A sequel to A History of Indian Literature: 1800-1910 by the same author, but a self contained narrative of the literary activities of the period of its history-the struggle against the colonial rule. It presents the Indian Literatures, not in isolation from one another, but as related components in a larger complex, conspicuous by the existence of age-old multilingualism and a variety of literary traditions. Apart from an incisive account of texts, movements and personalities of this period, this work provokes a serious debate on the nature of Indian Literature, and offer a defence as well as a new model of literary history.
Sisir Kumar Das (1936-2003), educated at Calcutta, London and Cornell Universities, was the Tagore Professor of Bengali Literature at the Delhi University. He received the Nehru Prize of the Federal Republic of Germany for his monograph Western Sailors: Eastern Seas (1969), an essay on the German response to Indian culture, and the Tagore Memorial Prize of the West Bengal Government, which he had received twice, for his works-The Shadow of the Cross - Hinduism and Christianity in a Colonial Situation (1974) and The Artist in Chains-The Life of Bankim Chandra Chatterji (1984). A poet, playwright and critic, he had also translated Aristotle's Poetics and a few Greek plays into Bengali. His Bengali publications include Gadya O Padyer Dvanda (essays, 1984), Hayto Daroja Ache Anyadike (poems, 1986), Sokretiser Jabanbandi (one-act play, 1989) and Bajpakhir Sange Kichukhon (verse, 1992). He had edited three of the four volumes of the English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, published by the Sahitya Akademi.
This account of the literary activities in India during the period between 1911 and 1956 in twenty-two languages, follows, with some modification, the methodology adopted in the earlier volume, Western Impact Indian Response which took 1800-1910 as its period of investigation. The emphasis in the earlier work was more on the growth of new literary genres, most of them being innovations in Indian literary history. Those genres emerged out of the tensions between the indigenous traditions and alien models and canons in a colonial situation. The history of that period was characterized mainly, if not entirely, by a continuous struggle between the native and the foreign models. Only one stream of literature which was confined among the rural population, remained more or less unaffected by the presence of English, the language of power and supremacy. But very little of it has been preserved-part of it being oral-and almost totally ignored by the English-educated reading community who created the new literature. This history of literature, therefore, does not claim to be a complete account of the literary activities of the whole people, but only of a more articulated group, more favourably placed within the contemporary power structure. The genres that gave the new Indian literature its distinct character, became slowly naturalized and by the end of the last century they became powerful medium of new thoughts and sensibilities. This volume continues its inquiries into the new developments in the genre, but thematological inquiries, which received relatively less attention in the previous volume, have been prioritized here. Both genological and thematological studies, however, can hardly be kept separate in any literary history.
The period covered in this volume is much shorter only forty-six years. Any further subdivision of the period, therefore, is unnecessary, though I have not ignored the signs of the beginning of a new era in Indian literary history caused by the partition and Independence of the country in 1947, and also by the reorganization of the state-boundaries on linguistic basis that started from 1956. The first thirty-six years of this period are dominated by Indian responses to an alien rule and by the political programmes and ideologies sustaining the movements against the colonial domination. The national movements, with their gradual intensification and expansion, strengthened the vision of India, a space undisturbed by the changes in geographical frontiers from time to time affected by political expediency. This space, less territorial and more spiritual, cinmay rather than mramay, did not emerge out of the nationalist anxiousness alone, as often propagated by many historians, for the construction of a nation. It existed in some form or other throughout the pre-colonial history of India. The accept of Abdratavara has been fully recognized by the poets and sees of the pre-colonial period but it was celebrated by the Indian writers thing the national movement with a special sense of involvement and culture pride. It was mainly though the efforts of the writers, that space The concept of Indian literature as a unified whole is a natural by Bharatavara-acquired new significations.
product of the temper of the time. It is necessary to emphasize that the present essay differs from the nationalists construction of Indian literature as 'one though written in many languages. It strongly defends the uniqueness of each literature in the country, and looks at each one of them as distinct expression of the experiences of each community. No attempt has been made to subordinate the uniqueness of any one of them either by a hegemonic construction, nor by the imposition of 'values' claimed to be exclusively Indian. It recognizes, both from the ideological position of the author as well as from the methodological compulsions, the plurality of Indian life. On the other hand it also contests the idea of "heterogeneity that completely subordinates the commonalities in cultures and the relationship between the self and the other. Commonalities among Indian literatures are many, and they are not mere coincidences. Empirical studies of Indian literatures, both synchronic and diachronic, indicate very clearly and strongly, the areas of commonality, and more significantly the existence of continuous movements among individual literatures, towards certain points of convergences, thematic, generic, ideological and so on, as in the case of Indian languages belonging to different families, so clearly demonstrated by the noted Dravidologist Murray B. Emeneau nearly fifty years ago. Indian literature, then, has been treated here not as a homogenous whole ignoring the splendid diversities among them; nor as disparate entities ignoring the factors of history and geography that have made them interact with another. Indian literature is a complex of literatures, related to one another, at times by geographical proximity, at times by a shared history. The phrase, 'unity in diversity' is still useful, though unfashionable. But the writing of literary history itself is an unfashionable
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