Write an introduction to Indian Writing in English.

Ans.

Indian started writing in English during the period of the British rule in India. It was a period of sowing seed and now the seed has blossomed into an evergreen tree. India has given many great poets, novelists and prose-writers to the world whose works are now praised and appreciated not only in India but also in those countries where English is the mother-tongue. Indian writing in English attained maturity in the hands of masters like Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao. In modern times, there are many Indian writers who are getting awards and accolades all over the world.

Indian English literature is an honest enterprise to demonstrate the unique gems of Indian writing in English. From being a singular and exceptional, rather gradual native flare-up of geniuses, Indian writing has turned out to be a new form of Indian culture and voice in which India converses regularly’. Indian writers, poets, novelists, essayists and dramatists have been making notable contributions to world literature since pre independence era. In the recent past there emerged many talented writers and poets on the literary horizon of India and Indian writing in English has been prospering and thriving in the global market.

Indian English literature has attained an independent status in the realm of world literature. Indian writers are dealing with wide range of themes in their writings. While this literature continues to reflect Indian culture, tradition, social values and even Indian history through the delineation of life in India and Indians living elsewhere, recent Indian English fiction has been trying to give expression to the Indian expression of the modern predicaments. Many critics and commentators in England as well as America appreciate Indian English novel. Prof. M. K. Naik remarks, “One of the most notable gifts of English education to India is prose fiction for though India was probably a fountain head of story telling, the novel as we know today was an importation from the West.”

India’s remarkable contribution to world literature is largely because of profusely creative literary works generated by Indian novelists in English. Their works contemplated and deliberated on multifarious range of issues like nationalism, freedom struggle, social realism, individual consciousness and the like. This literary movement being fortified by the overwhelming output by novelists and distinguished itself as a remarkable force in world fiction. This has been attained by novelists who sought to prove their inner creative urges in English language, which is indeed an alien language to them. It is to the credit of those novelists that they have overcome the hurdles of writing in an alien language and have even evolved a distinctive style for themselves by mastering the intricacies of the language and assimilating in it the hues and flavours of the Indian sub-continent. Raja Rao famously argued in 1938, in the preface to his novel Kanthapura, for using English, but English adapted to Indian conditions.

English is not an alien to Indians. It is the language of our intellectual make up-like Sanskrit or Persian was before but not of our emotional make-up. We are instinctively bilingual, many of us in our own language and in English. We cannot write like the English. We should not. We can only write as Indians. Our method of expression will someday prove to be as distinctive and colourful as the Irish or the American.

The struggle for independence was a mighty and momentous movement sweeping the entire nation and exerting tremendous impact on the sense of national consciousness among the literary fraternity. Thus the lucid description of the freedom struggle showcased images of the awakened Indians who sought to regain their freedom from the gruelling and tortuous regime of the Britishers. Apart from these reflections, the writers were able to propagate their point of view, which ultimately helped to motivate and guide the masses. Thus the fixation on religious aestheticism was replaced by concerns on socio-political issues. The joy of accomplishing the grandiose feat of obtaining independence was abruptly marred by the horrendous and traumatic partition of 1947. The horror, tragic consequences and partition like the large scale migration, reckless looting and merciless massacres were portrayed by the writers in their works which captured the interest and imagination of the reader, the Indian English novel began to prove its mark in the global literary, scenario. East-West conflict, multiculturalism, social realism, diasporic writing and the like became the themes of the post-independent writers.

English has acquired a rare privilege and popularity in India especially among the elite and the middle classes. It is increasingly being used by writers to give shape to the conflicting dilemmas and issues that confront the human psyche. It has definitely become a convenient medium to express the intrinsic talents of the writers. Moreover, the Indian English writers use it with enviable ease and gaining mastery of a foreign tongue to articulate the vagaries and vicissitudes of an individual’s consciousness in a realm of its own aptly substantiate the expansiveness and nerve of the Indian English writer.

Indian writing in English has commended unstinted admiration in both home and abroad. It is now in full swing. It has carried out a new track and new vision a vision that is replete with an unanswering faith and hope, myths and traditions, customs and rites. If we dive deep into the works of the Indian stalwarts of English fictions, it is revealed that their works are not an imitation of English literary pattern but are highly original and intensely Indian in both theme and spirit. They have given a new shape and colour to English literature in the same way as the Australians and Americans have evolved their own literature in their respective countries.