2 Situating ‘Indian English Writing’

Dr. Sanghamitra Dey

Introduction

The attempt to read or write the history of ‘Indian Writing in English’ is critically embroiled in the problematic of using the proper terminology (Indian English literature or Indo-Anglian) as evident in the continuous debate on the ‘Indianness’. Having experienced the history of colonial encounter with the British, the historical, ideological as well as theoretical questions of using an alien language to express the essence of Indian sensibility form the core of the problem of interpretation. The history of colonial encounter with the British is categorically important for any reading of the history of ‘Indian Writing in English’. To illustrate, the influential impact of the 1813 Charter Act and the ensuing 1835 English Education Act of William Bentinck are noteworthy contribution to the wide circulation of English language and literature thereby contributing to a cultural archive borrowed and mediated in nature. The history of Indian writing in English is therefore viewed through the prism of cultural translation and consequent assimilation.However, the early twentieth century witnesses the surge of ‘Indianness’ in terms of form, content, style of writing which parallels the simultaneous process of the rise of nationalism. The idea of national awakening in terms of a unified national imaginary has been subject to various debates and interpretations with the progress of Indian history. Hence, the realm is a dynamic terrain with constantly changing cultural and ideological dynamics.

This chapter dealing with the history of ‘Indian Writing in English’ therefore aims not to be rigidly conclusive in terms of offering a simplistic thematisation of the historical situation and its impact on the literary configurations and vice versa in the attempt to address the larger historical and cultural dynamics. The attempt is to offer perspectives on the reading of history by opening a dialogic terrain where social, political, and economic conditions influence, reconfigure, interact, reconceptualise the imaginative and intellectual processes and the ensuing literary representations of history as well as historical representation of literature elude any simplistic conclusive categorization in the context of the larger issues of historiography, nation/nationalism, the intricate relation between imagining/fashioning the self in the context of nation-state, the process of acculturation etc. The other modules designed to read the literature produced during these years adumbrate such interpretative perspective. Each module deals with illustrative analysis of representative texts from all relevant genres- prose, poetry, drama, novel and an attempt has been made to proceed in a chronological order to offer a coherent perspective. This module “Situating ‘Indian English Writing’” is an attempt to address the fraught context of the emergence of the literary writing in English and deals with the context of the self-fashioning of historical, social and cultural and literary imaginary of the term ‘Indian’.

Objectives

The chapter aims to

Address the raging debate on ‘Indianness’
Read the history of colonial encounter with the British
Address the historical as well as theoretical questions of using an alien language to express the essence of Indian sensibility
Read critically the history of Indian Writing in English

History of Indian English Literature

Issues

This section unfolds the complex history of ‘Indianness’ or ‘being Indian’ in the context of colonial encounter and the ensuing emergence of a cultural space where British cultural codes got embedded in Indian English writing. Our aim is to situate the question of cultural politics and history in the context of literary representations as literary representations are embroiled in historical and cultural thought. As stated earlier, the educational reforms initiated by British thrive on the enlightenment idea of progressive liberalization and our aim is to trace the politics and context of the imitative aspect of the beginning years, the emergence of a nationalist rhetoric in the twentieth century and the consequent restructuring and reshaping of the concepts ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’ in the subsequent years. Hence, the first two sub-sections set the ground for the further exploration of the evolution of various genres contributing to the history of ‘Indian.

Writing in English’ as we learn the intricate relation existing between the discourses of colonialism and nationalism in the context of India’s history of colonialism. The third sub- section focuses on the poetics and politics of ‘Language’ thereby going beyond the question of linguistic shift in the context of English Studies in India as English has become Indianised during the post-Independence years. Hence the desire to read the history of colonial encounter in terms of the exploration of an authentic Indian self though the question of authenticity of the Indian self mediated through the prism of an alien language is channelized in a different way to make it a common affair. Though the impact of English Studies in India on the collective cultural imaginary remains crucial to the question of ‘Indianness’ and will be addressed in subsequent modules, we cannot deny the fact that it is impossible to conceptualise Indian imaginary without English.

Beginnings

The temptation to view English literary study as the extension of the spread of English education in India is blinding to the fact that English literary study was a potent tool for the consolidating of colonial authority. In India English Literary Study was playing a different role contrary to its secular humanist concerns as visible in the missionary activities. The earliest instance of Indian writing in English is The Travels of Din Mahomet (1794) written by Din Muhammad who migrated in England in 1784. The English language came to Indian soil twenty years before the East India Company came into existence when a Roman Catholic, Father Thomas Stephens came to India to escape persecution in Elizabethan England around 1578. India was an enchanting place for traders and merchants- John Newberry, Ralph Fitch, William Leeds, James Story. Some of them were writers as we see in Ralph Fitch whose account appeared in Richard Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations (1599).The influence of such representative cases of missionary and merchant activities can hardly be negated in the flourishing of Indian English literature.

English came to India around 1660 when the factories of East India Company along the Malabar and Coromandel coasts began to prosper. In 1660, England witnessed the restoration of monarchy with Charles II and Charles II sanctioned the company with various powers thus enabling it to exercise jurisdiction over all English subjects in factories. They were also granted the power to declare war or peace on native Indians. Henceforth, during seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the gradual interaction between the British and the Indian especially in the employment zone led to the creation of a class of dubashis, bilingual familiar with French, English, Dutch, and Portuguese. The Indians employed by the Europeans and the Europeans working for Indian rulers together initiated the first stage of linguistic transmission. Gradually, the company which initially came for trade slowly became the virtual ruler and administrator of the country and started to train a category of people to work for them in offices as clerks and mediators. By 1757, the company was established as the virtual ruler of Bengal and the establishment of schools and colleges was a strategic part in consolidation of power leading to the Orientalist phase of colonial rule. To elaborate, the Charter Act of 1813 imposed an official responsibility upon the company to educate the Indian natives. Gauri Viswanathan in The Masks of Conquest traces the history of the last quarter of eighteenth century when the Parliament worried with the growing power of a commercial company undertook “a serious and active interest in Indian politics” (27). The greatest concern of the Parliament was the moral depravity of the officials and in the context of saving the native Indians “against the wrongs and oppressions of British subjects resident in Bengal”, the politics got a new dimension. As Viswanathan argues, “Orientalism was adopted as an official policy partly out of expediency and caution and partly out of an emergent political sense that an efficient Indian administration rested on an understanding of “Indian culture” (28). With Orientalism “the worlds of scholarship and politics” (Viswanathan 29) merged into a poetics of representation.

‘Anglicism’, the policy of regarding the promotion of indigenous Indian languages and literatures in native education instrumental to the undesirable and chaotic consequences was contrary to Orientalism. Warren Hastings was succeeded by Lord Cornwallis (1786-1793) as governor-general who thought that “the official indulgence toward Oriental forms of social organization, especially government, was directly responsible for the lax morals of the Company servants …. To Cornwallis, the abuse of power was the most serious of evils afflicting the East India Company, not only jeopardizing the British hold over India but, worse still, dividing the English nation on the legitimacy of the colonial enterprise.”( Viswanathan 30). The Anglicist- Orientalist controversy paved the way for close involvement of Englishmen like James Harington, J.P Larkins, W.W.Martin, John C. Sutherland, Henry Shakespear, Holt Mackenzie,

Horace Wilson, Andrew Stirling, William B. Bayley, Henry Prinsep, Nathaniel Halhed, and John Tytler, with Indian and political cultural life during the period from 1805 to 1820.Horace Wilson, secretary to the Committee of Public Instruction advocated various reforms in the Indian curriculum to bring in the teaching of European science and English literature along with the Oriental languages.The other prominent voices were Macaulay, Charles Trevelyan and Alexander Duff. The controversy itself was triggered off by the General Council of Public Instruction in Calcutta proposing to withdraw financial support to Oriental learning in favour of promoting the study of English and literature.

Subsequent conflicts related to the support for Orientalism or Anglicism were negotiated on the ground of British consolidation of authority and the Charter Act of 1813 was basically a result of diverse terrains. The Charter Act of 1813 is instrumental in introducing missionary activity to Indian as it granted the missionaries with required power and scope to carry out the reforms. Ironically the reformist activities were related to the improvement of native morals. Hence English education was intricately linked with the British government’s policies of exerting and reinforcing its power and domination over India. According to the Charter Act of 1813, a sum of not less than one lakh rupees was kept for the improvement of native education. But there were no definite instructions in the Act regarding the ways the amount of one lakh should be spent. As Viswanathan rightly points out, “The policy in the years immediately following the Charter Act was to establish institutions devoted to the teaching of Oriental languages and literature”. The impact of the Charter Act of 1813 on English education in India is immense as gradually the introduction of English literature in India came as the solution to the existing tension between two spheres- spread of Indian education and the issue of interference in religion. A clause within the Charter Act aimed for the “revival and improvement of literature” but the term was not properly defined and was kept vague till Thomas Babington Macaulay interpreted it as Western literature in his famous Minute (1835).

Macaulay’s “Minute” and the Indian Renaissance

(from M.K. Naik’s A History of Indian English Literature)

The turn of events from Macaulay’s ‘Minute’ to Sir Charles Wood’s despatches its after-effects is described thus: to begin by quoting from Macaulay – “The question now before us is simply whether, when it is in our power to teach this language, we shall teach languages in which by universal confession there are no books on any subject which deserve to be compared to our own; whether we teach European science, we shall teach systems which by universal confession, whenever they differ from those of Europe, differ for the worse, and whether, when we can patronize sound philosophy and true history, we shall countenance at public expense medical doctrines which would disgrace an English farrier, astronomy which would move laughter in girls at an English boarding school, history abounding with kings thirty feet high and reigns 30,000 years long and geography made up of seas of treacle and seas of butter… The logical outcome of Wood’s Despatch was the establishment of the three first Indian universities- those of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras- in 1857. These universities soon became the nurseries of the resurgent Indian genius, which within hardly a generation thereafter ushered in a renaissance in the political, social, cultural and literary spheres of Indian life.”

As a consequence of Macaulay’s ‘Minute’ of 1835, William Bentinck, the Governor- General, adopted the English Education Act under which the teaching of English was removed from“the Sanskrit College and the Madrassa and confined to institutions devoted to studies entirely conducted in English.” (Viswanathan, 41). On 7March 1835, William Bentinck declared that “the great object of the British Government ought to be the promotion of European literature and science among the natives of India, and all funds appropriated for the purpose of education would be best employed on English education alone.”

A period of ‘Anglicization’ distinguished by the promise of renewed aspiration and national consciousness in terms of knowledge production resurfaced 1835 onwards. It triggered tremendous support among native Indians.In 1854, Sir Charles Wood’s (a member of the Select Committee of the British Parliament in 1852-53) Despatch to Lord Dalhousie (then Governor- General) negotiated the problems arising out of this situation and Sir Charles Wood is remembered for the spread of English education in India. During the twenty years between 1835 and 1855—the period of Macaulay’s ‘Minute’, the English Education Act of Bentinck and Wood’s Dispensations—the number of English-speaking persons increased thereby contributing to the emergence, promotion and growth of Indian English Literature. To quote Iyengar: “It is said that even in 1834-5, 32,000 English books sold in India as against 13,000 in Hindi, Hindustani and Bengali, and 1,500 in Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic. The vogue for English books increased, and the demand came even more from the Indian than the Englishmen in India.

K.R.S. Iyengar calls the years from 1835 to 1855 the “phoenix-hour that bred Indo- Anglian literature” (29). The imposition of English-centred education in India led to “the literary renaissance in India as seen in Raja Rammohan Roy’s “A Defense of Hindu Theism” (1817) which is regarded as the first significant piece of writing in English by an Indian.

Early Twentieth Century

As we see in the earlier section, the introduction of English literature was crucial to the survival of the colonial enterprise. To elaborate, English Literary Studies is introduced in India much before their inclusion in educational curriculum in England as schools in Britain began to teach English literature only in 1871 whereas in India we witness the demand for the adoption of English literary study as early as 1816 exemplified in the setting up of the Hindu College. Literature can hardly be ideologically neutral and the British officials consider it to be the best medium to impart moral education to the native Indians as they felt that moral education of Indians was important for sustaining the political and material control.Charles Grant’s idea of reinforcing the colonial authority and redressing religious and cultural difference through educational aspects materialized in the case of the committee comprising Alexander Duff (missionary), Charles Trevelyan (administrator), and W.H. Pearce who undertook the task of selecting and prescribing literary texts suitable for Indian libraries and schools. But the real challenge for the colonial administration was to separate the religious and the secular aspects of the British presence in the country as it was found that the English literary texts (Shakespeare, Addison, Bacon, Locke) were replete with moral and religious elements.Hence, Grant’s proposal to invest on the moral education of Indian was materialized through the adoption of the study of English literary texts. Seen in this context, English Literary Study was instrumental in the teaching of the tenets of Christianity in India as well as in the moral and cultural training of the officials. Interestingly, Lord Hardinge, governor-general from 1844-1848, declared that Indians with an expertise in European literature would be preferred for working in public office run by the British.

The early twentieth century was distinguished by the great Revolt of 1857, also referred to as the First War of Indian Independence; an ambivalent Indian attitude towards the presence of the British and the English language thereby leading to a synthesis between socio-political circumstances and aesthetic and creative sensibility. Vivek Dhareswar addresses the complex negotiations in relation to the context of historical production. According to him, the reason of this complex process lies in the relation of literature to its context of production and users. The end of the great Revolt of 1857 and the declaration of peace on 8th July, 1858, brought an end to the activities of the East India Company in India. During the period from 1857 to 1947, the Indian spirit was marked by radical transformations from all quarters.It was a phoenix hour when India was able to transcend the sense of inferiority and frustration and rediscovered her identity. The sense of self-confidence and self-awareness marks this period of renewed self-assessment and exploration of opportunities .The East India Company was formally dissolved in January 1847 corresponding to a period of religious, social, and political reform. The reformist era was similar to 1828 when Raja Rammohun Roy had first established the Brahmo Samaj. After his death, this movement was further propagated by Keshab Chunder Sen while similar organizations like the Prarthana Samaj were set up by M.G. Ranade and R.G. Bhandarkar in 1867 in Bombay. Swami Dayanand Saraswati set up the Arya Samaj in 1875 in the cultural turn towards an earlier, purer form of Hinduism. Another kind of support to this wave of revivalism came from the Theosophical Society founded in New York by Madame H.P. Blavatsky, Col.

H.S. Olcott, W.O. Judge besides others. Moreover, the Indian National Congress came into existence in 1885 thereby paving the way towards political unity. The outbreak of World War I challenged the core of British imperialism and gradually we witness the rise of the new Indian intelligentsia.

Henceforth, the Indian nation was on the verge of a period of renewed hope and expectation which eventually led to the emergence of national consciousness translated in the form of a strategic articulation of myriad possibilities in various contexts, literature being the most prominent amongst all. The age is marked by the exploration of the exclusivity of the ‘Indian’ identity in the context of the emergence and evolution of Indian Nationalism. As we proceed to offer an insight into the various historical processes influencing literary writing, it is found that literary creations participated in the creation of a national imaginary in terms of the discourse of imperialism and nationalism.The strategic evolution of such ideological and cultural formations in terms of articulating Indian national identity is explored in the plethora of writings imbued with nationalist rhetoric by Aurobindo Ghosh, Rabindranath Tagore, Jawaharlal Nehru, Nirad C. Chaudhuri etc. which draw attention to the process of identity formation.

Post-Independence Period

The post-Independence period is marked by rapid and overwhelming changes in economic, political, social, cultural spheres. In the economic sphere, it was an era of developments in the form of the implementation of Five-year-Plans, the emergence of large industrial projects in the public sector, community development projects and the nationalization of Life Insurance and the banks, multi-purpose river projects, agrarian reforms etc. 1956 was an important year when the boundaries of states were re-drawn on a linguistic basis. In the social sphere, efforts to eradicate traditional social inequalities and superstition were translated in the adoption of progressive measures such as the Untouchability Offences Act of 1955, the Hindu Code Bill, etc. Several schemes were launched to address the persistent issues related to social development. Consequently, the country witnessed a rise in national literacy rates by 75% between 1951 and 1971.

The growing number of readership along with the increasing literacy rate gave an impetus to the continuity of Indian English literature. Various reasons contributed to such growth. To elaborate, now we find the English journals like The Illustrated Weekly of India and Quest encouraging the publication of Indian English verse and prose. Moreover, the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award started covering Indian English Literature from the year 1960. It gave tremendous impetus by acting as a source of inspiration for the writers of Indian English literature. The gradual awakening of a national identity in the Post-Independence period infused the Indian writings with a renewed sense of self-confidence and assertion. The fact of gaining political independence from colonial rule in 1947 was the harbinger of a new era in literature as well as culture. The historic moment not only helped the Indian English writer to affirm the sense of identity, it also led to an era of intense self-scrutiny thereby widening their vision. We witness the increasing growth in the readership. Although initially the role of English was viewed through the prism of borrowed perspective, gradually the language was ‘Indianised’ and became a part of the soil. It paved the way for the strategic negation of “British” in terms of representation of themes and techniques specific to the articulation of Indian national identity.

The aim was also to make the reader aware of the ruptures inherent in such processes of self- articulation as the question of identity, therefore also focuses on the strategic exclusion of the subaltern groups, essentially situated at the margins of colonial and nationalist discourse of difference.

Indiannesss in Context: “The Gandhian Whirlwind”

Again, we must take note of what Menakshi Mukherjee points out: “No discussion of Indo- Anglian fiction dealing with the independence movement would be complete without an assessment of the function of Mahatma Gandhi in these novels. The most potent force behind the whole movement, the Mahatma is a recurring presence in these novels, and he is used in different ways to suit the design of each writer. He has been treated variously as an idea, a myth, a symbol, a tangible reality, and a benevolent human being. In a few novels he appears in person, in most others his is an invisible presence.”[The Twice Born Fiction, p.66]

Summing Up

The chapter is designed to address the problematic of Indian English literature mediated through the aesthetics of translating one’s self into the coloniser’s tongue as the question of dominance and hegemony is intricately related to the evolution of English literary studies in India. Having said so, the module deals with the derivative as well as creative aspect of ‘Indian Writing in English’ as the presence of the colonial context is unique to the creation of a canon of ‘Indian Writing in English’. An attempt has been made to incorporate the representative documents (not necessarily literary) like Lord Macaulay’s Minute to enhance our understanding of the creation of cultural archive deeply embedded in postcolonial discourse of difference.

Story Board

Situating ‘Indian English Writing’

Introduction

This chapter dealing with the history of ‘Indian Writing in English’ attempts to offer perspectives on the reading of history by opening a dialogic terrain where social, political, and economic conditions influence, reconfigure, interact, reconceptualise the imaginative and intellectual processes and the ensuing literary representations of history as well as historical representation of literature.

Objectives

The chapter aims to

Address the raging debate on ‘Indianness’
Aead the history of colonial encounter with the British
Address the historical as well as theoretical questions of using an alien language to express the essence of Indian sensibility
Read critically the history of Indian Writing in English

History of Indian English Literature

Beginnings

This section discusses the beginnings of the history of Indian Writing in English in the context of encounter with the British and subsequent conflicts related to the Orientalist and Anglicist phases, the Charter Act of 1813, Lord Macaulay’s Minute instrumental in introducing missionary activity. The aim is to show how these diverse tendencies were negotiated on the ground of British consolidation of authority.

Early Twentieth Century

This section deals with the changes in early twentieth century distinguished by the great Revolt of 1857, also referred to as the First War of Indian Independence; national awakening and an ambivalent Indian attitude towards the presence of the British and the English language thereby leading to a synthesis between socio-political circumstances and aesthetic and creative sensibility.

Post-Independence Period

The post-Independence period is marked by rapid and overwhelming changes in economic, political, social, cultural spheres and this section situates the history of Indian English literature in this era of developments.