Chapter 5 Background to the Indian Prose 5.0 Objectives 5.1 Introduction 5.2 History of Indian English Prose in brief 5.3 Major Indian English Prose Writers 5.4 Major themes dealt in Indian English Prose 5.5 Conclusion 5.6 Summary Answers to check your progress 5.7 Field work 5.0 Objectives Friends, the Second Semester of Indian English Literature paper deals with the Indian Prose works. Study of this chapter will help you to : ● Describe the literary background of the Indian English Prose. ● Take review of the growth and development of Indian English Prose. ● Describe different phases and the influence of the contemporary social and political situations. ● Explain recurrent themes in Indian English prose. ● Write about major Indian English prose writers. 5.1 Introduction Friends, this chapter will introduce you to the history of Indian English prose. It will provide you with information of the growth of Indian English prose and its socio-cultural background. What are the various themes in Indian English prose? Who are the major Indian English prose writers? This chapter is an answer to these questions with a thorough background to Indian English prose works which will Background to the Indian Prose / 67 help you to get better knowledge of the various prevailing trends in Indian English prose works. 5.2 History of Indian English Prose in brief Indo - Anglian Literature 1800-1970 is broadly speaking a development from poetry to prose and from romantic idealization of various kinds to realism and symbolism. But one has to admit that Indian writing in English is the off - spring of the English impact on India. The English had begun to have a hold on India because the Moghul Empire had begun to collapse and the Princely states began to seek the political help of the English. Hindu culture had in such unstable political situation sustained a set - back. There was a sort of vaccum of culture. So the western education in English brought about a renaissance and a reawakening in India. This renaissance first broke out in Bengal in the early years of the nineteenth century. The pioneer of the Renaissance in India was Raja Ram Mohan Roy. He was the most articulate spokesman of intellectual opinion in Bengal. He urged his fellow Indians to embrace European civilization through the medium of the English language and literature, English ideas and institutions. He believed in the worship of One Supreme Soul and was a great humanitarian and a social reformer. Macaulay's Minute on Education, which made the study of English a compulsory subject in schools in India, was welcomed by Raja Ram Mohan Roy. It was in Bengal that a literary renaissance first manifested itself but almost immediately afterwards its traces could be seen in Madras, Bombay and the other parts of India. The first Indian English novel was Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's Raj Mohan's Wife (1864). It is different from his Bengali novels such as Durgesh Nandini or Kopal Kandla. In fact, it paved the way for Anand Math (1884), Indian's first political novel which gave the Indians their national anthem, "Vande Mataram". Then arrived Manoj Basu's Jaljangal in the form of the English translation as The Forest Goddess by Barindra Nath Bose. The novels published from the eighteen sixties up to the end of the nineteenth century were written by the writers belonging to the Presidencies of Bengal and Madras. Most of these novels are on the social and few on the historical issues and for their models they drew Background to the Indian Prose / 68 upon eighteenth and nineteenth century British fiction, especially that of Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding and Walter Scott. The novels published between 1864 and 1900 include Ram Krishna Punt's The Bay of Bengal (1866), Anand Prasad Dutt's The Indolence (1878), Shoshee Chunder Dutt's The Young Zamindar (1883), Trailokya Das's Hirimba's Wedding (1884), Krupabai Satthianandan's Kamala: AStory of Hindu Child Wife (1894) and Saguna: AStory of Native Christian Life (1895), Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Bijoy Chand: An Indian Tale (1888) and Lt. Suresh Biswas: His Life and Adventures (1900) and Yogendra Nath Chattopadhyaya's The Girl and Her Tutor (1891). The twentieth century began with novelists of more substantial output. Romesh Chandra Dutt translated two of his own Bengali novels into English: The Lake of Palms: AStudy of Indian Domestic Life (1902) and The Slave Girl of Agra, an Indian Historical Romance (1909). The first, a realistic novel, seems to have been written with the aim of social reform with its theme being widow remarriage while the latter is set in the Mughal period. Sarath Kumar Ghosh a another Bengali novelist wrote Verdict of Gods (1905) and The Prince of Destiny: The New Krishna (1909). A. Madhaviah and T. Ramakrishna Pillai belonging to the Madras presidency were two important contemporaries of these Bengali novelists. Madhaviah wrote Satyananda (1909), Thrillai Govindan (1916), Clarinda (1915), Nanda, the Pariah Who Overcame Caste (1923) and Lt. Panju-A Modern Indian (1924). T. Ramakrishna Pillai wrote Padmini (1903) and A Dive for Death (1911). Another Indian English novelist of prominence was a Punjabi writer Jogendra Singh. His fictional work includes: Nur Jahan, The Romance of an Indian Queen (1909), a historical novel: Nasrin, An Indian Medley (1911), a realistic novel depicting the fall of the aristocratic life in North India, Kamala (1925) and Kamni (1931), dealing with the social themes. The first three were published in London and the last in Lahore. Then appeared on the scene novels such as S. T. Ram's The Cosmopolitan Hindusthani (1902), L. B. Pal's A Glimpse of Zanana Life in Bengal (1904), S. B. Banerjee's The Adventures of Mrs. Russell (1909), Balkrishna's The Love of Kusuma: An Eastern Love Story Background to the Indian Prose / 69 (1910), B. K. Sarkar's Man of Letters (1911), M. M. Munshi's Beauty and Joy (1914) and T. K. Gopal Pannikar's Storm and Sunshine (1916). The Indo - Anglian Literature in the colonial period, 1800 - 1947 when India became free, reveals three clear - cut phases: a) The outbreak of the literary renaissance in Bengal under the impact of the Western culture i.e. 1800 - 1857. b) Roughly, from 1857 when the Indian Mutiny or Revolt broke out in India and the winds of change began to blow to 1920 when Gandhiji returned from South Africa and the freedom struggle gathered momentum under the leadership of Gandhiji. c) Roughly, from 1920 to 1947, historically known as the Gandhi era. Development and Characteristics of the Indo - Anglian Literature from about 1800 to 1857 This period is of literary renaissance which began chiefly with journalism and pamphleteering. The articles may therefore be called "literature of Knowledge" rather than the "Literature of Power". The Indo - Anglian Literature produced during this period is characterized by the attempt on the part of the writers to connect the two cultures East and West. Raja Mohan Roy was a master of two styles : a) Lofty and unimpassioned for his positive philosophizing. b) The biting and hard - hitting in controversy with Hindus and Christian missionaries. Raja Mohan Roy is regarded as a great Indian master of English prose. His English works are mostly journalistic essays which appeared in his own weekly papers. The essays were on Vedanta, to uphold the quintessence of Hindu religion, on Christianity, on social reforms particularly the need to restore self - respect and dignity of Hindu women as individuals, on political issues etc. At the request of his friends, Raja Ram Mohan Roy wrote a short autobiographical sketch. This sketch is the first exercise in the Indian English literature in a prose style which was later on emulated by Nehru and Nirad Chaudhary. Inspired by Ram Mohan Roy's journalistic articles, other Indians converted to Christianity. They began to attack the errors and inconsistencies of Hinduism through journalism. Some of them are: Background to the Indian Prose / 70 Krishna Mohan Banerji, Ram Gopal Ghose and Harish Chunder Mukerji who championed the cause of widow - remarriage. In Bombay, Bal Shastri Jambhekar, the first Sanskrit Pandit to study English became the founder of English - cum - Marathi journal to encourage among his countrymen the pursuit of the English literature and to open a field for free and public discussion. Others who trailed along the same path to restore among their countrymen a sense of national self - respect were Dadoba Pandurang and Bhau Daji, Kashinath Telang and Mahadev Govind Ranade. In Madras, Gazulu Lakshmi Narsu started a newspaper with the aim of ameliorating the condition of the Hindus. But Cavelly Venkata Ramaswami got published Biographical Sketches of the Dekkan poets, the first literary biography in Indian English Literature of about hundred Indian poets in Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil and Marathi. So the literary renaissance in India was ushered in by the journalistic articles and pamphleteering. The first period of Indian writing in English may be said to end in the fifties of the nineteenth century, a few years before 1857, the year of Mutiny, the Indian Revolt. During this first period, the British rule in India was accepted by most of the Indians as a great boon. Western education had opened the gates to knowledge, science, freedom and literature and educated Indians took to freeing themselves from their blind adherence to the Hindu customs. The attempt of the writers was no doubt to bridge the two cultures but the inclination was more towards the western culture than to the Indian culture. This tilt towards the Western culture became a cause of great concern to some educated Indians like Keshab Chunder Sen, Dayanand Saraswati, Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, the father of Rabindranath Tagore.