Anita Desai’s ‘Baumgartner’s Bombay’ and the contemporary debates on fascism, Nazism, Anti-Semitism, colonialism, post colonialism and global humanistic ideas”
...s of his residence in the country of his adoption he is variously known as “the madman of the cats, the Billewallah Pagal” and finally murdered by a young German hippie, an Aryan. So the central character, Baumgartner seems to have developed his existence from history. Chapter I of this paper investigates the possible sources for the design of Baumgartner’s character .For this purpose some major characters of English Literature are discussed here. And it gives a brief introduction to the main theme of the next chapter (history and novel). Frederic Jameson points out that “the events of history can recover their original urgency for us only if they are retold within the unity of a single great collective story… [with] as ingle fundamental theme”*.the structure of the novel under consideration is ratifying this point. The ideological existence of historical novel is discussed in the chapter II. For this purpose it owes ideas about historical novel from various critics like George Lukacs, Mathew Arnold…. Etc. Different instances in Baumgartner’s life are very important as they present a part of the History. So the detailed analysis of his life reveals the Jewish History, and the role of anti-Semitism in the rise of Aryanism which caused the later Nazism and its propaganda’s effect on developing later fascisms. In this novel Baumgartner’s rejection of his mother land , Germany (or escape to India) is based on his cognitive recognition of the ideological limitations of western humanism and democracy. But once he dared to terminate his nationality as a German, he embarks on the broad course of humanism and globalism amidst a multireligious and multiethnic structure rapidly evolving postcolonial entity. So chapter IV presents two major issues relevant in post-colonialist debates, identity and humanism. India is definitely a subject very much discussed in English Literature in both, colonial and post-colonial times. So chapter V is dedicated to research how India is represented in literature along the historical timeline. It analyses how Europeans consider India or the third world. It must be quite obvious that any estimate of Baumga...