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“Indian” Literatures Today: English and Bhasha Literatures in an Uneasy Relationship

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“Indian” Literatures Today: English and Bhasha Literatures in an Uneasy Relationship Nalini Iyer, Bonnie Zare, eds.. Other Tongues: Rethinking the Language Debates in India.. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. 248 pp. $71.00, cloth, ISBN 978-90-420-2519-6. Reviewed by KumKum Chatterjee Published on H-Asia (July, 2011) Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin) It can be difficult to determine what exactly views) to engage in multivocal, nuanced, and we mean when we refer to “Indian literature” and thought-provoking debates about literary canons; “Indian author/s.” Does V. S. Naipaul, the grand‐ their “authenticity”; their audiences; and the com‐ son of indentured laborers from India who were mercial-financial nexus that undergirds book taken to Trinidad, count as an “Indian” writer? Or publication, circulation, and sales. are the many authors who live in India but write The dominant theme of this anthology centers in English better qualified for the label than the on the question of how English works are taken to highly visible group of Indian writers who live define the aesthetic and cultural parameters of In‐ outside India and write in English? What about dian literature in a global context. Quite fttingly, the much larger numbers of writers who live in the now infamous comments made by Salman India and produce a rich and varied literature in Rushdie and subsequently by Naipaul about the many South Asian regional languages? Are their relative inferiority of South Asian Bhasha litera‐ claims to represent truly “Indian” literature tures vis-à-vis English literature produced by au‐ stronger than all the others? Given the complexi‐ thors deemed to be “Indian” or South Asian are ties raised by such questions, the collection of es‐ used by the editors as a launching point for the says edited by Nalini Iyer and Bonnie Zare substantive introduction that precedes the indi‐ presents a timely exploration of the relationship vidual essays.[1] In the introduction, the editors between Indian literature in English versus Indi‐ provide a useful discussion of the global context an literature in Bhasha (South Asian regional lan‐ and the cultural politics of the late twentieth and guages)--a relationship that is controversial and early twenty-first centuries through which the often tense. This volume brings together aca‐ hegemony of English should be understood. They demics, writers, and publishers in a multi-genre trace the role of English in colonial education in format (academic essay, personal essay, and inter‐ India in particular; its enthusiastic embrace by H-Net Reviews the colonial Indian middle class; its active and poric Indian literary scholars. Iyer’s essay engages continuing legacy into the present; and the in‐ with the criticism targeted at diasporic Indian an‐ evitable class dimension of English literature and glophone writers: that they lack “authenticity” in education in India, i.e., its link to the urban, afflu‐ cultural representation and “pander to western ent Indian middle class who also constitute the readers’ orientalist desires” (pp. 3-4). Iyer’s posi‐ “power elite.” tion is that this literature needs to be viewed dif‐ The essays and interviews with personalities ferently from anglophone writing by resident In‐ associated with the book publishing industry in dian writers because the former engages with the India--such as Urvashi Butalia, one of the historical and cultural realities of the post-1965 founders of Kali for Women, India’s frst feminist United States and with a variety of literary canons press (now renamed Zuban, Delhi); Geeta Dhar‐ that extend from bhasha literature at one end of marajan and other editors of the Katha Press; and the spectrum to American literature at the other. Minnie Krishnan of the Oxford University Press-- Dhingra Shankar describes what seems to her to shed sobering light on the challenges and be a critically important attribute of success and prospects facing those involved in promoting the fame for diasporic Indian anglophone writing: the publication of works translated from various Indi‐ need for these works to maintain a balance be‐ an regional languages into English. As pointed out tween being “exotic” and not “too foreign,” and to in the introduction, only about 4 percent of India’s be “easily accessible to audiences outside the eth‐ population is fuent in English, but the status of nic group.” She includes the work of such authors English as the language of global business and as Divakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Bharati other types of communication tilts the balance in Mukherjee in her analysis and subsumes many of favor of Indian authors who write in English since their literary creations under what she dubs the they have access to larger audiences, greater visi‐ “Amy Tan phenomenon” (p. 29). Dhingra Shankar, bility within India as well as outside it, and the interestingly, contrasts the writing of Divakaruni availability of publication outlets that are not con‐ and Mukherjee, who are immigrants to the United fined to India. States, to that of Lahiri, a second-generation Indi‐ an American, who can claim multiple audiences Section 1 of this anthology contains the for her fction and can straddle the sensitive line largest number of contributions, ranging from of being an “insider” and “not quite an insider” si‐ academic essays, a personal memoir, and an in‐ multaneously vis-à-vis American society. Despite terview, and the contributors are just as varied. some casual references to Indian anglophone They include Indian academics based in the Unit‐ writers who are resident in India, they are not ed States (Nalini Iyer, Lavina Dhingra Shankar, discussed substantively in any of the essays in this and Josna Rege); a Marathi playwright based in collection. This is a costly omission and due atten‐ Maharashtra (Mahesh Elkunchwar); a poet who is tion to it would have gone far to create a truer di‐ also one of the founding members of the Writers alogue in this anthology among diasporic and Workshop and a pioneer in promoting English non-diasporic anglophone Indian writers. It is language works and their publication in India true that the piece by Elkunchwar allows us the (Pradip Sen); and a diasporic Indian author of opportunity to hear the voice of a litterateur who considerable renown (Chitra Divakaruni). The es‐ writes exclusively in Marathi, but it is the only es‐ says by Iyer, Dhingra Shankar, and Rege address a say about and by an author who writes exclusive‐ number of issues associated with diasporic Indian ly in an Indian regional language. writing in English--a strand of “Indian” literature that seems to attract the most attention from dias‐ The main value and intent of this volume is its ability to highlight the fractured and multiple 2 H-Net Reviews spheres of Indian literature in terms of the large tion and upbringing made English the most natu‐ number of regional Indian languages (bhasha) as ral language for emotional and creative expres‐ well as English that are used to produce it. The no‐ sion. Perhaps, even more important, is the sugges‐ tion that anglophone Indian writing and bhasha tion made by Divakaruni, for example, of the fow literatures inhabit, more or less, completely sepa‐ between bhasha/vernacular cultures and litera‐ rate spheres runs like a thread through this an‐ tures of India on the one hand and those Indians thology, with a few exceptions here and there. who opted to write in English--such as herself--on One way out of this literary, linguistic, and cultur‐ the other. In my view, it is just as important to ac‐ al gulf seems to lie in “building bridges” via trans‐ knowledge and identify a literary/cultural space lations (p. xxx). Translations, as the editors re‐ in which some Indians are both comfortable and mark, have the power to act as connectors be‐ familiar with bhasha literatures as well as with tween cultures and languages within India and anglophone literature, no matter in what lan‐ beyond it. The editors, however, are clear-sighted guage they choose to write. Neither is this sce‐ enough to realize that translations, while valuable nario true only for current times. Some of the and necessary, cannot resolve the problems per‐ best-known literary fgures from the formative taining to the lopsided dominance of English and phase of modern Indian literature--Bankim Chan‐ of metropole-based writers over authors writing dra Chattopadhyaya, for example, as well as many in bhasha. The last section of the anthology con‐ others--would ft this description. Besides, histori‐ tains four essays on translations as a scholarly cally, India was a multilingual society in which and literary endeavor. These pieces by Anushiya many languages--the regional vernaculars and Shivnarayan, S. Shankar, Christi Merrill, and such “prestige” languages as Sanskrit and Per‐ Arnab Chakladar are remarkable in terms of illus‐ sian--held sway, and educated Indians were famil‐ trating for laypersons, such as myself, the deli‐ iar with at least a few literatures and languages, cate, challenging, and highly sensitive work of although their comfort level and proficiency level translation/transcreation together with the obvi‐ may well have been uneven from one to the oth‐ ous limitations inherent in such activity. er. This is not to suggest that the divide between In conclusion, this is a thoughtful, engaging the literatures and the lopsided material and com‐ anthology that makes accessible to an audience of mercial opportunities available to Indian authors specialists as well as nonspecialists the tensions who write in English in contrast to those who use and dilemmas that inform the relationship be‐ only bhasha for their literary creations is not rele‐ tween bhasha literatures and anglophone writing vant or important. My argument is that along by “Indians”--whether resident in India, descen‐ with this picture, we also need to accommodate a dants of immigrants, or those with other back‐ concurrently existing milieu, both within India as grounds.
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