Race, Proportional Friendship and Political Solidarity in Tanuja Desai Hidier’s "Born Confused"

Abstract

This paper focuses on the tension between friendship and political solidarity as depicted in Tanuja Desai Hidier’s young adult novel Born Confused (2003). Drawing upon Jacques Derrida’s The Politics of Friendship (1997), I argue that his conception of the inherently disproportionate nature of friendship, particularly in friendships marked by differences in race or sexual orientation, can serve as the starting point for attaining political solidarity, wherein two friends can become allies who stand, as Jodi Dean (1996) writes, "over and against a third". By examining the narratives of friendship between the Indian-American protagonist Dimple Lala and her Indian cousin Kavita and the one between Dimple and her white American friend Gwyn, I argue that while friendship does not automatically lead to solidarity, as an intentional and reflective practice it can lead to what Dean describes as "a mutual expectation of a responsible orientation to relationship" (1996, 29), or solidarity between two people who stand by one another while attending to differences. While Hidier at first depicts Dimple and Kavita as having more differences than commonalities, it is these very differences that help them understand the other’s personal-political struggles. This development contrasts greatly with Gwyn and Dimple’s continuous misunderstandings and misrecognitions of the other’s experience with misogyny and racism. Thus, Derrida’s idea of a disproportionate friendship, a friendship that requires the subject to unthinkingly place the other before the self, only partially and initially fulfils the demands and promises of a reflective solidarity where both friends/allies’ needs are met and a common struggle is clearly articulated. By treating friendship as the potential rather than the autochthonous existence of political solidarity within the context of Hidier’s novel, I delineate how friendship based on political solidarity is developed, and what opportunities political friendship offers to writers, scholars and activists alike.