TEEN Age Calf Love, Lost Romance, Vacancy created in Mohan singh Cofee House after the DEATH of a HINDI WRITER and the Memory of an Old Book Saler in

TEEN Age Calf Love, Lost Romance, Vacancy created in Mohan singh Cofee House after the DEATH of a HINDI WRITER and the Memory of an Old Book Saler in Basantipur

Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 203

Palash Biswas

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Recently I saw a YOUNG Beautiful lady in her early Twenties waiting for the train on the same platfarm where I was stranded right in Sodepur.

I have spent my TEEN Age student line in Nainital where we the students used to stand in QUE to see BEAUTIFUL Charming ladies and girls.

Some of us used to follow the Young, sexy couples.

As a student of english department we had a number of beautiful girls as well as teachers! I had been in New delhi several times in different stages of AGE. Have visited North East and spent the Young professional life in Jharkhand!

Often Sabita gets irritated while I say that had I been aware of my BLACK Untouchable Identity, I would have rather chosen a TRIBAL Girl, for example a SANTHAL girl as my life partner!

Since we share the High caste apartheid aesthetics of white supremacy, we may not appreciate the black beauties! It is my bad Education that I could not chose a BLACK Girl as my lover!

In fact, I have seen stunning beauties in tribal areas in my younger days.

I used to be amongst them but despite being involved in nationality movement, I failed to Identify myself one amongst them!

Even in Manipur and tripura, I have seen many a beautiful girls from aboriginal communities.

In our Aboriginal, Indigeniousand Minority communities, we rather die for the FAIR complexion as we suffer from dementia!

I may bet the RLY Stn beauty was more beautiful than any Indian Acress or Model!

But I could not say her that you are so BEAUTIFUL ! As it happens to be TABOO and equal to EVE TEASING!

We grew up with such a psyche.

I have read Malgudi days as well as some beautiful pieces of Manto,Ilius,Selina Hussain,Humayun Azad, Nagar and Atin bandopaddhyaya dealing the Psyche.

In my GIC days, a SIKH girl in my Dineshpur pantnagar area, used to communicate me everytime whenever I happened to be in the area.

I paid noattention to the beautiful girl simply because she was not Bengali.

During my graduation days, I avoided the SC, ST and OBC girls , however Beautiful they might have been , as I boasted of My Superior, Developed Bangla Nationalty and language.

In fact, I was in love with the Idea of love as I had been reading tonnes of ROMANCE in teenage.

But every case of TEEN AGE Calf Love failed miserably as I had been biased so much.

So much so that I had no GIRL friend romantically involved during my school, college and university days. Though I had beautiful ladies and girls with FRIENDLY attitude everywhere!

I am not involved with the film world anymore. If I had been, i would have offered a ROLE to thelady in waiting!

Am I Romantic enough as the EPISODE suggests?

I watch the TEEN Age couples involved in romance daily everywhere.

I appreciate the Generation next that they do not seem to suffer from Gender Bias and happen to be quite communicative and interactive in their gender relationship.

I am afraid that this GENDER BIAS has been the source of ROMANCE in Indian literature which Polluted the Folk Landscape and Humascape upto the Level of Soft or hard porn!


Renowned literateur Vishnu Prabhakar dies! India with its Caste Hindu literary world is engaged in Unprecedented VRNA YUDDHA to sustain the fascist Imperialist Corporate Hegemony.

Thus, death of a personality no less than Vishnu Prabhakar is quite unnoticed in ELECTIONEERING Hue and Cry!

Now whenever I go to New Delhi, it will not be that easy to visit Mohan Singh Palace Coffee House once agin as I have been habitual to see an OLD Grand Writer in the corner for no less than three decades!

The seat and surroundings would be VOID never to be filled!

The problem is that whenever I visit the Capital, I always happens a TIME Crunch with very TIGHT Schedule. More over some INVINCIBLE friends like Pankaj Bisht and the team meets in the Coffe house.

It has always been convenient to meet most of them in Mohan singh palace where we were not to be deprived of the PRESENCE of Vishnuji and the Old generation!

It reminds me the memory of an old Book saler way back my home in Basantipur! Who cretaed the passion for Literature and Language in Bengali refugee children much before I fell in custody of Pitambar Pant and Tara Chandra Tripathi.

I am lucky to be in personal relationship with some of Great Indian literateurs like Upendranath Ashk, Amrit Lal Nagar, Trilochan Shastri, Baba Nagarjun and Vishnu Prabhakar!

Only Mahashweta Devi survives amongst the old lot.

I have always been charmed with the Communicative care of the grand old generation with the Generation Next!

I have INTERVIEWED Vishnuji while he was ousted from his Home and then prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee could not help him.

It is great that only recently he succeeded to get his home back in Judicial process, not by Political Initiative!

A delhi based publisher published a Collection of short stories relevant to Indian social realism.

I was overwhemled to find that my short story SAGORI MANDAL ZINDA HAI found a place in the Book with a latest short story written by Vishnu Prabhakar.

The publisher did not pay me anything even if the book happens to be reference book! But I had been always proud to be tagged with Vishnuji!

Renowned Hindi literateur Vishnu Prabhakar died at a hospital in New Delhi on Saturday after a brief illness.

He was 97.

Prabhakar is survived by two sons and two daughters.

His son Atul Prabhakar said he was in hospital since March 23 due to heart problem and urine infection.

Prabhakar had decided to donate his body to the All India Institute of Medical Science.

Honoured with the Padma Bhushan and Sahitya Akademi awards, Prabhakar worked as Drama director in All India Radio from 1955 to 1957.

His famous works include Awara, Masiha, Pankheen, Jane Anjane, Dhalti Raat, Swapnamayi, Nav Prabhat and Doctor besides "Ardhanarishwar" for which he was awarded Sahitya Akademi.

This is the only information published in most of the Print Media as well as Electronic media beside a little information we may get from the Wikipedia!

It is true that English media has no special love for Vernacular and particularly it may not focus a person so UNCONTROVERSIAL and alien to the Power field covered by Indian PET Media and Intelligentsia! We may get prolific Content abiout all those Idiots contributing NOTHING but has manipulated well!

I am afraid to say that Vishnuji failed miserably in manipulation whatsoever!

I was influenced by the simplicity of the Grand old Man in life as well as writing!

He was out and out a GANDHIAN! Everyone who reds me knows well that I despise anything most are the Gandhian Philosophy, MK Gandhi and the Gandhian Carbides!

Gandhian Philosophy as well as MARXISM did play a vital role in social realism in Indian literature!

Tarashankar is a gandhian top to bottom but he always dealt with social realism with flavours of Folk, though he defended the feudal set Up, brahaminical hegemony and the Ruling class. But he showcased the Subaltern life and livelihood as well! Whereas, Manik Bandopaddhyay, despite his Marxist ideology and Commitment failed to present the details of dalit Life and Livelihood as he was interested only to mass movements , not in dalit Liberation. He never paid any attention to Indian social Setup under manusmriti rule. Neither, Tarashankar had any vision of Liberation at any stage, but as a Gandhian he could deal with social structure with full details and originality as well!

For example, the breakaway from Gandhian thought and the old Sanskritic school of Gujarati literature marks the beginning of another very significant phase of Gujarati prose. But the Ideology remained as the base of socil realism in Gujarati literature!


But the greatest writers in India like Tara Shankar Bandopadhyaya in Bengali have been Gandhian who did care to deal with social realism.

Munshi Premchand is the leader of the lot who post mortemed the Indian Society, its caste system, untouchability as well as Brahaminical Hegemony and also dealt with Politics and Economy, who presented the most Genuine Landscape and Humanscape of Rural india!

Munshi Premchand is now known as Marxist even stronger than Manik Bandopaddhyaya.

But in his earlier writings Premchand was also a Gandhian!

Unlike Tara Shankar or Sharat Chandra Chatterjee Premchandra neither GLORIFIED Caste System and Brahaminical Hegemony nor he defended the FEUDAL system at all!

Bengalies do recognise Vishnu Prabhakar for writing the most AUTHENTIC life story of Sharat Chandra. first it was published in Hindi entitled AWARA MASEEHAA. It was serially published in SAPTAHIK Hindustan which we read in seventies. Later,the Bengali translation CHHANNACHHARA MAHAPRAN hit the stands and had been INSTANT Best seller.

I was stunned to see that no KOLKATA media published anything on Vishnuji!

He is as UNSUNG as the OLD Book SEELER in my Village in Basantipur way back to the REFUGEE COLONIES near PANTNAGAR in UTTARAKHAND TERAI!

I could read some of the English Classics during Primary Days, because my CHHOTO KAKA used to bring them. I was a student of Pitambar Pant in Haridaspur Primary school in Hindi medium. My village had a BENGALI medium school like most of the refugge colonies. We had to learn bengali as well as English at home.

SHARAT Chandra SHEEL was the OLD Book seller who were resettled in our village as his Daughter and son In law were also resettled with us. HIs son In law ATUL CHANDRA SHEEL remained the Secretary of the VILLage committe life long. he breathed last even after my father. The President Mandar Babu, father of my friend KRISHNA expired in mid seventies and the CASHIER Shishubar Mandal in nineties!

I use dto get scholar ships and gifts in cash from realtions and from the dignataries as well friends of my father. I would use the whole money to buy BOOKS from the OLD man.

Even in Bengali Refugee colonies, GIFTS of BOOKS wer in VOGUE in social Occassions until the introduction of television and all those books had to be BENGALI.

I would befriend all the newlywed Couples, often lazy or disinterested in reading and grab all the BOOKS not meant for the children!

I read most of SHARAT and BANKIM during my childhood thanks to the bookseller who helped me to locate the books in the Entire area! I had also got to read some of ASHAPURNA, SAMARESH BASU, BIMAL MITRA and BIMAL KAR NOVELS!

I had free access into the TREASURY of Mr Sheel and he would allow only me to see and touch the books available! It was such a pleasure that I may not reveal. Even in DSB Post Graduation days, while I was allowed FREE ENTRY between the SHELFS like the Professors, i never felt so thrilled.

GRAND Library, Sapru House or JNU Library reading Rooms never seemed so cosy as the Home of the LONELY COUPLE in our village.

By caste , they were Braber. But tehy got the land and never lost the Job Mobilisation.

SHARAT Babu used to sit in WEEKLY hat in DINESHPUR bazaar every Saturday. But I had been previleged to see and visit him anytime as his GRANd Children were my best friends! Among which DEBALADI was married even before my eldest cousin Meeradi.

I was reading in class two while AMALA was with me in the School and kamala di used to be in Class four.

All the Village Girls around were our friends as we never differentiate the GENDER.

Kamala di as well as Amala di were my best frinds.

The two girlies were beautiful and were married off in their 13- 14 years age so I had no opportunity to feel anything soft!

Vishnuji dealt with the RURAL Psyche , in which I could Identify myself, in ROMANCE as well as in REALITY.

He never dealt with the Economy as TARA SHANKAR, PREMCHAND, BHism Sahani, Manik, Mahashweta, Mulkraj Anand and KA Nrayan used to do. But the Indian Folk Innocence and Humanscape was the main theme in his literature. He never glorified Brahaminical hegemony like Sharat Chandra and all the major Bengali writers used to do, but VISHNUJI tried his best to analyse the Relevance of SHARAT in Social Realism.

We could recognise SHARAT beyond Tollywood and Bollywood ROMANCE just because of the reaserch work of Vishnuji!

Bengalies failed to pay a TRIBUTE to VISHNUJI, it is Heart rendering!

I personaly IDENTIFY myself with SWAMI as BASANTIPUR also was a part and parcel of MALGUDI days setup.

It is Indian FOLK Rooted HUMANSAPE with local falavour and relevant countrywide.

I liked VISHNU Prabhakar despite his GANDHIAN stance just because of the MALGUDI Culture, full of FOLK INTIMACY, COMMUNICATIVE Inter Connected People of blood and flesh and the inherent INNOCENSE despite Overwhelming feudalism and the CURSE of Manusmriti.

Whenever I read the short stories written by Vishnu Prabhakar, it relates me without the RURAL World.
What if he had been a Gandhian?

Gandhian Vishnu Prabhakar as well as Marxist Manik Bandopaddhyaya never voiced against Manusmriti rule. If gandhian philosophy helps the DOCUMENTATION of HATRED, the HATERD never withers away in a MARXIST SATATE engaged ironically in the materialist Aalysis of History!

If we dismiss Narayan, Sharat, Rahi Masum Raza, Ashapurna, KURTULN and AMRITA Pritam works as ROMANTIC, I am afraid that the most of the DALIT Autobiographies and revolutionary works happen to be no less ROMANTIC.

Even the most famous Mahashweta works on Indigenous Insurrections seem to be quite ROMANTIC in Aboriginal Indigenous setup, the landscape and HUMANSCAPE.

The Characterisation of BIRSA MUNDA, SIDHU, Laxmi Bai and so on look ROMANTIC ENOUGH as much as the INDIAN Mainstream media brands the NAXALITE Movementas ROMANCE!

Many would Consider MUKTIBODH, PAASH, Amarjeet Singh Chandan, Cherabandu Raju, Daya Pawar, Namdev Dhasal, NABARUN Bhattacharya, TASLIMA Nasrin, GADDAR works ROMANTIC.

For me ROMANTICISM is not that REACTIONARY as the BASTARDISATION of language, culture and folk are!

You may not compare the Tribal World depicted by Mahashweta with those RUBBISH Hard porn trash written by the likes of SUNIL Gangopaddhya, shirshendu, Snjeeb, Buddhadev Guha.

Since Tarashanker, the Bengali novelists have campaigned agianst RURAL Indigenous Aboriginal People portarying them indulged in SEX, myths , legends, superstitions, totems and violence.

The PARTI Parikatha by Faneeshwar Nath Renu in Hindi and DHODAI CHARIT MANAS are the most relevant RURAL epics of SOCIAL realism. both works do happen ROMANTIC!
So , the Pather Panchali and ARANYAK also remain as ROMANTIC. All SUBODH ROY and Prafulla roy stroies seem to be ROMANTIC but they never happen to be so romantiC?

What is your Opinion on Maxim Gorky, Pearl Buck, Hemingway, Charles dickens, Victor Hugo
Camus, Stephan Zwig, pastarnak and sholokhov novels and the RURAL World, Indigenous life,Livelihood and landscape there?

What would you say about Manto Works and the Novels and short stories by Akhtarazumman Ilius!

Yashpal and Bhism Sahni works are Romantic in nature but happen to deal with social realism!

Bengali Novelist Manik Bandopadhyaya is known as the most REPUTED REALIST Marxist Novelist countrywide.

Wht about his PADMA NADIR Manjhi?

Just compare it with either Keya Patar Nauko by Prafulla Roy or TITAS EKTI NADI by ADWAUT Mall Burman!




Vishnu Prabhakar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vishnu Prabhakar (January 29, 1912 - April 11, 2009) was a Hindi writer. He had several short stories, novels, plays and travelogues to his credit. Prabhaker's works have elements of patriotism, nationalism and messages of social upliftment.

Early life
Vishnu Prabhaker was born on the 29th of January 1912, in the Mirapur village of Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh and passed away on 11 April, 2009 at New Delhi. His father, Durga Prasad, was a religious person who kept himself untouched by modern times. His mother, Mahadevi, was the first well-educated lady of the family who dared to reject the 'Parda Pratha' of traditional Hindu families. Prabhakar stayed in Mirapur until the age of twelve, completing his primary education. His mother sent him to his maternal uncle in Hisar, which was in the Punjab and now is located in the Haryana state. There he completed his matriculation at the age of sixteen in 1929. He wanted to pursue higher education but owing to financial situation in his family at Mirapur, he had to find a job. Through the efforts of his maternal uncle he joined the government service. It was a fourth-class job and his salary was eighteen Rupee per month. He kept his studies going along with his work, and obtained degrees of Prabhakar and Hindi Bhushana in Hindi, Pragya in Sanskrit and B.A. in English.

Along with his work he pursued an interest in literature. He also joined a Natak company in Hissar. He wrote Hatya Ke Baad, his first play in 1939. Eventually he began writing as a full time career. He stayed with the family of his maternal uncle until the age of twenty seven. He married Sushila Prabhakar in 1938.

After Indian Independence he worked as a drama director, from September 1955 to March 1957, in Aakashvani, New Delhi. He made news when in 2005 he threatened to return his Padma Bhushan award after he allegedly had to face misconduct at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Prabhakar is survived by two sons and two daughters. His son Atul Prabhakar decided to donate his body to the All India Institute of Medical Science, New Delhi as his father's last wishes.


[edit] How he became 'Prabhakar'
He became 'Vishnu Prabhakar' from 'Vishnu'; his name was listed as 'Vishnu Dayal' in the primary school of Mirapur. In the Arya Samaj school, on being asked the 'Varna', he answered - 'Vaishya'. The teacher put down his name as 'Vishnu Gupta'. When he joined government service, the officers changed his name to 'Vishnu Dharmadutt' because there were many 'Guptas' in the office and it confused the officers. He continued writing by the pen name of 'Vishnu'. Once an editor asked, "Why do you use such a short name? Have you passed any examination?" Vishnu answered that he had passed 'Prabhakar' examination in Hindi. Thus the editor changed his name to 'Vishnu Prabhakar'.


[edit] Bibliography
Novels: Dhalti Raat, Swapnmayi
Drama: Nav Prabhat, Doctor
Story Collection: Sangharsh Ke Baad
Plays: Prakash aur Parchhaiyan, Barah Ekanki, Ashok
Misc: Jane-Anjane
Biography: Awara Maseeha

[edit] Awards and honours
He won Padma Bhushan and the Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel Ardhanarishvara (The Androgynous God or Shiva).


[edit] References

[edit] Sources
Sandhya Singh (Editor) 2004. Sanvaad Part 2, NCERT, New Delhi
Aalekh Samvad, June 2003 edition
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishnu_Prabhakar"

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Munshi Premchand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Munshi Premchand, प्रेमचंद (July 31, 1880 – October 8, 1936) was a writer of modern Hindi and Urdu literature. In India, he is generally recognized ...
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Volume 72, Number 4, Winter 2005
E-ISSN: 1080-6547 Print ISSN: 0013-8304

DOI: 10.1353/elh.2005.0038

Strand, Eric.
Gandhian Communalism and the Midnight Children's Conference
ELH - Volume 72, Number 4, Winter 2005, pp. 975-1016

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Eric Strand - Gandhian Communalism and the Midnight Children's Conference - ELH 72:4 ELH 72.4 (2005) 975-1016 Gandhian Communalism and the Midnight Children's Conference Eric Strand University of California, Irvine [W]e may be heading towards a world in which there will be no real alternative to the liberal-capitalist social model (except, perhaps, the theocratic, foundationalist model of Islam). In this situation, liberal capitalism or democracy or the free world will require novelists' most rigorous attention, will require reimagining and questioning and doubting as never before. "Our antagonist is our helper," said Edmund Burke, and if democracy no longer has communism to help it clarify, by opposition, its own ideals, then perhaps it will have to have literature as an adversary instead. --Salman Rushdie, "Is Nothing Sacred?" Many Rushdie scholars call Midnight's Children the political reawakening of Indian English fiction. The story begins with the gestation of the Indian English novel during the movement for independence, when "there was an urgency to foreground the idea of a composite nation." After 1947 comes a period of atrophy, as the nation-building that was the source of the genre's power now becomes an "ideological straitjacket." According to Gayatri Spivak, "reportorial realist writers" depicted the "miniaturised world of a nostalgia," as political independence set them "adrift, away from the current from which the post-colonial ...

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Strand, Eric. "Gandhian Communalism and the Midnight Children's Conference." ELH 72.4 (2005): 975-1016. Project MUSE. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 13 Apr. 2009 .

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Strand, Eric. (2005). Gandhian communalism and the midnight children's conference. ELH 72(4), 975-1016. Retrieved April 13, 2009, from Project MUSE database.

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Always review your references for accuracy and make any necessary corrections before using. Pay special attention to personal names, capitalization, and dates. Consult your library or click here for more information on citing sources.

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Strand, Eric. "Gandhian Communalism and the Midnight Children's Conference." ELH 72, no. 4 (2005): 975-1016. http://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed April 13, 2009).

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TY - JOUR
T1 - Gandhian Communalism and the Midnight Children's Conference
A1 - Strand, Eric.
JF - ELH
VL - 72
IS - 4
SP - 975
EP - 1016
Y1 - 2005
PB - The Johns Hopkins University Press
SN - 1080-6547
UR - http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/elh/v072/72.4strand.html
N1 - Volume 72, Number 4, Winter 2005
ER -



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THE COLOhttp://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00litlinks/lit_colonial.htmlNIAL PERIOD


=ROBERT CLIVE (1725-1774): "The Battle of Plassey: Robert Clive to the East India Company," from Clive's memoirs: [site]. More Clive lettes: [site]. A letter by one of his soldiers: "Excerpts from a Sergeant's Diary recounting Robert Clive's capture of Arcot, September-October 1751": [site]. Macaulay's long essay about him: [on this site]
=HIR RANJHA by Waris Shah (c.1719-1790), trans. by Charles Frederick Usborne (1874-1919): in PDF form: [site]

=MAHANIRVANA TANTRA (1700s), trans. by "Arthur Avalon" (Sir John Woodroffe), 1913: [site]

=Mirza Muhammad Hasan (d.1763), Mir'at-i Ahmadi (Mirror of Ahmad) (1761), a history of Ahmadabad, Gujarat: [site] (Packard)

=Budh Singh Khatri (fl. c.1764/5), Risalah-i Nanak Shah (Treatise on Nanak Shah) (1783), trans. and included in a larger work by James Browne [a history of Sikhism]: [site] (Packard)

=Ghulam Husain Khan, Siyar ul-mutakhirin (Behavior of the Recent Ones) (1781), trans. by "Nota-Manus" [on North Indian and Bengali political history after Aurangzeb's death]: [site] (Packard)

='Abd ul-Karim Kashmiri (d.1784), Biyan-i vaqi' (Account of Events) (1784), a memoir of the author's travels and observations, including Nadir Shah's invasion: [site] (Packard)

=Murtaza Husain 'Usmani Bilgrami (d.1795), Hadiqat ul-aqalim (1778-82), a geographical work, included in Elliot and Dowson: [site] (Packard)

=Abu Talib Khan (1752/3-1805/6), Tafzih ul-ghafilin (Disgrace of the Heedless) (1796/7), a history of Avadh under Asif ud-Daulah: [site] (Packard)


=Ananda Ranga Pillai (1709-61), chief interpreter to Governor Dupleix of Pondicherry, kept an extensive private diary from 1736 until his death; selections from it are presented here: [on this site]



=SIR WILLIAM JONES (1746-94)

="The Second Anniversary Discourse" (1785): [site]
="The Third Anniversary Discourse" (1786): [site]
="The Fourth Anniversary Discourse" (1787): [site]
=His translation of Kalidasa's "Shakuntala" (1789): [on this site]
="The Origin and Families of Nations" (1792): [site]
="On Asiatick History, Civil and Natural" (1793): [site]
=Henry Morse Stephens, "Sir William Jones": [site]
=L. M. Findlay, "'[T]hat Liberty of Writing': Incontinent Ordinance in 'Oriental' Jones": [site]

=Tipu Sultan, Select Letters of Tippoo Sultan to Various Public Functionaries, selected and trans. by William Kirkpatrick (1811): [site] (Packard)

=Dean Mahomed (1759-1851), an Indian Muslim who settled in England, and the author of a number of English-language letters. Michael Fisher, trans. The Travels of Dean Mahomed: An Eighteenth-Century Journey Through India (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1997): [site]

=COLONIAL DOCUMENTS by British administrators, from the Internet Sourcebook: [site]


=EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797)

="Ninth Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of India," June 25, 1783: [site]
="Eleventh Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of India," Nov. 18, 1783: [site]
="On Mr. Fox's East India Bill," a speech in the House of Commons, Dec. 1, 1783: [site]
="On the Nabob of Arcot's Debts," a speech in the House of Commons, Feb. 28, 1785: [site]
="Articles of Charge of High Crimes and Misdemeanors against Warren Hastings, Esq., Late Governor General of Bengal," a document presented to the House of Commons, in April-May, 1786; the Hastings trial, with speeches and related material, continues at intervals through 1794, and occupies in Burke's Collected Works the latter part of Vol. 8 [site], and the whole of Vol. 9 [site], Vol. 10 [site], Vol. 11 [site], and Vol. 12 [site]

==Seir ul-Mutaqherin (c.1782) by Seid Gholam Hussein Khan, trans. by "Nota-manus" (1786): [site] (Packard)

=Ghulam Husain, Riyaz us-Salatin (Garden of the Sultans) (1787/8), a history of Bengal: [site] (Packard)

=RAJA RAM MOHUN ROY (1772-1833)

="A Defense of Hindu Theism" (1817): [site]
="On Concremation [Sati]; A Second Conference between an Advocate and an Opponent of That Practice" (1820): [site]
="Abstract of the Arguments Regarding the Burning of Widows, Considered as a Religious Rite" (1830) [site]
="Remarks on Settlement in India by Europeans" (1832): [site]
="Theology of the Hindus, as Taught by Ram Mohun Roy" (1818): [site]
=Ram Mohun Roy and the Brahmo Samaj, in the eyes of the Imperial Gazetteer (1908-31): [site]

=Navab Mustajab Khan (d.1833), Gulistan-e rahmat (Garden of Mercy) (1792/3), a biography of the author's father, an Afghan chieftain in Bareilly (included in Elliot and Dowson): [site] (Packard)

=Mir Husain 'Ali Kirmani, Nishan-i haidari (Seal of Haidar) (1802), a history of Haidar 'Ali and his son Tipu Sultan: [site] (Packard)

=Bagh o bahar (1804) by Mir Amman Dihlavi, translated and annotated by Duncan Forbes, 1857; with much background material: [on this site]

=Robert Kerr, ed. GENERAL HISTORY AND COLLECTION OF VOYAGES AND TRAVELS, ARRANGED IN SYSTEMATIC ORDER: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time (1811): [on this site]

=The General East India Guide (1825), by John Borthwick Gilchrist (updating Williamson 1810): [on this site]

=Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, Observations on the Mussulmauns of India, Descriptive of their Manners, Customs, Habits, and Religious Opinions, made during a Twelve Years' Residence in their Immediate Society (1832). Edited by W. Crooke (1917): [on this site]

=Campaign of the Indus: in a Series of Letters from an Officer of the Bombay Division (1838-40), by A. H. Holdsworth, Esq. (1840): [on this site]

=MACAULAY (1800-1859) -- a study of his thoughts and writings about India: [on this site]

=William Sleeman (1788-1856), Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official (1844): [site]

=William Sleeman (1788-1856), A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude (1858), vols. 1 and 2: [site]; an excerpt, about sexual and dynastic politics in Avadh in the 1830's: [on this site]

= James Mill and H. H. Wilson, The History of British India (1848), vol 2: [site]

="Educational Dispatch of 1854," by the British East India Company: [site]


=1857: THE GREAT "MUTINY"/REBELLION

==American magazines' contemporary coverage of the rebellion: [on this site]
==Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, The Causes of the Indian Revolt (1859), issued in English in 1873: [on this site]; along with The History of the Bijnor Rebellion (1858) [on this site]
==Cholmeley, R. E., John Nicholson: The Lion of the Punjab (1908): [site]
==Cooper, Frederic Henry, The Handbook for Delhi (1865): [site]
==Fenn, George Manville, Begumbagh (1879): [site]; a historical novel about the period
==Fraser, W. A., Caste (1922): [site]; a historical novel about the period
==Frontline special issue: "The Call of 1857" (June 16-29, 2007): [site]
==Greathed, Elisa, "An account of the Opening of the Indian Mutiny at Meerut, 1857": [site]
==Griffiths, Charles John, A Narrative of the Siege of Delhi with an Account of the Mutiny at Ferozepore in 1857 (1910): [site]
==Habib, Irfan, ed., a special issue on the topic: Social Scientist 26, 296-99 (Jan.-Apr. 1998): [site]
==Keene, Henry George, Fifty-seven: Some Account of the Administration of Indian Districts during the Revolt of the Bengal Army (1883): [site]
==Ludlow, J. M. F., British India, Its Races and Its History Considered with Reference to the Mutinies of 1857 (1858): [site]
==Martin, Robert Montgomery, The Indian empire... with a full account of the mutiny of the Bengal army (1858-61): [vol. 1]; [vol. 2] [vol. 3] (see esp. vol. 3, pp. 143ff.)
==Muir, Sir William, Records of the Intelligence Department of the Government of the North-west Provinces of India during the Mutiny of 1857, vol. 1 (1902): [site]
==Roberts, Frederick Sleigh, Forty-one Years in India: From Subaltern to Commander-In-Chief (1898): [site]
==Robertson, H. Dundas, District Duties During the Revolt in the North-west Provinces of India in 1857: With Remarks on Subsequent Investigations (1859): [site]
==Walsh, John, A Memorial of the Futtegurh Mission and her Martyred Missionaries: with some Remarks on the Mutiny in India (1858): [site]

SIR SAYYID AHMAD KHAN (1817-1898)
=The Causes of the Indian Revolt (1859), by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, issued in English in 1873: a study site with background material and commentary by FWP: [on this site]; NOTE: some users of IE may have trouble, so here's a *very plain version*
=History of the Bijnor Rebellion (1858): [on this site]
="Speech of Sir Syed Ahmed at Lucknow" (September 1887): [on this site]; he passionately urges Muslims not to join the newly-founded Indian National Congress
="Speech of Sir Syed Ahmed at Meerut" (March 1888): [on this site]; another emotionally anti-Congress speech
="Presidential Address to the Indian National Congress" by Badruddin Tyabji (Madras, 1887): [on this site]; a different political vision for Indian Muslims, from Sir Sayyid's friend and opponent
=An exchange of letters between Sir Sayyid and Badruddin Tyabji about the Congress: [on this site]
="Open Letters to Sir Syed Ahmed Khan," by Lala Lajpat Rai (1888): [on this site]; these point out the suddenness and magnitude of the change in Sir Sayyid's political views
="Presidential Address to the Indian National Congress" by Rahimatulla M. Sayani (Calcutta, 1896): [on this site]; Sayani vigorously takes issue with anti-Congress views like Sir Sayyid's
=Daniel W. Brown,"Islamic Modernism in South Asia--a Reassessment": [site]
=Muzaffar Iqbal, "Syed Ahmad Khan: Family and Social Milieu" [site]
=M. M. Sharif, ed., A History of Muslim Philosophy (published by the Pakistan Philosophical Congress,1961): chapters 80 (Abdul Hamid) and 81 (B. A. Dar) are about Sir Sayyid: [site]
=David Lelyveld, "Growing up Sharif," the first part of Chapter 2 from Aligarh's First Generation: Muslim Solidarity in British India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978): [on this site]
=Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, "From Antiquary to Social Revolutionary: Syed Ahmad Khan and the Colonial Experience" (2006): [on this site]
="Going Beyond the Blame Game: Crusaders for Enhancing Education among Muslims; A Profile of Ahmed Rashid Shervani," by Kristina Bellach and Madhu Purnima Kishwar, Manushi 154: [site] (about two modern heirs of Sir Sayyid)

=Mountstuart Elphinstone, The History of India: The Hindú and Mahometan Periods (1841): [site]

=John Stuart Mill, "Of the Government of Dependencies by a Free State" (1862): [on this site]

=Ja'far Sharif, Qanoon-e-Islam: Or the Customs of the Musalmans of India, trans. G. A. Herklots, 1863: [site]

=CENSUS of 1871-2, a searchable database about this document: [site]

=Swami Dayanand Saraswati (1825-1883), The Light of the Truth (Satyartha Prakash) and other works by and about him: [site]

=Dastan-e Amir Hamzah (1871) by Abdullah Bilgrami, abridged and translated by FWP from the Urdu, with much background material: [on this site]

=Owen, Sidney James, India on the Eve of British Conquest: A Historical Sketch (1872): [site]

=Digital Colonial Documents, a project by Latrobe University: [site]

=AMERICAN JOURNALISM IN THE 19th CENTURY: Selected magazine articles about South Asia: [on this site] (includes a list of relevant books as well)

=Toru Dutt and her book of English poetry (1876): a contemporary article from The Century: [site]; some representative poems: [site]; her Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1885): [site]

=ELLIOT and DOWSON, The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians; The Muhammadan Period (1876-77): [site] (Packard)

=Bankim Chandra Chatterji (1838-1894), The Poison Tree: a Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal, trans. by Miriam S. Knight (1884): [site]

=Abu Talib, A History of Asaf ud-Daulah, Nawab-Vizier of Oudh (Tafzih ul-Ghafilin), trans. by W. Hoey (1885): [site] (Packard)

=Amrita Lal Roy, "English Rule in India," in The North American Review (New York), 1886: [site]

=Hobson-Jobson (1886), the great Anglo-Indian dictionary of Asian words used in British Indian English [site]

=The Life of William Carey (1761-1834), by George Smith (1887): [on this site]

=Badruddin Tyabji, "Presidential Address to the Indian National Congress" (Madras, 1887): [on this site]

=Rev. John F. Hurst, "A Native Publishing House in India," in Harper's New Monthly Magazine 75 (June-Nov 1887), pp. 352-356; Cornell Univ. Library: [site] (About the famous Naval Kishor Press.)

=Lala Lajpat Rai, "Open Letters to Sir Syed Ahmed Khan" (1888): [on this site]

=Swami Abhedananda (1866-1939), a disciple of Ramakrishna's, Vedanta Philosophy: Five Lectures on Reincarnation: [site]

=T. Ramakrishna, Tales of Ind and Other Poems (1896): [site]

=Rahimatulla M. Sayani, "Presidential Address to the Indian National Congress" (Calcutta, 1896): [on this site]

=Rudyard Kipling, Kim (1901), a free public book in NetLibrary: [site]; and many more of his works, from Project Gutenberg: [site]


=SIR MUHAMMAD IQBAL (1876-1938)

=An overview of Iqbal's life from Wikipedia: [site]
="How to Read Iqbal," by S. R. Faruqi (2005): [site]
="Islam as an Ethical and Political Ideal" (1908), Iqbal's first speech in English: [on this site]
=The Development of Metaphysics in Persia (1908): [site]
=On the Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930), London: Oxford University Press, 1934; with annotations by a later online editor: [site]
="Presidential Address to the All-India Muslim League, Allahabad, Dec. 1930": [on this site]
=Two letters to Jinnah, 1937: [on this site]
=TRANSLATIONS of his main Persian and Urdu works: [site]; click on "The Poet-Philosopher," then on "Poetical Works." Translations for all his main Persian and Urdu works are provided, but they aren't all of the same quality. The ones I recommend are as follows:
=Asrar-i-Khudi (The Secrets of the Self) (1915), trans. from the Persian by R. A. Nicholson
=Rumuz-i-Bekhudi (The Mysteries of Selflessness) (1918), trans. from the Persian with intro. and notes by A. J. Arberry
=Zubur-i-Ajam (Persian Psalms) (1927), Parts I and II, trans. from the Persian by A. J. Arberry
=Javid-Nama (1932), trans. from the Persian with intro. and notes by A. J. Arberry
="What Should Then be Done, O People of the East" (Pas chih bayad kard ay aqwam-e sharq) (1936), trans. from the Persian by B. A. Dar

=Another portal: [site]; it contains links to the above, and much additional material
="Renaissance in Indo-Pakistan: Iqbal," by Khalifa Abdul Hakim, from A History of Muslim Philosophy, ed. by M. M. Sharif (Lahore: Pakistan Philosophical Congress, 1961), Book VIII, Chapter 82 (pdf format): [site]
=Rafiq Kathwari's new translations of some of Iqbal's poems: [site]
=Ayesha Jalal, "Religion as Difference, Religion as Faith: Paradoxes of Muslim Identity"; the article has a good deal to say about Iqbal: [site]
="Two Taranahs" (1904, 1910), a study site by FWP: [on this site]
="Iqbal: some of his best Urdu poems," a study site by FWP: [on this site]
=More Iqbal material in Urdu, really a sort of library on him: [site]

=An elaborately introduced and illustrated recitation of "Khizr-e rah": [site]
=Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan's performance of "Shikvah," in sections, on YouTube: [one]; [two]; [three]; [four]; [five]; [six]


=RABINDRANATH TAGORE (1861-1941)
=TAGORE-- a good set of materials at Parabaas: [site]
=Another good set of materials at Project Gutenberg: [site]
=GITANJALI, in the poet's own translation, with an introduction by W. B. Yeats: an edited and easily printable version: [on this site]; also [site]; and [site]
=SONGS OF KABIR, translated by Rabindranath Tagore (New York: Macmillan, 1915): [site]; and many other works by Tagore at sacred-texts: [site]
=Poems in translation, a collection of shorter pieces: [site]
="Fruit-gathering," poems in the author's own translation (Macmillan, 1916): [site]
="Bolai," a short story, trans. by Prasanjit Gupta: [site]
="Once There Was a King," a short story: [site]
="Chitra: a Play in One Act," for downloading: [site]
="Dialogue Between Karna and Kunti" (1900), a play, trans. by Ketaki K. Dyson: [site]
="The Home and the World," a short story, trans. by Surendranath Tagore: [site]
="Ritual and Reform," a short story, trans. by Prasenjit Gupta: [site]
="A Wife's Letter," a short story, trans. by Prasenjit Gupta: [site]
="Tagore and His India," a talk by distinguished economist Amartya Sen: [site]
="Poet Tagore," woodcut, 1946, by Sudhir Khastgir: [site]
=More works by Tagore, from Project Gutenberg: [site]

=MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI (1869-1948)
="The Official Mahatma Gandhi E-archive": [site]
=His autobiography, The Story of My Experiments With Truth (1925): [on this site]
=Gandhi's books-- a whole set, available online: [site]
=Project Gutenberg books: [site]
=Gandhi's last letter about Hindi/Urdu, just before his assassination: [on this site]
="Bapuji," woodcut, 1946, by Sudhir Khastgir: [site]
=G. R. Rao, An Atheist with Gandhi (1951): [site]
=Salman Rushdie, "Mohandas Gandhi," in Time Magazine, 2000 (for poll on top 100 people of the millennium): [site]

=Ashraf Ali Thanavi (1864-1943), Bihishti Zevar (Heavenly Jewels) (c.1900?): [site]

=Modern India (1904), a travel-guide overview by an American, William Eleroy Curtis: [site]

=Altaf Husain Hali (1837-1914), "Justice for the Silent" (1905), a poem about the lives of women, and a plea for women's education: [on this site]

=Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949), The Golden Threshold (c.1905); her poetry: [site]; also from Univ. of Virginia: [site]

=Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920), "Address to the Indian National Congress, 1907": [site]

=Tolstoy, Lev Nikolayevich, A Letter to a Hindu (1909): [site]

=Nizam-ud-din-Ahmad, (Nawab Nizamat Jung Bahadur), Sonnets (1914): [site]

=Sri Aurobindo, "The Doctrine of the Mystics" (1915): [site]

=Annie Besant as Congress President, 1917, "The Case for India": [site]

=Sarojini Naidu, 1917: "Ideals of Islam": [on this site]

=Maulana Mohammed Ali (1878-1931)-- an essay on him by Mushirul Hasan and an excerpt from his autobiography, My Life: A Fragment: [site]; his speech at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Round Table Conference in London, 19th Nov., 1930: [on this site]

=Lala Lajpat Rai, "The Hindu-Muslim Problem" (a series of newspaper articles), 1924: [on this site]

=Premchand (Dhanpat Rai Shrivastav) (1880-1936), "The Shroud" (1935), trans. from Urdu and Hindi by FWP: [on this site]

=A. A. Macdonnell, "Sanskrit Literature," a useful overview article from the Imperial Gazetteer of India (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1908-31), vol. 2, pp. 206-269: [site]

=G. A. Grierson, "Vernacular Literature," a useful overview article from the Imperial Gazetteer of India (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1908-31), vol. 2, pp. 414-438: [site]

=BHIMRAO RAMJI AMBEDKAR (1891-1956)

=Columbia's major Ambedkar site (with annotated text of Annihilation of Caste, and much more: [site]
=A timeline of Dr. Ambedkar's life and work: [on this site]
=Some images of Dr. Ambedkar: [Indian Routes]
="Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development" (1916): [on this site]
="What Path to Salvation?" (speech, 1936): [on this site]
="Waiting for a Visa" (fragment of autobiography, c.1935-6): [on this site]
="Ranade, Gandhi, and Jinnah" (speech, 1943): [on this site]
="Pakistan, or, the Partition of India" (Bombay: Thackers, 1945): [on this site]
="Why Was Nagpur Chosen?" (speech, 1956): [on this site]
="The Buddha and his Dhamma" (Bombay: Siddharth College Publications, 1957): [on this site]
=The greatest cache of Ambedkariana, ambedkar.org: [site]

=Yogananda Paramahansa (1893-1952), Autobiography of a Yogi (1946): [site]; also [site]

=British Government Statement on Policy in India, 1946: [site]

=Jawaharlal Nehru (1885-1964), "Marxism, Capitalism, and Non-Alignment" (1941): [site]; "Speech on the Granting of Indian Independence, August 14, 1947": [site]

=Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958), "Presidential Address to the Fifty-third Session of the Indian National Congress (1940): [on this site]

=Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), some of his speeches: [on this site]

=Dr. Zakir Husain, "A Day in August, 1947," trans. by C. M. Naim, Outlook India, Aug. 29, 2004: [on this site]

=Shaista Akhtar Bano Suhrawardy: Excerpts about her childhood, from her autobiography From Purdah to Parliament (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998 [1963]): [on this site]

="The Containment and Re-deployment of English India," Romantic Circles Praxis Series, November 2000: a number of relevant articles: [site]








-- LITERATURE index -- Glossary -- FWP's main page



Raja Rao

Last Updated: 1:18AM BST 18 Jul 2006

Raja Rao, who died on July 8 aged 97, was the author of the first first major Indian novel written in English and was one of three writers, with RK Narayan and Mulk Raj Anand, who laid the literary groundwork for an independent India.

An activist in the Indian Nationalist movement, Rao's first novel, Kanthapura, published in 1938 nearly a decade before Independence, incorporated the approach and themes of Indian vernacular tales and folk epic to explore the impact of Gandhi's teachings on non-violent resistance to the British through the lives of the inhabitants of a small Mysore village.


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At a different level, Rao's theme was the relationship between language and consciousness, and the book, which won high praise from EM Forster for its style and structure, was significant in that it sought to use English to express Indian philosophical and cultural concepts.

Though he moved easily between English, French, Sanskrit and his native Kannada, Rao regarded English "with its great tradition and unexplored riches" as the only language capable of "catalysing my impulses, and giving them a near-native sound and structure".

But, as he admitted in the preface to Kanthapura, the process was not an easy one: "One has to convey in a language that is not one's own, the spirit that is one's own. English is not really an alien language to us. It is the language of our intellectual make-up but not of our emotional make-up."

He looked forward to a time when Indians themselves would adapt the language to suit their own world view. Indian English, he argued, "has to be a dialect which will some day prove to be as distinctive and colourful as the Irish and the American".

The eldest of nine children, Raja Rao was born on November 9 1908 into a prominent Brahmin family at Hassan, in the state of Mysore (now Karnataka), south India. His father taught Kannada, the native language of Karnataka, at Nizam's College in the Muslim state of Hyderabad. His mother died when Rao was four.

Though born a Hindu, Rao was educated at Muslim schools, the Madrassa-e-Aliya in Hyderabad and the Aligahr Muslim University, where he learned French, then at the Nizam's College and at Madras University, where he read English and History.

After graduation he went on a scholarship to the University of Montpellier, where he studied Christian History and Theology, then to the Sorbonne, where he researched the Indian influence on Irish literature. In 1932 he was appointed to the editorial board of Mercure de France, a position he held until 1937. While in France he became inspired by the non-violent nationalism of Mahatma Gandhi, a preoccupation of his early fiction. He wrote Kanthapura while staying in a French chateau.

In 1931 Rao had married Camille Mouly, a French teacher at Montpellier. The marriage lasted until 1939, and the course of its breakdown provided him with the themes of The Serpent and the Rope (1960), a semi-autobiographical rendering of the Mahabharata legend of Satayavan and Savithri, updated and adapted to dramatise the relationships between Indian and Western culture.

The work tells the story of a young Brahmin married to a French college teacher who regards her husband as a guru. As he struggles with the worldly commitments imposed on him by his Hindu family, she becomes a Buddhist and renounces worldly desires, abandoning her husband to find his own spiritual path.

Returning to India in 1939, Rao spent time in an ashram in Madras and edited, with Iqbal Singh, the anthology Changing India, an exploration of changing currents in Indian thought. In 1942, after joining the Quit India movement, he spent six months in Mahatma Gandhi's ashram at Sevagram. In 1998 he would publish a biography of Gandhi, Great Indian Way.

During the war years Rao travelled widely around the sub-continent and was the guiding spirit behind Sri Vidya Samiti, a short-lived cultural organisation devoted to reviving the values of ancient Indian civilisation. He edited the literary magazine Tomorrow, and was also involved with Chetana, a society for the propagation of Indian thought and values.

Rao reprised the theme of non-violent resistance in The Cow and the Barricades, a collection of short stories published in 1947, although by this time he felt that he no longer wanted to write fiction. "I have abandoned literature for good and gone over to metaphysics," he wrote to EM Forster in 1945. "I'm not a writer any more." Forster repied: "You have, as you say, abandoned literature for metaphysical enquiry. I have abandoned literature for nothing at all. So please let us meet."

Rao became a teacher of philosophy, and after the war spent much of his time travelling. He visited America in 1950 and later spent more time living in an ashram. In the 1960s he moved to America, where he taught Indian philosophy and culture at the University of Texas at Austin from 1966 to 1983.

He continued to write. The Cat and Shakespeare (1965) was a teasing comedy of manners exploring metaphysical themes; Comrade Kirillov (1976) satirised Communism as an ideological misunderstanding of man's true nature; The Chessmaster and his Moves (1988) used the metaphor of a chess game to explore different philosophical ideas.

He was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1988.

Rao married, in 1965, Katherine Jones, an American actress with whom he had a son. The marriage was later dissolved, and he is survived by his third wife, Susan.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1524173/Raja-Rao.html
The example of India

Let us examine some of the pros and cons of Western science in the context of one particular developing country. India has been chosen not merely for the size and diversity of its population and the richness of its culture, but also because almost all of the themes that have been taken up in the general debates about Western science can be found there. Indeed, it could be argued that India's struggle for independence was, to a greater extent than elsewhere, also a struggle for the resurrection of Indian civilization. At the very least, it can be said that traditional techniques and non-Western beliefs and customs were mobilized in the political struggle more explicitly than elsewhere. Under the inspiration of Mahatma Gandhi the peoples of the Indian subcontinent were encouraged to revive traditional technical practices and even managed to put aside, for a time, some of their religious antagonisms in order to achieve national independence.

Gandhi, of course, was Western-trained and learned about Western philosophy and Western science while studying law in Britain. Perhaps most important for our purposes here is that Gandhi became acquainted with Western traditions of cultural criticism, associated with such names as Ruskin, Tolstoy, and Thoreau. The "experiments with truth" that made up Gandhi's life were, in large measure, a conscious effort to combine these critical Western ideas with a very personal interpretation of Hindu belief. Gandhi embodied an alternative science and technology in his own person, but he was not particularly successful in writing about it or in institutionalizing it. He has served, in post-independence India, as both a legend and personal model; and, as we shall see, his inspiration can be seen in a number of alternative activities in India today.

Gandhi was not alone in his attempts to develop alternative approaches to science and technology in colonial India. although it was his vision that has perhaps been most influential. Ashis Nandy has recently contrasted Gandhi's "critical traditionalism" to the more absolute glorification of tradition represented by the art historian and Buddhist scholar Ananda Coomaraswamy [57]. Where Gandhi made use of Indian traditions in an open-ended, reflective way, Coomaraswamy's "tradition remains homogeneous and undifferentiated from the point of view of man-made suffering.... Today, with the renewed interest in cultural visions, one has to be aware that commitment to traditions, too, can objectify by drawing a line between a culture and those who live by that culture, by setting up some as the true interpreters of a culture and the others as falsifiers, and by trying to defend the core of a culture from its periphery" [57, pp. 121, 122].

Gandhi's critique of Western science was fundamental and comprehensive. He rejected Western science in terms of all three of our dimensions, recombining the romantic or poetic critique of secularization with critiques of the institutionalized elitism and the "technicist" orientation of Western science. It was the lack of morality, the lack of idealism of Western civilization that Gandhi objected to; and Western science was, for him, a central part of that immoral value system.

The double nature of Gandhi's critique is important in understanding the subsequent Indian discourse(s) on Western and non-Western science. Unlike the Marxist or positivist leaders of most other independence movements in non-Western societies, Gandhi sought to develop an alternative way of life in which traditional techniques and non-Western beliefs had a central place. His critique of Western civilization was thus not merely a critique of its immorality, but also of its epistemology. "Traditional technology, too, was for him an ethically and cognitively better system of applied knowledge than modern technology. He rejected machine civilization, not because he was a saint making occasional forays into the secular world, but because he was a political activist and thinker with strong moral concerns" [57, p. 160].

India, of course, did not follow Gandhi's lead in the first two decades of independence. Instead, under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, ambitious efforts were made to implant what Nehru called a scientific temper in Indian society. Nehru's scientism, and that of his leading scientific and political advisers, was deep and unambiguous. "It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, of a rich country inhabited by starving people. I do not see any way out of our vicious circle of poverty except by utilizing the new sources of power which science has placed at our disposal" (Nehru, quoted in [35, pp. 7-8])

For Nehru, Indian civilization, with its superstitions and religious strife, was in need of radical change; a "scientific temper" needed to be imposed on Indian society, and his governments did their utmost to develop both scientific institutions and also a popular understanding and appreciation for science. Like other post-independence leaders in the third world, Nehru's attitude to Western science was positive; if there was a "non-Western" component to his science policy, it was in seeking to apply scientific research in a planned, systematic way. From the late 1940s, scientific and technological research were organized roughly along the lines of the Soviet model, with central planning and strong state control over priorities and orientation. In a recent review, Krishna and Jain have written:

The Indian experience of science policy up to the late 1960s, which was based on the close alliance between elite scientists and the political leadership, had the major objective to expand the infrastructural base for science, technology and education. The leadership of Nehru provided the necessary political will and economic assistance to ensure continuous expansion of scientific organisations and funding of science and technology. [35, p. 15]

It would be an oversimplification to say that Nehru's death in 1964 led to a revival of Gandhian thought. But as the 1960s progressed, a number of challenges emerged to the developmental strategies and emphases that had guided India since independence. The wars with China and Pakistan fostered nationalistic tendencies, and a variety of popular peasant movements began to wage struggles against the central and regional authorities. The international wave of student and anti-imperialist protest also played its part, so that, by the early 1970s, India was a society torn by inner conflict. Most significant from our perspective was the revitalization of the Gandhian undercurrent, spearheaded by Jaraprakash Narayan, or JP as he came to be called, with his "total revolution" that aimed to revive village economic life and grass-roots initiatives. The revival of Gandhism was an important factor in the protests against the large dams and government-sponsored social forestry programmes as well as the emergence of environmental movements, especially the famous Chipko "tree-huggers" in northern India. In 1978, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, after having ruled the country through an unpopular State of Emergency, was defeated by the opposition Janata party, which in many ways tried to apply Gandhian ideas during its few short years in power, before being torn apart by internal dissension.

It was in this general spirit of criticism and change that the political scientist Rajni Kothari gathered together a number of Western-trained humanists and social scientists at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi. Kothari had been the chairman of the Social Science Research Council and had been a key actor in the infrastructure building of the Nehru era. In the 1970s, however, Kothari and his colleagues at CSDS grew increasingly disillusioned with the path that Indian development had taken, and began to reconsider the Gandhian intellectual legacy. Indeed, throughout the country, perhaps particularly among science and engineering students, who were finding their knowledge increasingly irrelevant to the needs of their country, the received position about the crucial role of modern science in Indian development began to be questioned. It was particularly among engineering students that the appeal of appropriate technology seems to have been felt most strongly, and in the 1970s a number of different units were established [43].

At the end of the 1970s, three books appeared that served to articulate a new kind of intellectual critique of Western science in India. In 1978, J.P.S. Uberoi, professor of sociology at Delhi University, published Science and Culture, in which he developed an all-encompassing critique of Western science, or, more specifically, of the Western positivist tradition, which he traced back to the Reformation and the separation of subject and object. According to Uberoi:

I am persuaded that so long as the problem of the alternative is seen in India or elsewhere in purely practical extrinsic terms, whether political, social or economic, modern Western science itself will remain a stranger and liable to exploit us for its own ends. Its so-called diffusion, implantation or assimilation in the non-Western world will very properly remain a failure or turn into something worse. On the other hand, if the intrinsic intellectual problem of the positivist theory and praxis of science and its claims come to be appreciated by us, leading to a dialogue with native theory and praxis, whether classical or vernacular, then modern Western science will find itself reconstituted into something new in the process [95, p. 86].

The following year, 1979, the Bombay-based journalist and political activist Claude Alvares, who had gone to Holland to study philosophy, provided what would become a catalyst for much of the new critical thinking in his doctoral dissertation, Homo Faber: Technology and Culture in India, China and the West 1500-1972. Alvares's book opened up an arena for critical reappreciation, among intellectuals, of the non-Western scientific traditions in India. It presented what Alvares called a new anthropological model of technological development, and explicitly called for the integration of ethnosciences, or indigenous scientific traditions, in the development of appropriate technologies and developmental strategies. For Alvares, "the model of social and technological development idealized out of the industrial revolution in England, the United States and certain parts of Western Europe is no longer the sole means by which the Southern countries and nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America can hope to survive" [1, p. 45]. Alvares traced the historical development of technology in India, China, and England and sought to show how cultural traditions and, in particular, the experiences of imperialism and colonialism had affected all three countries in fundamental ways. Such historical relativization was necessary, according to Alvares, if the non-Western countries were to escape their historical dependency on the West. "The displacement of the West in its monopoly over the productive process will be accompanied by the displacement of its monopoly position as the arbiter of what is proper for the Southern nations in the realm of culture, ideas and ideals. The wider dispersal of the ability to produce goods will be accompanied by the wider dispersal of the ability to produce ideas" [1, p. 221].

A third book of the Janata period, Ashis Nandy's Alternative Sciences, brought the critique of Western science down to a micro, or individual, level. Nandy analysed the different ways in which Jagadis Chandra Bose, the plant physiologist, and Srinivasa Ramanujan, the mathematician, had become "alien insiders" in the world of Western science. His was not a straightforward critique of Western science, but rather a more subtle psychological critique that carried a number of different messages. On the one hand, Nandy showed how two Indian scientists had been constrained in their work by their Indianness, but he also indicated how Indian tradition had provided opportunities for creative "dissent" from Western science [56].

The theme of creative dissent has continued to concern Nandy in his more recent writings [57]. His discussion of Gandhi's "critical traditionalism" referred to earlier also stresses the psychological dimension of non-Western science. His criticism, like Gandhi's, has come to be directed ever more to the intrinsic violence of Western science - against Nature and against humanity. While Uberoi has tended to focus more of his attention on alternative traditions in the West - he has recently written on Goethe's "alternative" science [96] - Nandy has continued to explore the psychological tensions and conflicts at work in Indian science. His critique of a "statement on scientific temper" produced in 1981 by a group of distinguished Indian scientists led to a major debate between the proverbial two cultures in India the humanists and the scientists; and the intellectual critique of Western science that Nandy and his colleagues at CSDS have produced [97] can be expected to grow ever more relevant to the future development of Indian science.

Even more significant has been the emergence of a critique of Western science in the various new social movements themselves. On the one hand, there are the so-called people's science movements that have been particularly active in southern India, beginning with the founding of the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) in 1962. Here the emphasis has been on critical popularization, linking science in selective ways to popular myths and traditions and bringing scientific expertise to bear on protests against government-sponsored irrigation and forestry projects [19, 35]. The people's science movements are not critical of Western science; rather they are critical of the ways in which Western science has been misused in Indian society. Much like the Red Guard in China during the Cultural Revolution, but with less rhetoric and often, it seems, more popular support, the people's science movements are seeking to develop a socialist science, a "science for social revolution," according to the KSSP's main slogan.

What has emerged in other parts of India, as an outgrowth of the environmental movements in the forests and on tribal lands, has been a very different kind of alternative. Here the various critiques of Western science developed in the West have been "recombined" in the praxis of environmental activism. As articulated by the physicist turned Green activist Vandana Shiva, "maldevelopment is intellectually based on, and justified through, reductionist categories of scientific thought and action. Politically and economically, each project which has fragmented nature and displaced women from productive work has been legitimised as scientific by operationalising reductionist concepts to realise uniformity, centralization and control" [87, p. 14]. In her book Staying Alive, Shiva combines an ecological and feminist critique of Western science and discovers alternative "feminine" principles and a feminine attitude to Nature in traditional Indian thought. "Contemporary Western views of nature are fraught with the dichotomy or duality between man and woman, and person and nature.... In Indian cosmology, by contrast, person and nature (Purusha-Pakriti) are a duality in unity" [87, p. 40].

Shiva's argument is that social forestry and the Green Revolution in agriculture have been masculine, reductionist projects that have separated women (and men) from their natural roots as well as destroying valuable natural resources. In the protests of rural women, especially the Chipko movement in northern India, Shiva sees the "countervailing power" of women's knowledge and politics:

Women producing survival are showing us that nature is the very basis and matrix of economic life.... They are challenging concepts of waste, rubbish and dispensability as the modern West has defined them.... They have the knowledge and experience to extricate us from the ecological cul-de-sac that the Western masculine mind has maneuvered us into. [87, p. 224]

Shiva and other scientists who have joined forces with the environmental movements in India have, by the end of the 1980s, developed a range of research institutions and alternative organizations for the dissemination of their ecological alternative. Particularly significant has been the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, which has produced widely read reports (in 1983 and 1985) on The State of India's Environment and produced a large number of magazine and newspaper articles through its press service. Together with the appropriate technology groups that still are dotted around the Indian countryside, the environmental movements represent a practical critique of Western science in India. Here, as elsewhere, the critique is Western-inspired and the critics Western-trained; but it has produced an ongoing dialogue with Indian traditions that is likely to grow in importance in the years ahead.

The significance of the alternatives

Until now, alternatives to Western science have tended to be partial and often self-defeating. One aspect of Western science has been criticized or challenged while other aspects have been accepted even utilized - in mounting the critique. This is to be expected. Western science has developed its contemporary form and its impressive power through a long historical process and it is thus only to be expected that it cannot, in a short time, be replaced by a new form of knowledge production that is as effective and all-encompassing. On the other hand, the problems with Western science do not mean that the entire tradition is in need of overhaul. Very few of the critical viewpoints that have been discussed in this chapter reject the general ambition of modern science to provide a verifiable, even universal, kind of knowledge about Nature. Rationality itself is not the issue as much as the uses to which rationality is put and the institutional contexts in which it is organized.

In an article published in 1979, the German philosopher Gernot Böhme contrasted alternative approaches to science with alternative traditions in science [7]. For Böhme, the alternative to science is irrationalism or obscurantism; there had been, throughout modern history, sufficient alternative traditions within science to sustain visions of the good society. The difficulty was in realizing the good science while avoiding the "bad" applications and priorities. Over 10 years later, the situation is not much changed. There has been a much greater movement to address environmental issues in developing countries, and the rediscovery of non-Western idea traditions has, if anything' grown more intense. While the level of rhetoric has been raised, however, it is far too early to see a full-fledged alternative to Western science emerging in the efforts currently under way.

If the search for alternatives to Western science can lead to a more modest, even more humane, science, or if it can encourage a more open dialogue with other traditions of knowledge production, then much will be gained. At the very least, the critiques of Western science have raised some fundamental questions about the ways in which human societies make use of their creative resources, and out of that questioning, it is perhaps not too optimistic to think that the world's citizens might obtain a more variegated, even pluralistic, range of approaches to deal with the problems that confront them.

References

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8 Böhme, G. et al. "The 'Scientification' of Technology." In: Krohn et al., eds. See ref. 36.

9 Bookchin, M. The Ecology of Freedom. Palo Alto, Calif.: Cheshire Books, 1982.

10 Bramwell, A. Ecology in the 20th Century: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

11 Capra, F. The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture. London: Wildwood House, 1982.

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14 Devall, B., and G. Sessions. Deep Ecology. Layton, Utah: George M. Smith, Inc., 1985.

15 Dickson, D. Alternative Technology and the Politics of Technical Change. Glasgow: Fontana, 1974.

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18 Elzinga, A., and A. Jamison. Cultural Components in the Scientific Attitude to Nature: Eastern and Western Modes? Lund: Research Policy Institute, 1981.

19 Elzinga, A., and A. Jamison. "The Other Side of the Coin: The Cultural Critique of Technology in India and Japan." In: E. Baark and A. Jamison, eds. Technological Development in China, India and Japan. London: Macmillan, 1986.

20 Fanon, F. A Dying Colonialism. 1959. Reprint. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.

21 Feyerabend, P. Against Method. London: New Left Books, 1975.

22 Feyerabend, P. Science in a Free Society. London: New Left Books, 1978.

23 Giere, R. Explaining Science: A Cognitive Approach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

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25 Gorz, A. "On the Class Character of Science and Scientists." In: H. Rose and S. Rose, eds. The Political Economy of Science. London: Macmillan, 1976.

26 Hacking, I. Representing and Interpreting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

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30 Jacob, M. The Cultural Meaning of the Scientific Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1988.

31 Jamison, A., and E. Baark. Technological Innovation and Environmental Concern: Contending Policy Models in China and Vietnam. Lund: Research Policy Institute, 1990.

32 Keller, E. Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.

33 Kolakowski, L. Positivist Philosophy. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.

34 Kragh, H. On Science and Underdevelopment. Roskilde: RUC Forlag, 1980.

35 Krishna, V., and A. Jain. "Country Report: Scientific Research, Science Policy and Social Studies of Science and Technology in India." Paper presented at the First Workshop on the Emergence of Scientific Communities in the Developing Countries, 22-27 April 1990, Paris: ORSTOM.

36 Krohn, W. et al., eds. The Dynamics of Science and Technology. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1978.

37 Kuhn, T. The Essential Tension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.

38 Lakatos, I., and A. Musgrave, eds. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.

39 Landes, D. The Unbound Prometheus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.

40 Latour, B., and S. Woolgar. Laboratory Life. Beverley Hills: Sage, 1979.

41 Longino, H. Science as Social Knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.

42 Lovelock, J. Gaia. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1987.

43 MacRobie, G. Small is Possible. New York: Harper & Row, 1981.

44 Manuel, F., and F. Manuel. Utopian Thought in the Western World. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979.

45 Mason, S. A History of the Sciences. New York: Collier Books, 1962.

46 Maxwell, N. From Knowledge to Wisdom. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984.

47 Mazrui, A. Political Values and the Educated Class in Africa. London: Heinemann, 1978.

48 Medawar, P. The Limits of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

49 Mendelsohn, E. et al., eds. The Social Production of Scientific Knowledge. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1977.

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51 Mendelssohn, K. Science and Western Domination. London: Thames and Hudson, 1976.

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53 Mudimbe, V. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.

54 Mulkay, M. Opening Pandora's Box. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

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56 Nandy, A. Alternative Sciences. New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1980.

57 Nandy, A. Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987.

58 Nasr, S. Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968.

59 Nasr, S. Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study. London: World of Islam Festival, 1976.

60 Needham, J. The Grand Titration. London: Allen and Unwin, 1969.

61 Needham, J. "History and Human Values: A Chinese Perspective for World Science and Technology." In: H. Rose and S. Rose, eds. The Radicalisation of Science. London: Macmillan, 1976.

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5 The institutionalization process

Hebe Vessuri


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Overview
The Pandora's box of "colonial science"
Strategies and styles of the major powers
Cultural responses to Western learning
The disciplines and institutions of colonial science
Institutional growth in the moulds of "national science"
The role of government science policy
The interface between higher education and research capabilities
Concluding remarks
References


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Overview

In the process of transplanting Western science into developing countries, the scientific institutions of the most advanced nations became "models" to be reproduced. The presence of Western-type scientific institutions in the developing world has been widely accepted as an indication of modernity. But this notion, embodied in endless projects of institutions created throughout the modern history of developing countries, has been accompanied by very unequal success and, in general, by difficulties of consolidation. It has often been argued that the social weight of scientific institutions in developing countries is very small, derived from the low prestige and marginality of science in those countries; that scientific institutions tend to suffer from premature obsolescence; that it is very difficult for them to survive their creators; that they have difficulties in adjusting to the transformations of society; that their excessive bureaucratization detracts from their original aims. In short, scientific institutionalization in developing countries as depicted in the literature frequently appears as characterized by fragility, fragmentation, and incoherence.

How true are these generalizations? What was the historical process of scientific institutionalization in developing societies? Did different (national) Western models lead to different "styles" of scientific institutionalization? How did receiving cultures perceive and respond to Western science? What was the local scientific structure, if any, that received it? How was it used in the knowledge transfer, or was it disregarded as simply backward? What is specifically "European" about Western science [45]? India, Japan, China, and Islam had well-developed scientific traditions, elaborate and firmly established theories of life, and rich traditions of education that drew the admiration of many in the West. The high cultures of Latin America, like the Mayan, Aztec, and Incan civilizations, also surprised Westerners because of their achievements. Australia, North America, and most of South America and Africa, with smaller populations, had their cultures pushed aside and destroyed by Europeans. The enormous differences in the frequency and nature of the contacts between the West and what eventually came to be categorized as the developing countries and the recent renaissance of historical scholarship about the non-Western world invite a reassessment of prevailing approaches to the institutionalization of science in developing countries. However, received opinion about the spread of Western science has been so one-sided and prejudiced since the heyday of the European-centred world of the nineteenth century [10] that comparatively little progress has been made towards the resolution of the Western science-backward cultures dichotomy.

Within the larger disciplines of history or sociology, the subject appeals to only a handful of devotees - most of them practitioners of a still unfashionable social or institutional study of science. Most existing literature merely sketches the terrain, using scientific institutions as markers and identifying significant social forms upon which more interpretative studies may be based. What follows is a reconnaissance that highlights some of the themes and concepts that have received attention from scholars.

Scientific institutionalization in the present analysis is the process by which modern national scientific traditions have emerged in the varied social contexts in the post-colonial nation-states, and where scientific institutions have represented at different times the multifarious manifestations of specific patterns of cultural and economic response to the complex combination of ideas and developments identified as Western science. Stress is laid on the diversity of forms in the social organization of science, on the contextual definition of norms and of the establishment of social control, and on the provisions made to ensure the continuity of scientific activity in peripheral settings lacking scientific traditions or in cultures that accommodated Western science with rich, non-Western traditional sciences.

The Pandora's box of "colonial science"

"Colonial science" is a blanket term, supposed to cover a variety of situations. It has been described as "low science" (limited to data gathering, while the theoretical synthesis was supposed to take place in the metropolis); "derivative" (working on problems set by savants in Europe); "dependent" on metropolitan recognition [44, p. 221]; "a lodge in the wilderness," the product of expatriate Europeans for European consumption [62, pp. 1-16]. The term has even been used to refer to an indigenous population that was itself European in culture and outlook, like French Canadians and the Irish, but who for different reasons left the cultivation of science in the nineteenth century to the colonizers of British stock [39, p. 339].

The question of colonial science is relatively new, dating back only to 1967, when Basalla wrote his by now classic paper on the global spread of Western science [11]. He proposed a simple three-phase evolutionary model, very much in tune with the conceptual framework of developmentalism and international cooperation of the 1960s. Not only has this model been very much discussed and disputed since its publication, but its "colonial phase" in particular has attracted a good deal of attention in recent years, stimulating a continuous flow of empirical research that reveals that the phenomena involved are much more complex than originally thought. The question may be more profitably looked upon as a complex power relationship involving a metropolis, a colonial or semi-colonial territory and social structure, scientists of European descent living overseas, and non-Western people involved in scientific research. Western science developed a most powerful assemblage of social devices for validating knowledge and indeed for moving knowledge among localities. The key dilemma of modernity for those who do not belong merely by birth, primary socialization, and intellectual training to some version or other of the hegemonic culture of the modern world, is, in Dunn's words [23, p. 5], how to distinguish those aspects of the culture that genuinely exemplify the capacity to know better from those that exemplify instead only its brazen and deceptive claim to do so. For it is the ability to draw this distinction, continues Dunn, that alone makes it possible to discriminate an extension of cognitive capacity that no human agent or human society could have good reason to reject in itself from a cognitively arbitrary erosion of personal or social identity by the action of alien force. The problem comes, of course, when - as is usually the case - culture contains unmistakable elements of both. There has been continuous negotiation and redefinition over who gains local control over useful knowledge institutions. If controlled from outside the national boundaries, then local knowledge and local interests are condemned to marginality. If controlled from within, there are potentialities but also dangers of other kinds.

It is worthwhile keeping a double approach to this subject. On the one hand are the strategies of the major powers for the export of Western science to their colonial outposts and zones of influence. There has been substantial variation among the strategies and at different periods. This chapter examines only the last 150 years, although of course colonialism goes back much longer, but such delimitation makes it possible to consider processes that have a direct bearing on contemporary arrangements. A characteristic figure of "colonial science" linked to colonial administration was the individual or institution that was basically a "gatekeeper" of colonial science, actually blocking the advancement of scientific research by keeping an image of "low science," for activities useful to the colonial administration, although the picture would be incomplete without mentioning the "scientific soldier," for whom the work ethic was of paramount importance and who did his best in the given circumstances [40, p. 58]. On the other hand are the views and interests of individuals in societies other than Western ones towards scientific developments occurring beyond their frontiers and/or towards the emergence of national scientific traditions in the new nations resulting from the often traumatic experience of colonialism. Typical figures in this other perspective were the groups of scientists - mostly non-European but also some Western settlers - who were basically part of the emerging nationalism and who were also partners in the freedom movement in colonial outposts and in semi-colonies or zones of influence. Let us look first at the metropolitan powers.


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Contents - Previous - Next



http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu09ue/uu09ue0h.htm
EARLY GANDHI AND THE LANGUAGE POLICY
OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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LINGUISTIC RE-ORGANIZATION OF THE PROVINCIAL CONGRESS COMMITTEES

The decision of the All India Congress Committee of the Indian National Congress on 8th April 1917 to constitute a separate Congress Province (Andhra Provincial Congress Committee) from out of the Telugu speaking districts of the Madras Presidency strengthened the argument for the linguistic re-organization of British India provinces. Already a consensus was evolving in British India among several Indian leaders that, for the effective administration, the language of governance and education should be the dominant language of the people, and that provinces, for this purpose, should be re-organized on linguistic lines. But Gandhi thought otherwise, when the proposal to re-organize the provincial committees on linguistic lines came up before the AICC in 1917. Sitaramayya writes (Sitaramayya 1935),
Even Gandhi thought that the question might wait the implementing of Reforms [initiated by the British] but Lokamanya Tilak saw the point, namely, that Linguistic Provinces were an essential condition prerequisite to real Provincial autonomy.
GANDHI'S RELUCTANCE

That is, the process that started with the formation of a separate Linguistic Circle of the Indian National Congress for the Telugu-speaking territory became a basic principle for the recognition of the linguistic identity of various populations to carve out the administrative units in India. Note that, although Dr. Annie Besant was on record asking for a linguistic delimitation of Provinces in her Presidential Address in Calcutta Congress in 1917, she was reported to have resisted the move for a separate Linguistic Circle of the Indian National Congress for the Telugu speaking territory. Also note that even Gandhi was reportedly against any immediate decision on the matter.

These should not be considered as isolated events nor should these be considered as a slur on the individuals who appeared to contradict their own positions (as in the case of Dr. Annie Besant). These should, indeed, be taken as symptomatic of the complexity of the problem, and symptomatic of the consequent conflicting tendencies and reluctance on the part of opinion leaders.

Language was yet to receive a more serious and detailed scrutiny in relation to the demands for Self-Government. The role of the Indian vernacular for mass-based agitations and for mass communication was very well recognized even in the earliest part of the history of the Indian National Congress, but the demand for its role in administration and education began to be debated with great strength only in the 1920s within the Indian National Congress with the emergence of Gandhi as its supreme leader.

EARLY GANDHI: A CHAMPION OF OVERSEAS INDIANS

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi arrived finally in India in 1915 from South Africa to settle down in India, a decision that proved to be a great blessing to our motherland. But Gandhi was no stranger to India and to the emerging political scenario in India when he arrived in 1915. His fight for the rights of the Blacks and Asians in South Africa had already been well-noticed, well-recognized, and well-admired by the leadership, and the rank and file of the Indian National Congress. In the Calcutta Congress of 1901 (the seventeenth Congress since the inception of this National Organization in 1885), Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi moved a resolution as a petitioner on behalf of the British Indian population in South Africa.

The Indian National Congress from its inception had been interested in the well-being of Indians abroad. This natural interest on the part of the Indian National Congress brought to light, session after session, the inhuman treatment meted out to the Blacks and indentured labor in the British Colonies and encouraged the Indian leaders to devote themselves to their cause.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's soul-stirring efforts in South Africa and his conduct of Passive Resistance struggle led Gokhale to declare in 1909 that passive resistance
is essentially defensive in its nature and it fights with moral and spiritual weapons. A passive resister resists tyranny by undergoing sufferings in his person. He pits soul force against brute force; he pits the divine in man against the brute in man; he pits suffering against oppression; he pits conscience against might; he pits faith against injustice; right against wrong (Sitaramayya 1935:79).
The 1910 Allahabad Congress expressed its appreciation of the struggle waged by the Indians in South Africa. The 1911 Congress congratulated Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and the Transvaal Indian community. The 1913 Karachi Congress passed a resolution admiring the heroic endeavors of Mr. Gandhi and his followers and their unparallelled sacrifices in their struggle for the maintenance of the self-respect of India and the redress of Indian grievances. Thus, neither Gandhi nor his program of non-violent action, which was individual-based in character but involved groups of men and women dedicated to the cause of Indians in South Africa, was no stranger to Indian National Congress.

GANDHI NOT YET AN IMPORTANT FIGURE

Perhaps none thought that what was accomplished in South Africa would be applicable to Indian affairs on Indian soil; and perhaps no one could predict that Gandhi would ultimately become the soul, heart and spirit of the freedom struggle, guiding the destiny of the nation within a few years. In fact, Gandhi could not get elected to the Subjects Committee of the AICC in 1916 Lucknow Congress, when he was treated as a candidate of the Moderates pitted against the candidates of the Nationalist group led by Tilak. It was Tilak who, recognizing the great contributions Gandhi had made towards Indian cause in South Africa, declared him elected to the Subjects Committee (Sitaramayya 1935).

POLITICAL EDUCATION VIA INDIAN VERNACULAR - OLD GLORY VERSUS EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR POLITICAL EDUCATION

A beginner certainly Gandhi was at that time, but nevertheless a master of agitations, who only knew very well the pulse of the Indian ethos and who only, had the right weapons of Passive Resistance, Non-cooperation, Civil Disobedience and so on, to fight against the all powerful British Empire. Gandhi not only emphasized the importance of Indian vernaculars in the education of the masses, but used them directly as appropriate tools to fight for the independence of India.

Whereas for Lokamanya Tilak, the Indian languages formed an effective tool for the revival of the old glory, radicalization of the freedom struggle, and mass-based agitations, and also as a pre-requisite for the success of Self-Government demanded by the Indian National Congress, for Gandhi, to begin with, Indian vernaculars were an effective tool to enlighten the people.

AN ARDENT SUPPORTER OF HINDI/HINDUSTANI

Since his return from South Africa, Gandhi quietly made a study of the prevailing conditions of the poorer classes, even as he participated in the activities of the Indian National Congress. Mahatma Gandhi himself remarks in his autobiography, My Experiments with Truth, that "up to this time my share in the annual proceedings of the Congress was confined only to the constructive advocacy of Hindi by making my speech in the national language and to presenting in that speech the case of the Indians overseas" (Gandhi 1927).

A posture in favor of Hindi or Hindustani as the lingua franca or national language of India thus was there with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi even before he became the undisputed leader of the Indian National Congress. For example, he wrote in his book, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, published in 1909 (or 1906?) that,

a universal language for India should be Hindi, with the option of writing it in Persian or Nagari characters. In order that the Hindus and the Mohammedans may have closer relations, it is necessary to know both the characters. And, if we can do this, we can drive the English language out of the field in a short time.
ENGLISH HAS NO PLACE IN HOME RULE

For Gandhi, in 1907 itself (1) the real home rule is self-rule or self control, (2) the way to it is passive resistance: that is soul force or love force, (3) in order to exert this force, "Swadeshi" in every sense is necessary, (4) ….. we will certainly not use their (English) machine made goods, nor use the English language, nor many of their industries (Quoted in Kaushik 1964 : 43). He wrote in 1909 while at London in his capacity as a member of the second South African Delegation (Gandhi 1956 : 1881-91) that

from the point of view of language before we can call 'our country' our own, it is necessary that there should be born in our hearts a love and respect for our languages .…. One sometimes also hears suggestions that something should be done so that all Indians are able to express themselves to each other in a common language. This is a possibility for the future. Everybody will agree that this language should be Indian in origin. But this step is for the future. We should begin to be proud of being born Indians and similarly we should also be proud of having been born Gujaratis [Gandhi was writing in Gujarati to a Gujarati audience]. Without such consciousness we shall be neither here nor there … It is necessary for the people of one province to learn the languages of other provinces as well … If we spend only half the effort we do in learning English in the learning of Indian languages, there will be born a new atmosphere in the country and a good measure of progress will be achieved.…. The character of a people is evident in its language….. Those who have to serve their country and do public work will have to find time for their mother tongue.

Sometimes we lose sight of the great emphasis Gandhi laid on the use of the mother tongue and see him only as a champion of Hindi.

HINDI-URDU FOR INDIA

While the posture in favor of mother tongue is quite understandable as a natural process, Gandhi's posture in favour of Hindi-Urdu even before he got himself actively involved in the Indian freedom struggle in India was due perhaps to his work among the multi-ethnic and multilingual Indian communities in South Africa, who tended to use Hindustani among themselves as a common language even though their home languages were widely different. This lingua franca status of Hindustani among the Indians in South Africa was a reflection also of the tendencies in several parts of India then, and soon this posture in favor Hindustani found its justification in the exigencies of history in north India and its linguistic trends.

INDIAN VERNACULAR IN AID OF MASS MOVEMENTS

Gandhi's Champaran Movement in Bihar in 1917 was a mass movement, which was followed by yet another mass movement, the Satyagraha in Kaira in Gujarat in 1918, along with the textile workers' strike in Ahmedabad the same year. An important characteristic of all these early movements inaugurated by Gandhi was the education of the participants of these movements.

Gandhi appealed to the public for help for contributing volunteer workers for educating the peasants of Kaira. Mahatma Gandhi, Vallabhbhai Patel, and other co-workers went from village to village inculcating the principles of Satyagraha. This campaign was true political education for the Kaira peasants.

In 1916, Gandhi suggested the idea that the Congress-League Scheme proposals for Self-Government be translated into Indian vernaculars, explained to the people, and their signatures taken in support of the Reforms proposed in the Scheme. This idea received warm support from all. Dr. Annie Besant referred to it as Mr. Gandhi's capital idea of a monster petition" in her Calcutta Congress (1917) Presidential Address. She pointed out that,

Mr. Gandhi's capital idea of a monster petition for the Congress-League Scheme, for which signatures were only to be taken after careful explanation of its scope and meaning, has proved to be an admirable method of political propaganda. The soil in the Madras Presidency had been well prepared by a wide distribution of popular literature, and the Propaganda Committee had scattered over the land in the vernaculars a simple explanation of Home Rule. The result of active work in the villages during the last year showed itself in the gathering in less than a month of nearly a million signatures. They have been taken in duplicate, so that we have a record of a huge number of people, interested in Home Rule, and the hosts will increase in ever-widening circles, preparing for the coming Freedom.
Thus, there is evidence that with Gandhi's involvement in the programs of the Indian National Congress, wider participation of people in movements was to be ensured only on the basis of the enlightenment of the people as to the causes and need for such movements, and for which political education through the Indian vernaculars was to be a prerequisite, or was to be an effective tool.

THE FIRST NATION-WIDE MASS EDUCATION

That this position of Mahatma Gandhi was a deliberately worked out strategy and was a basic element in all his struggles is clear when we consider the fact that in Champaran in 1917, and in Kaira and Ahmedabad in 1918, he used political education via the vernacular as an important step.

We are not able to locate readily the evidence for the use of written materials in the vernacular for ensuring the participation of the people in the Champaran Movement. However, the fact that elaborate case histories were collected, recorded and analyzed through interviews with the affected families of indigo cultivators was an indication of the effective employment of the vernacular for research/enquiry purpose. In fact some consider (for example, Payne 1969) that the battle was won by compiling voluminous reports and by demonstrating to the government that these reports described an intolerable condition of indigo labor.

Note also that Sitaramayya (1935 : 245) calls this a capital idea of translating the Congress-League Scheme proposals into Indian vernaculars and collecting signatures based on the translated material as "almost the first Nation-wide organization that had been attempted by the Congress."

LEAFLETS IN HOMELY STYLE

Political education through vernacular was emphasized thus, but more importantly in the Ahmedabad Textile Strike in 1918. During the same strike, yet another dimension to Indian language use was added by Gandhi when he drafted leaflets explaining to workmen "in a simple homely style that the struggle in which they were engaged was not a mere industrial dispute but a moral and spiritual struggle calculated to educate and uplift and ennoble them, besides enabling them to win an increase in their wage" (Sitaramayya 1935:242).

The dimension added now to the Indian vernacular use was that, for the communication to be effective and persuasive, even in the vernacular, the expression should be in a simple, homely style. From the translation of Congress-League Scheme in 1916/1917, we now arrive at an original piece of material written especially for political education in an Indian vernacular in the 1918 Ahmedabad Textile strike. Not that we claim that Gandhi's was the first ever attempt in the Indian National Congress, but the conscious exercise of Gandhi with regard to Indian language use and nuances had a continuity of thought and had influenced the course of the language policy of the Congress.

Language was not any more simply an identity token; it became a powerful weapon for political education; it became, indeed, an integral part of the freedom struggle.

CAN ENGLISH BECOME OUR NATIONAL LANGUAGE?

Raising the question "whether English can become our national language," Gandhi listed the following criteria for any language to become "our national language," in his presidential address at the Second Gujarat Educational Conference at Broach in 1917 (Gandhi 1956:3).

It should be easy to learn for Government officials.
It should be capable of serving as a medium of religious, economic and political intercourse throughout India.
It should be the speech of the majority of the inhabitants of India.
It should be easy to learn for the whole of the country.
In choosing this language considerations of temporary or passing interest should not count.
Gandhi concluded that

English does not fulfill any of these requirements …... We shall have to admit that it is Hindi..… There, now remains the question of script. For the present, Muslims will certainly use the Urdu script and Hindus will mostly write in Devanagari.…. No other language can compete with Hindi in satisfying these five requirements.…. Thus, we see that Hindi alone can become the national language. No doubt it presents some difficulty to the educated classes of Madras. …. If Hindi attains to its due status then it will be introduced in every school in Madras and Madras will thus be in a position to cultivate acquaintance with other province….. In general, however, the ways, which have been suggested for the promotion of the Mother tongue, may with suitable modifications be applied to the national language. The responsibility of making Gujarati the medium of instruction will have to be shouldered mainly by us but in the movement to popularize the national language the whole country must play its part (Gandhi 1956: 3-7).
This was in 1917, and the Indian National Congress was not yet fully Gandhi-bound.

GANDHI'S IDEAS AS THE IDEOLOGY OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS

Gandhi's ideas on a language policy for India was arrived at, thus, long before Gandhi himself became a full time Congressman. His ideas on a language policy for India were to be adopted by the Indian National Congress in due course. For a compendium of the chronologically organized ideas of Mahatma Gandhi on Indian languages and his thoughts on a national language for India, diligent students of linguistics and adjacent sciences as well as interested readers are referred to the excellent volume, Thoughts on National Language by M.K. Gandhi, published by Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad (1956, and subsequent reprints).

Since our goal in the present work is not to present in detail and analyze the thoughts on Indian languages, etc. of Mahatma Gandhi, but to present only a chronological overview of the evolution of the language policy of the Indian National Congress, we will restrict ourselves to citing here and there only such points in Gandhi's thoughts and career that had a direct influence on the evolution of the language policy of the Indian National Congress and its conduct.

THE RESPONSE FROM THE LEADERS OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS

Gandhi's ideas on the national language, though acceptable in their overall import, were not fully shared by all the members of the Indian National Congress, just as Mahatma Gandhi's other ideas on the socioeconomic reconstruction were not also fully shared by all the members of the Indian National Congress. However, his language policy appears to have received a greater measure of acceptance than his ideas and practices of socioeconomic reconstruction in independent India.

Be that as it may, in the second decade of the twentieth century, Gandhi was not yet the undisputed leader of the Indian National Congress; the Indian National Congress had not yet seriously thought over and decided upon a language policy for India; and it was Gandhi who, because of his abiding faith in the masses, was forcefully arguing in favor of the use of Indian vernaculars for purposes of political awakening, country's governance and education. He entered the Indian National Congress, for whose membership a good acquaintance with English was required, with an anti-English plank of action, a pro-mother tongue stance which was inextricably linked with the proposal for accepting and developing Hindustani as the national language. All these ideas were yet to find a place within the scope of the activities of the Indian National Congress.

THE STAGE WAS SET FOR GANDHI'S COMPREHENSIVE PLAN FOR A LANGUAGE POLICY

With such conscious recognition and use of the vernaculars for political education exhibited by Gandhi, it was not unnatural that he offered the most ever comprehensive plan or a language policy for the Congress in1924 itself (dealt with in a forthcoming article). Note that the references to the role and function of Indian languages were few in the deliberations (and resolutions) of the Indian National Congress until the beginning of 1915. As already pointed out, most of these references were made in relation to the creation of separate linguistic circles (called Pradesh Congress Committees) for identified contiguous linguistic groups. The thinking within the Indian National Congress was veering around to the idea of the re-distribution, delimitation, or re-organization of the provinces on a linguistic basis. A formal suggestion was already made in 1917 Calcutta Congress Presidential address of Dr. Besant, as already pointed out. Between 1917 and 1924, political education through Indian vernaculars for wider participation and better enlightenment of the people was well established and convincingly demonstrated by Mahatma Gandhi in the movements initiated and conducted by him. With a growing awareness of the role of the Indian vernacular in public agitations and in response to the growth in language consciousness brought forth by the interest and findings in Indian linguistic and cultural studies both by Indians and foreigners, the stage had been set for the evolution of a formal language policy for the Indian National Congress.

THE CONGRESS IS NOW GANDHI-BOUND!

The period from 1915/1916 to 1924 witnessed the formulation of specific programmes, goals and ideologies in the Indian National Congress. This was also the period in which the Indian National Congress became "Gandhi-bound." His great successes in public agitations in South Africa not withstanding, Gandhi was a beginner in Indian politics. By a combination of circumstances, he became the heart and soul of the Indian National Congress during this period. From petitioning, the Indian National Congress took to specific agitations. From a focus on service matters, the Indian National Congress took on to specific nation-building socio-economic activities.

During the same period, in which all the departments of the Organization became sharpened, the language policy of the Indian National Congress was born. The amazing thing is that the language policy which evolved in the deliberations of the annual National Congresses in this period and found expression in the utterances of the leaders such as Gandhi continues even today, with only minor changes here and there, which proves the sagacity and clarity of the thought of the original of the language policy of the Indian National Congress.

THE EMPHASIS OF THE HOME RULE MOVEMENT AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GANDHI AND ANNIE BESANT

We have already noted that the Home Rule League of Mrs. Annie Besant had a bias for cultural rejuvenation even as it emphasized Self-Government for India. There was a shift from the socio-economic matters to an emphasis (or rather an addition of a focus) on culture and the use of native genius. With this shift was associated the language policy of the Home Rule League. Note also that the Home Rule movement attracted mostly the South Indians, whose participation was perhaps responsible for the early acceptance of the legitimacy of linguistic identities. Note also that Mrs. Besant shot in to prominence in the wake of the agitation against the partition of Bengal, an agitation, which should be considered the precursor to subsequent linguistic movements in the country. We have also pointed out that Lokamanya Tilak was in favour of the delimitation of provinces on a linguistic basis. We also noticed that Gandhi made it a point that prior to any mass movement there ought to be political education through the vernacular. The Congress-League Scheme was translated into vernaculars, millions of leaflets distributed, people were first explained the meaning and implications of the Scheme and their signatures obtained, and, for its success, recognition of the role and function of the vernaculars was made a pre-requisite. The role of the vernacular in movements ensured wider participation of the people and made the movements a really democratic process.

Gandhi's approach to and solution for the question of a national language for India, however, did not find favor with Mrs. Annie Besant. We have already pointed out that in her Presidential Address in the Calcutta Congress of 1917, Mrs. Besant laid much emphasis on provincial autonomy and suggested a bilingual policy for the provinces without specifically mentioning a language policy for the Central Government. (See Thirumalai 2005, THE ROOTS OF LINGUISTIC REORGANIZATION OF INDIAN PROVINCES DR. ANNIE BESANT AND HER HOME RULE MOVEMENT ).

USE OF HINDUSTANI IN THE ANNUAL SESSIONS OF THE CONGRESS

There had been a steady expansion in the use of the Indian vernaculars in the deliberations of the annual sessions of the Indian National Congress in the early years of the second decade of the twentieth century. In addition to the use of local Indian vernaculars of the venue of the session, Hindustani also came to be used extensively in the deliberations in the annual sessions because the radicalization of the Congress programme and agitational politics introduced by the Extremists (Nationalists) brought into Congress very many delegates from different regions of the country who were not well acquainted with the English language. Thus, in the annual sessions of the Indian National Congress in Delhi (1918) and Amritsar (1919) Hindustani was extensively used by the delegates almost to the exclusion of the English language, which prompted Mrs. Annie Besant, a much admired Home Rule and Congress leader among the delegates from the South, to complain that the 1919 session became a provincial rather than a national assembly. (Note that the Provincial Congress sessions so far had been conducted exclusively in the provincial languages and hence the comparison and conclusion).

Gandhi seized the opportunity to reiterate his position with regard to the question of national language (a position which he had arrived at even before he became a full time Congressman). Gandhi felt that "the nation has very materially suffered by reason of the proceedings of the Congress having been conducted almost entirely in English except during the last two years." He said:

… it grieves me to have to differ publicly from her view about Hindustani making the Congress provincial. In my humble opinion it is a grave error of judgement, and duty compels me to draw attention to it. I have attended all the Congress sessions, but one, since 1915. I have studied them specially in order to study the utility of Hindustani compared to English for the conduct of its proceedings. I have spoken to hundreds of delegates and thousands of visitors … and I have come to the deliberate-conclusion, that no language except Hindustani - a resultant of Hindi and Urdu - can possibly become a national medium for exchange of ideas or for the conduct of national proceedings (Gandhi in Young India, 21 January 1920; also in Gandhi 1956: 14, 15).
CLASSICAL POSITIONS

Whatever may be the relative merit of the positions taken by Gandhi and Dr. Annie Besant, it should be noted that these two positions have finally evolved to become classical stances, which even today are held by pro-Hindi and anti-Hindi advocates in the country. For the advocates of Hindi as the official and national language, English continues to be a foreign language, whereas for those who oppose Hindi as the official language of India, Hindi continues to be only a provincial language. Be that as it may, in1920 when Gandhi recorded his disapproval of the statement of Mrs. Annie Besant, the Indian National Congress was yet to officially accord any recognition to Hindustani as the national language. This it would do only in 1925 in Kanpur amidst the nation-wide surge of nationalism and Swaraj during the period of Civil Disobedience and Non-cooperation. Of this, we shall have more details in subsequent articles.


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Colonial Knowledge and Literary Representations:
Construction of Gender Identity in Colonial Andhra*



Madan Mohan Rao V

Doctoral Scholar

Department of History

University of Hyderabad

E-mail: madan_vm@yahoo.com



View Point, January-July, 2005




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The period of social reform in India was also the period when Indian society was experiencing deindustrialization, economic ruin, shaping of middle class intelligentsia, and the alignment of different groups. The aspirations of emerging middle class in a turbulent society had to contend with the dual forces of colonial authority and indigenous society with its diversified groups and variegated practices. In this extremely contending interaction of competing groups, the face of a new society was sculpted. Consequently, there was an ambivalent, highly contradictory and distorted social set up.



One important aspect that led to these complexities was English education.[1] Even before 1830s, both conservative groups and the common people, under the influence of western enlightenment made a demand for its introduction. This was due to the fact that, enormous power, prestige and social mobility was attached to English education. The wide reception for English education was evident from the fact that the petition to the East India Company for a modern educational institution along western lines was signed among others, by Raja Radhakanta Deb, a staunch hindu conservative. This group wanted a western learning system, which would at the same time, uphold the traditional social order. The English studies from the beginning had consolidated the caste, class and gender divisions of the new colonial society. Stringent stipulations regarding admission to college and hostel reveal this fact. The paradox of the ‘modernization’ force of western learning and its accommodation of orthodoxy can be seen in the naming of the college -‘Hindu College’.



Thus for the British, English education was a ‘secular’ agent of converting the dominant groups into its fold.[2] The group thus cultivated colonialists thought, would help them in governing the colony.[3] It also invested the new groups - acquiring English education - with cultural authority and moral superiority to reorder the society.[4] Thus English education, gently and subtly (hence in an imperceptible way), introduced the notions of a superior social system (Britain) and the decadent social structure (India) and the framework for its alteration[5].



Imperialists’ vision of shaping the intelligentsia and using them as the governing force of the colony is clearly evident from Macaulay’s words.[6] For him, it was not necessary for the entire Indian populace to learn English. The function of the new education was “to form a class who may be interpreters between us (the British) and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect”.[7] He prophesied that, when India becomes independent, British would leave behind an empire that would never decay, because it would be “the imperishable empire of our arts and our morals, our literature and our laws”.

One interesting point is that English education came when the task of translation had ceased to have political use as Sanskrit and Persian had been, to a great extent exhausted in the codification of law[8].



The Orientalists’ construction of ancient past had informed the 19th century discourse on religion, culture, history, gender, literature, education et al. In this project, Brahmin pundits, who were the repositories of the traditional knowledge, aided Orientalists. These two groups canonized the normative texts, which were taken out of their historical context; simultaneously ignoring the other constituent parts of the historical past and the complex picture that it would invariably present. Result was the creation of contentious tradition.



“upon its (Sanskrit’s) cultivation depends the means of native dialects to embody European learning and science. It is a visionary absurdity to think of making English the language of India. It should be extensively studied, no doubt, but the improvement of the native dialects enriching them with Sanskrit terms for English ideas, (must be continued) and to effect this, Sanskrit must be cultivated as well as English.”[9]



This was the height of Orientalist construction. Sanskrit was thus made not only the vehicle of learning western knowledge but also the cultivator of native languages. This went in the creation of social traditions, cultural power, intellectual superiority and moral highness – all attached to Sanskrit and the groups traditionally associated with that.[10]

This line of thinking had culminated in the merger of Sanskrit College and Hindu College in 1823. Similarly, the Committee of Public Instruction opined that, “we must qualify the same individuals highly in their own system as well as ours, in order that they may be competent to refute error and impart truth, if we would wish them to exercise any influence over the minds of their countrymen”.[11]



The fallacies in the Orientalist construction, however, did not go unnoticed. “I have recently investigated into how much the Europeans have understood our Sanskrit literature. I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing more sinful in the world of letters than to read their translations, commentaries and editions of the Vedas, Smriti, Philosophy, Purana and History written in Sanskrit, nor is there an easier way of establishing their stupidity”, writes Bankim.[12]



But the swamping effect of the overall colonial project is evident in the words of the same author: “The English are great benefactors of India. The English have taught us new words. They have informed us of what we did not know before; showing us what we had not seen before; making us hear what we had not heard before; explaining what we had not thought of before; showing us the way where there was no path before. Much of this learning is invaluable. We have discussed two of the treasures we have culled from the rich mind of the English – love of Independence and the art of nation building. The Hindu never knew what these two meant.”[13]



Thus on the one hand, Orientalists tried to reveal the ‘former greatness’ of India by translating the native texts,[14] on the other hand Utilitarian, Victorian project of ‘improving’ the natives through English education was taking place.[15]



Apart from the English and Classical languages of India, the colonial project touched upon the native languages too.[16] This was for diverse reasons – the unreliability of native interpreters[17], practical administrative needs, missionary compulsions, pedagogical requirements etc. In the process, construction of grammars, compilation of dictionaries, sanskritization of language, fixing it through print took place.[18] This resulted in the expansion of written and elite literary tradition and the eclipse of other modes of creative productions, traditions of oral transmission and oral transmission of literature too[19]. It set the boundaries of creative expression and dismissed the creative forms of other social entities. Thus it imposed a kind of homogeneity and developed a discourse of cultural synthesis. It led to an elite literature for the middle class consumption and it invested those elite groups and to their dialects a power, marginalizing the communities and literature of other dialects. It also created a wedge between the middle class and lower sections of the society. With the attested leadership, the middle class (according to its own understanding) started resolving the issues raging the country. Activities of the missionaries was yet another attempt from this perspective. Missionaries were the pioneers to textualize the Indian religious texts, by preparing ‘standard versions’ based on classical western notions of unity and coherence. Foregrounding these canonized translations, missionaries condemned ‘Hindus’ for deviating from their true religion. And in such circumstances, according to missionaries, Christianity, the more evolved religion of the west was the only force of salvation.



The 1813 Charter Act has to be seen from this perspective. It opened the doors for missionary activity in India. Evangelicals had faith in the role of education and learning - in the transformation of humanity and conversion to Christianity[20]. It is no coincidence that, in the 1813 Act, a provision was made for an annual sum of Rs. 100,000 for the promotion of education for the natives. A 1797 treatise of Charles Grant entitled ‘Observations on the state of society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain, particularly with respect to Morals; and on the means of Improving it’ presented to the Court of Directors was one of the early moves in this direction.[21]



It is in the amalgamatory terrain of English education, Orientalist scholarship, missionary activities and the colonial and indigenous investment in the Indian languages, that the literary works of 19th century Indian intelligentsia took shape[22]. These factors shaped the intelligentsia and profoundly influenced their understanding and interpretation of the native society as well. This influence blunted their attempts to capture the subtleties and complexities of Indian society. In that process, selective past was invoked to invent ‘tradition’, ‘culture’ etc., ignoring or marginalizing the wide spectrum of the past. In the course of time, this discourse not only excluded the contestatory ideologies, but any point of reference to that was made in bad light.[23] Slowly, this became a dominant discourse in the society through pedagogy, literature, press and other institutions – making a misrepresentation of the past.



Thus the similar ideological understanding shared through these means by the intelligentsia, yielded a corpus of literature on society and history in a resembling way.[24] Here, the meaning and extent of literature as a knowledge system extended on a wide canvas, pictured the tensions and conflict of all systems of the 19th century society. Interestingly narratives of 19th century often engaged in reassembling patriarchies.



These moves put a halt to the existing literary practices as well as social processes that were at work in transforming the languages and literature. However this involves not only the halting of the process but its clear and perceivable reversal as well. This had taken place by inventing the great tradition of Sanskrit and drawn on to legitimate and endorse modernization. Thus this project involved translations from the designated classical languages of India i.e., Sanskrit and Arabic as well as English. But, only ideologically acceptable texts were to be translated and only by those Indians who had received western education or under close western supervision or by the Englishmen and women themselves.



Secondly, it also encouraged Indians to create original literary works in their indigenous languages. Thus the Allahabad Government announced a prize for “useful works in the vernacular, of approved design and style, in any branch of science or literature…Theological treatises will not be received, nor treatises containing anything obnoxious to morality”. The new literature which included textbooks and tracts as well had emerged from “minds saturated with English knowledge and tastes formed by the study of English masterpieces”. There is similar evidence for other regions too.[25]



Thus majority of the literary works in indigenous languages in the 19th century came in as a response to the created need for the language and literature and literary responsibility for the society. Consequently, the recurrent and highly controversial theme of the issue of women enveloped the concerns of the 19th century literature.



As already discussed in detail, the western writings (mainly British, which, though, not uniform) largely, outlined the contours of discourse on Gender in colonial India. It underwent two major phases (with minimal variations) i.e., from 1750s to 1850s and from 1850s to 1940s. Complacency of the former phase was replaced by outright contempt in the latter phase, for the reasons wide known. For them, women of India meant the upper caste women (especially Brahman and their miserable state) and those whose status could be portrayed as base and despicable i.e., prostitutes and devadasis (reflection of the Victorian moralistic attitudes[26] and by implication two categories of women – meek and devoted, sensuous and scandalous). But these sections of women hardly correspond to eight percent of the total women population.[27] The deplorable status of these two groups of women was traced to incompetent male members and in the larger context, a degenerated society. These issues were foregrounded for legitimizing the British presence in India.[28] ‘Mother India’ (1927) of Catherine Mayo was the culminating point in this discourse. But this discourse conveniently obscures the condition of their women or literature on them (like Virginia Wolf) at home. Incidentally their mission in the colony was ‘White Man’s burden’ and not white peoples’ burden. Nor was there any place for common women back in the colony.



Thus the given social neurosis touched the ‘tender spot in the nationalist psyche’ and Indian social reformers inherited this misreading. This anxiety was natural, given the direct attack on their manhood. Consequently, issues and concerns of dominant castes enveloped the entire debate on social reform and regeneration. Sequel to it was the crusade on issues haunting the ‘society’ i.e., child marriage, bride price, sati, widowhood etc. Disputes and debates branched off (apart from literature) to historiography, legal and religious spheres and rarely to the economic sphere. It failed to deconstruct the entire cultural realm. The position of woman was recasted to the emerging bourgeoisie order and Victorian set up, but all within the patriarchal structure. Proposed social reform, education and other ideals went in this framework. Literature of the times propagated women mythological characters and the duties of an ideal woman.[29]



It is in this background that literary dynamics of colonial Andhra can be understood.



In the Telugu writings of the 19th century, we find three recurrent women characters – chaste Hindu wife, bounded widow and the vicious nautch girl. The ‘lot of women’ was, sought to be ‘improved’ through education. They were to be taught child-care, cooking, health care, house keeping, sewing etc[30]. In the literature, marital relationship was glorified, sanctified and it was conveyed in subtle to women to be virtuous, self-denying, sacrificing and serving. Panuganti in an essay titled “Mahapativrata” writes that “the man with brahmaznanamu (knowledge of universal truth) may get moksha (liberation) after fourteen births, but the woman with devotion to her husband and in anticipation of no returns (nishphalapekshamina patibhakti) from her husband could definitely get mukti (attainment) in one birth/life. Further it was stressed that only such a grihini (housewife) was sure of attaining mukti”.[31]



For Kandukuri Viresalingam, the husband was a socially necessary master and without them women had no life. “The husband is to be held as God, since he provides all comforts and caters to the pleasures of the wife; hence she should dedicate herself to his service: if need be, tolerate his anger, abuse and patiently endure even beating and physical violence … the wife should not wear flowers and jewels and should not laugh loudly when the husband is away”. To shape the ‘ideal Hindu patni’ on these lines he started the journal ‘Strihita Bodhini’ and wrote ‘Satyavati Charitramu’, ‘Chandramati Charitramu’, ‘Satya Sanjeevani Patni’ and ‘Hita Suchani’. “At night after entire work was complete, she had to clean up the kitchen, take bath, touch husband’s feet and then mangalsutra and finally to bed” writes Viresalingam. The impact of this idealization was such that a young girl wept after reading ‘Hita Suchani’ for failing in her callings. This took place in 1887 and was narrated by Viresalingam himself in his ‘Sweeya Charitra Sangrahamu’.



Further the apprehensive reading of Rangajamma or Mudduplani or Kshetrayya or Citrakavi Singaracharya explains the idealization and domestication of women. The whole discourse surrounding Sadirattam and the construction of ‘Hindu Womanhood’ vis a vis nautch woman as well informs the process. It all explains the euologization of women as grihini, dharmacharini, dharmapatni, pativrata, ardhangi etc and invocation of slokas to fetishize the women’s multifaceted personality: “Karyeshu dasi; Karaneshu mantri; rupecha lakshmi; kshamaya dharitri; bhojyeshu mata; sayaneshu rambha; shat dharmayukta kuladharmapatni”[32] After all, they felt that it was for county’s betterment that women’s development was central.



The material dynamics that were at work also helped fructification of these notions. The construction of anicuts on Godavari and Krishna rivers and commercialization of agriculture from the mid-19th century onwards facilitated a prosperous agrarian economy and produced many urban centres with brisk economic activity.[33] This created a middle layer of society and dispensed the women of this group with the need to participate in public economic space. Consequently, women as ‘grihini’ created a social prestige and moral status. Thus many of the non-brahmin communities tried to elevate their status by emulating these ideals and indoctrinating the women members of their family. Thus transcending the caste differences, a monolith of ‘Hindu woman’ was constructed to symbolize the social status and norms. This accounted for the growing number of widows, right from the days of the first statistical details available. It also speaks for the series of texts written during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century by the Vaisya community invocating the goddess Kanyakaparameswari[34]. Standardizing influence had its impact on all the caste reform movements which were subsequent to the upward economic mobility. The education they propagated and the ideals they advocated went in line with the ‘ideal woman’.



In the 19th century, Victorian moralistic attitudes and the purity movement swayed Britain.[35] In this context, the given sexuality and eroticism in Hindu culture and literature caused much anxiety to the middle class intelligentsia.[36] This has to be juxtaposed with the British knowledge system as detailed in the beginning. The British rulers in India displaced or transformed the irreducibly diverse, localized practices and knowledge systems of different regions by subjecting them to a standardizing administrative practice.[37] From nineteenth century onwards upper caste / middle class social reformers and nationalists became the agents of normalization who undertook the work of imagining and building the nation.



Further, the sentiment of a separate Andhra and the fervent appeal for harmony among different groups for this end contained any strong expression of any community in the working of alternative ways.[38] Consequently, radicalization of the gender issues which could have resulted in the steam of non-Brahmin movement was found missing in colonial Andhra.



Prosperous agricultural economy created a mobile labour force to the lower castes, atleast in the delta region. This unbounded them from the traditional caste and jajmani ties. The alternative space that they would have created with the given mobility was blocked by the ‘common’ sentiments of separate Andhra state, Gandhian national movement and social movement of ‘harijan’ upliftment and the Communist Movement (which concentrated and worked on class lines and the movement was dominated by the upper castes) respectively. Lack of powerful leadership and internal rivalries and inter-caste differences also had their effect on it.[39] It is due to these reasons we see the conspicuous absence of serious caste movements as it took place in the Maratha, Tamil and Malayalam regions.



Added to this is the overwhelming influence of ‘Annie Besantamma’ among the women. Reports of her speeches and activities was a regular feature in all major newspapers and journals in general and women journals in particular of the Andhra region.



But an attempt at altering this discourse can be seen in the writings of Gurajada. Well positioned both in traditional learning and western education, with a vast reading and wide travel, being an active participant in the ongoing spoken language movement, enjoying the liberal patronage of a reformist raja and surrounded by forward looking writer friends and sensible to the contemporary theatre, Gurajada for himself could see the shallowness of the ongoing reform activity and writings. He problematised the whole reformist discourse in –Kanyasulkam- a satirical play. His works are marked with pun, rare sensitivity and deep insights. In a poem a male partner narrates:



“Husband is an old word.

I am your friend,

poor without your love.

But if I have it, I’m

richer than the kings of gods”.





No wonder, his partner was perplexed at this. In essence it’s a double-edged sword. While advocating the relation between partners, it exposes the emptiness of the reformist ideas in practice.



The society in which Gurajada lived could not capture the subtleties of his writings. Moreover his short span of life and meager literary output could not create an influential literary legacy. As a result the subsequent writers could not take this discourse to its logical conclusion. Efforts of Unnava Lakshmi Narayana, Kallakuri Narayana Rao, Jashua and a host of other writers were swamped by the larger discourse that was outlined above. Chalam’s writings created an outburst of violent criticism rather than meaningful debate, which would have set the ball rolling. Writers like Kodavatiganti and Sri Sri who were heavily influenced by the Marxist thought could not address the issue.



However, interestingly a comparative study will show a highly contrasted picture of the gender theme in the literary productions of male and female writers in colonial Andhra. Male reformers always outpoured the dangerous effects of enforced widowhood on the moral fabric of the society whereas contemporary accounts of women revealed the vulnerable existential condition. Writings of female writers like Atluri Venkata Sitamma, Annapurna Devi, Kanuparti Varalakshmamma, Chillarige Venkataramanamma, Voleti Suryaprabhadevi, P Srinivasamma, Tadi Nagamma, Venpati Sarada Devi, Vadlapatla Lalitamba etc., reveal the tensions and complexities of the contemporary society more vividly. But the influence of the Annie Besant movement and the Gandhian national movement as mentioned in the context of caste groups, accounts for the reasons for the non-radicalization of the women organizations themselves.



All this accounts for the unresolved gender issues, the continuing dilemmas in the debate, and the brahmanization of the feminist discourse in many of its facets as we see it today.







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] In the late 18th century gurukuls and madrasas were promoted as it kept the respective traditional elite in contention and promoted their hegemony. It also promoted a particular representation of India as its cultural order. Thus ‘Classicism’ was promoted at the cost of the negation of history. But two things demanded shift in this policy (apart from the requirements of colony’s knowledge as well). The first reason was completion of the compilation of knowledge from these sources and the second reason was the material need for changing the colony’s social structure as Britain leaped to modern industrial production and Indian imperial edifice elaborated. In such conditions it was natural for Macaulay to observe that a single shelf of European books was of greater worth than all the learning in Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic put together. Thus in the span of four decades, the acclaimed classics of antiquity became worthless.



[2] Writing about this aspect Tejaswini Niranjana remarks “English education …familiarized the Indian with ways of seeing, techniques of translation, or modes of representation that came to be accepted as ‘natural’. Tejaswini Niranjana, ‘Translation, Colonialism and the Rise of English’ in Svati Joshi (Ed.) Rethinking English, New Delhi, Trianka, 1991, p.141.



[3] Gandhi reveals the awareness of this aspect: “The most humiliating, most obvious, most cruel aspect of our slavery resides in the influence of the English language…. It is the English language, which, so to speak, grinds into submission every segment of our literate society. Were we but able to snap this influence, half the yoke of slavery would drop off our necks.” Badri Raina, ‘A Note on Language, and the Politics of English in India’ in Svati Joshi (Ed.) Rethinking English, New Delhi, Trianka, 1991, p.185.



[4] When Parliament undertook the responsibility for Indian education in 1813, the Charter Act betrays the notions of deliverance. (It is for) “the revival and improvement of literature and the encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the science among the inhabitants…” But this went along the lines of strengthening Sanskritic tradition. This can be seen in the 1814 resolution of the Governor-General-in-Council. “…the immediate object of the institution is the cultivation of Hindu literature. Yet it is in the judgment of His Lordship in Council, a purpose of much deeper interest to seek every practicable means of effecting the gradual diffusion of European knowledge. It seems indeed no unreasonable anticipation to hope that if the higher and educated classes among the Hindoos shall, through the medium of their sacred language, be imbued with a taste for the European literature and science, general acquaintance with these and with the language whence they are drawn, will be as surely and as extensively communicated as by any attempt at direct instruction by other and humble seminaries.” Kumkum Sangari, ‘Relating Histories: Definitions of Literacy, Literature, Gender in Early Nineteenth Century Calcutta and England’ in Svati Joshi (Ed.) Rethinking English, New Delhi, Trianka, 1991, pp.45-46.



[5] Analysing this aspect Urvashi Butalia writes that, “Once English education was introduced ‘English textbook’ became an agent of acculturation at the sacred site of classroom”. Urvashi Butalia, ‘English Textbook, Indian Publisher’ in Svati Joshi (Ed.) Rethinking English, New Delhi, Trianka, 1991, p.328.



[6] Analyzing this aspect, Jasodhara Bagchi observes that: “The cribbed and combined role that Macaulay visualized for the western educated gentleman, Indian in colour and dress and English in thinking gave rise to a typology of ‘baboo’, a caricature that haunted the literature of the 19th century. It was a typology that traveled to and fro. From Dickens to Kipling in England, from Bankim to Samar Sen in Bengal, ‘baboo’ has stood for the caricature of a hybrid.” Jasodhara Bagchi, ‘Shakespeare in Loin Cloths: English Literature and the Early Nationalist Consciousness in Bengal’ in Svati Joshi (Ed.) Rethinking English, New Delhi, Trianka, 1991, p.149.



[7] But English education makes the possibility not only of affiliation and ‘social change’ but also of resistance to colonial rule. This was the singular development of the 20th century. But at other levels its imprint was imperceptible and it continued.



[8] While on the one hand, the heavy sourcing in on the shastras and shariahs for the legal codification made the scriptures foci for social reform (whether in assertion or negation), on the other hand, the western learning was designed for the self-construction of the new elite.



[9] Kumkum Sangari, op.cit., 1999, p.46.



[10] While Sanskrit acted as a means of displacement of indigenous knowledge English assumed a form of alienation.



[11] Kumkum Sangari op.cit., 1999, p.47.



[12] Jasodhara Bagchi, op.cit., 1999, p.156.



[13] Jasodhara Bagchi, op.cit., 1999, p.155. These two statements here are put together purposefully to demonstrate the ambivalence and limitations of colonial intelligentsia. It is in this context Gurajada Venkata Appa Rao, a Telugu writer and pioneer of new outlook warns his contemporary writers against following the path of Bankim, which had been a dominant trend. Gurajada Appa Rao, Vyasa Chandrika p.44-45.



[14] Translation facilitates the hegemonization of the colonized by deploying it in the discourse of history, culture, society etc. It manufactures the past for the native society through a selection of texts. As translators and scholars both Indologists and Utilitarians produced powerful/dominant literature on the understanding of Indian society and history. This was widely consumed and adopted by both the western society and the native intelligentsia.



[15] Anglicism and Orientalism defined the contours along which the new elite has to draw up its agenda. It was this that helped to form the arena of self-definition within which the burgeoning nationalist consciousness found its initial ground.



[16] This is aptly summarized in the following words: “Of the many ways in which colonialism manifests its power and entangles the colonized people in webs of coercion and domination, the most insidious – because not often perceived as a tool of conquest – is the superimposition of the colonial language over the language(s) of the subject people … ‘The domination of a people’s language by the languages of the colonizing nations was crucial to the domination of the mental universe of the colonized.’ And it is through the conquest of minds that colonial empires were made and sustained”. P Sudhir, ‘Colonialism and the Vocabularies of Dominance’ in Tejaswini Niranjana (Ed. et al) Interrogating Modernity: Culture and Colonialism in India, Calcutta, Seagull Books, 1993, p.334.



[17] This aspect is vividly pictured by Velcheru Narayana Rao et al in Textures of Time – Writing History in South India 1600-1800, Delhi, Permanent Black, 2001, pp.24-92.



[18] Reading its implications the following observation is made: “Just as the imposition of English disrupted modes of thinking and began to transform worldviews, the attempts by the British to restructure Indian languages, even if they were much more subtle, also contributed to the creation of new ways of perceiving the world”. P Sudhir op.cit., 1993, p.335.



[19] But this was cleverly twisted in the colonial discourse on education. Resolution of the Governor-General in Council on Indian education, 1904 – the first comprehensive document on Indian education policy ever issued by the government of India since the Woods Despatch (1854) observes that: “If the educated classes neglect the cultivation of their own languages, these will assuredly sink to the level of mere colloquial dialects possessing no literature worthy of the name, and no progress will be possible in giving effect to the principle, affirmed in the Despatch of 1854, that European knowledge should gradually be brought, by means of the Indian vernaculars, within the reach of all classes of people.” Suresh Chandra Ghosh, The History of Education in Modern India 1757-1986, New Delhi, Orient Longman, 1995, pp.124-25.



[20] At the pedagogical level strict adherence to the chosen texts was ensured through the strictures: “Candidates from an unaided school could be excluded from any public examination or from competing for a government scholarship if textbooks disapproved of by the government were used”. Urvasi Butalia op.cit., p.330.



[21] However the point made here will go in harmony with the argument developed above i.e., introduction of English education in India was a response both to the industrialized Britain and expanded imperial structure in India.



[22] While acknowledging the English education for the beneficial knowledge and character improvement, Anglicists sought to replace this (English education) gradually by vernaculars for an effective education system. But in the given circumstances, they felt, English education was inevitable as there was “almost total absence of a vernacular literature, and the consequent impossibility of obtaining a tolerable education from that source only”. So the presumption was the formation of vernacular literature on western lines. Susie Tharu, ‘The Arrangement of an Alliance: English and the Making of Indian Literatures’ in Svati Joshi (Ed.) Rethinking English, New Delhi, Trianka, 1991, p.163.



[23] The discourse on Muddupalani’s Radhika Santwanam illustrates this point. Susie Tharu (Ed. et al); Women Writing in India: 600 BC to the Present – Volume I, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1991, pp.1-12. And the same writer writes at a different place that, “…the sixteenth century Telugu classic, Hamsavimsthi, was banned in the early twentieth century, … this work is most valuable as a storehouse of rare technical terms and expressions pertaining to the trades and occupations which have become partly the vocabulary of the Telugu language … another Telugu work from the same period, Ramalingesvara Satakamu, dealt with the evil deeds of landlords, and that its satire was described by a contemporary reader as “so delicate and sure that it could be the stroke of a goldsmith’s hammer.” Nineteenth century efforts to ‘modernize the vernaculars were obviously charged with altogether different and more elitist, socio-political programmes and drew, for the developments of a ‘modern’ science and technology, on knowledges that discredited and marginalized existing artisanal ones.” Susie Tharu, op.cit., pp.164-165.



[24] Devotional and erotic themes with regulated conventions dominated the literary sphere of pre-modern India. But by the 19th century and as it had advanced, there developed a kind of predominantly secular literature, which has a direct bearing on the contemporary issues of the society. Meenakshi Mukherjee brilliantly analyzes this in her work Realism and Reality: The Novel and Society in India, New Delhi, OUP, 1994. This realism of the 19th century is instrumental in probing the social history and in capturing the complex social system, which was under turbulence and transformation. And it is only through literature -and not through any other conventional sources of history - that dimension of human sphere can be opened. Sudhir Chandra; The Oppressive Present: Literature and Social Consciousness in Colonial India, New Delhi, 1992.



[25] A Ramapathi Rao, ‘Telugu Novel: A Bird’s Eye View’ in Adapa Ramakrishna Rao (et al Ed.) Telugu Novel – Vol. I, Hyderabad, Yuvabharathi, 1975, p.13



[26] This as a rigid set of moral standards, applied hypocritically and in its other subtleties is discussed elaborately by Michel Foucault in The History of Sexuality – An Introduction, London, Penguin Books, 1984.

[27] The writer, however considers the effects of economic transformation triggered by the developments in delta area of Andhra region as discussed by David Washbrook and the resultant social transformation and its negative fallout on the women of lower strata as discussed by V Ramakrishna, Social Reform in Andhra, Delhi, Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., 1983.

[28] Here the empire was caught in the inevitable contradiction especially in the post 1857 period. They had to make alterations in the society to retain their liberatory image and at the same time they had to retain the traditional order as the domestic prop to their alien authority. However this is not to overlook the colonial ‘inventions’ made in the pre-1857 period in the name of reforms.

[29] Works of Kandukuri Veeresalingam Pantulu(1848-1919),Panuganti Lakshmi Narasimha Rao (1865-1940) and Chilakamarti Lakshmi Narasimham Pantulu (1867-1945) etc, come under this category.

[30] These aspects were discussed at length by B Kesavanarayana, Political and Social Factors in Andhra 1900-1956, Vijayawada, Navodaya Publishers, 1976. Y Vaikuntam, Educational and Social Change in South India: Andhra (1880-1920), Madras, New Era Publications, 1982.

[31] Panuganti Lakshminarasimharao, Saksi-Panuganti Laksminarasimharao Samagrasahityamu, Vijayawada, Delux Publications, 1991.

[32] Ibid.

[33] For an elaborate discussion see David Washbrook, The emergence of Provincial politics: the Madras Presidency; 1870-1920, New Delhi, Vikas Publishing House, 1977; CJ Baker and DA Washbrook (ed.) South India: Political Institutions and Political Change 1880-1940, Delhi, Macmilan, 1975.



[34] Atluri Murali, ‘Colonialism and Caste Movements: Study of appropriation of past in the Madras Presidency’, IHC Proceedings, 2002, pp. 889-891.

[35] In a pioneering work this aspect was vividly analyzed by Michel Foucault in The History of Sexuality – An Introduction, London, Penguin Books, 1984.



[36] AK Ramanujan et. al. When God is a Customer, New Delhi, OUP, 1995.

[37] Bernard S Cohn, Colonialism and Its forms of Knowledge, OUP, New Delhi, 1997.



[38] Carolyn M. Elliot; ‘Caste and Faction among the Dominant Caste: The Reddies and Kammas of Andhra’, in Rajni Kothari (Ed.) Caste in Indian Politics, New Delhi, Orient Longman, 1990, p.151



[39] Chinna Rao Yagati; The Rise and Growth of Dalit Movement in Andhra, 1906-1946; New Delhi, Sage Publications, Indian Social Science Review, 5, 1 (2003).

http://www.geocities.com/husociology/colonial6.htm





The Literature of British India
J. K. Buda
Introduction
At the height of its glory, the British Empire encompassed nearly a quarter of the earth's land mass and a quarter of its population. Of all its possessions, none was more precious than India, the 'jewel in the crown' of Victoria's Empire. Other possessions may have been larger or more profitable, but with none of them was there the same deep relationship as that which existed between Britain and India, a relationship whose essence was so perfectly captured by James Morris:

India was different in kind from the rest of the Empire — British for so long that it had become part of the national consciousness, so immense that it really formed, with Britain itself, the second focus of a dual power. If much of the Empire was a blank in British minds, India meant something to everybody, from the Queen herself with her Hindu menservants to the humblest family whose ne'er-do-well brother, long before, had sailed away to lose himself in the barracks of Cawnpore. India was the brightest gem, the Raj, part of the order of things: to a people of the drizzly north, the possession of such a country was like some marvel in the house, a caged phoenix perhaps, or the portrait of some fabulously endowed if distant relative. India appealed to the British love of pageantry and fairy-tale, and to most people the destinies of the two countries seemed not merely intertwined, but indissoluble. [1]
This unique relationship found expression in a large body of English literature, so large as to constitute a genre in itself.

Here in Japan, this body of literature has been almost totally ignored by scholars. Perhaps this has been due to a failure to recognize the relationship noted above, or perhaps it may be attributable to a narrow and exclusive interpretation of what is meant by 'English Literature'.

Whatever be the case, any attempt to introduce the literature of British India demands at least some familiarity on the part of the reader with the subject matter of the genre. Of the thousands of fictional works, [2] and the tens of thousands of non-fictional books written about India, the overwhelming majority deal with the interaction between the small British community in India and the march of historical events in the sub-continent.

The following introduction to the literature of the British Raj is, therefore, prefaced by two summaries of the historical and social backgrounds to nearly three centuries of British involvement in India.

Historical Background
The British arrived in India almost as an afterthought. Founded by royal charter in 1600, the East India Company had as its primary aim a share of the valuable spice trade with Indonesia. Finding the Dutch firmly in control, it turned its attention to a secondary market — India.

The British were not the first Europeans to reach India. In the 4th century BC the conquering armies of Alexander the Great penetrated deep into the Punjab, and opened up trade routes that lasted for over 800 years. The fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Arabic power in the Middle East virtually cut off Western Europe from India, and it was not until the 16th century that Portuguese explorers began to re-establish contact. With their superior maritime technology and proselytizing fervour, the Portuguese soon carved out a large empire for themselves in the Indian Ocean. In 1580 Portugal was annexed to Spain, and in 1588 the Spanish Armada was routed by the British navy. The collapse of the Portuguese Empire opened up the way for other European nations to sail into the Indian Ocean in search of trade and profit.

Frustrated in its attempts to enter the lucrative Indonesian spice trade, the East India Company turned to India, where the Mughal Empire was only too happy to have the British rid it of the last unwelcome vestiges of Portuguese naval power. In return, the British were given trading rights and allowed to establish factories.

The 17th century was one of slow but steady consolidation. France and other European countries also obtained similar land and trading rights, but the sheer size of the market, and the relatively small scale of the enterprises, did not lead to any real competition.

The situation was dramatically altered by the War of the Austrian Succession. In 1742 England and France found themselves at war with each other, and this purely European conflict sparked a period of parallel military and political confrontation in India. Both sides made full use of political intrigue and machination, entering into fragile alliances with local Indian rulers, backing rival claimants to vacant thrones, and generally manipulating the confused domestic Indian situation of the time to their own advantage. After a period of initial setbacks, the military genius of Robert Clive turned the tide in favour of the British, and by 1761 the French presence had been totally neutralized.

The most important gain of this period of Anglo-French conflict was the establishment of undisputed British power in Bengal. Concerned only with the preservation of their trading post in Calcutta, the British successfully countered an armed attempt to oust them. In so doing, they found themselves the de facto rulers of a vast province many times the size of England. The ultimate aim of the East India Company, however, was trade and profit, not territorial expansion. Using its position of military superiority, the Company wrested numerous commercial concessions from the local ruler. The most important of these was a total exemption from the tax levied on private trade by members of the Company. With this concession, the way was opened up for the amassing of huge private fortunes. The gross excesses of the next twenty years prompted the passage of William Pitt's India Act of 1784, which set up dual control of commerce and administration. Ultimate political power was taken from the hands of the East India Company, and the British government accepted a share of responsibility for its involvement in India.

The new century saw further changes in the pattern of British expansion in India. Hitherto, all political and economic activity had been motivated by purely mercenary considerations, but gradually there emerged a hesitant awareness of a new role: that of welding the many kingdoms of the fragmented Mughal Empire into a single, peaceful whole, and bringing Western civilization to this vast sub-continent.

By the middle of the 19th century many of these goals had been achieved. Almost all of India was either under direct British control, or under the rule of pliable native kings rendered impotent by the British monopoly of foreign affairs and military power. The great Land Settlements surveyed and apportioned land rights, and fixed the taxes due from each holding. For the first time in Indian history, the historical claims of Indian peasants to their own land were recognized in law, and an end was put to the corruption of the old tax-gathering systems. Unfortunately for the peasants, most of the tax assessments were unrealistically high, and wholesale forfeiture of land led to the creation of a new wealthy Indian land-owning class.

In 1857 the apparent tranquillity of the Indian sub-continent was shattered by the revolt of a handful of Indian soldiers in Meerut. The revolt quickly spread to Delhi, where the renegade soldiers proclaimed the decrepit titular Mughal Emperor as their leader. The Indian Mutiny lasted for only a few months. The last pockets of resistance were finally put down in 1859, but not before two new names had been etched irrevocably on the psyche of the British nation: Lucknow and Cawnpore, the first a synonym for British courage, and the second the apotheosis of Indian perfidy.

The causes of the Mutiny will, perhaps, remain forever a matter of controversy and conjecture. Even today, there is disagreement on the scale and significance of the revolt. What is clear, however, is the effect the Mutiny had on all subsequent relations between Indians and Englishmen. Even whilst the British army was exacting a bloody toll of reprisals in India, the government in London was hastily pushing through measures to ensure that such a revolt never took place again. The Government of India Act of 1858 transferred the remnants of the power of the East India Company to the Crown, and in the same year a royal proclamation changed the direction of British policy in India. There was to be no more annexation of Indian kingdoms, no more westernization of Indian society or culture. The initial anger of the British in India was replaced with distrust and disinterest, and the small Anglo-Indian community turned in upon itself.

The relative stability and steady economic progress of the latter half of the century were marred by paranoid fears of Russian incursions in the north, and consequent involvement in the humiliating debacle of the Second Afghan War. The occasional efforts of Whitehall liberals to grant Indians a measure of self-determination in the affairs of their own country were greeted with fierce local antagonism. The Ilbert Bill of 1883, which was to have ended discrimination in the legal system, and given Indian judges the power to try Europeans, was totally emasculated as a result of the violent outcry from the white community. The tide of history was turning, however, and the attempt to partition Bengal in 1905 led to such an upsurge of organized Indian protest that the measure was finally revoked in 1911. In many ways, the Bengal crisis reflected the new political reality of India: the triangular conflict of interest between the British administration on the one hand, and the emerging Hindu Congress and Muslim League on the other.

The First World War found Indians shelving their differences and animosities, and joining wholeheartedly in the war effort. Expectations that their sacrifices would bring the reward of limited independence from a grateful Crown were dashed, however, when the Rowlatt Acts of 1919 extended existing emergency war-time powers. The Government of India Act of December 1919 was an attempt to pacify the outrage that ensued, but it did not come soon enough to avert the Amritsar Massacre.

Led by a young Gujarati lawyer called Mohandas Gandhi, the organized protests against the Rowlatt Acts reached a climax in April, with riots and demonstrations in the Punjab. The army was called upon to restore order, and on the 13th of that month a contingent of soldiers led by General Dyer opened fire on a crowd of 10,000 Indians gathered in Amritsar. When the shooting was done, over 1,500 civilians lay dead or wounded. Dyer was relieved of his command, but remained a hero in the eyes of British admirers.

As Gandhi's campaigns of civil disobedience gained impetus, the British began to make reluctant concessions, allowing Indians to occupy a limited number of administrative posts, and espousing a policy of dual government. This policy of 'dyarchy' culminated in the Government of India Act of 1935, which offered a new constitution and a wide franchise. Members of both the Hindu Congress and the Muslim League were divided as to whether to cooperate or not, but finally the decision was made to put up candidates in the first elections to be held under the new constitution. Of the 1,585 seats contested, Congress won 716 seats and absolute majorities in four states, whilst the League garnered 109 seats in Muslim-dominated areas. Thus was born the first elected Indian Congress, and a brief period of uneasy cooperation with the British rulers began.

The Second World War intervened, and altered the course of modern Indian history. The British unilaterally declared India at war, without taking the trouble to consult Congress on its opinion in the matter. After some heart-searching indecision, Congress ministers resigned en masse and refused to cooperate with the British. As the Japanese advanced ever closer, Gandhi called upon the British to 'Quit India', and let the Indians come to a non-violent peace settlement with the Japanese. Gandhi's expectations of a Japanese victory, and the dawn of a new era in Asia, were shared by members of the Indian National Army, a small body of Indian prisoners-of-war recruited by Subhas Chandra Bose and persuaded by him that the future of an independent India lay in military cooperation with the Japanese. The INA was soon disillusioned, and abandoned by the Japanese, it was virtually annihilated at the Battle of Imphal. The Japanese advance on India was checked, and Congress hopes for a speedy British withdrawal from India again seemed to recede.

The end of the war and the election of a new Labour government in Britain, however, produced a new political climate, and the rush to independence began. Attempts to hand over the reins of power to a united and peaceful India proved fruitless, and on the 15th of August 1947, the two new states of India and Pakistan were born.

Social Background
For the merchant administrators of John Company, as the old East India Company was familiarly called, India was the adventure of lifetime. An overland journey of months across Egypt, Turkey, or Persia, years of constant battle with disease and the Indian climate, and, for those that survived, an eventual return to malaria-ridden retirement in England. During the long years spent in India, England and the constraints of English society must have seemed very far away indeed. In those early years before the Mutiny, racial prejudice was unheard of, and many English [3] bachelors took native wives or mistresses, thought nothing of dressing in local costume, and enthusiastically immersed themselves in a study of Indian languages, religions, and customs. The fortunate ones returned to England outrageously wealthy men, and in retirement built themselves strange Indian-style follies in the rural tranquillity of the English countryside.

Two seemingly unrelated events changed all this. The Indian Mutiny poisoned any mutual respect that there might have been between Indians and Englishmen, and in its aftermath, direct control of administration from Whitehall rigorously defined the role of every British official in India. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, on the other hand, cut the journey time between the two countries from 3 or 4 months to as many weeks, and India ceased to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Englishmen could now return to England on regular leave, and could bring back their wives and children with them to India. Victorian society, with all its prejudices and paraphernalia, arrived with a vengeance, and took root in the unlikely soil of India. From this transplantation flowered a strange and exotic plant.

British society in India was characterized by its Janus-faced nature. To the outside world, it presented a united and aloof front, but within itself, it was fragmented by snobbery and social prejudice.

At the top of the social ladder were the administrators. Although the highest post of Viceroy was often occupied by bumbling incompetents, the day-to-day management of a nation of 300 million Indians was entrusted to the 1,300-or-so members of the elite Indian Civil Service. Entry into the Service was by competitive examination, and the standards demanded were astonishingly high. The ICS had its own hierarchy of posts and appointments, but for most people the ICS will forever be associated with the District Officers. Whilst the highest echelons of government led an august and rarefied existence in the palaces of Bombay or Calcutta, to the District Officers fell the solitary task of venturing into the vast hinterland of India, collecting taxes, administering justice, and showing the flag. One of the great enduring images of the British Raj is that of the young District Officer, wise beyond his tender years, seated at a camp table in front of his jungle tent, and dispensing justice and vernacular wisdom to the assembled villagers around him.

Next to the ICS came that other mainstay of British society in India, the Army. Before 1857, most regiments consisted of Indian soldiers commanded by British officers, but after the Mutiny the number of wholly British regiments was increased as a precautionary measure. Although army life had many rewards for the officers of both Armies, [4] there was little joy for the enlisted British soldiers serving in India. The constant spectre of another Indian revolt kept them totally separated from any possible fraternization with the natives, and barrack life was one long, bitter fight with routine, tedium, and the Indian climate.

Far below the ICS and the Army in social standing came the third and last element of British society in India, the merchants and businessmen. However wealthy or influential they might become, they were disparaginly referred to as 'box-wallahs', an epithet derived from the sample cases of travelling salesmen.

The British community in India also had its own caste of outsiders: those who, either through choice or necessity, did not fit into the tripartite framework of recognized society. There were, for example, the planters — fiercely independent men who spent most of their working lives isolated from their compatriots, single-handedly ruling the vast private kingdoms of their jute, indigo, and tea plantations. And then there were the missionaries, who turned their backs on the Raj, and strove to bring Christianity, education, and medicine to even the smallest and most isolated jungle hamlet.

In addition to the complex vertical stratification of British society in India, there was another dimension of social consciousness. When their term of office or employment ended, most people packed up and returned to England, but for a few, for those born and raised there, India was home, and in some cases had been for three or four generations. For most such Anglo-Indian [5] families, the almost mandatory period of childhood education in England did little or nothing to weaken their ties with India, and there existed a distinct sense of social superiority to other, less permanent residents.

Whatever their social status, whatever their family background, the lives of all British people in India were regulated by two great impalpables — the geography and the weather. The development of one of the earliest and greatest railway systems in the world did much to overcome the first of these, but there was little or nothing that could be done about the second.

The life of the British Raj progressed to the rhythm of three distinct seasons: Cold Weather, Hot Weather, and Rains. The summer monsoons were a period of lethargy and disease, and took by far the greatest toll of British lives. The autumn saw the advent of the 'Cold Weather', a purely relative appellation which meant little more than 'bearable' as opposed to 'unbearable'. The months from September to March were a time of great social activity, perhaps the only months when the weather made possible such pastimes as riding, shooting, and dancing. It was also the time for visitors to arrive from England. Administrators dreaded the annual nuisance of 'fact-finding' Whitehall politicians, whilst bachelors of all ages welcomed the arrival of the 'fishing fleet' — young girls of marriageable age in search of a husband.

The grim realities of Indian life made marriage a virtual impossibility before late middle age. Enormous initial debts had to be paid off out of meagre earnings, promotion to ranks that would allow the financial luxury of married life had to be awaited with patience, and the grudging approval of superior officers was an infractible social prerequisite. By the time bachelors could begin to consider looking around for a wife, they were already at least in their late thirties or forties, with high social status, a healthy income, and a guaranteed pension upon retirement — a splendid proposition indeed for any matron seeking a good match for her daughter.

Towards March the round of dances, parties, and gymkhanas began to tail off, and the visitors made their way home to England. British India, meanwhile, prepared itself for the ordeal of the Hot Weather. And an ordeal it truly was, in an age when the only method of air-conditioning was that of circulating air through water-soaked hurdles called 'tatties'; a system which, when working efficiently, was capable of lowering the temperature inside a room by all of one or two degrees. In such heat, work was unthinkable, and the officials of the Raj led those of the British community as could afford such a luxury in the annual trek into the delicious coolness of the mountains, to spend the hot weather in the pine-scented seclusion of the hill stations.

In the south, Ootacamund provided a refuge from the heat of Madras and the Carnatic, whilst in the north, the Himalayan foothills offered a profusion of small hill stations such as Mussourie, Naini Tal, and Darjeeling. The queen of them all, however, was Simla. Here it was that the Viceroy and his entourage came to stay, and with them the entire apparatus of British government. For several months of each year, a small village perched on improbably steep hillsides in the shadow of the snow-topped Himalayas became the capital of India.

Once the mould of British society in India had been set, the innate conservatism of that society ensured that there were few if any major changes over the eighty or more years to Independence.

With the advent of that Independence in 1947, the Anglo-Indians were faced with the choice of 'staying on', or pulling up roots and making a fresh start in the United Kingdom or some other part of the Commonwealth. Most decided to leave India, and time has taken its inevitable toll of the few that chose to remain.

The Literature of the British Raj
The administrators of post-Mutiny India were often disparagingly called 'competition wallahs', a reference to both the stiff entrance examinations of the elite ICS, and to a host of other practical and theoretical examinations that determined subsequent promotion and status. Such an examination system produced an administrative class of the highest intellectual calibre, and in an age when it was almost de rigueur to write one's memoirs upon retirement, the civil servants, judges, and generals of the British Raj left behind a legacy of wit and erudition. Countless such biographies and memoirs now lie gathering dust in forgotten libraries.

For more than two hundred years now, literate Western society has chosen to express its truths and realities in the form of the novel, and it is upon that particular form that the following brief survey of the literature of the Raj will focus.

Contrary to popular misconception, Kipling was not the first writer to deal with India and Indian life. Some of the earliest Indian novels published in England go back as far as the 1780s, and by the beginning of the 19th century, a steady stream of quaintly exotic novels was serving to assuage the British public's curiosity in its ever-growing Indian possessions. Many of these early novels deal with the 'nabobs' of John Company — merchant adventurers who returned from India fabulously wealthy, and flaunted their riches before an astonished London society. Clearly reflected in the novels of this period, also, is the evangelical undercurrent that was to change the course of British policy in India.

It was the enormous psychological impact of the Indian Mutiny, however, that forced the British public to reassess its somewhat patronizing and optimistic view of foreign cultures and race relations, and stimulated a renewed and perhaps more mature interest in India. The novels and short stories of Sir Henry Cunningham and Philip Robinson attained a measure of popularity in the 1870's, and 1888 saw the publication of Rudyard Kipling's Plain Tales from the Hills.

Born in Bombay, Kipling was sent to England at the age of six, there to endure a lonely and traumatic education before returning once more to India and obtaining employment as a journalist. His sketches of Anglo-Indian life first appeared in English-language newspapers such as the Civil and Military Gazette, and collections of his stories delighted patrons of Wheeler's Indian Railway Library, a series of cheap paperback books sold at most railway stations, and designed to help weary travellers overcome the tedium of long train journeys across the Indian sub-continent.

Although primarily written for domestic consumption, Kipling's stories began to attract attention in England, and in 1889 he made the difficult decision to leave India and try to establish himself in the literary circles of London. By the end of the century he had become one of Britain's greatest literary figures. His abhorrence of political involvement led him to refuse a knighthood and many other honours bestowed upon him, but he did agree to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. During his lifetime, Kipling's popular appeal, and his awesome status as the nation's de facto poet laureate, [6] made him the object of much scornful criticism, particularly from the rising generation of iconoclastic 'decadent' writers.

The First World War and the Russian Revolution gave birth to a generation of Western intellectuals that saw salvation in Stalin's Russia. Bewitched by the lure of communism, inspired by propaganda scenes of apple-cheeked peasant girls binding stooks of sun-ripened corn, and blissfully ignorant of the millions of Russians dying from man-made famines and the bullets of the NKVD, this generation of intellectuals reserved its bitterest vituperation for such 'imperialistic' writers as Kipling. Whilst world-wide sales of his novels, poems, and stories continued to grow, [7] Kipling's name became anathema in 'serious' literary circles, and even as late as 1942, George Orwell felt obliged to couch his essay on Kipling in the form of convoluted paradox and irony. [8] The 1970s saw a remarkable rehabilitation of Kipling's literary reputation, and the present flood of critical studies shows no sign of abatement. Although Kipling's Indian stories comprise but a small fraction of his total literary output, the quality, range, and authenticity of these stories have established him as the finest exponent of the genre. Nearly all subsequent writers of Indian novels have acknowledged their debt to him, and in this, more than any fickle academic reputation, lies ample testimony to his genius.

The same politicalization of literary criticism that chose to dismiss any work dealing with the Empire as 'imperialistic', and made any serious study of Kipling's work impossible for over fifty years, also ensured that a number of other writers of this period went almost totally unrecognized. The Indian novels of Flora Steel and Maud Diver have passed into literary oblivion, and another writer of the 1930s, Edward Thompson, is now chiefly remembered as a minor poet. Born into a family of Wesleyan missionaries, Thompson was himself ordained upon graduation from London University, and spent many years teaching in Bengal. He eventually resigned the ministry and returned to England, where he became a lecturer at Oxford, first teaching Bengali to ICS probationers, and then devoting himself to research in Indian history at Oriel College. His years in India left Thompson with a deep love of Bengali literature and culture, and he was a friend of such great Indian figures as Gandhi, Tagore, and Nehru. His Indian novels, set for the most part in the isolation of small up-country communities, deal sympathetically with the nationalist movement, and see a spiritual reconciliation of cultures and religions as a step towards inevitable devolution of British power. Although it might be an exaggeration to say, as some writers have, that the first volume of Thompson's Indian trilogy [9] ranks with Kipling's Kim as one of the finest novels ever written about India, nevertheless his books remain some of the best evocations of British India in the third and fourth decades of this century, and certainly deserve more recognition.

One extraordinary exception to the many Indian novels consigned to limbo by the intellectual tenor of the times is E. M. Forster's A Passage to India [10], which, to judge by the proclamations of many critics, is the only English novel ever written on the subject. Such evaluations would seem to be the product of the kind of literary philistinism that dismisses science-fiction as a literary genre, but condescends to acknowledge the third-rate SF novels of such second-rate 'serious' writers as Aldous Huxley. Whatever the purely literary merits of A Passage to India, it stands condemned by both Indian and British writers for its inaccurate portrayals of both communities. Forster spent a total of twelve months in India, and it is perhaps unfair to criticize the validity of the personal impressions he gained during this short time. The fact remains, however, that the critical acceptance of A Passage to India has served to draw the attention of educated readers away from other, more authentic novels.

The twenty years after the end of the Second World War were dominated by the novels of John Masters. When an aspiring writer called Molly (M. M.) Kaye tried to interest a publisher in her first novel on the Indian Mutiny, she was told that it had no hope of success, as 'Jack' Masters had already cornered the market for that kind of book. [11] Coming from a family that traced its Indian roots back for more than five generations, Masters followed his father into the Indian Army, in which he served until Independence in 1947.

Like so many other Anglo-Indians, he then chose to leave India, and settled down in the United States. In his novels, Masters has consciously tried to cover the whole historical span of British rule, from the Mutiny to Independence, and Bhowani Junction [12], set in the last years of the Raj, has the distinction of being one of the few Indian novels to have been made into a film.

Independence, when it came, caught many people unprepared for its suddenness. Only a few years earlier, it would have been unthinkable that the Crown would allow one of its most prized possessions to slip out of its hands. The unthinkable, however, became a reality, and the years after the war saw Britannia in an almost indecent rush to divest herself of each and every last vestige of colonial accoutrement. Harold Macmillan's 'Wind of Change' speech confirmed that this was no mere whim or aberration but official government policy, and although most former colonies gleefully accepted the offer of independence, a few recalcitrant outposts of the Crown — those with little or no prospect of financial or military self-sufficiency — found themselves being coerced into reluctant nationhood. Throughout the fifties and sixties, an almost interminable succession of independence celebrations made the ceremony of the lowering of the Union Jack a familiar sight on British television, and many relatively minor members of the Royal Family emerged from near anonymity to serve as representatives of the Crown on such august occasions.

By the 1970s, little was left of the greatest empire in history, and the British public, now fully absolved from any unpleasant imperialistic guilt feelings, could settle back and thoroughly indulge itself in unfettered nostalgia for a departed age. Whether this nostalgia was but a reflection of the same dissatisfaction with modern urban life that popularized pine furniture, brown bread, and fake Victorian packaging, or whether it sprang from a true fascination with a vivid and turbulent era in Britain's history, there is no way of telling. Suffice to say that there has been a very real change in the attitude of both scholars and the public towards the Empire in general, and India in particular.

One of the most striking indications of this renewed interest has been the extraordinary success of M. M. Kaye's The Far Pavilions [13]. Published in 1978, this enormous 950-page saga of 19th century India sailed effortlessly to the top of the British best-seller lists, where it remained for several months. Repeating the same unprecedented success in the United States, it has sold more than five million copies world-wide. Although much of the book would appear to be sheer swashbuckling fantasy, almost all of it is based on recorded historical events, many of them intimately connected with members of Molly Kaye's own illustrious family. The runaway success of The Far Pavilions gave new life to Shadow of the Moon [14], her first novel, published in a grossly truncated form in 1956. Reprinted in its original version in 1979, this novel of the Mutiny proceeded to repeat the success of The Far Pavilions. Like The Far Pavilions, virtually the whole of the narrative is based on real events, and was inspired by an unpublished letter written by one of the female survivors of the Mutiny [15] — once again proving that truth can be much stranger than fiction.

Another remarkable novel dealing with the Mutiny is J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur [16]. Unlike most Mutiny novels, it avoids the oft-recorded events of Delhi, Lucknow, and Cawnpore, and focuses on the defence of a small fictitious town by a band of ill-assorted Englishmen. Farrell died before he could complete his second Indian novel, but it is a measure of public interest in the subject that this fragment was published in its incomplete form. [17]

Whilst epic novels such as Valerie Fitzgerald's Zemindar [18] — again about the Mutiny — continue to satisfy the British public's appetite for massive romantic novels with exotic settings, the same cannot be said for Paul Scott's magnificent Raj Quartet [19]. The success of this enormously complex tetralogy attests to a much more mature interest in the turbulent years before Independence. At first glance, the chief protagonist of the Raj Quartet would seem to be the mirror image of the hero of The Far Pavilions, the former being an Indian raised and educated in British public schools, and subsequently totally unable to re-adapt to Indian society, the latter being a young Englishman raised by Indians, and finding his loyalties and affections tragically divided. The parallel between the two works does not, however, go beyond this superficial similarity. Whilst The Far Pavilions is a splendidly written adventure yarn which recaptures much of the atmosphere and excitement of India in the 19th century, the Raj Quartet is a complex psychological tapestry of inter-related subjective realities, accurately mirroring all the fears, uncertainties, and animosities of both Indian and English communities on the eve of Independence.

Both The Far Pavilions and the Raj Quartet have now been made into highly successful television films. The former was shown on British television as a six-hour drama over the Christmas period of 1983, whilst the latter was broadcast as a weekly series in the spring of 1984. [20] The viewing figures for both of these seem to suggest that even such saturation coverage has not managed to satiate the public's appetite for such fare.

Whatever their theme or setting, most novels about British India deal ultimately with the relationship between Englishmen and Indians, between ruler and ruled. With Independence, that relationship ceased to exist, and it might seem that any genre that takes that relationship as its primary subject can, at best, serve only as a retrospective mirror, and is doomed to ultimate sterility.

Whilst it is a palpable fact that the Raj is long gone, its legacy survives. It survives in the currency of English as one of the languages of educated Indians, and it survives in the large numbers of Indian immigrants that have made their homes in England, and have transformed such unlikely places as Southall, Leicester, and Loughborough into veritable Indian townships.

A new generation of writers such as Salman Rushdie and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has emerged to record, in English, the realities of contemporary Indian society, both at home and in self-imposed exile. Both these writers have managed to gain early literary recognition and encouragement, and there is every reason to believe that English novels about India and Indian life will be with us for a very long time to come.

Notes
1 James Morris, Pax Britannica (London: Penguin, 1979), p. 41.

2 B. K. Gupta, in his India in English Fiction 1800-1970 (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1973), lists 2,272 titles. This number does not, of course, include the many volumes that have appeared since 1970.

3 For the sake of euphony, the two terms 'English' and 'British' have been used indiscriminately. This is not to ignore the contribution of generations of Scotsmen to the commercial life of both India and the Empire, nor to overlook the important role played by Irish soldiers in the Imperial Army.

4 Distinction was made between the Indian Army, consisting of Indian soldiers commanded by British officers, and the British Army, which consisted of wholly British regiments stationed in India.

5 Originally referring to British residents in India, this term was officially adopted in 1900 to describe persons of mixed descent, until then known as Eurasians. Used here and throughout this essay in its original meaning.

6 When Tennyson died in 1892, Kipling was regarded as the obvious successor to the post of Poet Laureate. Fears that he might refuse an offer of the post resulted in the appointment, in 1896, of the nonentity Alfred Austin.

7 Kipling has been especially popular in the USSR, where most of his Indian stories and verses have appeared in translation, including a Russian version of Indian Tales (Moscow: State Textbook Publishing House of the People's Commissariat of Education of the R.S.F.S.R., 1940). The exquisite irony of this seems to have escaped most literary historians.

8 George Orwell, 'Rudyard Kipling', Collected Essays (London: Mercury Books, 1961). At the time in which Orwell's first novel Burmese Days (1935) is set, Burma was technically a part of the Indian Empire, and this has led a number of scholars to include him in surveys of Indian literature.

9 Edward Thompson, An Indian Day (London: Macmillan, 1927); A Farewell to India (London: Macmillan, 1931); An End of the Hours (London: Macmillan, 1938).

10 E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (London: E. Arnold, 1924).

11 M. M. Kaye, BBC Radio 4 interview, December 1983.

12 John Masters, Bhowani Junction (London: Michael Joseph, 1954).

13 M. M. Kaye, The Far Pavilions (London: Allen Lane, 1978).

14 M. M. Kaye, Shadow of the Moon (London: Allen Lane, 1979).

15 M. M. Kaye, BBC Radio 4 interview, December 1983.

16 J. G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1973).

17 Together with Farrell's Indian diary, and a number of personal memoirs, as: J. G. Farrell, The Hill Station (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1981).

18 Valerie Fitzgerald, Zemindar (London: Bodley Head, 1981).

19 Paul Scott, The Jewel in the Crown (London: Heinemann, 1966); The Day of the Scorpion (London: Heinemann, 1968); The Towers of Silence (London: Heinemann, 1971); A Division of the Spoils (London: Heinemann, 1975).

20 As The Jewel in the Crown, the title of the first volume in the tetralogy. This thirteen-part series was produced at considerable expense as a result of the favorable critical response to an earlier pilot film version of Scott's sequel to the Quartet, Staying On (London: Heinemann, 1977).

Reprinted from Otsuma Women's University Faculty of Literature Annual Report, Vol. XVII, 1985

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