Love, the Cockroach of a Regime

Prior to his execution, Iskander Harappa ruminates over his demise behind his heavy eyelids as insects add a pitter-patter rhythm against the iron bars of his death-cell. This minute detail in Salman Rushdie’s Shame stands out within a dense description of Iskander’s gruesome living conditions, characterizing his surroundings within his confinement as invasive— physically and mentally. The emphasis on the insects in Iskander’s death-cell symbolize the people caught in Harappa’s ongoing conflation of love with power within the novel and contributes to the broader allegorical portrayal of how a political figure’s definition of power misconstrues love to carry out calculated manipulation. 

Iskander’s perception of love thrives on an imbalance of power. He must receive more love than he gives so as not to appear vulnerable in order to protect his public image as a leader. Before the insects are introduced as members of his cell, Harappa closes his eyes “so that he can tell himself who he is” to escape from the imagined throbbing of the walls enclosing him (Rushdie 242). Behind those eyes, he recites his titles of “Prime Minister Chairman of the Popular Front, husband of Rani, father to Arjumand,” with the recitation coming to a halt after he utters the words “formerly devoted lover of,” failing to remember the name of his mistress, Pinkie (242). Noticeably, all who are named share a common ailment: being the bearers of Iskander’s love. Once he opens his eyes, the cockroaches “fall down upon his head,” breaking what Rushdie deems the armor of Iskander’s blindness (Rushdie 242). Likening his blindness to a form of protection highlights Iskander’s ignorance towards his misinterpretation of love. In his recitations, he focuses on the titles he earned from these lovers, not their attributes— making them the building blocks of his public image and, in turn, ridding them of their humanity. 

Following the invasion of roaches, Iskander “has to crush [the cockroaches] with his bare heels,” just as he crushed the identity of Pinkie by the failure to include her name in his recitation (Rushdie 242). The emphasis on the bare heel illustrates Iskander’s struggle with pleasure and power as he touches Pinkie’s identity and existence in the form of the cockroach with his skin. To submit oneself as a lover, one must be vulnerable, and during their affair, Iskander succumbs to vulnerability. However, the scaly skin of a cockroach coming into contact with human skin brings forth sentiments of discomfort and disgust associated with the intimacy Iskander exuded in the affair. These sentiments are present in a conversation earlier in the novel where both parties lie naked after sex, as naked as Iskander’s heel. Iskander decides to leave Pinkie, for “History loves only those who dominate her” and has “no room for Pinkies” (Rushdie 127). In order to be successful, he feels he must give up his pleasure to achieve power. Capitalizing and, therefore, personifying History reveals Iskander’s heightened devotion towards his political presence. Iskander “has” to crush Pinkie, the cockroach, an action necessary as intimate love in Iskander’s regime has no home if he yearns for success. 

The intersection between bodily intimacy and insects to illustrate the conflation and subsequent manipulation of love in the realm of power appears in Rushdie’s labeling of the insects as invasive for fornicating and sucking blood on Iskander’s body (Rushdie 243). To feed oneself and to reproduce are bare necessities for the living; however, once they impress their needs upon Iskander, extracting from him their sustenance, their necessities become tinged with greed. Here, the Popular Front’s supporters— people of Pakistan— act as needy lovers who leech upon Iskander’s heart, depleting Iskander of his compassion and, for him, his power. However, he set this situation up for himself from the moment he enters power, when he testified to his daughter, Arjumand, that he thinks of the making of the blooming nation-state “as a man would build a marriage;” he enters his time as a leader with intimacy, through polygamy as Arjumand would put it, by devoting himself to the people of his nation in a sacrament (Rushdie 191). This is not a marriage of equals, though. He acts as the provider, the patriarchal and the dominant presence in the marriage. By creating this intimacy riddled with an imbalance of power, he brings upon himself the seemingly bloodsucking nature of his people— the people, his wives, rely on him to survive. The imbalance strikes again with Iskander claiming the people love him because he embodies hope. Who could not love a man who “tore off his shirt” at a rally to show his “heart bears the same wounds” as his people (Rushdie 189)? Here, exposing flesh for vulnerability is accepted, whereas in the bedroom with Pinkie, vulnerability is accepted until it begins to interfere with his leadership. Within these acts of devotion lies Iskander’s manipulation of love. He becomes an entity when embodying hope, becoming untouchable. Yet once conflict arises with his decision to pardon ex-president Shaggy Dog, gossip spreading about favoritism playing a role in the pardon, the prime minister humanizes himself to sustain his marriage. He knows how to wield his love to maintain power— to maintain an image. But now, in his death-cell, that image is destroyed and eager insects, the people of Pakistan, grasp at the strands left of Iskander’s love.

Later, the creatures serve as his companions in his confinement because they can be “touched or crushed or borne” (Rushdie 243). The transformation from a hostile to endearing attitude towards the insects is striking as, in his last moments, Iskander succumbs to the weakness he fights throughout the novel. Noting that these insects are his equals destructs the power imbalance between him and his lovers, yet not entirely. The three actions of touched, crushed and borne all happen to the insects, they are robbed of their agency and only adopt the status of friend due to their placement in Iskander’s worldview. For Rani and Arjumand, wife and daughter, the same rings true. Iskander’s love is characterized as draining, making three of the four lovers age faster and grow tireder as the years go on (Rushdie 190). The exception to this degradation is Rani who happens to be the subject experiencing the least amount of her husband’s love, if any. However, she is included in his recitation behind his armor because the publicity of their love upholds Iskander’s authority. A married man earns the trust of his nation because it indicates loyalty and fidelity, allowing him to take on his second wife: the nation. She earns the right to exist in his world due to what she brings to his image. Arjumand, on the other hand, receives an ample amount of love from Iskander but tainted nonetheless. She abhors her femininity to be a suited heir, to fill her father’s shoes and he conditions her to “loathe her sex” (162). Both women experience the pitfalls of being involved in Iskander’s life: morphing into pawns to uphold his image, depleting the women of agency and individuality. 

The insects leech and hum and face fatality at the hands of Iskander Harappa— symbolizing his lovers along with the effects he has on them. In his last moments, these revelations of his futility in regards to his relationship with love occur due to the presence of these insects: forcing him to evaluate the living beings in his life— specifically the ones he devoted himself to. These revelations happen silently and through a series of literary devices from allegories to metaphors, but they press upon readers to understand that for Iskander Harappa and for Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (Harappa’s role in the novel) love could not just be love, it had to be a tool for leadership and had to work alongside power to function in his eyes. This conflation of love and power poses the question: how depleted is the humanity of someone who prioritizes power and their public image over compassion and depth?