In his satirical new novel The Life and Opinions of Kartik Popat, Brannavan Gnanalingam imagines the rise of an immoral NZ politician who is also a “bad” Indian immigrant. Photo: Hannah Salmon/Shahir Daud
South Asian immigrants are often portrayed as noble and well-meaning in New Zealand literature, but what if a 'bad' one rose to political power here?
In his new novel The Life and Opinions of Kartik Popat, Wellington writer Brannavan Gnanalingam introduces readers to a conservative Indian-Kiwi political leader who happens to be a terrible human being.
Brannavan Gnanalingam: The Life and Opinions of Kartik Popat
US conservative commentator Ann Coulter's infamous comment to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that she'd never vote for him because he was Indian was what first got Gnanalingam thinking about the story that became Kartik Popat.
Ramaswamy's response to Coulter's comment after the fact - 'I appreciate that she speaks her mind' - was "quite pathetic", he says.
"[Ramaswamy] was complicit in racism but he was also a victim of it."
Ramaswamy has since been named, along with Elon Musk, to head a new "Department of Government Efficiency" to cut government agencies and budgets.
Photo: AFP / Win McNamee
Alongside figures like Nikki Haley and Rishi Sunak, Ramaswamy is part of a growing list of right-leaning South Asian politicians who've recently risen to prominence in the US and UK "on the back of some quite toxic politics", Gnanalingam says.
In Kartik Popat, he imagines how such a figure would play in New Zealand's political landscape.
"I was fascinated by the kind of people who ostensibly work against their own communities or assume that these communities are these monoliths."
Like Gnanalingam, who was born in Sri Lanka in 1983, the character of Kartik grows up in the Hutt Valley,
While he is on one hand a "classic" immigrant character in his desire to fit in, Kartik is also lazy and self-serving.
"I wanted a character like that in New Zealand who just rises up the political ranks by not doing very much, by being the opposite of what a good immigrant should be."
With Kartik Popat his eighth novel published since 2011, Gnanalingam says an awareness of the shortened lives in his Sri Lankan family history serves as potent fuel for his impressive output.
"I'm now 41 and I am reaching the age at which my [dad's brothers] started dying of heart attacks... On my mum's side, people died in the [Sri Lankan] Civil War, my mum almost died in the civil war when she was pregnant with me.
"There's a real sense of, if I don't write it now I can't guarantee that I have time in the future to write it... I've always had the sense that life is finite and I could die at any time. I've always wanted to do what I can with the time that I've got. I try to eke every moment out of every day and give my all for everything I do."