Foreign criticism of India
Do we really need to be ultra sensitive about what Westerners write or say about India?
When I shared this article about Nobel Laureate Harry Martinson’s 1924 visit to Bombay with a local historian, she expressed disappointment about the Swedish writer’s notes. She told me she was struck by how Bombay’s modernity didn’t seem to make a dent on Martinson and that “all oriental kind of gaze and subjects caught his attention.” I tried to expla…