UNIT 1 THE CONTEXT OF THE EARLIEST INDIAN ENGLISH WRITINGS Structure 1.0 Objectives 1.1 Introduction 1.2 The Earliest Indian English Writings 1.3 Roy: Pre- Eminent Promoter of Indian English Letters 1.4 Roy's Influence on Aspiring Indian English Writers 1.5 LetUsSumUp 1.6 Questions 1.0 OBJECTIVES The main objective of this unit is to familiarise the student with the context of the earliest Indian English writings. We shall begin by looking at the circumstances that enabled the rise of Indian English Literature and the nature of this literature during its formative years. We shall also take a brief look at the circumstances that enabled the .rise of Indian English Literature, as a large network of educative and cultural activity. A significant portion of the Unit will focus upon Rammohun Roy as a preeminent promoter of Indian English letters in the era of early introduction and plan formation. The influence of Rammohun Roy on aspiring Indian English writers of the nineteenth century will also be explained and investigated. 1.1 INTRODUCTION In their book, The Politics ofIndiansJEnglish,N Krishnaswamy and Archana S Burde have divided the history of English in India into five phases, each phase starting with what, according to them, was a landmark event in the colonial encounter between India and England. Obviously, in this encounter, the British interests were an active and a decisive factor. Krishnaswamy and Burde chart the events associated with the British policy and the years in which they took place thus: 1600 - the year the East India Company was started 1813 - the year the East India Company's Charter (for trade and commerce in the Indian subcontinent) was renewed 1857 - The Mutiny year - this was also the year when the first three universities were set up at Bombay, Calcutta and Madras 1904 - the year the Indian Universities Act was passed, which gave the British government a tighter control over higher education in India 1947 - the year India became politically independent It was in the phase between 1813 and 1857 that some of the most important developments took form vis-a vis the rise of Indian English writing. In 18 13, while renewing the Charter permitting the East India Company to carry on with its trading and commercial activities in the Indian subcontinent, the British Government and the British Parliament attempted to make the Company more accountable to British interests than earlier. The East India Company had hitherto functioned within narrower limits of trade, not concerning itself with political issues and social ideas. Its activities, then, would be made to assume larger, though less tangible parameters. Already, as per the Pitts India Act of 1784, the Company was answerable in minor as well as major matters to the British Parliament and the British Beginnings of Indian Government. This was in spite of the fact that the Parliament or Government did not English Writing directly control the administration of 'Indian Affairs'..Thus the Charter renewal was accompanied by 'advice' that the Company make itself more responsible and responsive towards the 'welfare' of the natives of those territories from which it operated. From 1813, therefore, the Company was given the specific charge of 'educating' the natives, appealing to them at a different level. As the Company's 'India Affairs' expanded beyond Bengal and the Deccan, its original locations in India, into other Indian states such as Baroda, Hyderabad, Poona, Oudh and Travancore, the Company also engaged in its educational enterprises by setting up or helping to set up colleges in Calcutta, Poona, Delhi and Agra. Apart from the Hindu College in Calcutta, which came up due to the individual initiative of certain educated Bengali gentlefolk, aided and abetted by English officials, all the others were the outcome of the patronage of the East India Company. All these colleges were colleges for oriental learning. Education in English language and English literature and about the West as a whole was provided only at the Hindu College, Calcutta. I The Company's education policy took on a definite 'I\nglicist7 direction, however, when its administrative apparatus - namely the Governor - General in Council - adopted, in 1835, for the provinces under its preview, Thomas Babington Macaulay's Minute on Education recommending that Britain officially support English education in India and withdraw. support to Arabic and Sanskrit education. Macaulay argued that "English is better worth knowing than Sansht and Arabic;" that "the natives are desirous to be taught English;" and that "it is possible to make natives of this country thoroughly good English scholars." By 1837, the missionaries had begun to provide a significant part of the facilities for teaching English. Not very long thereafter, English became the language of administration and judiciary in India even as the vernaculars continued to be used in several instances: Almost simultaneously subordinate level positions in the judicial and administrative institutions were thrown open to Indians by a government resolution. In 1853, the year when the Company's Charter was renewed once more, under the pressure of government personnel to manage the widening domain of its "India activities", the Company decided to open up its highest Civil Service appointments to Indians by allowing them to appear for a competitive examination set up for this purpose. As a follow up of the Wood's Despatch of 1854, the first formalised and formulated education policy statement of the East India Company three universities were established in 1857 at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras respectively. English education engendered hokinds of writing in English by Indians in addition to the already available genre of bureaucratic writing. These were journalistic communication and freelance compositions. The English print-media was used for publishing both the latter kinds of writing. These were the earliest specimens of Indian English writing. They brought out the need, on the part of the British, to communicate things directly and usefully to the Indian populace. In the next section we shall examine some of the earliest Indian English writings. 1.2 THE EARLIEST INDIAN ENGLISH WRITINGS In this Block we will not only discuss the beginnings of Indian English Writing in India but will also be dealing with three of the earliest Indian English Writers1 poet$. Hence, a look into the origins of Indian English poetry in India would not be misplaced. Makarand Paranjape has talked about the "two related pre-conditions that had to be met" before "Indians could write poetry in English". These two pre- conditions are, what he has called the "Indianization of the English language" and The Context of the the, "Anglicization of the Indians", (Introduction,p. 1, Indian Poetry in English, Earliest Indian Makarand Paranjape (ed), 1993, Macmillan India). English Writings The first precondition was met with the landing of Vasco da Gama in Kerala in 1498. Trade routes came to be established between Portugal and India and a number of Indian words found their way into English usage. Closely on the heels of the Portuguese followed the English, the Dutch and the French traders who not only opened up trade routes but also colonised several settlements in India particularly after the historic Battle of Plassey in 1775 between the British and the Indians. However, as we are all aware the English were the ones who not only established trading links with India but also came to rule India for more than a hundred and fifty years. This happened particularly after the British East India Company was set up in Bengal. Moreover, many Englishmen in India began writing poems on the Indian subject matter. The second pre-condition came to be fulfilled when England came to be a major colonial power in the eighteenth century not only in India but also all over the world. This necessitated a colonial practice that covered various aspects of life including literary writing. Indian poetry in English: The earliest Indian English poetry came to be written in Bengal as Bengal was where the British first established a foothold. The literary activity surrounding the writing of Indian English poetry too came to be centralised in I Bengal particularly in Calcutta, because of which it became a totally urban phenomenon. Not only was it a phenomenon of the city but it was also confined to just a few established Bengali families. From there on it was to spread to Madras and Bombay. Even more than a hundred and fifty years later it has not lost the peculiar characteristic of being an urban phenomenon. Since in those days one needed to belong to a certain sectlon of society in order to be English-educated, Indian English writers were largely upper class and caste pe2ple as will be seen in the units that follow. This influenced their choice of themes and subjects as well. When the earliest Indian English writers began writing poems in English, there were many Englishmen and women in India who were also writing about Indian themes and about Indian subject matters. In those days poetic writings by either English men and women or by Indian writers writing in English were not distinguished from each other: these poems were clubbed under the broad banner of Anglo-Indian Writers. However, with the passage of time and India's independence from foreign rule, Anglo Indian Literature as literature written by the English in India came to a gradual end. From then onwards, various terms came to be employed to describe the literary activity called writing poetry by Indian writers in English. Terms like, "Indo- English", and "Indian Literature in English" came into popular usage. These are merely descriptive in nature and avoid as they do any attempt at definition.