Post Colonial Literature in India - Dissertation Example

? Post Colonial Literature in India Indian Literature has an element of foreignness about it. It is not native as a literature in one of our regionallanguage; for English though widely used in India came to us as the official language during the British rule in India. It is distinctive phenomenon- a byproduct 0of an eventful encounter between India and Britain: it seeks to express an Indian sensibility in a language which is not primarily Indian. The development of English as the official language in India was the result of a historical process that commenced with England’s relation with India I the first decade of the seventeenth century. The English at first showed little interest in the religion and culture of India. It was during the days of Warren Hastings that the British began to take real interests in Indian culture and thought. Hastings believed that the quickest route to the heart of the people was through the language of the country. Later in 1792 Charles Grant the director of the East India Company Advocated for making English “a vehicle for importing western ideas’. Raja Ram Mohan Roy believed that English education would lead Indians to advance towards equality with westerners. Knowledge of the English language broke down an age –long barrier between the culture of India and Europe. This in turn helped the educated Indian to imbibe the strong currents of world culture and reinforce his knowledge so as to develop a world outlook and perspective. The creative writing in English by Indian known as Indo Anglian Literature is alter development. This has come to be known as Indo –Anglian writing and has been quite an active school of didactic and creative art for at least a century”. The Indo Anglian writers encountered many handicaps in expressing themselves in a foreign language, nurtures in an alien background. First there has been the difficulty of the medium of expression. The Indian writer in English must be able to use his chosen medium with the fare degree of accuracy both of grammar and Idiom. According to Raja Rao (Preface to Kanthapur a), English is not a foreign tongue in India, but it is only the language for our mental makeup, not of our emotional makeup”. He rightly suggests that the Indian write in English must express “Indian Sensibility” ie to convey the feel of the cultural and emotional life of the people to the readers. But There are a number of eminet writers who have overcome these posed by the medium of expression and achieved international fame and recognition. Tagore, Jawaharlal Nehru, R K Narayan and Mulk raj Anand are only some of them. Another problem which has always inundated Indial English is the prejudice against English. It has always been said that English ia foreign tongue , and such an expression of the deep layers of emotions which is essential for creative writing ,is not possible for Indian writing in English . Such prejudices have diverted the attention of many talented writers. The conscious or unconscious imitation of English writers to the English literary tradition, has also been a serious barrier in the way of the full o growth and maturity of Indo -Anglian literature. It is a fact that they experienced a difficult to easily express without closely following the English literary traditions.. Some other difficulties Indian writers faced was from the publishers of that time. There has been the indifference, even unwillingness of the publishers to publish their works. The Indian publisher was traditionally conservative and unadventurous, and Indo-Anglian works were accepted with great caution . There was the paucity of literary criticism. Literary criticism serves to maintain standards, as well as to recommend the works of literature to the reading public. Indo Anglian literature has suffered both. The Common readers were not truly guided which work to be selected and which to be rejected. Lacking suitable guidance ,it has avoided Indo-Anglian literature and turned to English literature. An impression had been created that the woks of Indian writers in English are not worth much time or energy. The early Indo Anglian novels do not substantiate any remarkable development in fiction . The era of freedom struggle marked a radical change in the political scene. Prof K R Sreenivasa Iyenkar writes (Contemporary Indian Literature,p 44-45) “ A New scene , new actors ,new modes. Indo- Anglian journalism became crisper and more pointed, our orators were brief and more emphatic, and our prose writers attempted to shake off the Macaoulian tyranny and sought more natural forms of persuasive expression…”. From the end of the 1920s almost all the writers started turning away from the past and began focusing their attention on contemporary problems. In their r works political and social questions arising from the change d historical situation were given importance. This motivated Indo English novelist to depict the relationship of man and his surroundings in a new and realistic manner. However they did not completely kept away from the concerns of Indial mind namely man’s search for self realization. Four thematic subgroups all related to the main theme can be distinguished in the Indo-Anglian novels between thirties and mid sixties. Firstly there were novels portraying the social economic and political subjugation of individuals. Thus their authors took a humanitarian approach. We can include in this group most of Mulk Raj Anads works , Raja Rao’s ‘Kanthapura’ , Kamala Markandeya’s ‘Nectar in a Sieve’ and a ‘Handfull of Rice’. The second group of novels which deals with an individual’s search for identity as Mulk Raj Anads ‘ The Village ,Across the Black Water and The Sword and the Sickle’. In these works an individual is shown as either unable or unwilling to accept the traditional norm. The dramatic conflict usually arises out of the contradictions between Western and Indian notions. We can say that a variation of this sub theme is dealt in Raja Rao’s ‘ The serpant and the Rope, Kamala Markeneya ‘s Possession etc. Here the psychological dimension of this conflict forms the cebtre of the story while social, political or economic aspects are pushed to the background. Then we have another set of novels which is less concerned with the autonomous character of man, but consider him as part of hierarchical structure. The one who is hesitating to accept this order because of his confusion towards western notions, is depicted as acting against the accepted code of life. R . K Narayan’s works are included in this set. Narayan’s heroes create an annoyance by revolting against their roles in society. In the end, they willingly and consciously accept the rule of the law. Finally there is another group of novels where the novelist attempts to bridge the gulf between India and the west. ‘Chronicles of Kedaram‘ by S Nagarajans is an example . The writer here tries to bridge the gulf between the East and The West by for their propagating a fusion of positive value for their characters. Indo Anglian fiction was deeply influenced by the freedom struggle led by mahatma Gandhi. Many facest of the freedom struggle and the related problems became the themes of the novels. Mulk Raj Anand in his novels Coolie, The Village, Untouchable exposed evils of society and revealed human dignity in the underdog who was subjected to untold sufferings and affliction by the privileged classes. Raja Rao in Kanthapura described the spontaneous response of Indian Humanity to the challenges of the gGandhian Revolution. The novel writing moved away from the allegory and symbolism to social realism. R. K Narayan is the pioneer of regional novels in Indo- Anglian fiction. Sreenivasa Iyenkar remarks that “he is at his happiest when he deals with the vagaries of south Indian life “ There were plentiful approaches to the topic of intercultural exchange between the East and the West. Most of the works like essays deal with the relationship between nations not clearly. The writers like Salman Rushdie, thgough appeared in seventies, effectively dealt the post colonial India in his ‘Midnight’s Children’. It is novel about Indian Independence, the partition, and their aftermath. This novel is Rushdis interpretation of a period of about seventy years in Indias modern history dealing the events leading to the partition of India. A detailed study of the above mentioned texts reveal the influence of colonization in the life and thought pattern of Indians of the time. Read More