Evaluating Indo-Anglian Fiction

Approaches ISSN 2349-5960(Print) ISSN 2394 – 9899(Online) Evaluating Indo-Anglian Fiction Dr. Shaileshwar Sati Prasad Prof. of English(Rtd.) Patna University, Patna E. F. Oaten’s observation that “Anglo-Indian Literature will continue to be mainly what it has been, with few exceptions, in the past literature written by Englishman and Englishwomen who have devoted their lives to the service of India”(CHEL, P.342)proved false as he was not able to foresee the fall of the British Empire in India. Evan before Independence Indians had adopted the language of their alien rulers and made it a suitable medium for expression. As Bhupal Singh rightly explains, it was ..... a natural result of the spread of education in India and the increasing familiarity of Indians with English literature.(Bhupal 301) Indo-Anglian literature has gradually made a small but, stead growth. Specially in the field of Indo-Anglian fiction writers like Nayantara Sahgal, Kanala Markandey, Nergis Dalal, Anita Desai Chaman Nahal and R.K. Laxman have created new horizons. Stalwarts like Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, Bhabani Bhattacharya, Raja Rao and Manonar Malgonkar have achieved an international reading public. It is unfortunate that a mature and proper critical evaluation of Indo-Anglian fiction based on correct perspectives is yet to come. It has generally been a subject for contemptuous treatment or at best a subject for Ph.D. dissertations. In the Illustrated Weekly of India (8 Nov, 1970) there came out an article by S. Rajee, full of sweeping remarks. She is pained to find the Indian novelists “Sentimental” and lacking in some mythical “quality of the mind”. She sees no sense of form in Indian fiction and thinks that all Indian novelists are mediocre-even Premchand. She may have her own sons for being contemptuous of the Indian novel. But this kind of Criticism, I suspect, is the result of an acquired western decadent sophistication and a total neglect of the forces that gave rise to the novel form in India of which Indo-Anglian fiction, I submit, is a branch. Gokak, too, is critical of the Indo-Anglian writers - specially of their mental outlook. He complains that Volume II, February, 2015 www.approaches.in 22 Approaches ISSN 2349-5960(Print) ISSN 2394 – 9899(Online) The Indo-Anglian tends to write with an eye on an outlandish reading public and picks up themes and situations that might appeal to the west.(Gokak, p164) This complaint may be legitimate but does not apply to all the Indian novelists writing in English. Gokak concedes that the Indo-Anglians who are true to Indian thought and vision cannot escape the Indian flavour even when they write in English(Gokak 162). Indo-Anglian Fiction is faced with a peculiar problem - the members of an anglicized coterie read and enjoy it but, I suspect, it is they who are vehemently opposed to it due to their understanding which is a result of their split personality. The critic has to be well aware of the causes which led to the rise of the novel in India. It would be wrong to think that it was only the impact of English which led to the rise of the novel in India - even the Indo-Anglian novel. The novel is the expression of a definite kind of social consciousness - the awareness of Individualism which is the logical outcome of the rise of the middle- class. This new social consciousness was not only the result of western literary influences, but also the socio-economic changes which were taking place in India with the rise of the British power. It is true that a writer like Bankimchandra was able to enrich his artistic vision with the knowledge of western literature but that was only an influence and not the shaping ‘motif ‘. It is here that our critics forget that Indo-Anglian fiction is a part of the general stream of Indian fiction and as far as its ‘form’ or ‘content’ is concerned it is Indian to the core. It is not a continuation of French, Russian or English novels but an integral part of the Indian artistic vision. If the critic bears this perspective in mind, he is likely to cause much less misunderstanding than he does. First of all let us analyse the content of Indo-Anglian fiction. It is essentially social in nature and articulates a direct or indirect protest against social maladies, such as untouchability, the inferior treatment to women, unhappy marriages, poverty, illiteracy and things of similar nature. I will not say that the Indo-Anglian novelists merely play with the sentiments of the western readers by washing our dirty linen before an international public. The concern for the ‘coolies’, untouchables, famine, etc. or the need to bring about a synthesis between Industrialisation and the Gandhian concept of Ram-Rajya is not sentimentality but is a problem as intense and moving for these Indian writers as “angst” was for Volume II,February, 2015 www.approaches.in 23 Approaches ISSN 2349-5960(Print) ISSN 2394 – 9899(Online) Kafka or the problem of “existence” is for Sartre. Indo-Anglian novels by virtue of their very roots and nature cannot be compared with such works as deal with the intricacies of Freudian Psychology, or the Slavic mysticism of crime and punishment or the works inspired by French or German intellectualise. Thus, the critic of Indo-Anglian fiction has to be on guard against a confusion of the cultural heritage of two types of writers who represent two different sets of values and two different types of “motifs”. The critic’s understanding of western fiction should help him understand Indo- Anglian fiction with a sober and objective analysis and should not oblige him to brush it aside with a snobbish intellectual contempt- so common today. The language of the Indo-Anglian novelists seems to be unpalatable to many critics. They think that giving an Indian flavour to English is corrupting the English language. But this Indianisation of English is neither a corruption of it nor the result of ignorance on the part of the writer. This is “a problem built into the Indo-Anglian situation, so that the apparent quarrel between the language and the subject matter may be circumvented” writes Meenakshi Mukherjee and she aptly paints out that “each writer has to find his own solution."(Meenakshi 197) She also indirectly makes it clear that the language when used in Indo- Anglian fiction has a double role to play - it is the medium of expression but at the same time it is also an integral part of the totality of the artistic vision. Any artist who has an involvement with his “motif” will naturally be tempted to mould his medium of expression and this experiment can never be taken to be a sign of weakness. If English has to stay in India it is bound to face such experiments which are in their very intentions not futile but full of untold potentialities. Gokak also has acknowledged this peculiar phenomenon. He says – This does not mean that Indo-Anglian writers who are predominantly Indian are all victims and not masters of style. But it is the mastery of a style which is peculiarly Indo- Anglian.(163) It is only due to this peculiarity of Indo-Anglian novels that in Mulk Raj Anand’s novels we get picturesque Punjabi phrases and abuses translated into English and in Bhabani Bhattacharya’s novels an undertone of. Bengalee is present. But I consider it not a drawback; rather I think it is a case of the content of the novel shaping its form - of which the language is an important aspect. A critic should not be a purist always thinking in terms of the purity Volume II, February, 2015 www.approaches.in 24 Approaches ISSN 2349-5960(Print) ISSN 2394 – 9899(Online) of the English language. He should judge the language of the Indo- Anglian fiction keeping in mind the possible regional influences. It is common practice to talk of the “form” of the Indo- Anglian novels. It is regarded as being traditional, schematic and lacking in variety. Here again we should never forget that the form of the novel is not necessarily the result of the conscious efforts of the novelists but is often shaped by the content. These novels are mostly social in nature. The Indian Society offers little variety; it is more or less fixed in a given context even today and the changes which are taking place are generally the result of urbanisation. The rural people rush to the cities and are either successful or wither away and die. But the city with all its charms has an illusion of success - individual success which is not possible in the villages. One of the fundamental facts of modern Indian life is the mobility of population from the villages to the cities. That is why, I think, most Indo-Anglian novels seem to be plotting a journey; the writer generally recounts different episodes which are bound together in a linear movement. Here again Mulk Raj Anand provides typical understanding of the Indian scene and consciousness. In Coolie Munnus journey is beautifully portrayed. Bhabani Bhattacharya, in his So Many Hungers or in He Who Rides a Tiger or Kamala Markandeya in A Handful of Rice employs the similar technique of depicting a journey. The span of the journey may vary from novel to novel. Some critics complain that most of these novels are schematic. The roots again have to be found in the Indian artistic heritage - where the epic has till late been the dominant literary form.

Load more