreign accent of English which they call the ‘neutralisation of accent.’ Within call centres there are advertisements of trainers claiming to conduct ‘accent neutralisation courses’ ranging from a few weeks to three months. In the hall where the calls are received and made there are notices proclaiming an ‘English only’ policy.
Secondly, the employees have to use foreign names and not disclose their location. I noticed that nobody I interviewed thought there was anything wrong about discouraging the speaking of Urdu and other Pakistani languages in the call centres nor did anybody complain about hiding the true names and places of work of the agents.
The language ideology behind such kinds of practices is a subset of that of English in the rest of society. The British-American pronunciation is valued to the exclusion of all other pronunciations of Pakistani English. This alienates call centre employees from other speakers. The fact that it may not be such an important issue for other speakers of English results in greater distance.
However, the call centres are so few that their workers’ thoughts do not affect society as a whole. They cannot impose their linguistic ideology on anyone. They can only look down on other users of Pakistani English in private.
Call centres are generally situated in modern, glass-and-metal glittering buildings with modern furniture and ample lighting. Security is tight and access to the CSRs is controlled by managers and other administrative cadres. Call centres are a replica, or perhaps a shadow, of life in the US. The lights turn the night into day — the day in the US and Britain. There are four clocks on the wall giving the four American time zones. Young people, mostly boys in T-shirts and jeans speak in an American accent which, in some cases, is obviously affected.
Their body language is also like that of Americans. They have ‘mimicked’ it. The whole atmosphere is pseudo-American with people addressing each other with American-sounding pseudonyms and using greetings like ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ and ‘I am good.’ I could not find any resistance to the idea that their identity was being managed and, in fact, they themselves chose to represent an alien identity through pronunciation and pseudonyms.
Like sweatshops the world over the call centres of Pakistan are the new sites for the extension of globalised capitalist market practices and the ideology which underlies them.
They create a virtual reality in which language, accent, names, locations and identities in a hegemonic centre (America) are invested with value which is exchanged for money. However, the process entails greater acquiescence in discourses of western hegemony and alienation from one’s own cultural reality.
The employees accept the philosophy of work, opportunity and business so well that they do not realise that they are being colonised in ways much more drastic and far-reaching than ever before.
Their agency is reduced in the name of efficiency and standardisation and even their time is colonised and reversed. As most of them accept this colonisation, they support global capital and represent themselves as agents of a homogenising and westernising ideology which is privileged by the expansion of the free market all over the world.
Though alienated from their own cultures, the workers of call centres do, nevertheless, form part of a global workforce which lives in perpetual exile having cut itself off from the roots of its identity. The very existence of this kind of labour force marks all things western (American) as being ‘normal’ and, therefore, legitimises capitalism as the natural condition of existence.
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Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Plot construction of Twilight in Delhi
Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi is a well knit and brilliantly constructed novel. It consists of four parts and every part has the chapters which gave additional meaning to the course of events. The plot is constructed in a particular style—in the act of narration. Every character is in descriptive or in evaluating style which gives additional significance and beauty to the plot. Mostly the plot revolves around the family of Mir Nihal representing on symbolical level the Muslim class's present and past life. The Novelist Ahmed All relates a person's tale in this novel that, in the end, looks alienated and apart from the surroundings and all this happens only through his out dated attitude in the present condition.
Ahmed Ali has utilized his events of the story to construct an organic whole in the shape of plot of the novel "Twilight in Delhi". This thing tells us about his expertise in the field of novel-writing or fiction-writing as such. The novel under reference has basically been designed by the writer to give us a rich glimpse of the Indian Muslim society along with its customs, traditions and ways. This purpose has been achieved by the writer by taking a large number of characters from the span of 1911-1919 from the city of Delhi from among the Muslim population. As it is not inside his goal to tell the readers anything about the Hindu society, so he does not include any Hindu character in the novel, so much so that even the bania (basically the money lender of the sub-continent society) of the novel is Saddiq, a Muslim, although mostly Hindus were the banias of the sub-continent.
The plot of Twilight is Delhi "seems purposeful in every way. There are many characters and events only included in the novel to make the novel realistic and to give a true colouring to the Muslim Indian society as such. Nawab Puttan is one of such characters. His character has nothing important to do with the advancement of the story. Still he is very important for the reasons that he is the representation of Nawahi culture and life. For giving complete a social picture of the Indian Muslim Society, Ahmed Ali has told us in detail about Ramazan and the traditions of Ramazan. He tells us a detail about how Eed is celebrated, and including that famous, classical verse used at this occasion by numberless people:
"It is the day of Eid, my dear,
Ah come, let me embrace thee.
It is the custom and besides
There's time and opportunity "
Mir Nihal, in his sixties has a family, a mistress named Babban Jan from whom he gets mental and sexual levels pleasure. He has a son, Asghar, a boy in twenties, who desperately wants to marry a girl, Bilqeece. His marriage takes place after a huge amount of resistance from Mir Nihal's side. In the background of these events, Ahmed All has portrayed a graphic picture of historical moments of violence and tyranny in this novel and also the pathetic condition of Delhi on a big canvass. The marriage of Asghar is caught in a fiasco and the relations weaken day by day and after Bilqeece's death the whole scenario changes. Asghar thinks himelf responsible for her death but Bilqeece's younger sister Zohra again turns Asghar to the beauty of life. Zohra, a young girl, full of charming and alluring beauty, fascinates him to marry her but finally nothing happens according to his desires. In the end we see Mir Nihal as a paralyzed man who has faced many hard blows from fate like, death of Babban Jan, death of his pigeons and the end of his rule—all pathetic. His wife Begum Nihal, who has spent her life honestly and devotedly, is unable to retain happiness in Mir Nihal's life.
In the background, the plot of the novel advances through the story of the freedom struggle of the people of India and of the Indian Muslims. We read about the fall of Delhi and about the fateful time for Jama Masjid, Delhi, as well as for the Muslims of Delhi. We read about the fires burning petrol depots and the royal canopy at Delhi-Darbar before it was held. We read about rallies, procession, agitation, marches and strikes. We read about the non-cooperative movement. So we see the advancement of the struggle for freedom going in the background of the story of the novel. But the thing is so well knit into the texture of the plot that we are ready to take it as an integral part of the main story.
The story, which started from the first section, shows every character's attitude and ordinary view about life. All the subsequent events end in the forth part where we get not the conclusion but the actual condition that if they spend the same life they shall not be able to retain themselves in the changing conditions.
Whatever be the criticism, the plot, on the whole, is compact; there is very little irrelevant or unnecessary. Even the smallest details promote the action, produce the necessary atmosphere and fulfil the purpose of the novel. The concentration on the main theme is well maintained to achieve the desired purpose. All the strings are gathered at the end to give the final touch. Thus the plot construction in Twilight in Delhi, is nothing but remarkable. There can be arguments that the plot has some drawbacks or loose ends but it was never easy to pack a fastly changing culture in limited pages and Ahmed Ali's realistic technique in describing the actual conditions is not only brilliant but also shows his precision in every way.
Ahmed Ali has utilized his events of the story to construct an organic whole in the shape of plot of the novel "Twilight in Delhi". This thing tells us about his expertise in the field of novel-writing or fiction-writing as such. The novel under reference has basically been designed by the writer to give us a rich glimpse of the Indian Muslim society along with its customs, traditions and ways. This purpose has been achieved by the writer by taking a large number of characters from the span of 1911-1919 from the city of Delhi from among the Muslim population. As it is not inside his goal to tell the readers anything about the Hindu society, so he does not include any Hindu character in the novel, so much so that even the bania (basically the money lender of the sub-continent society) of the novel is Saddiq, a Muslim, although mostly Hindus were the banias of the sub-continent.
The plot of Twilight is Delhi "seems purposeful in every way. There are many characters and events only included in the novel to make the novel realistic and to give a true colouring to the Muslim Indian society as such. Nawab Puttan is one of such characters. His character has nothing important to do with the advancement of the story. Still he is very important for the reasons that he is the representation of Nawahi culture and life. For giving complete a social picture of the Indian Muslim Society, Ahmed Ali has told us in detail about Ramazan and the traditions of Ramazan. He tells us a detail about how Eed is celebrated, and including that famous, classical verse used at this occasion by numberless people:
"It is the day of Eid, my dear,
Ah come, let me embrace thee.
It is the custom and besides
There's time and opportunity "
Mir Nihal, in his sixties has a family, a mistress named Babban Jan from whom he gets mental and sexual levels pleasure. He has a son, Asghar, a boy in twenties, who desperately wants to marry a girl, Bilqeece. His marriage takes place after a huge amount of resistance from Mir Nihal's side. In the background of these events, Ahmed All has portrayed a graphic picture of historical moments of violence and tyranny in this novel and also the pathetic condition of Delhi on a big canvass. The marriage of Asghar is caught in a fiasco and the relations weaken day by day and after Bilqeece's death the whole scenario changes. Asghar thinks himelf responsible for her death but Bilqeece's younger sister Zohra again turns Asghar to the beauty of life. Zohra, a young girl, full of charming and alluring beauty, fascinates him to marry her but finally nothing happens according to his desires. In the end we see Mir Nihal as a paralyzed man who has faced many hard blows from fate like, death of Babban Jan, death of his pigeons and the end of his rule—all pathetic. His wife Begum Nihal, who has spent her life honestly and devotedly, is unable to retain happiness in Mir Nihal's life.
In the background, the plot of the novel advances through the story of the freedom struggle of the people of India and of the Indian Muslims. We read about the fall of Delhi and about the fateful time for Jama Masjid, Delhi, as well as for the Muslims of Delhi. We read about the fires burning petrol depots and the royal canopy at Delhi-Darbar before it was held. We read about rallies, procession, agitation, marches and strikes. We read about the non-cooperative movement. So we see the advancement of the struggle for freedom going in the background of the story of the novel. But the thing is so well knit into the texture of the plot that we are ready to take it as an integral part of the main story.
The story, which started from the first section, shows every character's attitude and ordinary view about life. All the subsequent events end in the forth part where we get not the conclusion but the actual condition that if they spend the same life they shall not be able to retain themselves in the changing conditions.
Whatever be the criticism, the plot, on the whole, is compact; there is very little irrelevant or unnecessary. Even the smallest details promote the action, produce the necessary atmosphere and fulfil the purpose of the novel. The concentration on the main theme is well maintained to achieve the desired purpose. All the strings are gathered at the end to give the final touch. Thus the plot construction in Twilight in Delhi, is nothing but remarkable. There can be arguments that the plot has some drawbacks or loose ends but it was never easy to pack a fastly changing culture in limited pages and Ahmed Ali's realistic technique in describing the actual conditions is not only brilliant but also shows his precision in every way.
Plot Construction Of ADAM BEDE
The plot of Adam Bede is much better constructed, more coherent and well-knit, than that of many a contemporary novel. The novel is a compact whole, it is like a well-constructed building from which not a single brick can be taken out without damaging the whole structure. There are four different stories in the novel (a) Adam-Hetty love story (b) Arthur-Hetty Sorrel love-story (c) Adam-Dinah love-story, and (d) The mutual relations of -Arthur and Adam. Adam Bede is plotted to hold in balance two interrelated stories by means of ironies duplications and contrasts. The first story relates to its titular hero's search for independence and a partner for life, while the second is concerned with his beloved Hetty Sorrel's seduction by his friend Arthur Donnithorne. The first story ends in its saddened hero's marriage with the Methodist woman-preacher Dinah Morris, while the second leads to Hetty's transportation for the murder of her child through Arthur and Arthur's voluntary exile from Hayslope.
The novels of George Eliot are "organic wholes" inasmuch as the story, the character and the social environment are well-integrated. The social environment forms the outer circle which envelopes the inner circle.In Adam Bede the life of Hayslope envelops the tragedy. We come to know all grades of its society, artisans, labourers, farmers, rector, schoolmaster, innkeeper and Squire. It is an active community in which most men or women have work to do and their character is affected by that work.
There is also thematic unity. The story grows like a plant out of the idea or theme that, failure to resist temptation is a moral weakness, and any yielding to temptation is sure to be followed by divine punishment and consequent suffering. This theme is inter-linked with the theme of moral enlightenment, self-education and regeneration. The moment of dis¬enchantment, when- all illusions and self-deceptions are shattered, comes to all alike. This is illustrated by the stories of Arthur, Hetty and Adam. Such are the themes out of which the story evolves step by step, logically and inexorably, and the characters and their stories are seen but to be the exposition or illustration of these themes and ideas.
"The central tragedy is intimately connected with this background. The full effect of Arthur's yielding to the sensual appeal of Hetty's childlike prettiness and of all that ensues depends upon the relations of both characters to their world. The pride and well-grounded self-respect of the Poysers, established in the reader's mind by the vivid pictures of their surroundings, their working day, their home life, their Sunday observance, and the neighbours' opinion of them, all play their part in causing the tragedy and in heightening the bitterness of its effect. "Arthur's upbringing, his relations with his grandfather, the Squire, his high conception of the love and esteem he will earn from all his dependants when he inherits the land, determine the price he must pay for his weakness. There is no part of what we have learnt of the outer circle that does not affect our sense of the inner. In its setting this commonplace story becomes widely significant. The simple, well-contrived pattern conveys the sense of a social structure enclosing four human beings as completely as the soil encloses the roots of a growing plant and, in doing so; it illustrates one aspect of the author's vision of life."
It may also be mentioned that the novelist has succeeded in capturing the slow, leisurely pace of rural life, as it was lived in, isolated communities like that of Hayslope, before the coming of the railways. Dorothy V. Ghent says in this connection, "the pace of Adam Bede is set to Mrs. Poyser's clock, to all that, slow toil and activity that have made daylight and living valuable. Slower, organically, invisibly slow at the months of Hetty's pregnancy; the Poyser's clock, the clock at the Chase, do not keep this time with their eights and nines and half past nines. This other deep, hidden animal time drags the whole pace down to that of poor Hetty's journey in despair, a blind automatism of animal night where the ticking of the human clock cannot be heard."
Even the best of us have their faults and weaknesses and so has Adam Bede, despite its being one of the best constructed novels of the age. Its ending particularly has come in for a good deal of criticism. It has been pointed out that the marriage of Adam and Dinah is not properly motivated, and so it seems unnatural and forced, a mere yielding to contemporary conventions that the hero and heroine of the novel must be happily united at the end. In this connection Lettice Cooper's comments are interesting and worth quoting at some length: "The weakness of the book, besides the oppressive virtue of Adam and Dinah is, as with many Victorian novels, the sacrifice of probability to plot, and the tidiness of the ending. George Eliot was moving towards a new kind of novel in which representation of life was to be more important than the resolution of a plot, but she was still partly bound by the old convention: Hetty's pardon, so dramatically and improbably brought to the place of execution by Arthur Donnithorne, is an artificial device to spare the reader. In the relationship between Hetty and Arthur and in all that grows out of it, there is a sense of destiny which is falsified by this resolution. Again while Adam's love for Hetty is utterly convincing, and the thing that brings him most to life as a human being, his final marriage to Dinah has none of that inevitability, but seems like a mechanical device to round off the story."
But these are flaws in a rich tapestry of rural life of the time, the farm, the cottage, the workshop, the Rectory, the great house. It is a picture of a society based on the land, a society still stable, a hierarchy in which each order has its own rights. The novel has its faults, but they are minor faults and they in no way detract from the novelist's skill in construction. It should be judged in the context of the age in which it was written and not by modern standards.
The novels of George Eliot are "organic wholes" inasmuch as the story, the character and the social environment are well-integrated. The social environment forms the outer circle which envelopes the inner circle.In Adam Bede the life of Hayslope envelops the tragedy. We come to know all grades of its society, artisans, labourers, farmers, rector, schoolmaster, innkeeper and Squire. It is an active community in which most men or women have work to do and their character is affected by that work.
There is also thematic unity. The story grows like a plant out of the idea or theme that, failure to resist temptation is a moral weakness, and any yielding to temptation is sure to be followed by divine punishment and consequent suffering. This theme is inter-linked with the theme of moral enlightenment, self-education and regeneration. The moment of dis¬enchantment, when- all illusions and self-deceptions are shattered, comes to all alike. This is illustrated by the stories of Arthur, Hetty and Adam. Such are the themes out of which the story evolves step by step, logically and inexorably, and the characters and their stories are seen but to be the exposition or illustration of these themes and ideas.
"The central tragedy is intimately connected with this background. The full effect of Arthur's yielding to the sensual appeal of Hetty's childlike prettiness and of all that ensues depends upon the relations of both characters to their world. The pride and well-grounded self-respect of the Poysers, established in the reader's mind by the vivid pictures of their surroundings, their working day, their home life, their Sunday observance, and the neighbours' opinion of them, all play their part in causing the tragedy and in heightening the bitterness of its effect. "Arthur's upbringing, his relations with his grandfather, the Squire, his high conception of the love and esteem he will earn from all his dependants when he inherits the land, determine the price he must pay for his weakness. There is no part of what we have learnt of the outer circle that does not affect our sense of the inner. In its setting this commonplace story becomes widely significant. The simple, well-contrived pattern conveys the sense of a social structure enclosing four human beings as completely as the soil encloses the roots of a growing plant and, in doing so; it illustrates one aspect of the author's vision of life."
It may also be mentioned that the novelist has succeeded in capturing the slow, leisurely pace of rural life, as it was lived in, isolated communities like that of Hayslope, before the coming of the railways. Dorothy V. Ghent says in this connection, "the pace of Adam Bede is set to Mrs. Poyser's clock, to all that, slow toil and activity that have made daylight and living valuable. Slower, organically, invisibly slow at the months of Hetty's pregnancy; the Poyser's clock, the clock at the Chase, do not keep this time with their eights and nines and half past nines. This other deep, hidden animal time drags the whole pace down to that of poor Hetty's journey in despair, a blind automatism of animal night where the ticking of the human clock cannot be heard."
Even the best of us have their faults and weaknesses and so has Adam Bede, despite its being one of the best constructed novels of the age. Its ending particularly has come in for a good deal of criticism. It has been pointed out that the marriage of Adam and Dinah is not properly motivated, and so it seems unnatural and forced, a mere yielding to contemporary conventions that the hero and heroine of the novel must be happily united at the end. In this connection Lettice Cooper's comments are interesting and worth quoting at some length: "The weakness of the book, besides the oppressive virtue of Adam and Dinah is, as with many Victorian novels, the sacrifice of probability to plot, and the tidiness of the ending. George Eliot was moving towards a new kind of novel in which representation of life was to be more important than the resolution of a plot, but she was still partly bound by the old convention: Hetty's pardon, so dramatically and improbably brought to the place of execution by Arthur Donnithorne, is an artificial device to spare the reader. In the relationship between Hetty and Arthur and in all that grows out of it, there is a sense of destiny which is falsified by this resolution. Again while Adam's love for Hetty is utterly convincing, and the thing that brings him most to life as a human being, his final marriage to Dinah has none of that inevitability, but seems like a mechanical device to round off the story."
But these are flaws in a rich tapestry of rural life of the time, the farm, the cottage, the workshop, the Rectory, the great house. It is a picture of a society based on the land, a society still stable, a hierarchy in which each order has its own rights. The novel has its faults, but they are minor faults and they in no way detract from the novelist's skill in construction. It should be judged in the context of the age in which it was written and not by modern standards.
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