Indian Literature In English An Introduction Lecture 5 - Lecturer Notes - United State Literature - Prof. Dr. C. Reinfandt, Study notes of American literature

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Indian Literature in English: An Introduction

Lecture 5:

Indo-English Literature: Genres and Conditions

1) Before Independence:

Co-ordinates

2) Genres:

[Poetry > lecture 4]

Drama

[Fiction > lecture 6ff.]

1) Before Independence: Co-ordinates

Phases: a) 1800 - 1857 Beginnings/‘Reaching Out’ b) 1857 - 1901 Retrenchment and Imperial Reassurance c) 1901 - 1947 Ways to Independence

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a) Beginnings/‘Reaching Out’ (1800-1857) (1784 India Act centralizes the expanding British presence) 1835 Macaulay’s ‘Minute on Education’ anglicizes the colonial curriculum 1845 - 49 British-Sikh wars end with defeat of the Sikhs 1857/58 Great Indian Rebellion (“Mutiny”) brutally suppressed; India turned into a crown colony, with Viceroy as Queen’s representative; 1858 India Act officially ends rule by East India Company (Döring 2008, 124) One consequence of the changes taking place in Indian society under colonialism was that Indians had mastered the coloniser’s language […] and, going one step further, had by the 1820s begun to adopt it as their chosen medium of expression. These pioneering works of poetry, fiction, drama, travel, and belles-lettres are little read today except by specialists, but when they were published they were, by the mere fact of being in English, audacious acts of mimicry and self-assertion. More than this, the themes they touched on and the kinds of social issues they engaged with would only be explored by other Indian literatures several decades later. (Mehrotra 2003, 6) Symptomatic Texts: 1 Krishna Mohan Banerjeas’s The Persecuted (1831) might not be good theatre, but the subject of Hindu orthodoxies and the individual’s loss of faith in his religion had not been taken up by any Indian play before it. Banerjea, who was eighteen years old when he wrote The Persecuted , soon afterwards converted to Christianity. He was one of the leading lights of ‘Young Bengal’, as Derozio’s disciples called themselves, and founder- editor of The Enquirer (1831-5). (Mehrotra 2003, 6f.)

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Robert Watson Frazer, “Progress under British Rule: Education” (1896) While from the earliest days of the Company the development of commerce and increase in the wealth of the country has received the first attention of its Western rulers the intellectual and moral welfare of the people have also claimed the earnest attention of the State.[…] The more advanced natives of India were naturally eager, that these State Funds should be employed in encouraging the study of English instead of Eastern learning. […] The full effects of these efforts for the intellectual improvement of the people of India must be looked for in the future. […] The ideals to be aimed towards and the results to be attained by England in thus carrying out her great mission in the history of the world’s progress, have, with philosophic calm and poetic insight, been traced out by Sir Raymond West in the course of an Address to the Ninth Oriental Congress of 1892 in the following words: “There is no great need for a large multiplication of secondary schools and of colleges to the Universities, but there is need for access to them being made easy to ability, and great need for their teaching being raised and widened, if those who pass through them and become the intellectual leaders of India are to be equal to their high calling, and are to take a part honourable to themselves and their nation in the creation of an imperial spirit which shall supersede all ideas of severance, and further that fusion of the philosophies of the East and West to which we may now look most hopefully for the moral and intellectual advance of mankind.” (Stilz 1982, 56-59)

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c) Ways to Independence (1901-1947) 1885 formation of Indian National Congress 1905 Viceroy decides to partition Bengal, sparking resistance campaigns 1906 All India Muslim League established ( 1913 Rudyard Kipling wins Nobel Prize for literature) Bengali Writer Rabindranath Tagore wins Nobel Prize for literature 1916 Lucknow Pact of Muslim League and Indian National Congress 1919 Gandhi leads first all-India satyagraha (peaceful resistance); Amritsar massacre: British troops kill 400 peaceful demonstrators 1929 Congress calls for ‘complete independence’ 1940 Muslim league demands separate states 1942 ‘Quit India’ resolution issued by Congress, leaders jailed 1947 Independence/Partition (Döring 2008, 124) N.K. Sidhanta, “The Indian Literatures of Today: English” (1945) In speaking of English literature produced by Indians during this generation, I feel handicapped as the speakers on the other literatures have not been. I feel that I have to be on my defence, as there are charges constantly being brought forward against creative artists who have chosen English as their medium of expression. The charges are varied, and if one classifies them they amount to the following: - First, the English language is not a natural medium of expression for the Indian writer. Secondly, the inspiration which the Indian writer of English derives is from the West, from England and other European countries, and as such is against his natural spirit and genius. Thirdly, the cross section of society that he chooses to deal with on account of his breeding and environment, is a very limited one, and does not do justice to our country. Further, his appeal is to a very limited class of readers who have practically segregated themselves from the great majority of their fellow countrymen. […] (Stilz 1982, 71-73)

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The Dramatic Tradition:

• indigenous traditions of dramatic presentation: a) Sanskrit drama (courtly tradition, 3rd to 9th century CE) b) popular drama (based on rules of a codified in its decline)
• commercial drama in Bengal, Maharashtra and Gujarat, based on b and spreading out from provincial centres in the 19th century seems to be heavily influenced by Victorian theatre in the British context (spectacle, melodrama)
• the rise of the middle class inspires musical and opera on the one hand and realist/naturalist theatre on the other,
• Shakespeare as the most eminent author, many imported works
• modern Indian drama largely motivated by Independence movement in the 1930s and 1940s, but hampered by the precarious position of English in this political process Earliest known Indian plays in English: Krishna Mohan Banerjea, The Persecuted (1831) First imitation of Shakespearean tragedy: Jogendrachandra Gupta, Kritivilas (1852) Cf. a ‘native’ epilogue to a performance of The Taming of the Shrew, publ. in 1867: Bethink ye that your sweet Avonian swan, Still flutters strangely over Hindustan. We know not yet the future of its tone, The modulations are not yet our own. We fain would hope that, as it flies along, T’will scatter sybil-like its leaves of song, And o’er parent East new triumphs win, With but that touch that makes the whole world kin. (Gokhale 2003, 338) Continuously documentable tradition of dramatic writing starts with M. Mashusudan Dutt, Is This Civilisation? (1871)

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Influential: Rabindranath Tagore’s (1861-1941) translation of his Bengali plays into English: The Genius of Valmiki (1881) Sacrifice (1890) Chitra (1892) The Post Office (1912) The Society of Confirmed Bachelors (1926) Closet Drama: Sri Aurobindo (Ghose) (1872-1950) Perseus the Deliverer (c. 1900) Rodogune (1906) Eric (1912/13) T.P. Kailasam (1885-1948) The Burden (1933) Fulfilment (1933) The Purpose (1944) The Curse of Carna (1946) Keechaka (1949) Social Drama: Harindranath Chattopadhyaya (1898-) The Window (1937) The Parrot (1937) The Sentry’s Lantern The Coffin The Evening Lamp A.S.P. Ayyar (1899-) The Slave of Ideas and Other Plays ( In the Clutch of the Devil, A Mother’s Sacrifice, Sita’s Choice ) Bharati Sarabhai (1912-) The Well of the People (1943)

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Bibliography Lecture 5:

A: General Dengel-Janic, Ellen, “South Asia.” In: Lars Eckstein, ed., English Literatures Across the Globe: A Companion. Paderborn: Fink/UTB, 2007. Döring, Tobias, Postcolonial Literatures in English. Stuttgart: Klett, 2008. Jussawalla, Feroza F., Family Quarrels: Towards a Criticism of Indian Writing in English. New York et al.: Lang, 1985. Mukherjee, Meenakshi, The Perishable Empire: Essays on Indian Writing in English. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2000. Nanavati, U.M., Prafulla C. Kar, eds., Rethinking Indian English Literature. Delhi: Pencraft International, 2000. Stilz, Gerhard, Grundlagen zur Literatur in englischer Sprache: Indian. München: Fink,

Stilz, Gerhard, ed., Indian Literature in English: An Anthology. Ms Tübingen 1987/88, 1998, 2004. [Fakultätsbibliothek PE 012.053] Verma, K.D., The Indian Imagination: Critical Essays on Indian Writing in English. Basingstoke/London: Macmillan, 2000. Verma, M.R., K.A. Agrawal, eds., Reflections on Indian English Literature. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2002. B. Poetry (various chapters in Mehrotra, Arvind Krishna, ed., A History of Indian Literature in English. London: Hurst, 2003 on poets associated with the Hindu College, the Dutt dynasty, Tagore, Aurobindo etc.) Ramakrishnan, E.V., “Voices from a Burning House: Nationalist Discourse and Indian English Poetry.” In: U.M. Nanavati, Prafulla C. Kar, eds., Rethinking Indian English Literature. Delhi: Pencraft International, 2000: 82-94. C. Drama Bhatta, S. Krishna, Indian English Drama: A Critical Study. New Delhi, 1987. Chagas-Pereira, Meena, “Asif Currimbhoy’s Goa: Problems of an Anglo-Indian Playwright.” In: Stilz 1981, 113-124. Gokhale, Shanta, “The Dramatists.” In: Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, ed., A History of Indian Literature in English. London: Hurst, 2003: 337-350. Naik, M.K. and S. Mokahi-Punekar, eds., Perspectives on Indian Drama in English. Madras: Oxford UP, 1977. Stilz, Gerhard, “Das englische Drama Indiens: Ein Überblick.” In: G.S., Hrsg., Drama im Commonwealth. Tübingen: Narr, 1981.

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Extra Reading Assignments for Landeskunde/Cultural Studies-Schein (6 CPs): Sen, Amartya, “Class in India”/“Women and Men.” In: The Argumentative Indian. New York: Picador, 2005: 204-250. Tharoor, Shashi, “A Myth and an Idea.” In: India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond. New York: Arcade Publishing, 7- 2 2. Varma, Pavan K., “Introduction: Image versus Reality.” In: Being Indian: Inside the Real India. London: Arrow Books, 2006: 1-15. All texts can be photocopied from a folder available in the Fakultätsbibliothek’ (Seminarapparate).