II Review of Literature:- We Find Clear Cut Picture of Pure Indianness in The
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II Review of Literature:- We find clear cut picture of pure Indianness in the writings of Tagore, Aurobindo, Sarojini Naidu, Ezekiel, A. K. Ramanujan, Kamala Das and others. Indian writers are no more imitative. They are creative and original. Indian English literature has a history of more than 150 years. Raja Ram Mohan Roy began his career as a writer writing in English. Mahatma Gandhi wrote in ‘Young India’ and ‘Harijan’. The period between 1820-1900 is called the Indian Renaissance. It was under the influence of English education that the Indian writers turned towards writing and translating their regional works in English. They were creating not only Indian history but a new literature, too. Today many promising writers are contributing a lot for the development of Indian writing in English. Originally ‘novel’ is a European form of art. It has spread to the non-European countries like India, along with the European languages and culture due to colonization. “One of the most notable gifts of the English education to India is prose fiction, for though India was probably the fountainhead of story-telling, the novel as we know the form today was an importation from the West” (M. K. Naik, History Of Indian English Literature, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1989, p.235.) Indian English fiction is a late development. Actually, the novel as form was new to India. The earliest works of fiction in Indian English were translations and other propagandistic pamphlets. Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the head of the Indian Renaissance wrote fine prose, but no fiction. Surendranath Banerjee, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Tilak and other freedom fighters and reformers wrote in English but their contribution is chiefly to prose and newspaper. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee`s Raj Mohan’s Wife (1864) is the real beginning of Indian fiction. It was followed by Raj Laxmi Devi’s The Hindu Wife which was published in 1876, Toru Datt’s Binaca in 1878, Kali Krishna Lahiri’s Rishinara in 1881, H. Dutt’s Bijoy Chand in 1888, Khetrapal Chakravorti’s Sarata and Hingana (1895). K. R. S. Iyengar opines that these novels written in English have for us today no more than an antiquarian or historical interest. Bankim Chandra’s novels like Kapalkundala, Durges Nandini and Krishna Kanta’s Will were translated into English from Bengali. Indian English fiction has been not merely a social and political chronicle of the milieu wherein it is set, it has also sought to take up in all “their bewildering dimensions some major socio-cultural concerns of the age within the fictional format with a view to presenting the human face of the abstract issues, facilitating the evolving of a way to round off their angularities.” (K.R.S. Iyengar, Indian Writing in English, New Delhi: Sterling Punlishers Pvt. Ltd., 1984, p.315.) Bankim Chandra Chatterjee believed in moral teaching. He confessed frankly: “I am a teacher or nothing” (Indian Writing in English, p.318). In his novels like The Poison Tree and Krishnakant’s Will, Chatterjee depicts the sad plight and disturbing influence of the widow in Hindu joint families and, generally in Hindu society. Rabindranath Tagore is noted for his English translation of Gintajali a collection of poems incarnating the spirit of India. However, he has also written novels worth considering. Rabindranath Tagore was primarily a poet but he wrote novels like Choker Bali (1902). It was translated into English by Krishna Kriplani as “Binodini”, which is a story of a young widow. He also wrote Gora (1910), The Wreck and The Home and the World. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya also wrote famous novels like Srikant, Grihadhana, Patau Dabi, Bipruda and Sesprerna in Bengali. Most of his works were translated into English. Tagore’s Gora is a political novel which shows his vision of India. Tagore was not happy with the narrow nationalistic tendencies which were dominating the Indian political life then. In Gora he presents his liberal global humanist views. He wanted India to be the mother of all castes and religions. The Home and the World is also a novel focusing political movement for independence. The major novelist like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, etc. wrote novels in the traditions of English fiction. After the independence however, the Indian novelists have shown to be conscious of their own identity. The Pre-Independence Indian English literature in general and Indian English fiction in particular was an outcome of socio-political situations in the beginning. Indian English novelists were social reformers in its maiden period. K.S. Ramamurti maintains that the early Indian English novelists “were by no means ‘imitators’ but conscious experimenters who adopted an alien from and medium to socio-cultural situation and sensibility which are specifically Indian.” (Bhatnagar, Indian Writing in English, Atlantic Publishers, New Delhi, 1998, p.05.) Up to the 19th century a few novelists tried their hands at writing social fictions. During second half of 19th century number of Indian women novelists appeared on literary scene. These women novelist include Toru Dutt, Krupabai Satthianandan, Shevantibai Nikambe, etc. Manmahon K. Bhatnagar writer “Reading the socio-political and Indian English fictions cultural function has been not merely a social and political chronicle of the milieu wherein it is set, it has also sought to take up in all their bewildering dimensions some major socio-cultural concerns of the age within the fictional format with a view to presenting the human face of the abstract issues, facilitating the evolving of a way to round off their angularities.” (Indian Writing in English, Atlantic Publishers, New Delhi, 1998, p.87) The first two decades of 20th century witnessed the emergence of the novels of social criticism and social protest. Ramesh Chander Dutt’s The Lake of Psalms (1909) is novel of social life in Bengal towards the close of the 19th century. Balkrishana’s The Have of Kusum (1995) is another novel with the accent on social life in the Punjab, mixes realism and romance in the delineation of Mohan and Kusum. The regional novelists like Munashi Premchand, Tarashankar, Karant and A. N. Moorthy Roo tried to immortalizr in creative fiction the genius of particular regions or localities. Premchand in Godan, Karat in The Return of Soil and S. Pillai’s Two Measures of Rice describes the sons of soil, the life of the peasants, etc. very realistically. All these writers are primarily concerned with the contemporary socio-political situation in Indian. Pillai’s Two Measures of Rice describes the life of the laborers involved in conflicts- economic, social, political – and he is performance obliged to make the uneasy passage from innocence to experience. Thus Indian English fiction before 1920s is mainly social. The arrival of Big-trios on Indian English literary scene inaugurates the real beginning of Indian English fiction in particular and Indian English literature in general. The Big-trios in Indian English fiction are R.K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. They have written both novels and short stories on the contemporary Indian situation R.K. Narayan is often discussed as one of the three principles trailblazing Indian novelist writhing in English for an international audience who emerged in the first half of the twentieth century along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. R.K. Narayan has produced near about fourteen novels multiple volumes of short stories, an autobiography, translation of Mahabharata and Ramayana, travel and personal essays, editorial and reviews. His novels have always been drawn to the lives of ordinary men and women. The title of the novels suggest Indianness as: The English teacher; The Bachelor of Arts; Mr. Sampath; The Vendor of Sweets; The Printer of Malgudi, etc. R.K. Narayan is especially famous for his use of gentle irony and sympathy and quite realism and fantasy in his novels. The helpless, traditional, middle class Hindu wife is presented in Narayan’s next novel The Dark Room (1938). Woman is always victimized in traditional society before independence. His serious social concerns are seen in his novels The Financial Expert (1952), The Guide (1958), The Man-eater of Malgudi (1962). R. K. Narayan, one of the most popular novelists of Indian English literature was firmly rooted in South Indian atmosphere. He created vivid picture of South Indian life in his imaginary town Malgudi. He is a pure artist who never wrote for social purpose like Anand. K. R. S. Iyengar says: “But Narayan has no axes of any kind: he is a rare thing in India today, a man of letters – pure and simple.”20 His important works are Swami and Friends (1935), Dark Room (1938), The Bachelor of Arts (1936), The English Teacher (1945), Mr. Sampath (1949), The Fiancial Expert (1952), The Guide (1958), The Man Eater of Malgudi (1962), Waiting for the Mahatma (1955), The Vendor of Sweets (1967), The Painter of Signs (1976), A Tiger for Malgudi (1983), My Dateless Diary (1960). He has also written short stories and collected them in collections like Malgudi Days. He was awarded the Sahitya Akadami Award in 1960 and in 1964, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan. Mulk Raj Anand is pre-occupied with the social evil and his pre-independence novels reveal several aspects of Indian society. His novel Untouchable (1935) is about the plight of untouchablity whereas Coolie depicts the sufferings of landless peasants. His other novels like Two Leaves and a Bud and The Big Heart depicts the exploitation of the Teagarden workers and the problems of industrial labour respectively. His, The Sward and The Sickle is a political novel that saw a new and far more intense phase in the Indian freedom struggle.