Online International Interdisciplinary Research Journal, {Bi-Monthly}, ISSN 2249-9598, Volume-09, Apr 2019 Special Issue (03) Contributions of Indian English Novelists for the Growth of Indian English Literature Ganesh Prasad S G Assistant Professor, Dept. of P.G Studies in English, Alva’s College, Moodbidri, India Abstract Indian English literature begins from 1800 roughly. The British domination swept all aspects of Indian life since then. The Dutch, French and Portuguese from the outside and the Marathas from the inside had almost lost their powers. That is to say the Battle of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764) changed the destiny of the British as well as Indians altogether. Dean Mahomed (1759-1851) was affected by this. Originally from Patna, he served the Mughals and he left them when they lost power, and he settled in the UK. His book The Travels of Dean Mahomet (1794) was the first book ever written by an Indian in English.. The British did mapping of the Indians’ intellectual, cultural and historical dimensions. The Orientlists Sir Charles Wilkins, Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, Sir William Jones, John Gilchrist and Henry Colebroke worked in comparative philology, lexicography and translation. In his Asiatic Researches, Jones laying foundation for historical linguistics, said: “Sanskrit, Greek and Latin have sprung from a common source.’ Gradually Raja Rammohan Roy, and Lord Macaulay’s ‘Minute on Education’ introduced English as a medium of education in India. Macaulay observed: “We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect.” So Indians of the upper class, and caste, began learning English for jobs and some of them started writing prose in the new medium. KEYWORDS: History of Indian Fiction/ Early Novelists in India / Growth of Indian Writing in English Indian English literature begins from 1800 roughly. The British domination swept all aspects of Indian life since then. The Dutch, French and Portuguese from the outside and the Marathas from the inside had almost lost their powers. That is to say the Battle of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764) changed the destiny of the British as well as Indians altogether. Dean Mahomed (1759-1851) was affected by this. Originally from Patna, he served the Mughals and he left them when they lost power, and he settled in the UK. His book The Travels of Dean Mahomet (1794) was the first book ever written by an Indian in English. Lord Clive received Mughal Emperor Shah Alam’s Grant of the Duanney in 1795. Clive made Capt. James Rennell the first Surveyor-General of Bengal. Capt. Colin Mackenzie did surveying in the Deccan. The British did mapping of the Indians’ intellectual, cultural and historical dimensions. The Orientlists Sir Charles Wilkins, Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, Sir William Jones, John Gilchrist and Henry Colebroke worked in comparative philology, lexicography and translation. In his Asiatic Researches, Jones laying foundation for historical linguistics, said: “Sanskrit, Greek and Latin have sprung from a common source.’ Gradually Raja Rammohan Roy, and Lord Macaulay’s ‘Minute on Education’ introduced English as a medium of education in India. Macaulay observed: “We must at present do our best to form a class who may be www.oiirj.org ISSN 2249-9598 Page 145 Online International Interdisciplinary Research Journal, {Bi-Monthly}, ISSN 2249-9598, Volume-09, Apr 2019 Special Issue (03) interpreters between us and millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect.” So Indians of the upper class, and caste, began learning English for jobs and some of them started writing prose in the new medium. Bengal was the first province to taste the western way of life and renaissance. Lord Curzon’s metaphor that ‘we are trying to graft the science of the west on an eastern stem,’ came true. Between 1866 and 1889, Nandashankar Mehta in Gujarat, Bankimachandra Chattopadhyaya (‘The Scott of Bengal’) in Bengali, Samuel Pillai in Tamil, M. V. Rohalkar in Marathi, K. V. Pantulu in Telugu and O. C. Menon in Malayalam published novels in their languages yet through the English support. If Mehta had James Russell’s support, Pillai had Dr Johnson’s inspiration. Menon’s Indulekh was most popular. The new literature refreshed Indian studies. It is said, the first phase of Indian English fiction began with Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya’s Rajmohan’s Wife (1864); the second was Gandhian phase from the 1920’s; and the third was Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Allan Sealy’s The Trotternama in the 1980’s. During the second stage, Gandhi’s influence was quite great. He is felt in K. S. Venkataramani’s Murugan, The Tiller (1927), Bhabani Bhattachary’s So Many Hungers! (1947) and Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable (1935). Raja Rammohan Roy : Raja Rammohan Roy, a great scholar in Bengali, Persian and Sanskrit, learnt English. He loved the knowledge that was available in English. He said English is non-hierarchical; and it is a coin of exchange. It gave him a voice. Therefore, he advocated English to be used as a new medium of education in India. Besides, as a social reformer, he stopped Sati; he founded Atmiya Sabha and Brahma Sabha and Anglo-Hindu School. Roy felt language was neutral; it is just a territorial means for communication, whereas Gandhi felt it is a civilizational marker. Great Europeans like Jeremy Bentham liked Roy’s global vision. The Hindu College: Henry Derozio and Michael Madhusudhan Dutt : The British thought introduction of English for Indians would facilitate their power of rule. So English education institutuins like Sherbourne’s and Drummond’s academies and Presidency College (Hindu College, 1817) came into existence. Macaulay said, “a single shelf of a good European library, was worth of the whole Native literature of India and Arabia.” Accordingly, one lecturer of the college, Henry Derozio, a Eurasian, stirred the Indians. The romantic poets influenced him. He mixed both eastern and western myths in his poems. His The Fakeer of Jungheera is well-known. Michael Madhusudhan Dutt (1824-73), a student of Hindu College embraced Christianity and valued English as an important language. His Captive Lady (1854) is interesting. His Meghanadavadha Kavya (1861) is a response to the Ramayana. The Dutt Family Album and Toru Dutt: Michael Madhusudhan Dutt once wrote, “I like the glorious language of the Anglo-Saxon.” The Dutt’s produced a celebrating literature of the east and west. The English poetry produced by the Dutts— Romesh Chunder, his cousin Toru, her father Govin, their uncles Hur and Greece and another cousin Omesh—is great and inspiring. Shoshee Chunder Dutt’s novels Young Zamindar (1883) and The Wild Tribes of India (under his two pseudonyms—A. G. Barton and H. B. Rowney) are pioneering works. His A Vision of Someru speaks of the west’s victory over the eastern divinity. www.oiirj.org ISSN 2249-9598 Page 146 Online International Interdisciplinary Research Journal, {Bi-Monthly}, ISSN 2249-9598, Volume-09, Apr 2019 Special Issue (03) The Beginnings of the Indian novel: Though Indian novel in English made its entry in the 1930’s, its genealogy began in the 1850’s. The two earliest extant narratives are Kylas Chunder Dutt’s A Journal of Forty-Eight Hours of the Year 1945 (1835) and Shoshi Chunder Dutt’s narrative on the defeat of the British in 1845. Dutt’s novel Shunkur (1885) and The Young Zamindar (1883) are important. The latter describes resistance movements during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. Next K. K. Sinha’s historical novel Sanjogita (1830) portrays Prithvi Raj Chauhan. A Madhaviaiah (1872-1925) in Thillai Govindan (1908) airs his views on the relationship between the rulers and the ruled. Bankimachandra Chattopadhyaya’s Rajmohan’s Wife was almost the first Indian novel in English. It was serialized in the journal The Indian Field in 1864. It deals with middle class life. Lal Bihari Day’s (1824-94) Govinda Samanta (1874) records the rural Bengal from 1820 to 1870. The only woman who wrote two novels in the 19 th century is Kripabai Sattianadhan (1862-94). Her Kamala (1894) is a story of Hindu life; and Saguna is a story of native Christian life-- both concerning with gender, caste, ethnicity and cultural identity. They articulate feminist concerns. Two Early Twentieth Century Women Writers: Cornelia Sorabji and Sarojini Naidu lived for their country. The former worked for woman’s cause. The latter was a great freedom fighter, an orator and poet. Gandhi called Naidu ‘the Nightingale of India.’ Cornelia Sorabji (1866-1954) born in Nasik had her education in Oxford. She worked as a lawyer. She founded the Social Service League in Bengal and worked for raising the age of consent and abolishing child marriage. She settled down in England. Her first work Love and Life Behind the Purdah (1901) is a collection of narratives. Her India Calling (1936) is about her legal practices. Sorabji loved the British Raj. Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) was a self-willed girl, brought up in a Brahmo-samaj family in Hyderabad. She had an education in London and Cambridge. The Novelists of the 1930s and 1940s : The 1930s and 1940s is the birth time of Indian fiction in English. At the time, great Indian writers like Mulk Raj Anand, Bhabani Bhattacharya, Raja Rao, Aubrey Menon and G. V. Desani spent their lives in Europe and made a career for themselves. This was also a time of late modernism in Europe. Mahatma Gandhi’s role in the freedom struggle inspired the writers and they used the ‘Mahatma theme’ in their fiction.