Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq: A Study in

Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq:
A Study in Existentialism and the Absurd

At present, Girish Karnad has emerged as an ambassador of Indian culture to the world. A multifaceted personality, Karnad has been described in many ways. His multidimensional roles in the Indian theatre and screen world have endeared him among the Indian audiences and abroad. But his recognition to the world outside India has been as a thought-provoking dramatist whose innovative experiments with the indigenous cultural treasure (history, myths and folklore) and native and the western performance modes have given a new direction to Indian drama. He is one of such authors whose works have been classified as the world’s best works and translated not only in English but also in other languages (modern Indian languages and of other world languages). His extra-dramatic writings (prefaces, articles, notes to his plays and interviews) have helped define and evolve Indian national theatre.

Karnad’s play Tughlaq is the first ‘New Drama’ in India in many ways. It was the first significant history play. It was during a conversation with Kirthinath Kurtkoti, the writer of the History of Kannada Literature, where Karnad made up his mind to write a history play. Kurtkoti complained that no Indian playwright could do with our history what Shakespeare did with the British history and Brecht did with the history of the West. The innovative treatment of history and striking contemporaneity of the play shot Karnad into fame. Critics found the play to be a commentary on the decay of politics fromthe days of Nehru to the present times. The purpose of this article is to probe the existentialism as reflected in the play.

It is existentialism in Tughlaq which makes it modern. Existentialism is identified as a hallmark of the modern literature. The major concern of Karnad in exploring the history of Muhammad bin Tughlaq is a probe into his transformation from an idealist emperor, ‘who is not afraid to be human’ and invites people ‘to confide their worries in him’, into a ‘mad Muhammad’, and ‘the Lord of the skins’. An analysis of his transformation brings out an illustration of an existentialist in him. Tughlaq shares this element with Camus’ Caligula, and Osborne’s Look in Anger, and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

The tension emerging from Tughlaq’s determination to discover purpose and order in a world that steadfastly refuses to evidence makes him absurd. He lives in an entopic world in which communication is impossible and illusion is preferred to reality. He is left with no scope for action. His recourse to cruelty is the result of the divorce between the mind that desires and the world that disappoints, his nostalgia for unity that fragmented his universe and the contradiction that binds them together (Cruiskshank 145). It reminds Hamlet’s metaphysical futility in action. The unbridgeable gulf between aspiration and fulfillment or the impossibility of communication of the futility of human relationship is a feature of the theater of the absurd. Tughlaq’s suffering emanates from an unbridgeable gap between his aspirations and the utter failure he meets, from the impossibility of communication, from the realization of futility of human relations and actions.

Repeatedly Tughlaq is made to realize the vast gulf between aspiration and fulfillment, ideal and reality. As Cruiskshank puts, “Intellectual awareness of the absurd is the experience of a person who has expected a rationally ordered cosmos, but finds instead a chaos impervious to reason” (145). The failures of his dreams of building new future for India, his plan of shifting his capital, the introduction of the copper currency and the results of the impossibility of his desires push him to cruelty.

The Sultan’s journey is from idealism to madness via alienation, frustration and cruelty. His readings of ideals reflected in his policies and behavior present him as an alien threat to the time honored and acceptable conventions of kingship of his time. His exercise of impartial justice and equal human treatment to the Hindus alienate him from the mainstream Muslim subjects and priesthood. He is called ‘an insult to Islam’.

His exercise of tyrannical power can be seen as his release of his metaphysical anguish. His cruelty arises from his anguish, which he wants to impose over the scapegoat. His cruelty and tyranny are almost seen as vehicles to help him to overcome existential alienation and sense of the absurdity of human existence. He begins to console himself that his actions are justified. The realization that killings have not solved the problem and his knowledge of people’s anxiety about his death bring him remorse and frustration. His inability to admit that he has gone wrong pushes him to the verge of madness.

In fact, the play depicts a conflict between Muhammad within and the world without. His turning to violence can be seen as his self-consolation and an escape from the feeling of guilt. It is, in Freudian terms, a misplaced wrath upon the people whom he considers responsible for the failures of his highly noble ideals, which were ahead of his times. K. S. Ramamurti comments:

The nature of experience in Tughlaq with its emphasis on despair, on the awareness of isolation from others and oneself and on a loss of meaning and value in one’s world certainly warrants a comparison with the Existential and Absurd drama (19).

Karnad’s interspersing the absurdity in historical figures and their resemblance with the modern man’s alienation and frustration establishes the newness of his dramas and dramatic art. Veena Noble Dass rightly describes the play as, “essentially modern, may be more modern than most Indian plays written in English, despite being called a historical play” (95).
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The Golden Stairs

A clean life, an open mind, a pure heart, an eager intellect, an unveiled spiritual perception, a brotherliness for all, a readiness to give and receive advice and instruction, a courageous endurance of personal injustice, a brave declaration of principles, a valiant defence of those who are unjustly attacked, and a constant eye to the ideal of human progression and perfection which the Sacred Science depicts.....these are the golden stairs up the steps of which the learner may climb to the Temple of Divine Wisdom.

H. B. Blavatsky (The Theosophical Society)