History of Indian Literature in English Summary

By 1800, the battles of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764) had occurred, leading to Siraj-ud-Daula's defeat at Plassey due to a conspiracy involving the East India Company and wealthy merchants. This battle, though militarily small (around 72 deaths), significantly altered the destinies of 60 million people, as noted by Joshua Marshman in Bharatvarsher Itihas (1831). Dean Mahomed (1759-1851), an Indian author, was among those affected.
Dean Mahomed, born in Patna, served in the East India Company's Bengal Army for fifteen years and later emigrated to Ireland in 1784, converted to Protestantism, and became a 'Shampooing Surgeon' in Brighton, gaining royal patronage from King George IV in 1822 for his 'Indian Vapour Bath'.
Plassey brought Bengal under Company rule, and Buxar added Avadh. By 1765, the East India Company was appointed diwan, enabling revenue collection in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, marking what Ranajit Guha called ‘the truly inaugural moment of the Raj’ – an act of force, economic exploitation, and a pretense of legality.
Benjamin West's painting depicts Lord Clive receiving the diwani, with the Mughal emperor Shah Alam shown in an imperial setting. However, the actual event was less grand, occurring in Clive's tent with the emperor's throne being a dining table and armchair.
Captain James Rennell was appointed the first Surveyor-General of Bengal, producing the Bengal Atlas in 1779, the first modern atlas of the province. His work was duplicated in other British-controlled territories by Captain Colin Mackenzie and Major William Lambton.
British Orientalists like Sir Charles Wilkins, Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, Sir William Jones, John Gilchrist, and Henry Colebrooke, opened up areas like comparative philology, lexicography, and translation to facilitate colonization. Their interest in Indian languages was for governance, but they were not always patronizing.
Sir William Jones, a Calcutta Supreme Court judge and founder of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784, contributed to various fields such as orthography, mythology, and natural history. He posited that Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin shared a common source, influencing later ideas about race and language.
James Mill criticized Jones's work in India as a waste, highlighting the difference between Jones's universalist ideas and Halhed's ruler-ruled paradigm. By 1800, texts in English like grammars and translations were present, facilitating colonization and explaining the new acquisition.
Henry Derozio of Hindu College aimed to expand the minds of his students through colonial education, bringing new perceptions. However, some officials feared repeating the 'folly' of allowing schools and colleges as seen in America. Debates ensued regarding the nature of colonial education, with figures like Rammohan Ray advocating for English education.
The Anglicist-Orientalist controversy of 1835 was resolved by Thomas Babington Macaulay's 'Minute on Education', aiming to create a class of Indians who were English in taste and intellect. This led to the formation of a new urban elite in Calcutta, seeking office jobs in the British administration, with Hindu College serving as a key institution.
English learning in Bengal villages involved memorizing vocabularies with English words written in Bengali script. East Indian gentlemen provided private instruction to wealthy families, expanding the curriculum to include grammar and literature.
By the 1820s, Indians began adopting English as their medium of expression in literature. Works like Krishna Mohan Banerjea's "The Persecuted" (1831) and Kylas Chunder Dutt's "A Journal of Forty-Eight Hours of the Year 1945" (1835) explored new themes and social issues.
Colonial education transformed Indian language literature by introducing prose, a medium previously unknown. Journals like Digdarsan and Tattvabodhini Patrika featured writers influenced by English, focusing on social problems and rational views.
Rangalal Banerjee's Padmini Upakhyan (1858) combined Hindu heroism with English poetic elements, reflecting the impact of Western thought on Indian writing. Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya similarly used historical settings to address contemporary nationalist themes.
Michael Madhusudan Dutt defended his play Sermista (1858) by advocating for Western ideas and rejecting Sanskrit traditions, highlighting the intellectual awakening known as the Bengal Renaissance that followed colonialism. Lord Curzon's metaphor of grafting Western science onto an Eastern framework described the work of early novelists.
Early Indian novels were influenced by Victorian-era figures like Benjamin Disraeli and Marie Corelli. Writers such as Nandshankar Mehta and Samuel Vedanayakam Pillai incorporated English novelistic styles and moral principles into their vernacular works. O. Chandu Menon's Indulekha (1889) aimed to create a taste for English-style novels among Malayalam readers, contributing to the improvement of Malayalam literature.
Key words like 'innovation,' 'intelligence,' and 'style' captured the spirit of a future age, echoing Ezra Pound's dictum 'Make it new.' Colonial avant-garde works introduced new forms and situations to literatures 'fast dying out by disuse as well as by abuse,' as articulated by Rabindranath Tagore.
Colonialism led Indian writers to adopt prose, blank verse, and the sonnet, while others sought to write in English itself. Misgivings arose in the 1870s, related to nationalism and the mother-tongue syndrome, later hardening into nativism.
Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya encouraged Romesh Chunder Dutt to write in Bengali, emphasizing the importance of the mother tongue. The need for a national language prompted Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Gandhi to advocate for Hindi/Hindustani.
Macaulay's education was seen as enslaving, leading to calls for Hindi/Hindustani as a universal language. The Hindi-Hindustani question persisted until the 1940s, with Gandhi's Hindustani losing out to Sanskritized Hindi as the official language.
The Indian novel in English experienced a second coming in the Gandhian nationalist phase, with Gandhi prominently featured in works such as K.S. Venkataramani's Murugan, The Tiller (1927). Mulk Raj Anand rewrote Untouchable (1935) after Gandhi's feedback.
Gandhi's opposition to English symbolized political slavery and cultural degradation, while Hindi and mother tongues represented national identity. The Constitution of 1950 designated Hindi the official language, with English continuing for fifteen years.
Nehru warned against imposing language, emphasizing the need for a natural development. Opposition to Hindi emerged in the south, dividing the country. Dhoomil's poetry reflects the politicization of language.
The Official Language Bill of 1963 extended English, reassuring non-Hindi speakers. Nehru emphasized English's vitalizing role, but Indian literature in English later faced criticism. Buddhadeva Bose criticized 'Indo-Anglian' poetry as a 'blind alley'.
P. Lal defended 'Indo-Anglians,' questioning their circumstances and views. Responses varied, with some embracing English due to its presence and accessibility. G.V. Desani argued for judging work on merit regardless of origin, while Nissim Ezekiel critiqued Sri Aurobindo. Others, like Srinivas Rayaprol, identified with Western literary backgrounds.
P. Lal's anthology included 132 poets. Public demand for English grew despite state disengagement, with private schools teaching it. Meanwhile, the South learned Hindi through Bollywood. Sham Lai noted the failure of Hindi as a link language and described Indian writing in English as problematic.
Bhalchandra Nemade criticized 'Indo-Anglian Writing' as detrimental to creative use, retained for 'equality of disadvantage.' Bose and Nemade's views reveal differences reflecting shifting political climates. Nemade viewed cultures as strong or weak, with weak cultures becoming impoverished through tolerance.
Nemade's earlier views on nativism and English translations ignited controversy, with few responding. Jussawalla critiqued Nemade's nativism as racist and isolating. Bose and Sham Lai's jibes are seen as part of colonial humor, satirizing the Bengali babu. Their criticisms prefigure Kipling's 'Borderline folk'.
Animosity towards Indian literature in English stems partly from animosity towards the social class associated with English. Literature is inclusive and complex, not always coextensive with a social group. Many writers in English are drawn from a mixed bilingual elite, not exclusively metropolitan.
Bilingualism expresses itself through translation, with authors translating their own works. Vilas Sarang saw English versions as definitive texts, viewing Marathi as a passage. For him, writing in Marathi drew from his unconscious, rooted in Marathi, while English re-created the text consciously.
Sarang admired Kafka and identified with 'international modernism', rejecting the Marathi middle-class ethos. Nevertheless, he acknowledged indebtedness to Marathi pioneers. The bilingual writer faces challenges, being turned away from both houses, each protecting its language, as defined by 'split' that preserves literature. With this it presents many of the same issues, that were found in Derozio, Young Bengal, Rangalal Banerjee, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Nehru, and Tagore.
Raja Rao emphasized instinctive bilingualism ties English and Indian literatures, but there has never been any relief in such resistance. In a colonial situation, opinions were captured for the spirit of a future age, focusing on 'innovation,' 'style',' skill', and the key phrase is 'new departure'. Decades later Ezra Pound echoes them, with the dictum 'Make It New'
Animosity towards Indian Literature has also been found by some, seen from afar, with one in the role with the English language there is little else they could share. This has created for literary forbear. That moments stand out, but only when being used.
The exposure to English that colonialism necessitated led some Indian writers to discover prose and the realist novel, or blank verse and the sonnet, whose grafts they inserted in their tropical languages and where they have since flourished. Other writers with a similar social background and with the same Macaulayan education reversed the procedure, as it were, and sought to tie and wax themselves to an English stem.
Good-natured scolding from Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya to Romesh Chunder Dutt, as an example of the proto-nationalist point view. If you want to draw a nation together, there is no force more powerful than a common language for all,' Bal Gangadhar Tilak said as early as 1905, addressing a meeting of the Nagari Pracharini SaBha at Benaras.