Debnath 1

ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF INDIAN ENGLISH WRITING WITH SPECIAL

REFERENCE TO SOME RELEVANT TEXTS

Debabrata Debnath

Roll No.: 1703400004, IMD 8th Semester

Department of English, Tripura University

ABSTRACT

Indian English literature or Indian writing in English is the literature written or produced by

the by the writers in India who writes in English and whose native or conative language could

be one of the several languages of India. It is also referred as 'Indo-Anglian literature' which

was coined by J.H. Cousins in 1883 and later it was given currency by Srinivasa Iyengar.

Keywords: Nationalism, Colonialism, Indian Theatre, Realism, Regionalism.

English, as a language, was introduced in India with arrival of the East India Company in

India and Indianized with the introduction of the English language as a medium of instruction

in India and the introduction of English literature as a subject in the Universities. In 1780,

India's first newspaper, 'Hicky's Bengal Gazette', was published in English by James

Augustus Hicky. In 1817. Macaulay’s Minute Upon Indian Education introduced in 1833

provided for the introduction of English as a medium of instruction with the claim that “the

English tongue would be the most useful for our native subjects.” while presenting his

famous minute, making such a pronouncement: “…A single shelf of a good European library

is worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia”. The Wood Dispatch of 1854

proclaimed the establishment of the Universities at Bombay, Madras and Calcutta and

thereafter made the English language accessible to students, professors and also the officials
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of Government offices. This was the time of the emergence of the Middle Class. Hence, the

first writings in English language in India was the official documents and collections of data.

The first book written by an Indian in English was "The Travels of Dean Mahomet", a

travel narrative by Sake Dean Mahomed, published in England in 1794, The first Indian

novel in English was Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s “Rajmohan’s Wife” appeared in 1864.

The period from 1850 to 1900 is a phase when Indian poets were mostly romantic or in

George Bottomley's words "Matthew Arnold in a saree" or as some says "Shakuntala in a

mini-skirt". The chief sources of inspiration were the British romantic poets. But in the post-

colonial era the "new" romantics of the decadent period for expressing the consciousness of

the Indian renaissance between nationalism and political changes which ultimately led to the

attainment of political freedom in 1947.

The first phase of Indian poetry was the period of literary renaissance in India.

Derozio's poems, Kasiprasad Ghose's The Shair or Ministrel and other poems, Michael

Madhusudan Dutt's "The Captive Lady", Toru Dutt’s poems are a testimony to the creative

upsurge occasioned by the romantic spirit kindled by the literary renaissance. The poets of

the second phase were still romantic in spirit like Sarojini Naidu, Tagore, and Aurobindo

Ghose. Romanticism of these Indian poets was fraught with Nationalism, spirituality and

mysticism. .While Aurbindo was the search for the Divine in Man and Tagore's was the quest

for the Beautiful in Man and Nature.

The beginning of the twentieth century is the time of growth of the novel form and

Realism in English in India. Romesh Chandra Dutt, T. Ramakrishna who wrote "Dive for

Death" and Swarna Ghoshal who wrote "The Fatal Garland". Krupabai Satthianandan wrote

"Kamala, A Story of Hindu Life" (1894), "Bal Krishna, The Love of Kusama" (1910), Sir

Joginder Singh, Rajam Iyer, A. Madhavan. Without that in the first half of the twentieth
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century, in the colonial India or in the Pre- Independence era, there were great literary figures

like: A.F. Khabardar, N.V.Thadani, Nizamat Jung, and, Dilip Kumar Roy.

However, one name that stands apart from this body of writers is that of Rabindranath

Tagore, who had equal felicity and grace both in Bengali and English writings. "Gitanjali"

made Tagore a world literary figure fetching for him the highest honour, the Nobel Prize in

Literature for the year 1913. In the following years Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan and Raja

Rao became the trinity of Indian writing in English. the three being early representatives of

the use of English language in describing an Indian experience a struggle characterized their

attempts. Some other prominent writers who fascinated the world in the post- colonial India

were: Kamala Das, V.D. Trivedi, A.K. Ramanujan and Nissim Ezekiel, Jayanta Mahapatra,

Arun Kolatkar, Sarojini Naidu and others which revealed significant developments on

modernist lines in Indo-Anglian Poetry.

Nissim Ezekiel being one of the foundational figure in the post - colonial period

familial events,the mundane and the skeptical societal introspection, like in his poem

"Ganga", he creates a statement naming the mythical river, and maid named 'Ganga', both

being the cleanser, using words which are very relevant maintaining the mundane.

In the other hand, there were few poets who were more focused on the regional sensibility

than the Indian sensibility. This literary regionalism was taking place in the mid 70s. Arun

Kolatkar being one of them, specifically focused on the 'essential Oriya sensibility', like in his

poem ' Dawn at Puri',

Theatres in India had also been one of the remarkable reasons causing the evaluation

of the Indian writing in English in the Post-colonial India. It Emerged in the 15th century

BCE, Vedic text such as Rigveda provides evidences of drama plays being enacted during

Yagya ceremonies. The roots of Indian Dramas is in the Natyasatra by the Sage Bharata,
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dealing with issues like acting, dance, costume, music, dramaturgy, make-up, props, the

reciprocal relationship between performers and spectators so and so forth. Indian puppet

theatres and Street theatres were also so popular. And it took a huge shift after the arrival of

the British in 17th century, as they started organising plays of the English playwrights in the

places like Bombay, Calcutta, Madras. But the real journey of Indian English drama began

with Michael Madhusudhan Dutt's "Is This Civilization?" that appeared in 1871.

Rabindranath Tagore was also a prominent playwright, whose plays were performed

internationally. It took a untouchable height with the figures like Dinabandhu Mitra,

Dwijendra Lal Roy, Girish Ghosh, Notibinodini, Girish Karnad, Utpal Dutt, Sisir Kumar

Bhaduri, Rabi Ghosh, Utpal Dutt being the most popular of all. On the other hand, there are

figures like Gautam Halder who made a solo performance of the play "Meghnad Badh

Kabyo" by Michael Madhusudan Dutt and Saoli Mitra who are still making us amazed with

their performances.
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WORKS CITED

Naik, M.K. A History of Indian English Literature. Sahitya Akademi, 1982.

Mehrotra, Arvinda Krishna. A Concise History of Indian Literature in English. The Orient

Blackswan, 2017.

Mukherjee, Tutun et al. “Module 8 Introduction/Background/Evolution of Indian English

Poetry”. e-PG Pathshala. https://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/Home/ViewSubject?catid=13

Mukherjee, Tutun et al. “Module 9 Treatment of Nature in Indian English Poetry (Pre-

Independence/ PostIndependence era)”. e-PG Pathshala.

https://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/Home/ViewSubject?catid=13

Mukherjee, Tutun et al. “Module - 15 Indian Theatre in English - Genesis and Evolution”. e-

PG Pathshala. https://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/Home/ViewSubject?catid=13