International Journal of Research ISSN NO:2236-6124

POSTCOLONIAL DYNAMICS IN SOUTH ASIAN

D.RAJANI DEIVASAHAYAM Associate Professor in English Ch. S. D. St. Theresa’s Autonomous College for Women, ELURU email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

The term ‘South Asian English literature’ refers to the in use in the South Asian region that geographically includes , , , , The and . The English language enjoys a substantial place in this region primarily because of its wide spread functions in significant domains of social life, education, and cross- cultural communication. Since these regions have certain collective privileges like multilingualism and multiculturalism, they have a collective expression of colonization by the same colonizer, that is, the British. They belong and share the same historical tradition that has shaped a unified collective perspective and psychology. Postcolonial studies investigates various power relations in various contexts: the formation of empire, the impact of colonization on postcolonial history, economy, science and culture, feminism and post colonialism, agency for marginalized people, and the state of colonization in contemporary economic and cultural contexts and the likes. It mainly focuses on the persistence of colonial forms of power in contemporary world politics, especially how the social construction of racial, gendered and class differences uphold relations of power and subordination. Since Feminism and have both been concerned with language because of its use as a weapon to subvert patriarchal and colonial authority, an attempt has been made to make a study of the postcolonial concept in the of India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Though all these literatures are ‘colonial’ texts, my focus is not just on the subjugation of the colonized but on the way their resistance make the colonizer comprehends the hitherto smothered voices.

Key words: postcolonialism, feminism, subjugation, marginality, raised voices,

Introduction:

The term ‘South Asian English literature’ refers to the English language in use in the South Asian region that geographically includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, The Maldives and Sri Lanka. The English language enjoys a substantial place in this region primarily because of its wide spread functions in significant domains of social life, education, and cross- cultural communication. In the entire region, English is perceived as alanguage of power and a means of economy uplift and upward social mobility. Since English serves as a link language among the people of different regions within , English is viewed as an asset in the form of international language representing cross-cultural communication and collective

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development. Since these regions have certain collective privileges like multilingualism and multiculturalism, they have a collective expression of colonization by the same colonizer, that is the British. They belong and share the same historical tradition that has shaped a unified collective perspective and psychology. As there are multiple varieties of Englishes within the South Asian regions, they make the readers understand the social, cultural, historical, and political contexts in nativising the language. Though South Asian region is mainly bilingual, there are many authors whose literary representations are constructed only in English in spite of English being their second or third language.

Postcolonialism is the study of the interactions between European nations and the societies they had colonized in the modern period for several centuries. The sheer extent and duration of the empire and its disintegration after the Second World War have led to wide spread interest in the postcolonial literature and criticism in our times. Thus the term ‘postcolonial’ covers all the cultures affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day and is concerned with the world as it exists during and after the period of European imperial domination and the effects of this on contemporary literatures.

Postcolonial studies investigates various power relations in various contexts: the formation of empire, the impact of colonization on postcolonial history, economy, science and culture, the cultural productions of colonized societies, feminism and post colonialism, the marginalizationof the colonized in contemporary economic and cultural contexts. It mainly focuses on the persistence of colonial forms of power in contemporary social, economical and political worlds. It addresses issues like identity, gender, race and ethnicity: the challenge of developing a national identity in the wake of colonial rule, the ways in which knowledge of colonized people has served the interests of colonizers, and how knowledge about the world is produced under specific power relations repetitively circulated and finally legitimated to serve certain interests. Postcolonial theory is built around the concept of oppression and resistance which can carry with it ideas about freedom, liberty, identity, individuality etc.

One of the most significant terms in postcolonial studies ‘Hybridity’ emerges as an important concept that refers to the integration of cultural signs and practices from the colonizing and the colonized cultures. The assimilation and adaptation of cultural practices, the cross-fertilization of cultures can be seen as positive, enriching, and dynamic, as well as oppressive. The postcolonial crisis of identity concerns with the recovery of an effective identifying relationship between self and place which is eroded by dislocation, resulting from migration, transportation, or voluntary removal for indentured labour. The word ‘Diaspora’ also cannot be separated from the colonized as it was a historical condition that led to the displacement of people across the world under different circumstances. Consequently, the culture produced by diaspora contains many resonances of the movement, the imagination of

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their homelands, sense of tradition, the circumstances that led to their migration, and their reaction to the places they currently live. The descendants of the diasporic movements generated by colonialism have developed their own distinctive cultures which both preserve and develop their original cultures. They suffer from displacement and it often creates a setting that results in the migration of large numbers of people, either within the colonies or from them to the imperial centre and the literature of this age focuses on the experiences of racism and hostility, sense of rootlessness and search for identity which results from displacement and cultural diversity. It refers to both physical and emotional displacement. The writers of Commonwealth Literature focus on these issues and South is a part of it. Though the writers belong to different nations and cultures, their ideologies are the same and their presentation of the themes reflects the societies they live in and heard of.

Many women writers who live in strong patriarchal set uphaving ability to write and communicate represent power and draw relationship between postcolonialism and feminism. They have noted that since colonial language is English, literature written in English has often been used to marginalize and constrain female viewpoints. Feminism and postcolonialismhave both been concerned with language because of its use as a weapon to subvert patriarchal and colonial powers. These postcolonial feminists believe that oppressions related to colonial experience, especially racial, class and ethnic have marginalized women in postcolonial societies. They challenge the assumption that gender oppression is the primary force of patriarchy. But the western and postcolonial feminists differ on a certain view point. The postcolonial feminists object to the perceived notion of the western women as active and empowered and postcolonial women as passive and voiceless victims. Both feminist and postcolonial theories are critiques of domination due to their examination of the raised voice, the position of the subaltern in the society, their domination by the male and their struggles against such suppression. Commonwealth writers present how patriarchal power, cultural imperialism, and geographical colonization victimize people and disconnect them from their language, history and culture and how desperately they struggle to rediscover, to regain and reclaim their identity. Now for the past few decades there has been tremendous growth in the literature produced by the non-English speakers in the Commonwealth countries, especially in the South Asian region; to be precise in the Indian sub-continent.

South Asia emanates from the great Indian sub-continent and comprises India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, , Bhutan, and Afghanistan who have deep rooted connection through a shared history and culture. The experience of sharing a history and culture that is common, yet utterly personal, makes the literature of the region unique. It provides the South Asians a common basis for understanding their position in the contemporary world. Critics of South Asian Literature mostly focus on religion, region and nationality within South Asia and the impact of western feminist thought. It addresses the

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problems of identity and survival of English literature inside a changing geography and changing society. The present generations of South Asia and also the diaspora are born into the Eastern culture and are raised in Western ways, bringing with them a hybridity and a crisis in identity and survival. They fight for acceptance in their own homeland as diaspora/expatriates who live outside their native domain.

While Literature in English has a distinct place in India, it has struggled through odds to obtain a position of respect inside the other South Asian countries. Therefore, it is important today, to take an overview of the literary scenario in South Asia and understand the crisis of identity and survival that South Asian Literature in English is undergoing at present. By 1900s the has become acquainted with commonwealth literature that had brought forth the postcolonial question of identity and survival which is the outcome of perennial suffering that led to resistance. This has brought a crisis of identity in South Asian literature and culture, which is very different from Commonwealth literature. In South Asia there are several languages with indigenous literary traditions clamouring to be recognized but are denied their rightful place due to the dominance and hegemony of English as the language of literature. Unlike India, several languages with some degree of literary tradition co-existed in other countries but could not claim a distinct dominance or even a place of respect over English. Such a situation is found in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and the other South Asian countries and has given rise to intense antagonism on the language issue.

But this cannot be said about India. India with its rich and varied cultures, traditions, social values, and ethos, is rich in literature – be it Bengali, Marathi, Tamil or Telugu. Since India is a multilingual country, each language has its own literature which has brought forth the societal norms and dictums that have shaped the lives of the people of that particular community in that particular region. But these literatures have been restricted to a limited place due to their regional boundaries. But the colonial encounter with the British had opened new avenues in the field of . The elite group had acquired the language of the colonizer and by using the same language in their provocative writings had paved a way for Indians to learn to resist the imperial authority. Since then, there had been plenty of literature in English produced by the Indian writers and Literature is on par with the other world literatures in both quality and quantity. Starting from Toru Dutt to Rabindranath Tagore and to ArvindAdiga, there had been scores of writers who had enriched the Indian English Literature with their realistic portrayal of the Indian society with all its brighter and darker sides. Their objective presentation of the subjectivity of Indian ethos made the literature reach a remarkable position in Commonwealth Literature and surely at present, it stands on the top of South Asian Literature.

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The Indians with their expertise on language have proved their creativity and ingenuity by Indianizing the English language and restructured it to fit into the Indian context. In the earlier days, the writers main focus was on nationalism, freedom struggle, social reforms and individual consciousness. Since then, the Indian English writers have poignantly focused on various issues such as East-West conflict, multi-culturism, social realism, gender issues, aspects of human nature, ecological concerns, diasporic writings and the likes. Raja Rao’sKanthapura,Mulk Raj Anand’sUntouchable,R.K.Narayan’sWaiting for the Mahatma,NayantaraSahgal’sA Time to be Happy,K.A.Abbas’ Inquilaab revolves round the theme of independence movement and the aftermath of the freedom struggle in post independent India. Kushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan’,ManoharMalgaonkar’sA Bend in the Ganges, ChamanNahal’sAzadireflect the ill-effects of partition and the exploitation of people in all spheres. Since literature reflects society, almost all the writers presented social evils prevalent in the society with the purpose of bringing social reforms. To mention a few, Mulk Raj Anand’sUntouchable and Coolie,R.K.Narayan’sThe Dark Room and Swami and Friends,Bhabani Bhattacharya’s So Many Hungers!, Kamala Markandaya’sNectar in a Sieve and A Silence of Desire, and many others depicted the Indian society especially the untold sufferings of the common man and the miserable lives of the women folk, untouchables, landless peasants, daily labourers etc.

At the same time, the writers of diaspora brought forth the sufferings of the immigrants torn between the two worlds. They have presented the moorings of the homelands, feeling of rootlessness that results in loss of identity, problems of adjustments, suppression, frustration, anger and humiliation. Bharati Mukherjee’s The Tiger’s Daughter and Wife, Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, JhumpaLahiri’sInterpreter of Maladies, The Namasake, Unaccustomed Earth belong to this category. Some women writers like Anitha Desai travel into the depths of the inner psyche and presents the psychological turmoil of women in the Indian society. These women writers have brought the women-centred approach in their writings. Since 1980s there has been a commendable and recognizable shift in the delineation of the characters of women in their writings. The predicament of the modern middle class educated women, their quest for identity, their struggle to put an end to their double colonized state, their attempt to come out of their marginalized status, problems related to parenting, marriage, sex, exploitation at all stages have become the themes of all women writers of today. Writers like Anitha Desai, Kamala Markandaya, Kamala Das, Ruth PrawarJhabwala, SashiDeshpande, Shobha De, NayantaraSahgal, ManjuKapur, Arundhati Roy, KiranDesai, Meena Alexander, MeenaKandaswamy, have successfully presented the image of new woman, a woman of substance. At present, the writers of the new generation focus upon the predicament of the modern man who is caught in the web ofrapidly changing social dynamics due to the effects of globalization, modernization, digitalization etc. Salman Rushdie’s , ShashiTharoor’sThe

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Great Indian , AmitavGhosh’sThe Circle of Reason,ArvindAdiga’sThe White Tiger,Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gatecome under this category.

Sri Lanka, though shares strong bonds of culture and language with its counterparts in South Asia, stands for its unique style and stance in the literary arena. Buddhism had a greater impact on literature in Sri Lanka in both and verse in the earlier period of blossoming of literature. But the educated elite wanted to make the global audience aware of their anguish at their subjection to the colonial power. As they had also been subjected to colonial plunder and exploitation, they have used the language of the colonizer to make their voices heard duringthe pre-Independence period. But this literature is sparse compared to the literature produced in post-Independence period. The writers have focused on the tribulations and turmoils of the suppressed classes in the country. They have successfully presented different kinds of exploitation - be it racial, political, economical, class or gender. LakdasaWikkramasinha, a well- known poetrecounts powerfully the unimaginable sufferings of poor women and also the abuse of domestic servants in his poem “The Death of Ashanthi”. In another poem “Don’t Talk to me about Matisse” he depicts the ill effects of colonialism on the Sri Lankan Community. Ethnic problems of the times, the anguish of the nation divided on linguistic lines, the traumatic experiences of the people,and their quest for identityhad been presented in gory details by the poets like Jean Arasanayagam and Richard De Zoysa.

Postcolonial cultural and literary expressions are found in the writings of the Srilankan expatriates like RomeshGunasekhara, Michael Ondaatje, Shyamselvedurai, YasmineGooneratne, Anne Ranasinghe, PunyakaantaWijenaike. All these writers have explored at length the socio-cultural issues and ethnic violence, the sufferings of the Singalese and SrilankanTamilians and the power politics that have affected their lives. They have expressed their sorrow over the violent communal clashes that had completely disrupted the peaceful coexistence of multiculturism in Sri Lanka. Writers like Ameena Hussein discussed the problems faced by women at home and at workplace as well. While presenting her women as strong individuals, the writer exhibits the less known facts about the customs and traditions of Sri Lanka.

Pakistani English literature shares with other South Asian English literatures a regional dynamic as well as a long colonial history, but the Pakistani imagination is also linked to the wider Islamic world. Born at a moment of intense trauma caused by partition, and amid a heightened sense of nationalism subsequently, fiction began its life with no lineage. It is important to note that the is not simply an extension of the Indian literature, even though the two are closely related.This refers to the English literature that has developed and evolved in Pakistan as well as among members of the Pakistani diaspora who write in the English language. These novels reflect not only the roots and origins

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of the writers but also raise the issues of identity, class conflicts which are frequently problematic and complex. Most of the earlier writers focused on the larger issues like Pakistan freedom movement, and the other post-independence political and social issues.

Though writers like Ahmed Ali with his book ‘Twilight in Delhi (1940) andZulfikarGhose with his novel ‘The Murder of Aziz Khan’ became popular, special mention has to be made of BapsiSidhwa an expatriate novelist. In her novels ‘The Bride’, ‘The Crow Eaters’ and ‘Ice Candy Man’, she takes up in detail various problems such as the traumatic suppressive life of the religious minorities, effects of growing violence, suppression of women in a society that binds women behind ‘purdah’. But the 1990s has seen a sudden flowering of Pakistani English Fiction. As Pakistan’s middle class has expanded and adopted English more and more as a global language, a sort of cross pollination among cultures freed the creative imagination of the writers and brought forth a larger segment of Pakistani society to take part in the creative writing. Mohsin Hamid with his novels “Moth Smoke (2000) and ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), KamilaShamsie with “Salt and Saffron(1998), Kartography(2002), Burnt Shadows(2009) and A God in Every Stone”(2014), Mohammad Hanif with “a Case of Exploding Mangoes”(2008), and “Our Lady of Alice Bhatti(2011) and Bina Shah with Where they Dream in Blue (2001), The 786 Cyber Café(2004), and Slum Child(2010) have become successful in presenting the societal, psychological aspects of the Pakistani society.

In Bangladesh, though English is spoken for the past three centuries, literature produced in English is limited. One of the prolific Bangladesiwriters TahminaAnam of “The Good Muslim” fame, once expressed her shock when she was abused by a young Bangladesi girl for writing in English rather than in Bengali. This social censorship can easily be traced back to the times of partition and rise of Bengali nationalism as a consequence of linguistic imperialism of both English and languages. In the earlier days of independence, poets like Razia Khan Amin, Farida Majid, Feroz Ahmed-ud-din, RumanaSiddique, SeemaNusrat Amin focused more on their experiences of liberation, their years long subjugation, their fight for their liberty, their unbearable sufferings at the hands of their tormentors, their fight against the odds that had colonized them, their joy and ecstasy at achieving long cherished independence. Sayeed Ahmed in his dramas depicted the exploitation of masses by the rulers or the landlords.

By the second decade of the new millennium, writing fiction in English gained momentum.The diasporic writing in Bangladesh as in other South Asian literatures, is mainly concerned with the themes of self-identity, sense of belonging, effects of migration on the psyche, feelings of dislocation and rootlessness. Syed Manzoorul Islam in his “The Mermaid’s Prayer and other stories” (2013) presents the lives of ordinary Bangladeshis in the manner that mingles the ordinary with the surreal. KaziAnis Ahmed’ssharply etched ‘Good Night, Mr. Kissinger and other stories (2012) offers vivid tales of Dhaka’s life from the view point of an

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expatriate English teacher from Dhaka. Shazar Omar’s ‘Like a Diamond in the sky’ (2010) deals with the effects of drug addiction on Bangladeshi youth and its impact on human relationships. It draws on the author’s experience as a social psychologist and his observation of the sufferings of the patients in the rehabilitation centres. Many other writers of today present the dilemma of men and women from all walks of life caught up in critical situations, portraying their emotional lives with empathy and precision.

All the above mentioned literatures give us a philosophical thought that a nation’s or a person’s quest for self does not close the door to communication. Rather it opens large avenues to communicate especially in English to reach the global audience.In this paper, the identity and survival issues of the South Asian literatures in English are explored along the lines of colonialism, postcolonialism, class, ethnic distinctions, linguistic regionalism, globalization and migration. Hence, it is imperative to the South Asian Literature to see where they have positioned themselves in relation to English language and how they are going to shape in future.

References:

Asghar, Jamil: Postcolonial South Asian Literature and the Quest for Identity “Journal of Critical Inquiry”vol 12 (ii) December, 2014,( pp. 57-70).

Das, Shruti: against odds: identity and Survival – South Asian literature in English “Eoropean Academic Research, Vol.i, Issue7/ October 2013 ISSN 2286-4822. www.euacademic.org. pp:1570-1585.

South Asian Literature https:// en.m.wikipedia.org

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