UNIT 19 THE LANGUAGES OF MODERN INDIA
Structure
I 19.0 0bjectives
I 19.1 Ihtroduction 19.2 Impact of the Transition from Mughals to British Paramountcy 19.2.1 The Adoption of a Uniform Printed Script and a Standardized Language b 19.2.2 The Growth of Prose Literature 19.2.3 The Adoption of New Literary Forms 19.3 Linguistic Developments and Class Cleavages 19.3.1 Bengali 1 i 19.3.2 Gujarati 19.3.3 Tamil 19.4 Communal Polarization in Language ! -19,5 The Polarization of Urdu and Hindi i 19.5.1 Emergence and Groqth of Urdu 19.5.2 Growth of Standard Hindi 19.5.3 Impact on Punjab t I 19.6 Unity in Diversity 19.7 The Growth of Prose I 19.7.1 Examples of Early Prose 19.7.2 The Beg~nningof the Western Impact I 19.8 Consequences
I 19.9 Let Us Sum Up 19.10 Key Words 19.1 1 Answers to Check Your ProgresS Exercises
19.0, OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit, you will get to know about: the changes in the languages of India which came in the transition from the ' Mughal empire to the days of British paramountcy. how the developments in languages accompanied new polarizations which were occurring in the Indian society. the ways in which the developments in the languages were affected by the coming of the Western influence, and solie consequences the developments in the modern lndian language had on modern Indian history.
19.1 INTRODUCTION
i .. The languages of India went through important developments in the 18th and 19th centuries. This had a significant impact on modern Indian history. Of these developments, the most important was the growth of the vernacular languages. as distinct from the classical languages. The vernacular languages acquired a standard form and a new prose literature. As we shall see, these developments had a close bearing upon the course of the social and cultural history of modern India, and even ....,.- :*.- ..-1:*:--1 I.:..+,.-.. Cultural Contoun 9.IMPACT OF THE TRANSITION FROM MUGHALS TO BRITISH PARAMOUNTCY
The language of the Mughal ruling class in eighteenth century India was Persian. It was therefore the official language. As for the learned cohmunities of the eighteenth centhry, they expre$sed their scholarly thought in the classical languages-the Hindus in Sanskrit, the Muslims in Arabic, and both Hindus and Muslims in Persian. The non-classical languages of the people of India, often called the 'verdacular Ianguages' fell into two groups-Dravidian and Indo-Aryan. Some of these vernacular languages-Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam in the Drapidian group and the Sanskrit-based vernaculars of Assam, Bengal, Orissa, Hin#ustan, Punjab, Kashmir, Sind, Gujarat and Maharashtra-ihad well-developed poetlical tradition. But prose literature in these languages was in an embryonic state.
Thelvernacular languages were unharnessed as yet to the expression of complex and a* sciehtific thought. The replacement of the Mughal tradition by the British parqmountcy in the time of Lord Wellesley and the policy in favour of English education in 1835, fostered important changes in all these languages, in some earlier thad In others: Bengali in the early nineteenth century, Marathi in the mid- ninqteenth century, Urdu, Gujarati, Hindi, Assamese, Oriya, Sindhi, Telugu and Tadin the late nineteenth centyry, and Kannada, Punjabi, Kashmiri and Dogri in . the twentieth century. In each of'these-languages vital changes were working at diffhrent paces.
19.2.1 The Adoption of Uniform Printed Script and a Standardized Language Mary dialects were intermixed in each of the linguistic regions of India and there was at first no standard language. Scripts were not uniform either. In Sindhi, for instlance, in which very few books were written down in any case in earlier times, I LaYnda, Gurumukhi, Nagari and Persian alphabets had been employed indjscrim~nately,until the British administrators of Sind devised in 1851 an Arabic- Sinilhi script (Arabic plus some letters to denote sounds not known in Arabic) which both Muslims and Hindus adopted for printing their books. Language was even more diverse than script. To take an example, the vernacular language of Hindustan in t'he broad belt of territory stretching from Rajputana to Bihar was a diverse cathgory, incorporating Marwari, Braja Bakha, Khari Boli, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Malithili, etc. Out of this there gradually emerged a standard Hindi. In course of the nineteenth century, Khari Boli, the dialect spoken around Delhi And Meerut, came to prajvide the basis of a standard language. The emergence of these standard blocs of language which did not exist before, has made possible the linguist~creorganization of the states in independent India. It is important to note that the standard verhacular languages covering entire regions arose no earlier than the nineteenth ceatury. 1912.2 The Growth of Prose Literature Thk standardization of script and language was closely connected with the growth of a Orinted prose literature from around 1800. This gathered momentum as the spread of bnglish education deepened the impact of the West on the vernacular literatures , of India. More will be said of this later. 1912.3 The Adoption of New Literary Forms I Th(e deepening impact of the West in turn brought to bear upon the vernacular litqrature the strong influence of English literature. The literary forms prevailing in Vi$torian England, such as the novel or the sonnet, had no exact equivalents in the ve nacular literatures of India, which adopted them with great enthusiasm. A I _hi4 torian of Malayalam literature states that in any assessment of contemporary literature one conclusion is inescapable: all the present forms and I owe their origin to English literature. In his opinion the whole range of 1 essay, literary criticism, biography, history, the English pattern, and poetic forms also-the short 4 I :I I sollrce. This is as true of the other Indian languages as of Malayalam. Since the The Langumges of i break from the old to the new, the history of these literatures is the history of these Modern India , new forms and movements, though it must be added that folk literature continues in its own channels unaffected by thc imported forms.
- 1. Different Scripts of Vernacular Language of Hindustan ,3 LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENT AND CLASS
CLEAVAGES ' L. i ~hfjmoulding of the standard languages fostered the cultural leadership of the cated middle class and promoted political and social solidarity of a dynamic :v :v Ire under their direction. Paradoxically, however,'it also produced some social , pelt irizations that increased the distance between the new middle class and the lower sect ions of the population. 3.1 Bengali r was so right from the time when the new prose was created and in which the llectual activity of the modern Indian Renaissance was carried on. The first such llectual prose literature--the Bengali writings of Kaja Rarnmohan Roy (from 5 onwards)-had as its medium a cumbrous, artificial language far removed from common speech of the people, and totally inaccessibm them. fhough capable xpreising the most complex rational and scientific thought in his hands, and ~ghlater on beautified and naturalized by such creative writers as Ishwar mdra Vidyasagar, Akshoy K u~narDutt and Bankiln C'handra C hatterjer (a cess completed by the appearance of Bankiln's first novel Durgesh Nnndini in 5). th~srich literature remained outside thc reach of the common people of al. Even while Kabindranath I'agore had begun writing the most original poetry bodern India, the weavers, artisans and peasants of Bengal, impervious to the \ literature, continued to thrill to the songs of the folk singers. There was a ~ingdistance between the folk dialects and the language of the middle class. The gali language was split. in the nineteenth century, between the formal, written .ary language (called sadhu bhrrshrr) and the spoken tongue, and though jindranath adopted a Chalit Bhasha (a.language both spoken and written) in the Ds, this too was the language of the middle class.
191..3.2 Gujarati phenomenon was net confined to Bengal. In his foreword to K.M. Munshl's Thiehiqt~ ory of Gujarati literature (l935), Mahatma Gandhi, to whom the book was deb icated, noted the distinction, in Gujarati as well as other languagec, between the
I ladl:uage understood and spoken by the middle class and the language of the folk ps which constituted the literature of the people. He characterized the written ,ature of Gujarat as the literature of the commercially minded and self-satafied dle class, and deIiveredothejudgement that it was 'effeminate and sensuous'& ~ts :. He also observed in this connection that the written Gujarati literature was uqtc wched by the language of the masses of Gujarat: 'Of the language of the people wi know next to nothing. We hardly understand their speech. The gulf between them add us the,middle class. is so great that we do not know them and they know still leds of what we think and speak.' 14.%3.3 Tamil / T+ take another example of what Mahatma Gandhi meant, in moderq Tamil prose. tob,, the informal, spoken, colloquial language did not become the language of .ature. Conversely, the formal literary language was not spoken as day-to-day , ~rmalspeech by the Tamil speaker, not even by the educated intellectual Tamil )ugh his Bengali counterpart did so in part). In Tamil literature there was no a logy to the Bengali Chalit Bhasha, a languagethat was spoken and written ultaneously by at least one section of the popblation, i.e. the middle class. ead, as Kamil Zvelebil has noted, there was the Tamil equivalent to the Bengali hu Bhasha, i.e. the formal, written, literary language, spoken by no one; and,then .e were the various local and social dialects, the language of the Brahmans being inct from the language of the rest. I
I I 1 I The Languages of Modem India
2. Some Words of.Major Jndim scripts
19.4 COMMUNAL POLARIZATION IN LANGUAGE
These class differences in language were accompanied by communal differences as well, and here, the emergence of the standard language of literature widened the gulf between the different sections of the population. Take Bengal, for instance. Curiously, even before the standard Bengali written language was fashioned in the early part of the nineteenth cenlury, there had sprung up, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, a popular literature in what is called Dobhashi (Bengali heavily mixed with Arabic and Persian words) or Musalmani Bangla. The commoh Muslim people of small means patronized this literature. It was entirely in verse and there was no prose in it. The subject matter was muslim theology and popular tgkes of the old and marvellous sort. The Dobhashi (otherwise known as Puthi) literature grew rapidly in the nineteenth century with the aid of the printing press, but it cut a bhannel entirely separate from the literature of the predominantly Hindu middle rlacc It wnc ri~rin~iclvIintn~ir-hprl hv mnrl~rnitvnf anv cnrt I Cultwl Contours The ew Muslim middle class writers, such as Mir Musharraf Hussain, who started pritib g in Bengali in the latter nineteenth century, adopted the standard Bengali langbage and not Musalmani Bangla. b he& was another twist to the situation in Gujarat. The standard Gujarati language of tqe nineteenth certtury was the product mainly of Hindu writers like ~arhadashankar.The Parsis and Muslims of the region took no conspicuous part in fashboning it. Instead the literary energies of the minority communities flowed into the bew 'Parsi-Gujarati', confined to qavels and stories of the 'shilling shocker' type, andthe even humbler 'Muslim-Gujarati'. Mahatma Gandhi kgretfully noted the , emekgence of these separate literary streams, and the manner in which they had tortored the language out of shape. Yet he was comtrained to say that it was impbssible to ignore these two streams: 'They are not wells of Gujarat undefiled. But I no lieviewer of Gujatati literature can afford to ignore the existence of works which hunpreds, if not thousands of Parsis and Muslims read and by which, may be, even sha I' e part of their conduct.' Ardund the same time, Rabindranath Tagore, too, expressed his misgivings at the ass rtive attempts of some Muslim writers in the new Bengali prose to Islami7e the lani uage by adopting Arabic, Persian and Urdu words. This attempt to distort the lan uage (which must be distinguished from the old poetical Musallnanl Bangla of 175 -1900) was not ultimately successful. (It is Interesting to note that the Bengali Ian uage adopted in Bangla Desh today is closer to the language of Rabindranath tha1 to that favoured by the Muslim ulama of his own day.) But the distance of the podr Muslim community of Bengal from the Hindu middle class who created stapdard Bengali made it vulnerable to such attacks. I 1 Thb same problem appeared in the deep south and in Hindustan. There was a 1 polarization between the Sanskritized Tamil of the Brahman and the Dravidian ( Tahil of the Non-Brahman. And there was the more catastrophic polarization of the 1 vednacular language of Hindustan between high Urdu and high Hindi. I I 1 I I 1 1g.5 THE POLARIZATION OF URDU AND HINDI ' I 1 ~t/evernacular language of Hindustan, which the ruling Muslim elite of the medieval ' pepod variously referred to as Hindavi, Hindustani or Hindl, and in which some of even composed poems at times (e.g. Akbar's courtier Faizi was the author of , Hindi couplets), was a composite language prevailing over the whole of north I between Punjab and Sind on the west and Bengal in the east. It was classified into four distinct language groups of different origin, each with several diplects : I)( Rajasthani-Mewati, Marwari, Jaipuri, Malvi, etc. 2)' Western Hindi-Bangru (Hariana), Braj Bhakha (Mathura), Khari Boli (Delhi I and Meerut), Kanauji (lower part of central Doub), Bundeli (Bundelkhand and a ( good part of the Narmada valley), etc. 3)( Eastern Hindi-Baiswari or Awadhi, Bagheli, Chhattisgarhi, etc. 4)' Bihari-Maithili, Bhojpuri, Magahi, etc. I 18.5.1 Emergence and Growth of Urdu 4s Delhi was the headquarters of the Muslim soldiers from the days of the Delhi I Sbltans, it was from the dialect of this district and Meerut, known as Khari Boli (l)terally meaning 'the rough speech') from which the lingua franca of the camp d)eveloped. dhe Turki word Urdu literally meant the camp, and the camp language spread into the the Muslim soldiers moved in there. Eventually, a literary version of the lingua of the H~ndustanicamp, known as Rekhta or Dakkani, emerged in the Muslirp of Bijapur and Colkonda. In the Mughal kmpire, however, the ruling elite/, wedded intellectually to Persian, did not compose any works in the language of It thus remained a spoken tongue in the north, there being no literature in ilt dialects of Hindustan in which poetry was most actively composed by bot indus and Muslims were Awadhi and Braj Bhasha, and the dialect of Delhi and th 1 lingua franca of the camp were not regarded as natural vehicles of written literature and The Lavaages of poctry. Modern India The situation changed when the Mughal Empire, which admitted only Persian as the language of learned discourse began to decline. Wali Dakkani of Aurangabad who was well known for his poems in Dakkani visited Delhi in 1700; about this tlme there was a trend in favour of their own vernacular language among the learned Muslim poets of Delhi who had hitherto only composed in Persian. They set about enriching and purifying it with the help of Persian. The 'rough speech' in Delhi especially that in use among the royal family courtiers, attendants and soldiers increasingly became the language for literary composition. The poets and scholars weeded out from this still undeveloped dialect a large number of plebeian Hindi words and enriched it by a ceaseless process of importation from Persian. Paradoxically the revolt agalnst Persian in favour of the mother tongue thus resulted, not in bringing Urdu closer to the indigenous element, but in widening the gulf between it and the popular speech. The early Urdu poets of the first half of the eighteenth century sometimes called their language Hindi, and sometimes Urdu. The distinction between the two was still not entirely clear. lnsha Allah Khan composed the tale Rani Ketki Ki Kahani (1801) in a simple, common Hindust/ani prose. When the Fort William College of the English opened a department for teaching tklanguage in April 1801, it was named the department of Hindustani, by which they meant Urdu. The department also provided for the teaching of Braj hasha for the sake of contact with the Hindu population, and its head Gilchrist made a clear distinction between Hindustani (i.e. Urdu) as a Muslim and Hindwi (i.e. Hindi) as a Hindu language : 'Hindoos will naturally lean most to the Hinduwee, while the Mussulmans will of course be partial to Arabic and Persian, whence two styles anse, namely the court or high style and the country or pristine style...' Gilchrist's identification of Hindustani with Urdu was somewhat off the mark, and as Grierson later pointed out in the Linguistic Survey of India, Hindustani was a narrow sense the language of the upper Gangetic Doab (i.e. Khari Boli) and in a broader sense the lingua franca of India. As it was capable of being written both in the Persian and the Devnagari characters, Urdu came to denote the special variety of Hindustani in which Persian words occurred frequently, while Hindi gradually became confined to the form of Hindustani in which Sanskrit words abounded. 19.5.2 Growth of Standard Hindi Gilchrist gave an impetus to the standardization of Hindi by directing two Bhaksha munshis in his department, Lallu La1 and Sadal Mishra, to write prose works in Hindi. Khari Boli, from which Urdu had also sprung, provided the basis on which the Bhakha munshis (as the Hindi pandits were then known) were advised to dkvelop the new prose. What the Fort William pandits created, however, was not really the purified Delhi and Meerut dialect, but a new literary dialect. by taking Urdu,. purging it of words of Persian and Arabic origin, and substituting for them words of Sanskrit origin. Gilchrist had a preference for Arabic and Persian words. but Price who later became head of the Hindustani department emphasized in 1824 that 'Hindee' word's were almost all Sanskrit while 'Hindoostanee' or Oordoo' words were for the greater part Atabic and Persian. Under English dirkction, the Hindi pandits of Fort William created a synthetic new product, an artificial language for quite some time to come. Thus Grierson noted with regard to standard or high Hindi in 1889: 'lt has become the recognized medium of literary prose throughout Northern India, but as it was nowhere a vernacular it has never been successfully used for poetry. The greatest geniuses have tried, and it has been found wanting at their hands. Northern India therefore at the present day presents the following unique state of literature-its poetry everywhere written in local vernacular dialects, especially in Braj, in Baiswari, and in Bihari, and its prose in one uniform)artifical dialect, the mother tongue of no native-born Indian, forced into acceptance by the prestige of its inventors, by the fact that the first books written in it were of a highly popular character, and because it found a sphere in which it was eminently useful.' Standard Hindi did become a more living language with its own poetry later on, but it took time. The increasing 'standardization' of ~indiand Urdu naturally made the gulf between them wider than ever. In 1803 Hindi had been ,recogpized along with Urdu as a court Cultural Cmtours lankuage, but in 1837 this rule was rescinded and Urdu alone rema~nedthe language of the law courts. An agitation in favour of Hindi and Nagri in the late nineteknth cedtury created much tension between the Muslims and the Hindus. Munshi Prqmchand who wrote his famous novels in both Hindi and Urdu said bitterly the year before he died: 'It was all the doing of the college at Fort William, which gave recpgnition to two styles of the same language as being two different languages. We cajnot say whether there was some kind of politics at work even then or whether the twb languages had dready diverged substantially. But the hand which split our laqguage into two also thereby split our national life into two.'
/ 3. Development of Devnagi 14.53 Impact on Punjab p fie repercussions were not confined to Hindustan proper, but spread also to the Phnjab, where it had an adverse impact on the growth of the Punjabi literatwe. The Muslim poets of the Punjab had-formerly written great poetical works in Punjabi. ' A I outstanding example was Waris Shah, who wrote Hir Waris (1766) in that la guage. The most famous modern poet of the Punjab, Muhammad lqbal, also w ote h~sfirst poems in Punjabi. But then his teacher Shamsul-Ulema Mir Hasan a Svised him to write in Urdu instead of Punjabi: lqbal started writing in Urdil and I
~ersian,and his own mother language was deprived of his genius. As communal 'hc ! Lanpug- of Modem Indh separation became more pronounced, by and large the Punjabi Hindus and the Punjabi Muslims devoted themselves to Hindi ind Urdu respectively.
Check Your ~r&ress1 I) List briefly the main changes In the development of lndian languages in the period of transition from Mughal to British paramountcy.
2) Was the development of lndian languages in this period uniform?
3) The dialect from which both Hindi and Urdu have arisen is: i) Kannada ii) Ahomiya iii) K hari Boli iv) Mewati
19.6 UNITY IN DIVERSITY
Despite what has been said above, the underlying pattern of the development of the modern Indiap languages cannot be grasped unless we keep in view their basic unity. la] Nehru said, their roots and inspiration were much the same and the in wh' h they grew up was similar. All of them also faced the same from $tern thought and influence. Even the languages of Southern different origins, grew up in similar conditions. As Nehru put it, each of these languages was not merely the language of a part of India, but was essentially a language of India, representing the thought and culture and development of this cP untry in its manifold forms. What7s often not realized is the deep interconnections between the various languages of India both before an& after the emergence of standard or high forms in the -nineteenth century. Guru Govind Singh, the tenth guru of the Sikhs (1675-1708), composed his verses mainly in Hindi (Braj Bhasha), but some also in Persian and Punjabi. Again, Dayaram (1767-1852), the greatest poet of the period of transition from old to new Gujarati literature, travelled far and wide, visited Gokul, Mathura, Vrindavan, Kasi and &her famous places ~f pilgrimage, and studied Hindi, Vraja, Sanskrit and the old qujarati Masters. He wrote many poems in Hindi, Vraja, Marathi, Punjabi, Sadskrit and Urdu, besides of course writing in his own language.
After the emergence of the standard languages, too, the interconnection between them continued to be deep. Modern prose developed in ea* of them under the same sort of western impact, and the successful novels in each ldnguage were studied by novelists in other languages. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee provided an early model, and latyr on Sarat Chandra Chatterjee's works were translated in virtually every Indian language and sold in thousands. A 1ater.example in Rabindranath Tagore ? ... I,._>...... L ..... -1. __.1_1.1.. ,1.__~-^., _.P..L___._- :. .>L_-_r! :_ I Cultwal Contours 19.b THE GR0WT.H OF PROSE
~heimain effort of the medieval writers in the vernacular languages had gone into poe ry. That is not to say that prose was entirely lacking in this period. The Drf vidian languages had a long but intermittent tradition of prose writing. A few 01 the'ilndo-Aryan lan&ages also had some scattered specimens of literary prose. But Bedgali, Oriya, Maithili, Sindhi etc., had virtually no prose literature. With some exc@ptions,only fragments of written prose are to be found In the north lndian Ian uages. '+- \ 19h.l Examples of Early Prose Th$ clearest form of prose literature in the Indo-Aryan vernacular languages was the historical chronlcle.iThese are, however. found only in a few languages: the Buranjis of {he Ahoms (in Ahom and later on in Assamese) the Bakhars of the Marathas (in arclhaic Marathi), and the Janamasakhis of the Sikhs (in mixed Hindi and Puniabi). The bardic chronicles of Rajputana were in verse, but there was one unique prose wolrk In Marwari. This was the chronicle and gazetteer compiled in the seventeenth ceqtury by Muhanpta Naimasi, a minister of Maharaja Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur. Thk chronicle is known as Muhanota Nainasi ri Khyata, which narrates the history of la11 the major Rajput clans; attached to it is a gazetteer of Jodhpur state, entitled M rwar ra Parganam ri Vigat, a scientific and statistical work, the design of which w 1s apparently inspired by the great Ain-i-Akbari of Abul Falal in the previous cebtury. I T e prose of the Buranjis, the Bakhars, the Janamsakhis and tlie Khyatas was ar1 haic. There were occasional flashes of originality in such prose, but ~t was not cabable of conveying modern, scientific thought. be prose literature of the Dravidian languages had a longer ancestry and a Inore character. The typical form of old l~teraturein these languages was a genre , Champu, a mixed i'orm of verse and prose, also familiar in Sanskrit. But also more straightforward prose literature. To take a few examples: The Tamil commentaries on the classic poetical works of Tam~l,such as i)/ Silappatigaram, were, with some exceptions, in.concise, lucid prose. Such prose commentaries can be traced back to the e~ghtcentury, and may be said to have I existed even earlier. 1 The Kannada Vaehanas were the teachings of the Virasliaiva preachers io i i simple unadorned prose dating from the twelfth century. T~ISwas a popular I religious movement with an egalitarian social message, which forms the basis of I the Lingayat community of contemporary Karnataka. Here is an example o'l' a I vachana from their founder, Basavanna: 'I have been like the bride who has ,I her oil bath and who has put on the most splend~drobes and worn the most charming jewels, but has not won the heart of her husband.' i/i) The Telugu ruling class who were left stranded in Tanjore. Madurai and Pudukottai after the disintegration of the V~jayanagaraempire gave special ( atteition to developing a literature of Kavyas written in clear Irlugu. The Telugu poets of the 'Southern School' took as much pride in their prose works I as in their poetd compositions. Thus the poet Samukha Venkata Krishnappa i Nayak of eighteenth century Madura regarded his prose work, Jaimini Bharatq, I 1 as a work of art, to be looked upon as of equal importance as his famous ) poem Sarangadhara. jv) Finally, we may mention the brilliant Tamil d~aryof Ananda Kanga Pillai. the I diwan of the French Chief Dupleix of Pondicherry, which he started wr~tingin ) 1736; It is a lively work written In a colloquial language distinct from high 1 Tamil prose and it is full of interesting commercial lore and details of life in 1. the French settlement. i will be evident from the above that Tamil, Kannada and Telugu prose had I ttained a fairly wide range before the dawn of modernity. All the same, the new that developed in these languages in the nineteenth century was very different not modelled on these earlier examples. On the whole, new prose in the I . . -- .. . -...... scieflific thought,could be adequately conveyed. The new prose also expressed the The Lungumges of Modem Inpin I process of encounter between Indian culture and Western culture.
19.7.2 The Beginning of the Western Impact The year 1800 1s regarded by Suniti Kumar Chatterjee as the pivotal one in the development of prose writing in most lndian languages. That was the time when the Baptist Miss~onPress of Seramporeand the Fort William College of Calcutta started actmg in conjunction to put forth a labge volume of printed prose in several modern lndian languages. // It should be noted, however, that even earlier than this there had been a long, though isolated, record of ~ICmissionary activity especially in the south, in connection with prose and printing. The Jesuit Missionaries who came in the wake of the Portuguese navigators and traders set up the first printing press in Goa in 1566. The two most important printing establishments in the south were later set up at Ambalakkadu (1679) and Tranquebar (1712-13) and there was a stream of printed works issued by Catholic missionaries in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam in I the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centufies. They translated the Bible, wrote Christian puranas, and compiled grammar and dictionary in the Dravidian I languages. Especially well remembered is Father Arnos who came to Kerala in 1700, spoke and wrote Malayalam like a nape, and left long poems in that language on Christian themes, such as the Messiah Charitram; as well as a Malayalam grammar and dictionary now lost. The most interesting fruit of the Catholic missionary I enterprise, however, was a couple of inventive Malayalam prose works by two native Christians who visited Rome in 1778-Malpan and his disciple Kathanar, Malpan i wrote Vedatarkkam (Logic of Religion), the first Malayalam prose work to treat of social problems, and Kathanar wrote the even more interesting Vartamana Pustakam t (Book of News) and account of their perilous voyage and triumphant entry to Rome by a circuitous'route travelling via the Cape of Good Hope, Brazil and Portugal. However, the Catholic missionary enterprise in the Dravidian languages did not leave a permanent impact, and it was an isolated effort. It may be noted that there was a smaller Portuguese missionary effort at writing Bengali prose, but it disappeared without leaving any trace on Benyli literature. The beginning of a systematic Western impact on the Indian prose literatures cannot be dated before 1800. In that year an important conjunction took place: the establishment of the Serampore Baptist Mission Press, which was the first major printing press in Northern India, and the founding of the Fort William College by Wellesley with the object of teaching the Indian-languages to the officers of the East India Company, a task made urgent by the expansion of the Company's dominions all over India during his administration. At the Serahpore Baptist Press, the dedicated missionary William Carey enlisted the help of Indian scholars to translate the Bible-Ramram Basu for Bengali, Atmaram Sharma for Assamese, Vaijnath Sharma for Marathi, etc. The Baptist Mission Press employed Bengall, Nagri, Persian, Arabic and other characters for printing. Between 1801 and 1830 it printed works in about 50 languages, including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Khasi, Marathi, Punjabi, Oriya, Sindhi, Tamil and Telugu. At the Fort William College, William Carey and John Gilchrist came to head the Bengali and Hindustani departments respectively, and they had a host of lndian munshis under them teaching and writing in these and other vernacular languages. Gilchrist, whose department was considered more important as it taught the lingua franca of the country, wrote the Hindi Dictionary (1802). Carey, who turned out to . be a more versatile teacher, wrote grammars of Bengal~,Marathl, Punjabi, Telugu and Kan~ada.The most important part of the publishink programme of the College was the text-books written by the munshisl for teaching the there existed no much works, this' was an original effort i~~O*antattempt in the shaping of the new prose. The text-books, of the College came to in~ludeduring its short career 20 works in Urdu, 8 works in Hindi. 13 works in Bewgali and 4 works in Marathi. The list included Such works as Ramram. .-.. ,_D--r-r..A:Cua rhPli+vll(1801. ~~~~li,biography of a warrior Hindu , . .-a Culturnl Contours version of Bhagavata Purana). rhe subjects covered tales, history, biography, letters, dialogue$ and proverbs. On the ;hole, these grammars and prose works were rather artifical and they left no perceptiqle Impact on the future literature, and the beginning of spontaneous literary composition in prose came later and had no demonstrable connection with the early effolrts df the Bapt~stmissionaries and the munshis of the Fort William College. These dfwelopments wcre connected with the growth of English schools and colleges, the rise ,of the vernacular press, and the appearance of text book societies and leazned and literary associations In the great metropolitan centres like Calcutta and Bombag. The firlit of the new orose literatures, that in Bengali, was the product of the growing impact of institutions like, the Hindu College (18 17) and the Calcutta School Books Smietj (I81 7), the circulation of newspapers like the Samachar Darpan (l818), Slrmbap Kaumudi (1821) and Samachar Chandrika (1822) and serious writing of Rammlohan Roy, lshwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Debendranath Tagore and Akshoy Kumaf Dutt. The Aligarh Anglo-Muhammadan Oriental College (1877) of Saiyid Ahmad Khan created a dynamic new body of Urdu prose writings that Included the w~rkslofNazir Ahmed, Shibli Numani and Hali. The time lag between the respective. develqpments in Bengali and Urdu was a consequence of the differential rate of Westeirn influence : the new Bengali literary prose flowered forth between 18 15-1865, while lthe new Urdu literary prose gathered momentum only in the 1870s. In between them,( Marathi prose modernized itself, largely as a result of the impact of the new educqtion imparted by institutions like the Elphinstone College of Bombay (1835) and tpe circulation of the Darpan (1831), ~i~darshan(1841), Prabhakar (1842), and Jnanbprakash (1849). The flnal classical touch came with the Nibandhamala or essays of Vishnushastr~Chipluukar (1874). Among the Drav~dianlanguages the earliyst and most dynamic response to the challenge of the West was exhibited by hlalt$yalam, which owed its new prose literature to the text-books wrltten by Kerala ~arhafor the Text-book committee of Travancore in the 1870s and 1880s, and to the hewspapers Keralamitram (1860), Kerala Patrika (1885) and Malayali (1886).
CONSEQUENCES
The developments in the modern Indian languages had significant consequences for mopern Ind~anhistory. These may be summarized as follows: i) The development .of standard vernacular languages brought social leadership to the I educated middle class, because it was this new class which created the standard language in each vernacular. By this means, the middle class could seize leadership , of the soc~aland cultural movements of modern India, and later on of political movements as well. i ii), At the same time the emergence of the standard language, which was the language ot' the middle chs, aeatetl s distance between that class and the masses of India, who clung to spoken dialects and folk literature. iii) There were also differential linguistic developments which accentuated the differences between the communities-Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Parsis, etc. ij) All the same there emerged an educated middle class which was p-h-~ndian in its scope. In its hands, the new vernacular prose became the medium of I rational,, scientific thought. There sprang up a press and a public and the I growth of enlightened opinion through the medium of prose formed the I essential background to the shaping of the modern nation.
heck Your Progress 2 What was the impact of the Western attempt to develop lndian languages? The Lmgugea of 2) How did the growth of lndian languages have an impact on the growth of the Modern India National Movement?
4 I 19.9 LET US SUM UP
In this unit you saw : that the transition from the Mughals to British period saw the Indian languages, especially the vernacular,,benefiting from a uniform printed script and new literary forms. that this growth in Indian languages was also marked by new polarizations in the kinds of language used by different classes and community groups. that in spite of these polarizations the process under which these languages grew up provided a degree of unity to the languages. that in spite of differential developments the languages of India were to prove critical as a means of communication for the rising national movement in the last half of the 19th century.
19.10 KEY WORDS
Vernacular: The language most widely spoken in a region. Classical language : A form of language that was used in ancient times and in no longer used or used only in formal writing. Cleavages : Rifts. Gaps, Differences. Dialect: An underdeveloped form of language used by a particular group or a region..
19.11 ANSWERS TO.CXECK YOUR PROGRESS EXERCISES
Check Your Progress 1 1) See Section 19.2 2) See Section 19.3 3) iii) Check Your Progress 2 I 1) See Sub-section 19.7.2 2) See Section 19.8 LITERATURE IN THE INDIAN LANGUAGES
Sbructure 20.0 Objectives 20.1 fntroduction 20.2 fhe Poetical Heritage of Old lndia 20.3 $he End of Old Poetry 10.3.1 Urdu Poetry $20.3.2 Other Languagec 20.4 'The New Poetry 20.5 Peuelopments on the Stage 20.5.1 Western Influence h0.5.2 Maturity 20.6 'The Rise of the Novel 20.6 1 New Narratives 20.6 2 Bankim's Age 20.7 Let Us Sum Up .. 20.8 ,'Key Words 20.9 ~n&ersto Check Your Progress Exercises
20.01 OBJECTIVES
After reading this Unit you will get to know: abbut the nature of lndian literature at the turn of the 18th century, asto how this literature was losing its freshness and vigour,
6 about the ways in which this nterature got fresh impetus, a'nd how new forms of Indian literature developed under this impetus.
Unit; 19 has described the growth of the language of modern India. Here the growth of literature in the modern lndian languages will be discussed. The development of a stanflardized language in each of the major vernaculars of India, together with the emergence of a well-developed language of prose in the vernaculars, had a critical impact on the evolution of Indian literature. To put it simply, literature in the vernlacular languages of lndia evolved from the old to the new. Thelvernacular languages of India had not developed prose literature in the eighiteenth century. There was a huge literature, but it was almost entirely in verse. Thiq old poetical literature bore the stamp of the mentality of a traditional age. The impact of English literature on Indian literature began to be felt in the nineteenth century. Two main consequences flowed from this. One was the development of a newi kind of poetry, with several new forms borrowed from English poetry. The other was the emergence of a prolific prose literature that bore the stamp of the new ageland the modern mentality. Since it is not possible to depict the changes in melbtality and literary creativity with the limits of a strictly defined.period, in this unit we also look beyond, to the decades preceding and succeeding this period.
201.2 THE POETICAL HERITAGE OF OLD INDIA I Unlder the impact of the'west and of ~ndlishliterature, there arose, in nineteenth 'immediately preceded it in tbe turbulent years of the Mughal decline and the English Literature Ln the expansion. It must be stressed, however, that the devotional literature of Bhakti and Indian Languages Sufism which had flourished at an early time had an impohant influence on the poets of modern India.
In the old Sufi and Bhakti poetry the figure of the Beloved stood for God. But devotional poetry was not very characteristic of the eighteenth century which came under the influence of a highly conventionalized style of erotic poetry. Here and there we do, however, encounter some great Sufi and Bhakti poets and singers in that age of turbulence: in Sind, Shah Abdul Latif of Bhit; in the Punjab, Waris Shah; in the deep south, the Telugu composer Tyagaraja who set his thousands of devotional poems to matchless Carnatic music.
The Sufi saint Shah Abdul Latif of Bhit and his Punjabi contemporary Waris Shah took Hindu folk tales of their own regions, the love stories of Sasui and Punhoon and of Hir and Ranjha; they embroidered into them a deeper Sufistic inteipretation; and thus they produced the classics known as the Risalso of Shah Abdul Latif (died 1752) and Hir-Waris (1766). Both tapped the deep pathos of popular love stories to give a spontaneous touch to Sufi preaching.
Hir Waris turns on an extra marital affair. The headman's daughter Hir is forcibly separated from the cattle-herd Ranjha by her kinsfolk and married off to a husband to whom she acts coldly. Her continuing attachment to her lover who roams the country as a Jogi ends in a tragic series of deaths. She is killed by her relations, and on hearing this Ranjha sighs deeply and his soul departs from his body. But as far as Waris Shah is concerned, their souls are united for ever in heaven. He feels that true love on earth is symbolic of the Sufi's union with God.
Shah Abdul Latif embroidered upon several folk stories of Sind. Of these, the pathetic love story of Sasui and Punhoon, set ageinst the background of the parched desert, is the most popular among the Sindhis. Shah Abdul Latif's treatment of the well known theme begins when Sasui's husband, a stranger from Baluchistan named Punhoon, is secretly taken away by his kinsfolk at night on fleet-footed camels. The girl crosses the trackless desert of Sind, and the bare mountains of Baluchistan, alone in search of her husband. She loses her life amidst the sands in a quest that embodies for Shah Abdul Latif the devoted man's untiring search for God. This is the song Shah Abdul Latif puts into the mouth of the girl before she finally disappears in the sands :
I did not meet my love although A hundred suns to setting sped. 0 let me yield my life when I Have seen him, hence my journey made.
Shah AbWtatifsees in Sasui's unremitting struggle into the last the difficult path of the SU~striving to obliterate the distinction between himself and God. But he and other poets of his sort are something of an exception in that troubled age. The eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century are marked by a conventional poetry in most of the Indian language, inspired not so much by deep devotion as by decadent eroticism.
20.3 THE END OF OLD POETRY
The social crisis accompanying the decline of the Mughal empire left a deep imprint on the literature of the age. A sense of decadence pervaded the literature of practically every major language in Northern and Southern India before the new prose and poetry emerged under the impact of Western influence. This was especially true of the Urdu poetical literature that came into its own in the eighteenth century. Frpm its birth in Delhi around 1700 it showed the signs of a profound moral crisis, indic~tin~the misfortunes of the aristocratic Muslim society which patronized the poetry. Cultunl Contours 20.3.1 Urdu Poetry ~hakacteristicof the age was the Urdu genre of poetry called the Shaihr-i-Ash& (La+ent of the Town) which described the decline of all the professions of a town and ,the triumph of the mean over the noble. More specifically it conveyed the upsqtting of the existing order of things (inqilab) and the overthrow of the formerly great by upstarts. Significantly the word 'inqilab' in the Shaihr-i-Ashob was used not in the sense of a revolution of creative potential, but rather in the sense of a revalution or overturn of the right order of things. Everything, a late eighteenth centlury Urdu poet of Patna named Rasikh said regretfully, is turned upside down. It appkared to him that the former ruling class of Mughal mounted warriors were now 'so afflicted by poverty that they do not command even a toy clay horse'. Another Urdlu poet of Delhi, Sauda (1 713-1 780), who lived through the Iranian, Afghan and Mafatha raids on his city, spoke in his Shaihr-i-Ashob of houses once alive with mu& 'now ringing with the braying of asses' and of deserted mosques with no light 'ex pt the light of a ghoul'. He made fun in a qasida of the emaciated horse on whi h the impoverished Mughal nobleman was riding off to fight the Marathas. The sycf showed it the corn bag and the servant beat it with a stick from behind, while a me$ber of the crowd advised: 'Provide it with wheels, or attach sails to it to make it moi/e.' When the warrior found the battle about to start, he took his shoes in his ha d, shoved the horse under his arm-pit, ran helter-skelter through the city, and sto1 ped not till he had reached his house. Wipe (sharab) and woman (saqi, a euphemistic term for the courtesan) formed an inseparable combination in the Urdu poetry of the age. The dissipation, luxury and senbuality of the declining aristocratic society was reflected in the predominance of the(figure of the courtesan in the Urdu poetry of Delhi and Lucknow. No longer intdnt on the marriage of souls, the typical poet looked forward to a sensual union with the beloved, as'is indeed made clear in the following verse from Insha Allah Khbn, son of Mughal courtier of Murshidabad and a displaced young men driven to Lubknow after the English take-over in Bengal. I am prepared to tolerate abuse from you tnd blandishments and frowns, But your saying No is wholly unacceptable. ~hAtthe figure of the Beloved stands now not God but for the courtesan is also mabe amply clear by lnsha Allah Khan : pot the fun of it : The Shaikh was unex2ectedly embarrassed when I greeted him in the bssembly of the Beloved yesterday. I Lohe in Lucknow as lnsha Allah Khan and other Urdu poets came to cultivate it in the/ latter part of the eighteenth century was a pastime, rhe accomplishment sf a coqrtier too sophisticated and cultured to believe in feelings. The Hindi poetry of the age, too, exhibited symptoms that were similar. The Jagat Vinod of a Padmakar B atta (1753-1833), composed in the rich and luxurious court of Jaipur, reflects a w9 rld from which serious concerns are excluded and which exacts from those who livk in it one duty alone, that of pursuing pleasure. Hindi poetry had undergone sirice the middle of the seventeenth century a long-term change from 'Bhakti' to 'Riti' (meaning on emphasis on rhetoric and poetics and also poetry of a secular and se$suous type composed according to a carefully cultivated technique). This school hald lost its freshness by endless repetition and was barren at the beginning of the niheteenth century. 24.3.2 Other Languages be 'dictatorship of the Grammarian and the Rhetorician' was not confined to the la guage of Hindustan alone, and had affected Bengali, Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil and 0F iya as well. K.M. Munshi talks of 'a weary' lifeless age in Gujarati literature at the close of the eighteenth century, Mayadhar Mansinha speaks of 'the dark night of the 0 iyas' in wdicd voluptuous and ornate poetry flourished, and Chenchiah and I B! ujanga Rao describes as 'one long night' the period of Telugu literature between 1430-1850.
e fall of the Hindu kingdoms of Orissa and Vijayanagara seems to have created in InAia th~camp kind nf ~nrialand rnnral rricic that the ~uh~eouent I Literature in the disintegration of the Mughal Empire produced in Hindustan. The Kavya style which Indian Languages flourished in Telugu came to depend more on hyperbole and exaggeration : 'One poet said that the turrets of the city seemed to kiss the sky. Another went a step further and imagined that they pierced the vault. Yet a third outstripped these, describing them as emerging in the court of Indra.' The moral tone of the Telugu poetFy of the age was not high Suka Saptati related the artful way in which society women violated their marital vows and Bilhaniya related to a sexual intrigue between p young daughter and her teacher. The same stories were to be found in Bengali as well presented in another garb and with spperb technique by Bharat Chandra Ray (died 1760). The insecurity and turmoil of the age lent an underlying tone of darkness to its poetry. A profound sense of the evening tide dominated the songs of kali the Mother composed by Ramprasad Sen in mid-eighteenth century Bengal: e Let us play, you said, and brought me down on earth Under false pretence: (3 Mother, the play did not Fulfil my wish. What was to be on this playground Has been played out. Now at evening, says Ramprasad, '& '& Gather up the child in your arms and let us go home. li Ramprasad Sen il The saFe sense of gloom permeated the Persian and Urdu poetry of Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) who lived and wrote, his incomparable ghazals in Delhi between 1827- 1 1857. He was the last great poet of the old world, a poet of the Mughal twilight. For him, living in Delhi under the last of the Mqghab, ) Life is not journey with an end, there is No rest in death, We move not on, but slip and slide On unsure, trembling feet. With Ghalib, the old poetry shot forth its last ray of disappearing glory. Even while he was turning out Persian and Urdu ghazals in the set mould of Delhi, Michael Madhusudan Dutt and other Bengali poets of Calcutta were importing new forms f into Indian poetry by engrafting on to it from English poetry the blank verse, the ) sonnet and the modern individualistic epic.
20.4 THE NEW POETRY
New forms were adopted in Bengali poetry, ~ichaelMadhusudan Dutt (1827-1873) gave shape to the new Indian poetry with his Bengali epic in blank verse, Meghnad Badh Kavya (1861). Gradually every other language, includ ng th~Urdu language in which Ghalib left his heritage, was enriched by poetry of tA,new form. Ghalib's rebellious disciple, Hali (1837-1914), was one of th~first to rebel against the convention of the ghazal. In the preface to his Flow and Ebb of Islam (Madd-O- Jazr-e-Ismail), better known as Musaddas-e-Hali (1879), he exposed the defectg of the older erotic poetry pitilessly. His Musaddas, which expressed the new spirit of Islam under the influence of the reformer Sir Saiyid Ahmed Khan, narrated the glories and decline of Islam. While giving trenchant expression to the aims and ideals of reformers, Hali also warned against losing one's roots in the craze for reform. He said in one of his verses: For washing, 0 reformer f There is good reason left, SoJong as any stain upon the' cloth is still left; whthe Stain with a will : but do not rub so hard Thar nu st& upon the cloth-and no cloth be left. While Altar Nusain Hali was establisbingthe new poetry in Urdu, Narmadashankar Lalshankar (1833-1886) and Bhartendu Harischandra (1896-1884) were doing the same in Gujarati and Hindi respectively. Narmad and ~hahnduare remembered today mainly as the makers of modern Gujarati and Hindi prose, but they also brought a new spirit to the poetry in these two languages. Narmad, a-social dbel, gave the stirring nationalist call to Gujarat-'Jaya Jaya Garabi Gujarat': (Hail, hail Glorious Gujarat :)--in his poem Downfall of the Hindus (Hinduoni Padati, 1864). Bhartendu Harishchandra left his poems mainly in Braj Bhasha, popularizing nationalism in Hindi. The Balasore trio-Phakir Mohan Senapati (1843-1918), Radhanath Ray (1848-1908) and Madhusudan Rao (1853-1912)-did for Oriya poetry what Madhusudan Dutt had done or Bengali Poetry. Following Dutt, they impoited.the blank verse, the sonnet and the individual epic into Oriya, and they expkessed their love for the heritage and natural behuty of Orissa through the new genres. Similarly Lakshminath Bazbarua (1868-1938), the greatest figure in modern Asspnese literature, set forth the glories of Assam in patriotic songs such as Amar Janma Bhumi, Mor Desh and Bin Baragi. Krishnaji Keshav Damle, better knows as Kesbava Suta (1866-1905), established the new rohantic lyric in Marathi poetry from aroynd 1885. He was the greatest poet of nineteenth century Maharashtra. Like Hali. Bharatendu and Narmad, Keshava Suta also expressed in his poetry a new spirit of activism and social regeneration that contrasted strongly with the dark and despondent tone of Ghalib earlier in the nineteenth century.
> But it was Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) who best represented the new spirit in 1n&. It was he who accomplished the naturalization of the humanist and rationalist valqes of the West in Indian literature. He did not make any forced adaptation of fordign models : instead, the influence of the Upanishads and of Kalidasa, of 5 VaiShnava lyricism and the rustic folk songs, were organically blended in his poetry witfi Western influences. This achievement brought him world-wide recognition, and in 1P13, the Nobel Prize. He was not merely a poet; he wrote novels, shog stories, plays, essays and literary criticism, all of which reached maturity in his hands. In due coufse his writings influenced the_various Indian languages through Qirect reading or traxislations from the Bengali original. It may be truly said therefore that with him modern Indian literature came of age.
' WhBt was the nlw spirit that Tagore embodied? It wa be evident at once when we look at his challenge to the doctrine of Maya (Illusion)-the philosophical basis of Indk's age-old 'otherworldy' culture. It may be noted that some of the medieval bhakti poets had not accepted the doctrine of Maya. Tagore'was indebted to that poetic tradition; but his assertion that the world was real went much further and it contained a scientific and humanistic core of benefits. It expressed itself in his love of his country, but it was not narrow of patriotism. His patriotic ideal, which embraced the whole of humanity and was inspired by the spirit of reason and freedom, found expression in a famous poem of the Citanjali which won him the Nobel Prize: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls Where words come from the depth of truth; where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; *here the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action lnto that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
In al word, Tagore imparted the universal-spirit of progress and reason to the liteqature of his country, and he did so in a uniquely Indian manner, not forgetting GO^ and the eternal truth. The age in which he lived and worked saw the rise of several other poets who Indian literature with theirdistinctive poetical works. Subrmanya Bharati, 1 the lgreatest poet in modern Tamil, was greatly encouraged by his example. Bharati's i Kujil Pattu, a collection af songs of love, may be taken to be the counterpart to I
Tag re's Citanjali; he also wrote Swatantra Pattu, an yqually influential collection of J son s of freedom. The three great contemporary Malayalam poets, Kumaran Asan, Ulldork S. Parameswara lyer and Vallathol Narayana Menon, also exuded the same newi spirit. Together they created what a historian of Malayalam literature calls the 'golfen age of romantic poetry' in that language. I
Amlong other contemporarieh of Tagore must be mentioned Bhai Vir Singh, a Sikh I poek whose Punjabi masterpiece, Rana Surat Singh (1905), depiets a widow's spi{itual journey in search of her dead husband; Narsinhrao Divatia. a -Gujarati poet 1 who wrote an incomparable elegy on his son's death (Smarana Samhita) in 1915; and the Hindi poets of Chhayavad, ~aiShahkar Prasad, Nirala and Sumitra Nandan pant, who were inspired by Tagore and the European symbolists to introduce a mystic and romantic subjectively in the Hindi poetry of the 1920s.
The account of modern Indian poetry would remain incomplete without a reference to Mohammed Iqbal, who furrowed a course 'fferent from that of Tagore. During , the prolonged crisis that overpowered the Tu2 ish Caliplkate in the second decade of the twentieth century, he emerged as a poet of Pan-Islamisni in the UrduJanguage. Later he wrote several works in Persian which gave him a certain recognition in the Islamic world outside India. With Bal-e-Jibril (1935) he returned to Urdu again. Although at first an outspoken nationalist, he came by 1930 to advocate a sephrate homeland for the Muslims in India. He died in 1938, leaving behind a poetical heritage rich in spirituality and informed by the spirit of Islamic revivalism.
Check Your Progress 1 1) With the decline of Mughal empire what were the changes which took place in the Indian literature?
2) Was the new poetry able to shake off the earlier decadence? ......
1 ' 20.5 DEVELOPMENTS ON THE STAGE The stage brought a new dimension to Indian literary activity in the nineteenth century. It did not exist before. The idea caught on when the European community in Calcutta performed English plays on the stage. Before this, there were folk performances of various sorts under the sky-Kathakali in Kerala, Yakshagana in Karnataka and Andhra, Yatra in Bengal and Orissa, Ras Lila in Braj, etc. Combining song, dance and bits of acting, these were performances without a formal theatre. There was no drama proper,-except for survivals of classical Sanskrit drama here and there. In certain parts of the country, for instance in Orissa and Kerala, Sanskrit drama was still to some extent a living tradition. When plays on the stage were first attempted in the nineteenth century, Sanskrit drama, especially Kalidasa's Abhijana Shakuntalam, provided a source of inspiration in several provinces. Cultuml Contours 20.5.1 Western Influence Moweker, Western plays, wJlich caught the imagination of the Indian middle class, made !hem acquainted with ideas of drama ruled out in the classical Sanskrit play : especi Ily the idea of tragedy, of sad endings and violent deaths on the stage. That tHis wt s a new notion, and a vdid one, was acknowledged by G.C. Gupta, who wrote khe first original Bengali play in 1852. Justifying the sad ending of the play, he referr& to the great English poet named Shakespeare. 'Writers in our country', he wrote In the preface to the play, 'used to think that if they did not cap the enacting of a sqd event in a person's life with a happy ending, they would in verity commit a sih'. Bbt he advocated a departure from this concept on the ground of the deeper recondimtion and happiness reached by the plumbing of sadness. I This wbs not the Indian audience's first acquaintance with plays of Western type. A ~mssiabvisitor to Calcutta, named Gerasim Lebedeff, translated an English play into Bmgali, and had it enacted on the stage in -1795. ~venearlier than this, Christians of ~antralKerala, ever since coming into contact with the Portuguese, had produced plays that exhibited some of the features of western drama. But these were isolated produckions, and had on influent= on the development of dramatical literature from around the middle of the nineteenth century. ~rnong/the first original plays influenced by Western notions were the tragic play mentioped before, named Kirtibilas, and Taracharan Sikdar's Bengali comedy of the sa*e y&ar(1852), entitled Bhadrajuna, which followed both Sanskrit and Western nolionsl of comedy in developing the Puranic theme of Subhadra's elopement ~hh' Arjluna. In Marathi, the first full-fledged play was Prasannaraghava (1851). The fiht Urdu pay,1 Anant's Indar Sabha (1853), is said to have been enacted in Lucknow by Nawab bajid Ali Shah, his courtiers and his concubines. It is based on an inc@nse$uentialtale of a fairy's love for a man, the latter's imprisonment by god Indra, qnd how the fairy rescued her beloved in the guise of a jogan.
These w re early beginnings, full of the shortcomings to be expected In such in~tial efforts. f he man who raised modern Indian drama to the status of literature was the famous @engali poet, Michael Madhusudan Dutt. His first play, Sharmistha (1859), was basdd on a Mahabharata tale. Within a few months of this he c7rotetwo conuemp/orary social plays of a satirical character and finally he wrote the tragic masterpibce, Krishnakumari (1861), based on the dispute between the rival princes of Jaipur apd Jodhpur for the hand of the peerless princess of Udaipur, who was dtiven to commlit suicide in order to save her father's house from ruin. His contemporary, ~inabanbuMitra, wrote the celebrated play Niladarpan (1860), on the oppression of the indigp planters in Bengal. This play created a sensation and its translator, evere end J. Long, was sentenced to prison on the charge of sedition. Among notable early plaps in other languages may be mentioned Ranchhodbhai Udayram's tragic Gujarati blay, Lalita-duhkha-darsaka (1864) in which a cultured girl marridd to an illiterate lake is driven to commit suicide; Ramashankara Ray's great historical play. in the Odya language, Kanchi Kaveri (l880), dealing with a heroic and romantic episdde im the career of King Purushottama Deva of Orissa; and the short social play in Kanna a by Venkataramana Shastri, entitled Iggappa Heggadeva Vivahapr1 hasana, dealing with the social evil of the sale of girls in the marriage market. I I 1 Playsl we+ enacted at first by amateur groups, usually in the mansion of some notable fdmily. Michael Madhusudan Dutt's tragedy, Krishnakumari, was staged in the ~pbhdbazarRaj house of North Calcutta in 1865. The first public theatre, named the Natio a1 Theatre, was set up in Calcutta in 1872. Soon there were several rival Calcutta t\ eatres and professional troupes. In Bombay, the other great centre where the pn'ofes(siona1stage flourished, the Parsi community, realizing the commercial possibiliti#s of the theatre, set up several companies in Bombay and soon extended several parts of Western and Northern India. These were itinerant on a round of the leading cities of India and attracting large wds to gaudy and dazzling plays in which the actors acted with sweeping a shrill declamatory style. Naturalism had no place in such theatre and 24 produced seldom attained the dignity of literature. The development . of the professional stage had by early 20th century brought about a split between ~ite"ture in the literary drama and-popular drama in every part of India. Indian Lmguagcs
- - 20A THE RISE OF THE NOVEL
The novel was a new genre in Indian literature. Along with the short story, it emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century under the grdwing influence of English literature upon Indian literature. In classical Sanskrit litekature, Banabhatta's prose romance, Kadambari, came closer perhaps to the form of the novel than other tales. Such tales abounded, both in Sanskrit and in Persian, but these were without the realism and the specific time-and-place context required by the novel. In the modern Indian languages, the rise of the kvkl was contingent upon the prior emergence of prose literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century. 20.6.1 New Narratives As prose emerged, there was also emerged prose narratives of a somewhat new vatiety in the first half of the nineteenth century. These formed the tentative overtures to the emergence of the full-fledged novel. Alaler Gharer Dulal by Pyarechand Mitra, which is sometimes cited as the first novel in Bengali, was a saiirical social sketch published in 1858. A series of sketches built around a dissolute young zamindar, it had a good deal of social realism, but it did not have the sort of developed plot characteristic of the later nineteenth century novel. In 1862, Bhudev blukhopadhyay published two romantic historical tales in Bengali. He entitled it Aitihasik Upanyas (Historical Fiction). The word 'upanyas' later on became the common word for 'novel' in several north Indian languages. This was the first time it was used in the sense of a romantic work of fiction. Prose romances approaching to the form of the novel appeared in Marathi around the same time: Muktamala (1861) by Lakshman Moreshwar Halbe and Manjughosha (1868) by Naro Sadasiv Risbud.
Even earlier than this, didactic tales of a modern character had emerged in more than one modern Indian language. These were tales with a social message. The earliest tales of this variety formed part of Christian propaganda in India. Phulmani- 0-Karunar Bibaran (1852), written in Bengali by Hannah Catherine Mullens, and Yamuna Paryatm (1857), a Marathi work by Baba Padamji which recounts the sufferings of a Hindu widow who converts to Christianity, belong to this variety. Some critics identify these two works as the first novels in Bengali and Marathi respectively, but neither possessed any depth of characterisation, nor even a closely woven plot. Other didactic works followed, i- itten by Christian, Muslim and Hindu authors propagating a social message with ,.p of a story. Nazir's Ahmad's Mir at- ul-Urns (1969), a didactic narrative contrasting the lives of a good sister and a bad one, is identified as the first novel in Urdu. Pandit Gauri Dutt's Devrani Jethani ki Kabani, published next year in Hindi, had an almost identical theme. Subsequently, the Tamil Christian author, Samuel Vedanyakam PilGi, wrote the first original novel in Tamil, Prathapa Mudaliar Charitram (1879), in order to preach such moral virtues as 'filial affection, fraternal affection, conjugal affection, chastity, universal benevolence, integrity, grhtitude, etc.' 20.6.2 Bankim's Age With Bankim*ChandraChatterjee's first original work in Bengali Durgesh Nandiii (1865), the novel came of age in India. The first full-fledged novel in any Indian language, it is set against the background of the Mughal Afghan war for the possession of Bengal, with a romantic love triangle as the in focus of interest (a young Pajput general of the Mughal army, the' daughter of a ocal lord of the castle whom he marries, and a noble Pathan princess who sacrifices7 verything for love of him). Chatterjee's incomparable novels, set mostly in a historical context, followed one after another. Ananda-Math (1882), set against the background of the Sannyasi rebellion in Bengali, contained the famous nationalist song 'Bande Mataram'. Rathasthan (1881), with the Rajput rebellion against Emperor Aurangzeb as its theme, was another stirring historical novel. Chatterjee's contemporary&omeSh Chunder Dutt, wrote several historical ndvels under his influence, of-which the two Cultural Contours most famous are Maharashtra Jivan Prabhat (1878) and Rajput Jivan Sandhya (1979). The historical novel came into vogue in other Indian languages, too. The reason is that, contemporary society in the late nineteenth century afforded little scope for love bnd heroism on account of numerous social restrictions. In consequence, tales of nerojsm and love had to be set in a historical context. The first romantic historical novel in Marathi, Ramchandra Bhikaji Gunjikar's Mochanged (1871), is built around a hill fort in Maharashtra which Shivaji captures eventually. Later on, Harinarayan Apte had great success in Maharashtra with his historical novels : Mysorecha Vegh (189()), Gad Ah Pan Simha Gela (1903), Suryodaya (1905-1908), etc. C.V. Raman Pillai's great historical trilogy in Malayalam-Martanda Varma (189 l), and DhNmaraja and Rama Raja Bahadur-evoked the time of troubles in eighteenth centiry Kerala in authentic detail.
Manp of these historical novels had the heroic deeds of the Rajputs and the Mar~thasas their theme, with Muslim characters being sometimes shown in an tlnfakourable light. The historical novels that appeared in Urdu drew their inspikation, by way of contrast, from the historical glories of Islam, both within and outside India. The leading Urdu novelist, Abdul Halim Sharar, wrote several novels exhibiting the great superiority of Islam in its heyday over non-Muslim, especially Chribtian, powers. The first of these, Malik-ul-Aziz Va jana (1888), was his rejoinder to Scott's I'albnian, which he considered to be biased against Islam; in vicarious reveage, Sharar had King Richard's niece, Varjana, fall, in love with Saladin's son, Ma@-ul-Aziz. Mansur Mohana (1890) was written to exonerate Sultan Mahmud of Ghakni from charges of looting and destruction. Flora Florinda (1897), set against the ackground of the excesses of the Christians in Moorish Spain, portrays a Mus1 im girl presented by the Christians. Sharar's stories were usually built around a romkntic affair between a captain of the Saracen army and a high born maiden of the imvaded land.
To wet novels successfully in the contemporary social context made greater demands for nealism on the art of the novelists. Bankim Chandra showed the way with his two major social novels, Bishabriksha (1873), and Krishnakanter Will (1878). These works had a depth of characterization that set the standard for Indian fiction for years to come. 0. Chandu Menon's Malayalam novel, Indulekha (1888), to combine romantic love with realistic social detail. Govardhan Ram's huge Gujfrati novel, Saraswati Chandra (4 parts, 1887, 1892, 1898, 1900), had a romantic and sentimental interest, but in this work the hero and the heroine decided at the end :not to marry each other as the girl was a widow and the idealistic lovers were unylling to hurt the skntiments of their community hriNarayan Apte's large Maqathi novel, Pan Lakshant Kon Gheto (1890), was a more realistic work dwelling on the injustice and violence of Orthodox Hindu society towards widows. Mirza Ha i Ruswa's Umrao Jan Ada (1899) a distinguished Urdu Novel with a courtesan as t1 e protagonist, recounted her story in the first person with remarkable detdchment~ and objectivity. The beginning of the twentieth century accentuated the tendency towards psydhological realism, which Rabindranath Tagore consciously projected as the main thrdst of his weighty novil, Chokher Bali (1903); this was followed by his even bigger work, Gora (1910), a massive novel of the new aspirations and ideals that had stided Bengali society in his youth. The portrayal of contemporary society in authentic detail was also the distinguishing mark of thq two widely acclaimed novielists who started writing soon afterwards : Sarat C&-indra Chatterjee and Munski Preinchand. Their works bore the strong imprat of the nationalist movement that stinted twentieth century India. But it was the depth of their social and psychological observation, climaxing with Chatterjee's Grihadaha (1920) and Premchanct's Godan (1936), which made them the leading writers of fiction in their own time.
I Che/ck Your Progress 2 1) What impact did Western influence have on the evolution of' drama? 2) What was the difference between the early novels and the novels which were written in Bankim's age?
24.7 LET US SUM UP
After reading this Unit you saw that: The old,literature in the vernacular languages consisted almost entirely of poetry and this old literature persisted through the eighteenth and indeed the first half of the nineteenth century. Over time this old poetry began to show the symptoms of an age of decline and there was a loss of freshness and a tendency towards repetition. The declining values appeared in the change from devotion (bhakti) to technique and virtuousity (riti). * Under the impact of English literature, Indian poetry recaptured its freshness In the nineteenth century. There was experimentation with new forms, such as blank verse, the sonnet and the lyric. Above all there was the exuberance of a'new creative spirit that changed the very content of poetry. Another direction in which the creative spirit of the modern age manifested itself was the appearance of the stage. The setting up of the stage gave the impetus to the prolific growth of dramatical literature under the influence of both classical Sanskrit drama and the Western plays, especially those of Shakespeare. r Under the influence of the West, there emerged a completely new branch in Indian literature. This was the novel, accompanied by the short story. This .. brought in its wake a new social realism in lq%n literature.
20.8 KEY WORDS
Genre : A specific form of art, literature etc. Rhetoric : The technique of writing powerfully. .- I Cuttunl Contours Poetics: Technique of understanding aesthetic experience underlying literary texts. Renlis4 : Form of art of literature which consciously attempts to link up with reality ~i&actk: Related to teaching, preaching, propagating, etc.
20.9 ( ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS EXERCISES
Check your Progress 1 1) See See. 20.3 2) See Sec. 20.4 I Check JYour Progress 2 1) See Sec. 20.5 2) See Sec. 20.6 'UNIT 21 THE SPREAD OF ENGLISH EDUCATION
Structure Objectives Introduction Colonial Education Indigenous Education Debate Over Education Policy Development of English Education An Appraisal Let Us Sum Up Key Words Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises
21.0 OBJECTIVES
This Unit attempts to introduce you to experiment; that the British government made in the field of education in India during 1757-1857. In this Unit you will learn about : the changing relationship between colonialism and education, the characteristics of the indigenous system of education, the debate over the education policy, the spread of Western education, and the significance of the new education system in modern India.
The establishment of British territorial control over India brought changes in different spheres of life. Education was one of such areas where lot of changes came with the transfer of power to the British. Why and how did the change come? What was the impact of this change? These are some of the major questions that have been discussed in this Unit.
21.2 COLONIAL EDUCATION
It is essential to understand the dynamics of relationship between education and colonialism in order to understand the development of education under colonial rule. Authors like Martin Carnoy and others have argued that education in a colonial country is designed by the colonial rulers to legitimise their domination and to serve their own econ~micneeds.
Economic and political control over the colonial country is essential for the survival of colonial rule and education is used to achieve this goal. Attempt is made to develop through education a new set of values and justification of the colonial rule. Thus education loses its independent identity and becomes subordinate to political power. Colonial education no doubt brings changes and cultural transformation in a colonial country. New ideas and experiments undoubtedly enrich the existing knowledge. But the colonial country has to pay a heavy price for it. The real beneficiaries of colonial education are a selected few who had a specific role assigited ...... P ...... -. .I . .. . Cu~tum~Contours meant ifor better control of the colonial country rather~thanits development. he ultimate outcome of this policy might be different but the desired objective is to 'c~ntrdl'not to 'change' the Eolonial country.
In the background of this view of many social historians regarding the dyriamics of relatiopship between colonial rule and education we shall look at the development of English education in India. However, before we come to the beginnings of English educatpon, let us take a look at the indigenous system of education in the early 19th century.
25.3 INDIGENOUS EDUCATION
The itlformation that we gather from early -British records gives us a very rough idea about indigenous system of education in late 18th and early 19th century India. There were 'Madrasas' and 'Maktabs' for the Muslims and 'Tols' and 'Patshalas' for the ~indus.These ranged from the centres for higher learning in Arabic and Sanskkit to lower levels of institution for schooling people in Persian and Vernacular 1angNges. Lack of scientific and secular learning was one of the major limitations of the ceptres for higher learning in those days. However, many Hindus attended Rrsialn schools because Persian was then the court language and there were also ~inddteachers in Persian schools. Whether it was a 'Tol' or a 'Madrasa' there were certaifi common features in the indigenous system of education.
Scfiools were generally run with the help of contribution from Zamindars or from locbl rich men. In !he curriculum the main emphasis was on classical language like Sanskrit, Ar bic or Persian and subjects of classical Hindu or Islamic tradition like G hmmar, Logic, Law, Metaphysics, Medicines, etc. Though Sanskrit learning was the exclusive domain of the Brahmans, from the reports available of the early 19th century we find that the non-uppercastes and tha scheduled castes had also representation in the lower level schools. wbmen were generally debarred from the formal education system. a lnthe absence of printing press till 19th century oral tradition and memory of the teqchers formed the basis of knowledge and information, supplemented with hapdwritten manuscripts. T+ state had little or no role in school education though kings would patronise pepple famous for their learning.
Besides the centres for higher learning which were basically the domain of upper aasteb there was a large number of elementary schools. Most of the villages in India had dhis kind of elementary schools. These were each run by an individual teacher with tthe monetary help of the village Zamindars or local elite. These schools used to teach the students elementary arithmetic and basic literacy to meet the needs of day- to-d4y life. Students from different sections of society, except the very backward disprkvileged castes, attended these schools.
Thuq the education system that existed in India in the early 19th century had its own lmerits and demerits. The elementary schools provided the opportunity for basic ceductition to rural people and its curriculum was secular in approach and responsive to pdactical needs. Probably in the higher centres of learning (Tols and Madrasas) too huch emphasis on niceties of grammar, philosophy and religion narrowed down the sbope of expansion of secular and scientific knowledge. The colonial rulers discqrded the indigenous system and replaced it by a system of education of theil own. Tne potentiality that the indigenous system had as a means of mass education, Was (iestroyed. In the following section we would see how controversies started gmo g different groups about what should be the role of the East India Company in the 1~~~mlnnrnnnt I\< nA..nm+;~,r :r 1-A:- The Spread of English Educstion
21.4 DEBATE OVER EDUCATION POLICY
Till the second half of 18th century the English East India Company did not face any dilemma about its role in the promotion of education in India. It was basically a commercial corporation, so its basic objectives was trade and profit. Before acquisition of territorial power the Company had no role in education, however, there were attempts by the missionaries to establish charity schools and to promote learning. But things began to change with the British occupation of Eastern India in the second-half of 18th century. Within the official circle as well as outside of it there was a growing debate about what should be the role of the company in the promotion of learning in India. Immediately after the acquisition of political power in India the company officials wanted to maintain,neutrality or non-intervention in the sphere of religion and culture of the indigenous society. The reason behind it was partly the fear of adverse reaction and opposition to their role by the local people. However, constant pressure from different quarters, the Missionaries, the Liberals, the Orientalists, the ;Utilitarians compelled the company to give up its policy of neutrality and to take the responsibility of promotion of learning.
The second important point around which the opinions were sharply divided was whether the company should promote western or oriental learning. In the initial stage the company officials patronised oriental learning. It cannot be denied that some of the Englishmen had the genuine desire to acwire and promote oriental learning.
In this context we may menti n the establishment of the 'Calcutta Madrasa' by Warren Hastings (1 78 I), the PBenares Sanskrit College' by Jonathan Duncan (1 7911 and the 'Asiatic Society of Bengal'by William Jones (1784). Those who were in favour of continuation f the existing institutions of oriental learning and promotion of Indian classical tradipon were called 'Orientalists': The argument put forward by the Orientalists was that generally there was a prejudice among Indians against Europeanr knowledge and science, so there might be complete rejection of western knowledge. Some of them were also interested to explore the classical tradition and culture of this ancient civilization. But even if we acknowledge the genuine desire of .-a " ... .-. 0 - .. .. ., . . ,... I
1 saleuag, aqi pue ,evJpem t?iin31~,aqi jo iuauIqsgqt?isa aqi aqi st?& s!q~-arnlInD l!aqi pueislapun 01 put? Liapos snoua8!pu! aqi jo ial!la~ aql I I
I 1e lauaq aq pInoM 6aqi ~t?qios amqn3 put? aZenZut?~1~301 aqi slt?!3!jjo qsfluataqi qxa1 01 pa~ut?~6aq~ ~suo!1wap!suo3 1m!i3eld amos 6q pap!n% alaM sis!leluiauo aqi I I The Spread of English Education
Extracts from the Diary of H.T.Prinsep Concerning the Dispute between Orientalists
When the subject came under consideration in Council, there was a very hot argument beiween myself and Mr. Macaulay. The issue was tlre resolution that n publislred not abolishing 'existing colleges, but requiring them IP"to teaclr Englislr as n*ell as rrative literature and making the fornrer obligatory, also giving Extracts from the Minute of the some encouragenrent to vernacular studies. but declarirrg that all T. Gowrnment pecuniary aid in future should be given exclusively to Hon'ble B. Macaulay, dated promote the study of European science tlrrough tlre medium of the 21,d February 1835 English hnguage. Lord W. Bentinck n-ould not even allow nzy memorandum to be placed on record. He .said it nsas qrrite ae abuse that Secretarie.~sl~ould take upon themseh*e.v to itlrite memorondnms: that it'was enough for the Court of Directors to re wh& the Members of Council chose to plan on record .... Thus ended this matter for the time. The Resolution passed on this occasion was modified afterwards and made a little more favourable for the old native institutions by Lord Auckland. We now come to the gist of the matter. We have a fund but Englislr has ever since been the study prejerentially encourag- to employed as Governmerit shall direct for the intellectual ed by Government in connection with ~*ernacuIarliterature. The improvement of the people of this country. The simple question study of Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian is, in consequence, less is, what is the most useful way of employing it? cultivated than heretofore, but none of the old institutions have Allparties seem to be agr~edon one point, that the dialects been altogether abolished" (emphasis added). commonly spoken among the natA1psof this part of India con- tain neither literary nor scientijk information, and are moreover so poor and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarler, it will not be easy lo translate any */tiable work into thmr. It seems to be admitted on all sides, that the intellectual impro~~ementof those classes of the people who hare the means ofpursuing higlrer ztudies can at persent be eflected only by means of some language not vernacular amongst them. What then shall that language be? One half of the committee maintain that it should be the English. The other half strongly recommend the Arabic and Sanscrit. The whole quesYion .teems 10 me to be- which Imguoge is the best worth knowh~? 1 have no knowledge of- either Sanscrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most alebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conhrsed. both here and at home. with men distinguished by their' proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the oriental learning at the valuation ef the orientalists themselves. I lure never found one among them wlro could deny that a single sheu of a good Eurnpean library was worth the whole nati~uliterature of India and Arabia. TIre intrinsic svpcrlority of tire Western literatrrre is in*d fully adinitfed by those members of the comntittee who support the oriental plan of education. ' Cultural Contours tHat d veloped in England with the Industrial Revolution was highly critical of the c~mp/ny's modopoly trade. Post-industrial Revolution saw little of value beyond aodedn western culture. The Evangelicals had a firm conviction in the superiority of dhris 'an ideas and western institutions. Two great exponents of the Evangelical view Were $ harles Grant and ~illiamWilberforce. others who did not share Evangelicalfaith also &re convinced of the superiority of wste$ knowledge and one of the chief promoters of this idea was Thomas Babin on Macaulay. He recommended that western learning should be promoted in India rhrough English language and this should be the objective of education policy is 1ndIa. James Mill, the chief advocate of Utilitarianism in India, was highly critical of In 'an religion and culture. Instead of support to oriental institutions, he had erlnph sised Western education. But he believed that education alone was not siffici1 nt to bring desired transformation in India; legislative and administrative relfords were also essential for this purpose.
all of these groups who may be called 'Anglicists', in general believed that Iqdiabr? s were in a backward stage and Western education given through English labgu ge alone was the remedy. But education was expensive. Therefore it was better ta ed aate a group of people who would gradually educate the rest of the society. Efiuca ion would filter down from the elites to the masses. In this way it would help tq dev6 lop new cultural values and knowledge in India. This was after called the 'filtration' theory. The dissionaries had a completely different logic for supporting the introduction of ~h~lisbducation in India. The motive of the missionaries was to get access to the inldige ous society through education and to propagate new cultural values which would nhelp them in conversion of people to Christianity. The rjsponse of Indians to this debate over education policy was a mixed one. Ram Nohay Roy and others favoured introduction of Western education with the belief thkt it would help Indians to assimilate the knowledge of western science, ism, new ideas and literature. This would help in the regeneration of the Some other people believed that knowledge of Western education, specially of English, would help them in getting jobs and coming close to the they were in support of Western education. In opposition to this conservatives who were staunch supporters of Indian classical They had the apprehension that introduction of Western to the collapse of indigenous society and culture. were different shades of opinion among the Europeans as well as Indians of the company in the development of education in India. Let us see what rfiajor developments took place in Indian. education during
Check your Progress 1 1) M I ke an assessment of the indigenous system of education in 100 words.
.... I...... i ~ I '1
...I...... ~ I 34 Write in words about the attitude of Indians to the promotion of western 2) 50 The Spread bf learning. English Education
3) Read the following sentences and mark right (4 or wrong (X) i) In the indigenous system of education mass education was neglected. ii) Women in general were deprived of education in the indigenous system. iii) In the beginning the company officisris avoided any intervention in indigenous education. iv) The Anglicists wanted to promote western education because they wanted to modernise India.
21.5 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION I As ,we have seen in the earlier section, the beginning of English education can be traded only to the early 19th century. Before that the efforts made by the missionaries or by individuals were very limited in nature. We may mention in this connection Schwartzs schools in Tanjore, Ramnad and Shivganga, the Baptist Missionaries in Serampore, the London Mission Society, the American Methodists in Bombay, etc. They had pioneering contribution in modern education. These missionary activities and the mounting pressure by some Englishmen like Charles Grant and William Wilberforce compelled the Company to give up its policy of non- intervention in education. For the first time the British Parliament included in the Company's charter a clause that the Governor-General in Couhcil is bound to keep a sum of not less than one lakh of rupees per year for education. But the company used this fund mainly to promote and encourage Indian language and literature. The importance of the Charter Act of 1813 was that the Company for the first time acknowledged state responsibility for the promotion of education in India.
\
8. William Carry n BnptiPt Misoinmy at Sunrupose
In 1823 a General Committee of Public Institution was set up to look after the development of education in India. Most of the members of this committee belonged tn th~C\r;entol;ct nrn~~nanA tho\>ctrnnnlv csAvn~at~Atho nmmntinn n.f nrientll I
Cultural Contours learnibg rather than the promotion of Western education. However, as we have discudsed in the earlier section, different sections both in England and in India / creat6d mounting pressure on the Company to encobrage Western education. Macablay, the President of the General Committee of Public Instruction and Lord Bentifick, the Governor General, took the side of the Anglicists and Bentinck gave his rdling that "the great object of the British Government in India was henceforth to be th&promotion of European literature and science among the natives of India; and that 411 the funds appropriated for the purpose of education would be best employed on Edglish education alone."
Some of the important points of the resolution that Bentinck announced in 1835 were as follows: Pehian was abolished as the court language and was substituted by English. printing and publication of English books were made fred and available at a comparatively low price. \ d+re fund was provided to support the English education, while there was cudtailment in the fund for the promotion of oriental learning. kuckland who came after Bentinck as the overn nor-~enehl also believed in the nked for the promotion of English education in India. He recommended the opening of mdre English colleges in Dacca, Patna, Benares, ~llahabad,Agra, elh hi .and ~arrelll~.The General Committee of Public Instruction was abolished in 1841 and its place was taken by a Council of Education. The next major landmark in the devel4pment of English education in this period was the Wood's Despatch of 1854. 5lir Charles Wood, the president of the Board of Control, in 1854 laid down the piolicd which became the guiding principle of the education programme of the goverbment of India. The Despatch categorically declared : "Tqie education that we desire to see extended in India is that which has for its objlect the diffusion of the improved arts, science, philosophy and literature of Eufope, in short of European knowledge."
The &jar recommendations of the Despatch were as follows
thd creation of a department of public instruction in each of the five provinces of the company's territory, the/ establishment of university at Calcutta, Bombay a& Madras, the establishment of a network of graded schools-high schopls, middle schools and the elementary schoo~s, the establishment of teachers training institutions, the promotion of vernacular schools, the(introducti0n of a system of grants-in-aid for financial held to the schools, etc.
In 1847 three universifies were established in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. The establishment of universities and the opening of education departments in the providces provided a basic structure to modern education in India, in fact Wood's Despqch provided the model for the further development in education in India.
Along with this official initiative to promote western learning in India, there was initiative by the missionaries and some individuals to promote Westerri edgcation. In Bengai some of the important colleges were established by the Christian missionaries. These missionary institutions did play a role in spreading western knowledge, though their dasic object was to attract people to Christianity. Bejidesthe missioneties some individuals played a significant role to promote English education in Calcutta. The ~ativdSchool and Book Society of Calcutta was established to open schools in Chlcuyta and to train up the teachers for the indigenous schools. The establishment of Hiddu College (later Presidency College) in Calcutta by David Hare and a group of local Hindu notables facilitated the promotion of secular education among ~nidianb.David Hare was against the teaching of religious ideas and Sanskrit and Arabid languages. J.E.D. Bethune who was an ardent advocate of women's education a girls' school in Calcutta. Among the Bengalis, Vidyasagar supported the of women's education. All these institutions obtained a positive response from the local people who strongly pleaded to the British for further expansion of The Spread of ' educational opportunities. Englisl~Education
:Similarly in Aombay and Madras also missionary schools were established. In Bombay notable developments were the Native Education Society and the Elphinstone lnstitution which played a role similar to the Hindu College of Calcutta. In Madras the Christian Coll e was founded in 1837 and the Presidency College in 853. In Uttar Pradesh the fi2 t English-medium college was founded at Agra in 1823. Thus by 1850s we find that in most of the provinces in India the basis of modern education was laid down by the British.
21.6 AN APPRAISAL
The'above discussion shows how gradually the English education developed. The government promoted this system while neglecting the indigenous system of education in the 19th century. The spread of English education in India was a long process and before 1857 its spread and depth were limited. Nonetheless the changes that came in education upto 1857 deserve a close scrutiny. There was no doubt that- the new education broadened the horizonbof knowledge. Specially the establishment of printing press and easy availability of books removed the traditional barriers and made education accessible to more people. The ideas of the western thinkers influenced the younger generation of the indigenous society and they began to question the existing traditional values. A new spirit of rationalism developed.
However, these positive contributions have to be balanced against the grave limitations of the education system that developed under colonial sponsorship. The English education system totally ignored the importance of mass education. In the indigenous system the elementary schools provided basic education to a wide section of society. But in the new education the emphasis was to educate a selected few. The Anglicists idea of filtering down education from elites to masses did not work in practice. This system did not provide equal access to education to all and this led to the perpetuation of the backwardness of socially backward castes and communities. The existing divisions in the society widened. Secondly, in spite of advocacy of western science and technology, in the curriculum of schools and alleges the emphasis was on western literature, philosophy and humanities. Technology and natural science were neglected and without s'uch knowledge the intellectual advancement as well as economic development of a country was hampered.
Another aspect of this new education was the subordination of education to political power. Whether it was O~entalistor Anglicist the basic object of their education policy was to strengthen colonial rule. The Orientalists wanted to do it through indigenisation and the Anglicists wanted to do it through westernization. The basic purpose of the education policy was insqparable from the political interests of the colonial government.
Thus we have seen that education became an issue of debate among various schools of thought. The education policy in the first half of 19th century was a product of this clash of opinions. On the whole, the colonial administration was keen to promote an education policy which served its own interests.
Check Your Progress 2 1) Discuss the official policy of education between 1835 to 1857. Answer in 100 words. 2) W ite a critical note on the effect of English education in India. Answer in 100 woe ds.
21.7 LET US SUM UP
In this Jnit we have seen how gradually ths indigenous system of exiucation was the British with a new system of ed cation. There were many who fried to promote oriental learni1 g but the Anglicists prevailed over New schools and colleges were established to promote learning. and economic idws came through the channel of western policy ignored scientific and technical education. this education was mainly the upper crust of society. So with the English education was very limited in nature.
I 21.1 FEYWORDS , , I \ : The Company officials who were in favour of promotion of western in India were called Anglicists. Is : There was a group of Protestants in England who beheved in the of the Christ and individual initiative. They visualised the progress of only through faith in Christ and the Christian culture. I.ibehls :In 19th century England a new political party emerged, called Liberal ' party] Me bers of this party who were called liberals believed in toleration and advo4 ated mfreedom of thought-and expression. - Orientalists :The company offi&als who advocated for the promotion of Indian , culture, tradition and languages were called Orientalists. Utilitarians : See Unit 13, Block 3.
- - 21.9 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS EXERCISES
Check Your Progress 1 1) Your answer should focus on the major features of the indigenous system of education, its merits and demerits, see Sec. 21.3. 2) There was a mixed reaction, some favoured western education, some were very critical of it. See Sec. 21.4. 3) i) X ii) d iii) J iv) X Check Your Progress 2 I) Your answer should include Bentinck's resolutior policy of Auckland, Wood's Despatch, etc. See Sec. 21.5. 2) Here you have to make assessment of the positive contribution of English education and the limitations of the English education, See. Sec. 21.6. UN~T22 WESTERN KNOWLEDGE AND THE INDIAN MIND
Stru4pre bje tlves 22.022.1 ntroduction. 22.2 IAfter the Crisis 22.3 A New Mentality 22.4 parly Origins of the New Mentality 22.5 Western Knowledge and its Impact 22.6 New Rationalism 22,7 the New Romanticism 22.8 bet Us Sum Up 22.9 Fey Words 221 10 bnswers to Check Your Progress Exercises
22.0 1 OBJECTIVES
I 4n .this unit you will get to know about : the hain concerns of the Indian mind in the colonial milieu, the bain trends of impact of western knowledge, and so& problems of the impact.
221.1 ( INTRODUCTION
In prevjous Units you have broadly seen how India hoved from the disintegration of tha ~uklialempire to the establishment of a colonial milieu. That, this process foriced /he lndian mind to think about its culture and society and frame a response to the dewcorners, is the subject of this Unit
22.2 I AFTER THE CRISIS I Tho nedd to respond to the changed situatioli in the wake of the criiis of the Mughal emfiire preated an urge to define and defend identities all over India. A new political sit~atiohbrought problems of adjustment and definition for the Indian mind. These problerqs had to be dealt in the initial 'dhases from within the resources offered by religionand tradition. This was to throw up a number of competing sects and their 'kaders, whose public debates strengthened an awareness of religion and cultural identity,
Here wd have the example of Bengal where the movements of Faraizis, Mulham/nadiyas advocated a return to past 'purity' of Islam in different ways. Given the wei+l position of peasant and artisan classes who were attracted to such mouemdnts, these movements inevitably strayed into areas of economic conflict. Heqce easant-landlord conflicts acquired a religious colour. An important figure in this con1 ext was Titu-Mir whose'rebellion was crushed when it turned anti- governqent.
~o~evef,apart from the politico-economic aspects, the debates and differences betyeenthese various groups were equally important. These debates raised and clarified the issues of religion in returning to past 'purity'. A similar role was played by dispJ tations and discussions between the Namdhari and Nirankari followers of Sikhism in Punjab. In Orissa and Madhya Pradesh the Satya Mahima Dharnia and The Indh Mind and the Satnamis focused on the issue of purity of religion amongst the lower castes and Western Knowlcdp : Growth tribals. A section of Nadars in the south opted for an alternate religion i.e. of Critical Consciousnew Christianity for understanding and establishing their identity. -, With the exception of the Nadar Christians all other movements raised issues specific to the core of their religion. In doing so a process of community mobilization was attempted which included methods as diverse as community kitchens (as amongst the Nirankaris) to mass prayets (as amongst Bengal & Bihar Muslims). Issues such as the place of women in the society, caste or modes of worship were debated and settled with reference to the past and a concept of 'purity'. Thus, apart from the , educated urban middle cl& reformers and thinkers (discussed below) at the level of the common people basic issues of cultural identity were stirring into life issues often framed in the religious idiom. -
22.3 A NEW MENTALITY
It is widely recognised that the impact of Western education and intellectual interchange was a critical long-term force in the making of the new, mbdern Indian culture and mentality as it emerged in the nineteenth century. The new or. renaissance mentality was conspicuously different from that of the Mughal twilight. In contrast, was the nineteenth century mentality, the components of which were both secular and religious and which aimed at a synthesis of tradition and modernity. The result was a new point of view, a new set of values that underscored both religious experience and reform as well as secular literary expression. Hence a greater and more abiding faith in a Dharma that was monotheistic, in God rather than ritual, in love and devotion rather than religious practice. The new mood was reflected in literature as well which tended to record keener emotional experiences, exploits and adventures of the human spirit and a more sympathetic perception of the relationship between man and woman. The notions of justice and reason received wider currency as contemporary intellectuals and ideologues advocated a more just, rational and yitical reordering of the universe. The gamut of experiences which is often collectively described as the awakening or renaissance started in Bengal at the beginning of the nineteenth century but later elsewhere. The chronology of the awakening differed from region to region but beneath the diversity, lay one common emotional content perceptible most of all in the outcrop of regional literature.
The interrelation between western impact and the Indian Renaissance has formed the subject matter of much debate. One line of argument is that an inert and degraded Indian society was modernised by the civilising mission of the west. J.N. Farquhar, a Christian missionary observed, "The stimulating force are almost exclusively Western viz., the British Government, English education and literature, Christianity, Oriental research, European science and philosophy, and the material elements of Western civilization." A second line of thought is that Western ideas and administrative practices 'could not make any great headway against hard and complex Indian realities. The processes of change were thus partial and inconclusive. A third view is that Western ideas and practices were the instruments of the colonisation of Indian society with which could achieve only a false and superficial modernity.
The process was, however, more complex than what any of the above interpretations suggest. It needs to be stressed that the Indian critical awakening was not merely a secular cultural phenomenon but was also a religious reformation in more ways than one. Socio-religious forms and literary-artistic movements formed one drganic whole. Secondly, the culture of the renaissance was deeply indigenous, and modernity in India was not a weak and distorted caricature of models from the West. It was as Tagore saw it, synthesis in which the eternal, everchanging Indian civilization successfully absorbed new elements. In the light of modern knowledge, India looked back critically on her past and recreated herself by synthesising the elements which she selected from that past and her selective borrowings from the great outside world. The process itself was not without precedent-such introspective readaptations like the medieval Bhakti movement had occurred in the past. Yet the movement accommodated elements that were novel and readily identifiable as \II~.-*P., Culhvrrl Contours Westerq impact on the Indian mind was a propelli~~gforce thdt drove dominant curtents within Indian society to the surface, starting a critlcal spirit of self-enquily. A chro~ologicalSequence of the evolution of the new mentality has thus to be attempt&din the context of the new political and social environment that accompanied the establishment of th'e Company's p~liticairule. Western impact ar What MIG. Ranade referred to as foreign manure was largely channelled through agencies such as the educational systcm, educational and cultural societies, law courts, hissionaiy enterprise and the press. These agencies had the direct con$equknce of disseminating western ideas and fostering the emclgence of a new social cqtegory i.e. the Indian middle class-in a new milieu. Besides these forn~ai agencies1 there was the 'atmospheric influbnce' referrec! to by Syed Abdul Latif, produceb by British administration. Btsides formal age~ciesof change, Western ideas had bee$ penetrating the minds of the people through byways and Western channels. The modt important of these unseen cha#m~lswas Western lrteiature wiiicn enjcyc
This is;/lowever, n?t @ suggest that it was Westernimpact alone that changed Indjan sbciety. It Ms primarily an element that accelerated changes that were affecting/ both Hindus and Muslims of India. As M.G. Ranade pointed out, "No mere fokign graftings can ever thrive and flourish unless the tender plant on which the PafQing is to be maae first germinates and sends its roots deep into it's own indigenobs soil. When the living tree is thus nourished and watered. the foreign marlure bay add flavour and beauty to it."
I The 1ndiPn mind did not have deep and genuine contact with Western thought until the 182ds and 1830s when two rival social circles in Calcutta had come into existence/-the 'progressive' circle headed by Dwarakanath Tagore and Raja Rammopan Roy and the 'conservative' circle headed by Kadhakanta Deb. This phase inthe social and intellectual history of Calcutta where the 'reb~rth'm?y be sald to have laken place, began when Rammohan finally took up residence in Calcutta in 1816. Evpn earlier, around 1805 the Raja had published from Murshidabad his Persian ork. Tuhfatul Muwahhiddin which elicited a great deal of debate.'~hile the detait s of the debate need not detain us. it is important to keep in mind that the disputanb appealed to logic and reason. and Karninohan In particular to inductive reason; there are many things for instance, many woderful inventions of the people of Eiuro 1e and the dexterity of jugglers, the causes of which are obv~ouslynot known, Qdseem to be beyond the comprehension of human power, but after a keen imidht 01 instructions of others, those causes can be known sat ~sfactorily." This reason only may be a sufficient safeguard for intelligent people against beingindud? de eived by such supernatural workings. Thus Rammohan on the way to comprehifnding the importance of scientific observation. He questioned all revelation that wasnot provable. The remarkable thing about these debates was that the Raja had not yet read and accepted either Locke or NeWton. I The secohd and related point to note is that all disputants in the debate accused one another ~f violating the good of society thereby implicitly adhering to the notion of utility. Rbmmohan condemned all religious rites that were detrimental to social life and did #ot lead to the amelioration of the condition of society. In his view, the value of (eligion lay in the fear of punishment in the next world. I ~atibnallslnin Bengal thus in a sense predated the lormal Western impact which was priwrilyl c catalyst accelerating the pace of change. 0
Check Ydur Progress 1 1 1) Howldid religion help in overcoming a crisis of identity in the wake of decline of ~u~qalempire. I ...... The Indian Mind and ...... western Knowledge : Growth of Critical Consciousness ......
2) How did rationalism in Bengal help in accelerating the pace of change? ......
22.5 WESTERN KNOWLEDGE AND ITS IMPACT
The emerging ethos of enlightened rationalism assumed in Bengal an institutional shape for the first time in the Hindu College of Calcutta (1817). Well to do Bengalis, some orthodox, joined with some non-official Europeans to establish the college. Rammohan, regarded as a founding father of the college, kept himself deliberately aloof for fear of antagonising more orthodox Hindus like Radha Kanta Deb who became the patron of the college. But the inherent and incipient radicalism of the liberal Bengali youth could hardly be restrained as they rallied round the college teacher Henry Louis Vivien Derozio. The subsequent expulsion of Derozio did not restrain the rising tide of rationalism which continued to prevail with increasing strength.
The establishment of the Hindu College was followed by the founding of the School Book Society and the School Society which played a key role in improving schbol gucation in Calcutta. They printed new text books, opened new types of schools dhich held annual examinations, laying the foundations of a new educational system. The choice of subjects of study and their emphasis was new-English, Mathematics, Geography and Natural sciences. The establishment of other higher institutions of learning like the Bishop's College, Oriental Seminary, the Calcutta Medical College and the Indian newspapers contributed considerably to the creation of a new, rational and more critical public opinion. In Bombay, a similar function was performed by the Elphinstone College which in many respects was the counterpart of Calcutta's Presidency College. It originated in the desire of the rich native citizens of Bombay to erect an apposite memorial to their departing Governor, Elphinstone.\A fund was collected in 1821 for the purpose of instituting a number of professorships. Two English Professors, one of natural philosophy and the other of general literature arrived in 1835 and launched the Elphinstone Hi& School, it assumed the name Elphinstone College. The college was instrumental in/reating an?intelligentsia" in Bombay which sustained modern social and political movements in Western India. Among the professionals who graduated ,. .. - .....- ...... - . *- - -re -. I Shah ~khta,Gopal Krishna Gokhale and D.K. Karve. Thus it was no that the early crop of Bombay nationalists came from the portals of ~lplq4toneCollege. In Madras city, the Presidency College became an important Muslims of North India after having lagged behind for more than half a the 1870s led by Sayyid Ahmed Khan joined forces to design and Aligarh the Muhammedan Anglo-Oriental College, a private British style institution that would not simply be a transplant of an English model an indigenous creation. The implications of the new educational While on the one hand, the new institutions subsequently c~tridutedto an articulation of political sentiment, there was more immediately the creati+ of a new intellectual milieu best represented in contemporary literature as in contemporary treatises on socio-religious matters and public ncements. Popularisation of western literature influenced ind?genous literary add iniellectual effort that tended increasingly to lay stress on new currents of rations/lity and romanticism.
22.6 i NEW RATIONALISM I InBen a1 and Maharashtra, in the 19th century rational assessment of current needs anp re eived traditions both indigenous and alien, became the hallmark of intielle ual enterprise. Rammohan's modernity is well known to be repeated here in detaiI. 11 his initiatives were inspired by a liberal ideology informed with a belief in dn's ight to freedom. His classic statements against the practice of sati did cite 1 Scriptures, but the clinching arguments were grounded firmly on
and anatomy with other useful sciences', letters defending the freedom of India were all singularly inspired by a. faith in reason and rational his abiding concern for reason and rationality was shared by many zio in particular encouraged his students to think for themselves as a ch, the young western educated Bengali questioned not any particular ligious tradition, but the tradition of belief without rational argument Kumar Dutta, editor of the Tatva Bodhini Patrika wrote several s where, without denying the existence of God, Dutta sought arguments n the grand book of Nature itself. His subsequent work on Indian a critical sociological examination of religious sects in a spirit of nlightened enquiry. In all these deliberations, Comte's positivism and trines constituted important influences. Tom Paine's Age of Reason Man and Macaulay's Essays were widely read and assimilated as was on of Women. From these were derived new notions of reason, justice concerns of welfare. Admittedly, reasoned justice were not foreign to phy: reason, for instance, was integral to both Vedantic a& Islamic t reason as imported from the West was wider than logic. Educated appreciate that,Europe had conquered the world of knowledge urity of its strenous exercise of reason'. Europe thus infected India to discover the inner workings of all phenomena by observations eason had therefore to be empirical and scientific for it was reason the way to progress. Reason was allied to progress and progress philosophy of life. Thus Tagore extolled a world "where the mind is vditho 1t fear," and where "knowledge is freen. Thel not on of justice which was allied with that of reason was a new characteristic of modern Indian culture. The individual with his conscience emerged. Man owed it to himself nd to God that he abide by the voice of individual conscience. Conscience extdnde .from the religious sphere t6 social protest. The development of social prolest as evident in the proliferation of plays after the Mutiny-Nil Darpan, Janjind Dupan, etc. The sphere of protest extended as intellectuals guided by conlcie1 ce re-exarn~nedthe entire foundation of traditional society and sought to nationalism. Bankim too graduated from rational enquiry to a qrotoundly The hdi~Mind and a1 patriotism, note the passion for the motherland in Anandamath. rn Knowkdp : Growth ' Critlcal Comciopaness The ne rationality in Maharashtra was represented in the writings of several intellec als; but it is the Nibandahmala of Chiplonkar that deserves first mention. The in uence.of the new education was r pid and profound as the careers of the early Bbmbayf intellectuals illustrate. Sardaf ,Gopal Hari Deshmukh (1823-83) passionately advocated the necessity of pur&g Indian society of outdated ritual, glaring inequalities and grievous disabilities imposed on women. K.T. Telang also took a militant line on social reform. He wrote extensively on political and social issues drawing inspiration from western ideologues like Spencer and Mill. M.G. Rande and Gopal Krishna Gokhale also personified the new spirit that was animating the mind of Maharashtra in the 1880s under the impact of British rule.
22.7 THE NEW ROMANTICISM
Romanticism like rationality was the second distinguishing current that flowed into the modern Indian Renaissance. The popularity, appeal and accessibility of Western literature influenced indigenous literary enterprise. The works of Walter Scott, George Elliot etc. made a powerful impact. This was evident in both the form and content of.vernacular literature in India. Rise of prose forms-fiction, drama, biography and history, essays and literary criticism were perhaps the most importan. consequences. New matter was put into these new forms: An altered nature of the perception of man and woman, of their relationship, emphasis on the human spirit were the distinguishing hallmarks of the new fiction thrt stemmed in the vernacular particularly Bengali. Thus ~ankimSfirst novel Durgeshnandini (1865) had striking similarities to Scott's Ivanhoe. However, romanticism did not remain Western in a limited sense, as novelists began to t2Lp indigenous sources of romance. Western- concepts merely initiated change that were eventually carried on in dgived from changing perceptions of the new relationship of man and woman. An example is Bankim's Kapalkundala. The great historical novels of R.C. Dutta-&laharashtra Jivan Prabhat (1878) and Rajput Jivana Sandhya (1879) also testified to the new spirit of the age. From 1903 onwards, a new wave commenced with Tagore's Chokher bali that established social and psychological realism, the dominant trend. His heroines were special women who spoke for themselves and had an abiding sense of honour and self sacrifice for higher ideas, the new wave gained in strength in the 20th century. Similar trends were represented in other regional literature as well. In Tamil, the break came with the writings of Subramanya Bharati whose Kuyilpattu were unique expressions of love and compassion. Bharati also dedicated much of his verse to the service of the mother land. Compassion was also the essence of the Gujarati poetry , of Narsinhrao Divatia's masterpiece, Smarahana Samhita (1915), which was written on the occasion of his son's compound of compassion, self surrender and sense of union-which had inspired the bhakti movement of an earlier age. Kumaran Asan, !he Malayali poet too in his Outcast Nun expressed the same sentiment:
It is in love that the world takes birth Love nurses it to growth; his fulfilled bliss Man finds in the bonds of love; love itself is lovt P The moment of death is when compassion dies.
Outcast Nun (1922) The love inspired protest which Kumaran Asan put in the mouth of the Buddha was restated in a message of Swami Vivekananda in his famous saying: "Where are you looking for God when he is present in every Human being before your eyes? One who loves others serve God." In conclusion, one must emphasise that the development of critical consciousness in India was as much a reformation as it was a renais ance. It was a process that absorbed new elements adapted itself to new needs 7and restated itself in new terms. ow did the Western educational institutions help us in the shaping of the
I 23.8 LET US SUM UP I
I In thid Unit you got to knbw about : in the wake of the crisis of Mughal empire the Indian mind drew upon the resources of religion to come to grips with its identity, hod certain new directions were provided to the Indian mind with the Western impact, hod diverse trends of thinking changed under the Western impact.
I I 22.9 I KEY WORDS
~dciol#giralStudy : A study linking up a problem to the context of a society. ~dvela/tion: Knowledge made known to human by a divine act.
I I \ 2i.10 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS EXERCISES
CHeck your Progress I 1) Sed Sec. 22.2 2) See Sec. 22.4
Check Lour Progress 2 1) , SeI Sec. 22.5
SONdE USEFUL BOmFOR THIS BLOCK
I Kefinet W. Jones. The New Cambridge History of India, III.1 Socio-Religious / kefofrn Movements in British India I Hetukar J hai. Colonial Context of'Higher Education for India 'The lndinm Mind nnd veste ern Xnonled~e: Growth Aparna Basu. Essajls in the History of' Indian Education of Critical Consciousness K.K. Dutta, V.A. Narain (ed.) A Comprehensive History of India Vol. XI Sisir Das (ed.) Indian Literature in the Eighteenth Century I V.C. Joshi (ed.) Rammohan Roy and the Process of Modernization NOTES UNIT: 22 WESTERN KNOWLEDGE AND 1
Structpre 22.0 Qbieotives
22.4 Early Origins ofthe New Mentality 22.5 Western Knowledge and its Impact 22.6 New Rationatism
22.8 Let Us Sum Up 22.9 Key Words 22.10 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises
4n this Unit you w~llget to know about: the main concerns of the Indian mind in the colonial milieu, the main trends of impact of western knowledge, and sm~roblems of the impact. 1
In previous Units you have broadly seen how India moved from the disintegration of the Mughal empire to the establishment of a colonial milieu. That, this process forced the Indian mind to think about its culture and society and frame a response to the newcomers. is the subiect of this Unit. 1
I The need to respond to the changed situatiori in the wake of the crisis of the Mughal empire created an urge to define and defend identities all over India. A new political situation brought problems of adjustment and definition for the Indian mind. These problems had to be dealt in the initial phases from within the resources offered by religion and tradition. This was to throw up a number of competing sects and their 'kaders, whose public debates strengthened an awareness of religion and cultural identity.
Here we have the example of Bengal where the movements of Faraizis, Muhammadiyas advocated a return to past 'purity' of Islam in different ways. Given the social position of peasant and artisan classes who were attracted to such movements, these movements inevitably strayed into areas of economic conflict. Hence peasant-landlord conflicts, acquired a religious colour. An important figure in this context was Titu-Mir whose rebellion was crushed when it turned anti- government.
However, apart from the politico-economic aspects, the debates and differences between these various groups were equally important. These debates raised and clarified the issues of religion in returning to past 'purity'. A similar role was played by disputations and discussions between the Namdhari and Nirankari followers of Tbe Spmd M Eylbh Edlmtion
I I
Check Your Progress 1
critical of it. See Sec. 91.4
3) i) X ii) d iii) J iv) X I Check Your Progress 2 I Sikhism in Punjab. In Orissa and Madhya Pradesh the Satya Mahima Dharma and The Indh Mind and the Satnamis focused on the issue of purity of religion amongst the lower castes and Western Knowledp : Growth tribals. A section of Nadars in the south opted for an alternate religion i.e. of Critical Consciousness Christianity-, for understanding and establishing their identity. With the exception of the Nadar Christians all other movements raised issues specific to the core of their religion. In doing so a process of community mobilization was attempted which included methods as diverse as community kitchens (as amongst the Nirankaris) to mass prayets (as amongst Bengal & Bihar Muslims). Issues such as the place of women in the society, caste or modes of worship were debated and settled with reference to the past and a concept of 'purity'. Thus, apart from the , educated urban middle cla* reformers and thinkers (discussed below) at the level of the common people basic issues of cultural identity were stirring into life issues often framed in the religious idiom. -
22.3 A NEW MENTALITY
It is widely recognised that the impact of Western education and intellectual interchange was a critical long-term force in the making of the new, mbdern Indian culture and mentality as it emerged in the nineteenth century. The new or. renaissance mentality was conspicuously different from that of the Mughal twilight. In contrast, was the nineteenth century mentality, the components of which were both secular and religious and which aimed at a synthesis of tradition and modernity. The result was a new point of view, a new set of values that underscored both religious experience and reform as well as secular literary expression. Hence a greater and more abiding faith in a Dharma that was monotheistic, in God rather than ritual, in love and devotion rather than religious practice. The new mood was reflected in literature as well which tended to record keener emotional experiences, exploits and adventures of the human spirit and a more sympathetic perception of the relationship between man and woman. The notions of justice and reason received wider currency as contemporary intellectuals and ideologues advocated a more just, rational and ~fiticalreordering of the universe. The gamut of experiences which is often collectively described as the awakening or renaissance started in Bengal at the beginning of the nineteenth century but later elsewhere. The chronology of the awakening differed from region to region but beneath the diversity, lay one common emotional content perceptible most of all in the outcrop of regional literature. The interrelation between western impact and the Indian Renaissance has formed the subject matter of much debate. One line of argument is that an inert and degraded Indian society was modernised by the civilising mission of the west. J.N. Farquhar, a Christian missionary observed, "The stimulating force are almost exclusively Western viz., the British Government, English education and literature, Christianity, Oriental research, European science and philosophy, and the material elements of Western civilization." A second line of thought is that Western ideas and administrative practices could not make any great headway against hard and complex Indian realities. The processes of change were thus partial and inconclusive. A third view is that Western ideas and practices were the instruments of the colonisation of Indian society with which could achieve only a false and superficial modernity.
The process was, however, more complex than what any of the above interpretations suggest. It needs to be stressed that the Indian critical awakening was not merely a secular cultural phenomenon but was also a religious reformation in more ways than one. Socio-religious forms and literary-artistic movements formed one drganic whole. Secondly, the culture of the renaissance was deeply indigenous, and modernity in India was not a weak and distorted caricature of models from the West. It was as Tagore saw it, synthesis in which the eternal, everchanging Indian civilization successfully absorbed new elements. In the light of modern knowledge, India looked back critically on her past and recreated herself by synthesising the elements which she selected from that past and her selective borrowings from the great outside world. The process itself was not without precedent-such introspective readaptations like the medieval Bhakti movement had occurred in the past. Yet the movement accommodated elements that were novel and readily identifiable as Western. I ~I cultural Cbntours western impact on the Indian mid was a propelling force thrt drove dominant curlrend within Indian society to the surface, starting a critical spirit of self-enqui~y. A ahro~ologicalsequence of the evolution of the new mentality has thus to be attctmpt/ed in the context of the new political and social environment that accromppnied the establishment of tlie Company's p~liticairule. Western impact ar what M.G. Ranade referred to as foreign manure was largely channelled through agencie$ such as the educational systcm, educational and cultural societies, law
popularjity among the urban middle classes in rhe mid-nineteenth century.
Rammqhan Roy and the 'conservative' circle headed by Kadhakatita Ileb. This phase i$ the social and intellectual history of Calcutta where the 'rebirth' m?y be said to have taken place, began when Kammohan finally took up residence in Calcutta in 18116.Eben earlier, around 1805 the Raja had published from M ursliidabad his Peqsian work. Tuhfatul Muwahhiddin which elicited a great deal of debate.~hile the detiils of the debate need not detain us, it is important to keep in mind that tlie disputahts appealed to logic and reason. and Kani~nohanin particular to inductive reabon; "there are many things for instance, many woderful inventions of the people of Europe and the dexterity of jugglers, the causes of wh~chare obviously not known,and seem to be beyond the comprehens~otiof liumati power, but after a keen i*ht pr instructions of others, those causes can be known satisfactorily." This
The secbnd and related point to note is that all disputants in the debate accused one
and did not letid to the amelioration of the condition of society. In his view, the val~eof religion lay in the fear of punishment in thc next world.
Rationalisln in Bengal thus in a sense predated the lorlnal Western impact \vhlch \van i catalyst accelerating tlie pace of change...... , The Indian Mind ar ...... Western Knowledge : Crowi
......
2) How did rationalism in Bengal help in accelerating the pace of change?
* I 22.5 WESTERN KNOWLEDGE AND ITS IMPACT
The emerging ethos of enlightened rationalism assumed in Bengal an institutional shape for the first time in the Hindu College of Calcutta (1817). Well to do Bengalis, some orthodox, joined with some non-official Europeans to establish the college. Rammohan, regarded as a founding father of the college, kept himself delibe1 aloof for fear of antagonising more orthodox Hindus like Radha Kanta Deb who I became the patron of the college. But the inherent and incipient radicalism of the liberal Bengali youth could hardly be restrained as they rallied round the college teacher Henry Louis Vivien Derozio. The subsequent expuision of Derozio did not restrain the rising tide of rationalism which continued to prevail with increasing strength. The establishment of the Hindu College was followed by the founding of the School Book Society and the School Society which played a key role in improving schbol education in Calcutta. They printed new text books, opened new types of schools Ghich held annual examinations, laying the foundations of a new educational system. The choice of subjects of study and their emphasis was new-English, Mathematics, Geography and Natural sciences. The establishment of other higher institutions of learning like the Bishop's College, Oriental Seminary, the Calcutta Medical College and the Indian newsoa~erscontributed corisiderablv to the creation of a new, I rational and more critical public opinion. I In Bombay, a similar function was performed by the Elphinstone College which in many respects was the counterpart of Calcutta's Presidency College. It originated in the desire of the rich native citizens of Bombay to erect an apposite memorial to their departing Governor, Elphinstone.\A fund was collected in 1821 for the purpose of instituting a number of professorships. Two English Professors, one of natural nhilnsnnhv and the nther nf general literature arrived in 1835 and launched the
instrumental in'creating an."intelligentsia" in Boml: and political movements in Western India. Among the professionals who graduated
- -from the college were Dadabhai Naoroji, Mahadev Govind Ranade. K.T. Telang, C~Contow ,
23.6 NEW RATIONALISM
es from the Scriptures, but the clinching arguments were grounded firmly on principles. A similar concern for rational thought informed by human value politica nationalism. Bankim too graduated from rational enquiry to a profoundly The Indh Mind and emotioil a1 patriotism, note the passion for the motherland in An~mdamath. Western Knowledge : Growth of Critical C~nscio~usrtess The ne rationality in Maharashtra was represented in the writings of several intellec$ als; but it is the Nibandahmala of Chiplonkar that deserves first mention. The influence.of the new education was rqpid and profound as the careers of the early sbmbay intellectuals illustrate. Sardak Gopal Hari Deshmukh (1823-83) passionately advocated the necessity of purgipg Indian society of outdated ritual, glaring inequalities and grievous disabilities imposed on women. K.T. Telang also took a militant line on social reform. He wrote extensively on political and social issues drawing inspiration from western ideologues like Spencer and Mill. M.G. Ranade and Gopal Krishna Gokhale also personified the new spirit that was animating the mind of Maharashtra in the 1880s under the impact of British rule.
22.7 THE NEW ROMANTICISM
Romanticism like rationality was the second distinguishing current that flowed into the modern Indian Renaissance. The popularity, appeal and accessibility of Western literature influenced indigenous literary enterprise. The works of Walter Scott, George Elliot etc. made a powerful impact. This was evident in both the form and content of.vernacular literature in India. Rise of prose forms-fiction, drama, biography and history, essays and literary criticism were perhaps the most importan. consequences. New matter was put into these new forms. An altered nature of the perception of man and woman, of their relationship, emphasis on the human spirit were the distinguishing hallmarks pf the new fiction thct stemmed in the vernacular particularly Bengali. Thus ~ankim$first novel Durgeshnandini (1865) had striking similarities to Scott's Ivanhoe. However, romantidsm did not remain Western in a limited sense, as novelists began to tabp indigenous sources of romance. 'western- concepts merely initiated change that were eventually carried on in dejived from changing perceptions of the new relationship of man and woman. An example is Bankim's Kapalkundala. The great historical novels of R.C. Dutta-Yaharashtra Jivan Prabhat (1878) and Rajput Jivana Sandhya (1879) also testified to the new spirit of the age. From 1903 onwards, a new wave commenced with Tagore's Chokher bali that established social and psychological realism, the dominant trend. His heroines were special women who spoke for themselves and.had an abiding sense of honour and self sacrifice for higher ideas, the new wave gained in strength in the 20th century. Similar trends were represented in other regional literature as well. In Tamil, the break came with the writings of Subramanya Bharati whose KuyUpattu were unique expressions of love and compassion. Bharati also dedicated much of his verse to the service of the mother land. Compassion was also the essence of the Gujarati poetry . of Narsinhrao Divatia's masterpiece, Smarahana Samhita (1915), which was written on the occasion of his son's compound of compassion, self surrender and sense of union-which had inspired the bhakti movement of an earlier age. Kumaran Asan, !he Malayali poet too in his Outcast Nun expressed the same sentiment:
It is in love that the world takes birth Love nurses it to growth; his fulfilled bliss Man finds in the bonds of love; love itself is love The moment of death is when compassion dies.
Outcnst Nun (1922) The love inspired protest which Kumaran Asan put in the mouth of the Buddha was restated in a message of Swami Vivekananda in his famous saying: "Where are you looking for God when he is present in every Human being Before your eyes? One who loves ofhers serve God." In conclusion, one must emphasise that the development of critical consciousness in India was as much a reformation as it was a renaissance. It was a process that \ absorbed new elements adapted itself to new needs and restated itself in new terms. --
Hetukar Jhai. Colonial Context oftfigher Education for India The Indin* Mind nnd Nestern -Knowledge i Growth I A parna Basu. Essays in the History of Indian Education of (:riticnI Consciousness K.K. Dutta, V.A. Narain (ed.) A Cotnprehensive History of India Val. XI Sisir Das (ed.) Indian Literature in the Eighteenth Cenfury I V.C. Joshi (ed.) Rammohan Roy and the Process of Modernization