Commonwealth Literature And
PROF. M. V. RAMA SARMA
Commonwealth literature
is a new phenomenon. But the concept of a commonwealth is very old.
Shakespeare, through Gonzalo in The Tempest, refers to the commonwealth where peace and plenty
will prevail and nature brings forth “all foison, all abundance / To feed” the
“innocent people”. It will be a golden age when common good and public
interest will flourish. Milton repeatedly affirms that commonwealth is the best
form of government. In March 1660, knowing full well that monarchy will be
reestablished a few months later, Milton publishes the pamphlet The ready and easy way to
establish a free commonwealth. Milton’s commonweahh is intended to produce citizens who
are complete and integrated human beings, and it is the “most magnanimous, most
fearless, and confident of its own proceedings”.1 But the Commonwealth of Nations comes into being
with India and other colonial countries becoming free after 1947. So literature
produced especially in the last forty years acquires a relevance and
authenticity by reproducing the aspirations and cultural heritage of the
developing nations. Commonwealth literature also signifies a fusion of
cultures, of the East and the West, for most of these countries have their own
languages and English is not their mother-tongue. Barring Canada, Australia and
New Zealand where English is spoken and written, in India and other countries
of the Commonwealth, English does not figure as the sole process of
communication in public or private life.
So the question arises,
why should anyone write in English? Often it may look odd for the writer is
writing in English for a reading public that may not speak or think in English
And the writer himself writes in a language that is not his own. For Naipaul
the continued use of English in India for creative and other purposes is
mimicry of the West and an “act of selfviolation”. (Area of Darkness, p. 215) True, even the
writer himself may feel the absurdity of the situation. As Raja Rao states,
“One has to convey in a language that is not one’s own the spirit that is one’s
own”.2 But a creative writer, a
poet, a novelist or a dramatist, writes primarily for his own aesthetic
pleasure. He writes because he must. That is a compulsion, an irresistible urge
to say something that is meaningful and valuable for the ennoblement and
enrichment of man. He thinks he has an inner prompting to reveal his mind, and
the language he chooses for expression is his own choice. It is a language in which
he feels proficient, at ease with himself. So it is immaterial whether he
writes in English or in his own native language. The significance lies in the
portrayal of life, in giving to his work an acceptability and a universality.
Most of these creative
writers especially in their first novels seem to face this problem of writing
in English, and yet making it somehow different from English-English. Achbe’s
first novel Things Fall Apart recreates the traditional Ibo life by using several
African words transformed into English. In No longer at ease Achbe deals with the transition from colonial rule
to freedom. Arrow of God presents the colonial onslaught on traditional tribal life. So Achbe is
committed to his native African tradition. N. S. Naipaul in his first novel The Mystic Masseur uses the type of English
that is spoken by the East Indian immigrants in Trinidad. The dialogues
invariably smack of colloquialism with no respect for grammar or for the
essential structural formations of English. Expressions like “I says” figure
often. This may be called broken English. All the same, we follow the thematic
content of the metamorphosis of Ganesh from a primary school teacher to a
statesman, from “Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair” to “G. Ramsay Muir.” Human aspirations
are the same, East or West, and we understand and appreciate the writer’s
presentation of life. Naipaul’s best novel A house for Mr. Biswas avoids the colloquial
expressions to a
large extent. It is like History of Mr. Polly with the struggle of a man towards a better life.
The novel presents the quest for identity.
Indian writing in
English has come of age. Fiction especially forms the major part of this
literature. It is the most powerful and popular form of writing. The
fore-runners of this Indo-Anglian novel, Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and Narayan,
“the Big
Three” as William Walsh calls them, had the same difficulty faced by Achbe,
Naipaul and others writing in English, even though English is not their
language. Mulk Raj Anand in his first novel Untouchable coins words from Punjabi and Hindustani in order
to give to his novel an authenticity and remoteness from civilised life as the
untouchable is. Anand says, “I would transliterate dialogue almost literally
from the original speech and I would, consciously find myself interweaving
feelings, emotions, moods, and thoughts, from my mother-tongue into the texture
of the narrative”.3 Swear words, epithets
and Punjabi phrases remarkably fit into the realistic world of the
untouchables. Social realism and a commitment to a political philosophy of
liberalism make us ignore the tapestry of coined words in this novel. Anand’s
next novel, Coolie, may still have the Punjabi words transliterated but it does not have so
many swear words as The Untouchable. The Coolie is again a presentation of the underdog in society
and novel is in the Picaresque tradition where the protagonist moves from place
to place experiencing unexpected trials and tribulations. It is a tale of
untold misery too and for tears. Anand deals with the elemental passions of
humanity in his first two novels.
Anand’s experiment with
English is a novelty and an innovation. He says,
“I hope that my
expressions in writing the new language, Indian English ...will come to be read
by Indian students of the English language. This may help to show why Indian
English, different from the sister languages of our country as well as from
English, is yet an attempted fusion of the both. It is a metamorphosis, which
is as significant as Irish English, or Welsh English or Australian English”.4
Anand visualises the
blending of languages. In fact English serves not only as a link language, but
also as a link literature, in the present day India.
Raja Rao in his Foreword
to his first novel Kanthapura emphatically pleads for an English suited to an Indian sensibility. He
says,
“We are instinctively
bilingual, many of us writing in our own language and in English. We cannot
write like the English, we should not, we can write only as Indians. We have
grown to look at the large world as a part of us. Our method of expression, therefore, has to
be a dialect which will some day prove to be as distinctive and colourful as
the Irish or the American. Time alone will justify it.”
Raja Rao in his first
novel Kanthapura
coins
several Indian words and the tell tale names in this novel like “Waterfall
Venkamma”, “Nose scratching Najamma,’, “Corner house Moorthy” amuse us. They
have a musical effect, and on the whole they give us an atmosphere of an Indian
village. Raja Rao’s next novel The Serpent and the Rope still may have some
typical Indian expressions, but its style is poetic, evocative and full of
incantation. It is the
language of the heart, and like Wordsworth’s poetry, a spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings and emotions. In this novel Raja Rao upholds the Brahminic
tradition with gusto and involvement for he says through Rama that a Brahmin is
one who knows Brahman. It looks as though Raja Rao revels in the glory of the
Brahminic culture. In this respect Samskara is an antithesis to The Serpent and the Rope for in this novel, the
degenerate, decadent Brahminic ritualism figures almost as a nauseating,
disgusting experience of the writer himself. It fills us with revulsion, for
the stupidity of the Acharya in this novel is abominable. Presumably the two
novels present two different aspects of the Brahminic tradition, one glorifying
it, another disglorifying it. The truth may lie somewhere in between. In fact The Serpent and the Rope is no novel. It is an
epic in prose like Fielding’s Joseph Andrews and it has episodes also. Rama of The Serpent and the Rope is like the unheroic
hero Tom Jones whom Fielding would justify on the basis of romantic morality as
contrasted with the classical morality in Richardson’s Pamela. Unlike the masculine
vigour of Anand’s prose style, Raja Rao’s style is poetic and metaphysical. His
Cat and
Shakespeare is as mystifying as his Comrade Kirilov.
R. K. Narayan does not
seem to have much of difficulty in making his characters speak in English.
Narayan’s English is simple, direct and homely. He feels that English has
flexibility. He says,
“We are still
experimentalists ... we are not attempting to write Anglo-Saxon English. The
English language, through sheer resilence and mobility, is now undergoing a
process of Indianisation, In the same manner as it adopted U. S. citizenship
over a century ago, with the difference that it is the major language there,
but here one of the fifteen”.5
R. K. Narayan is at his
best in story-telling. He weaves a story based on the simple vocations in life,
a vendor of sweeets, a banyan tree, financial expert, a guide, a painter of
signs. Like the Wessex novels of Thomas Hardy, Narayan has his Malgudi novels.
Even though Malgudi may be a fictitious place, yet it definitely gives us a South
Indian habitat and a location Almost all his novels end on a cynical note.
Jagan, the vendor of sweets, goes into a retreat, far from the madding crowd.
Margayya the financial expert ends in bankruptcy, all hopes of becoming rich
foiled. Raju the guide has to be martyred whether he likes it or not. Vasu, the
power-hungry taxidermist, an embodiment of evil, in The Man eater of Malgudi
is overpowered by his own excesses like Bhasmasura, and evil redounds on
itself. Narayan in A Tiger for Malgudi prsents Raju the tiger with an
excellent understanding of the animal world. It only shows that Narayan can
handle any theme with ease and felicity and give to his readers an inexplicable
aesthetic pleasure.
Like the novelists
mentioned above Kamala Markandeya too faces the problem in her first nelvel Nectar
in a Sieve. As it deals with village life in India. naturally it has to
incorporate within itself many expressions borrowed from the Indian language.
Kamala Markandeya literally translates the speeches of the characters from the
local language. Nectar in a Sieve portrays rural India with sympathetic
imagination. This novel is often compared with Good Earth because both
the novels deal with the simple lives of the humble poor. In her later novels
these anachronisms and Indianisms get reduced. So most of the writers, who
write in English, even though it is not their mother-tongue will be exposed to
this problem of using English as an approximation to the spoken language.
Only in my fourth novel The
Bliss of Life a good many Telugu and Sanskrit words had to be
transliterated or transposed as it is au imaginative reconstruction of the life
of a poet-saint-musician of the seventeenth century. Kshetrayya’s life reveals
the transcendence of man from a physical to a spiritual plane. The novel ends
on a note of rapture divine and god-realisation attained through a surrender to
the will of God.
Pastures New, my fifth novel, like The
Bliss of Life, presents the best in Indian life, its traditions, its
cultural heritage and its explorations into the life divine. The narrative is
in the first person singular and the narrator Dr. Madhu dreams of a new world
order when India leads the West in its quest for spiritual enlightenment and
ethical idealism. This novel too has several Indian words literally
transliterated into English.
Very often the question
is asked, what is the Indianness in the Indo-Anglian writings? Several views
are no doubt expressed,6 but my own thinking is that a creative writing does not
become Indian simply because of Indianisms and expressions borrowed from Indian
languages. It has to be a veritable account of Indian life with all its
aspirations, hopes and frustrations. Strangely enough Naipaul takes The Vendor of Sweets and Samskara as typical illustrations
of a wounded civilization. He says that “The Vendor of Sweets is a confused book; and
its confusion holds much of the Indian confusion today”7 He sees in Jagan’s
retreat the ultimate Hindu renunciation of life, “the death of a civilization,
the final corruption of Hinduism”.8 Samskara, Naipaul admits, is a difficult novel, and he
thinks that persons like the Acharya in that novel are “helpless,
disadvantaged, easily unbalanced, the civilization they have inherited has long
gone sour”.9 Both the novels are typically Indian and to a casual visitor like Naipaul
they convey only the negative aspect of Indian beliefs and customs. Indianness
in Indo-Anglian novels sometimes may lead to adverse conclusions. Kamala
Markandeya’s Two Virgins and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s Heat and Dust have been controversial for they present certain
aspects of Indian life, not very much to the liking of the Indian readers. In
recent years Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, preposterously huge in its size, has also
depicted the Indian background in a not very plausible manner. All these three novels
may have pleased an alien reading public but the Indian sensibility does not
seem to be altogether happy about them. Perhaps Indianness is taken to the
logical extreme in these novels. We are very sensitive about the glory of our
civilization, our culture and the human values cherished by us, even though
ugly spots may still be found in our social and political life.
In most of these
Indo-Anglian novels certain themes recur. The freedom movement, the partition
and all the holocaust created at that time figure in Kushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan, Malgonkar’s Bend in the Ganges and Chaman Nahal’s Azadi. Azadi is a moving account of
man’s inhumanity to man. Even the sweet and endearing love between Arun and Nur
does not stand the fury of racial conflicts. Cham an Nahal, like Mulk Raj
Anand, uses several Punjabi swear words and epithets, but as the novel gets
momentum with displaced persons on the road, the style acquires a solidity and
strength. The human suffering envelops the narrative in such a striking manner
that the borrowed expressions from Punjabi become diminished or we get involved
in the awful tale of human strife. Train to Pakistan is a down-to-earth,
realistic picture of the partition with its horrors and atrocities committed on
men, women and children savagely and ruthlessly. Malgonkar introduces the
partition scene only towards the close of the novel Bend in the Ganges. The gruesome scenes in
these novels, especially in Azadi, have a tragic intensity that captures the imagination of
the readers.
Another theme relates to
the lascivious lives of the princes and the feudal lords of the pre-Independent
days. Malgonkar in The Princes presents the excesses in the life of the princes, their passions and their
libidinous interests. The social and political history is dovetailed into the
novel with considerable skill and detachment. Anand’s Private Life of an Indian
Prince depicts the dissipated, lecherous life of Ashok Kumar, Maharaja of a small
state, the court intrigues and amours. It is a decadent life given to ease,
luxury and sloth and it is akin to the Nawab’s way of living as presented in Heat and Dust.
East-West encounter is
another absorbing theme in these Indo-Anglian novels. In the world today no
country can be isolated, nor can it maintain an exclusiveness in its cultural
heritage. An awareness of assimilating cultures and of enriching each other’s
national growth through such a fusion is very much to the liking of the
Indo-Anglian novelists. Kamala Markandeya in Some Inner Fury. Bhabani Bhattacharya in A Dream in Hawaii, Raja Rao in The Serpent and the Rope have stressed this new
phenomenon of a cultural assimilation. A Dream in Hawaii presents a penetrating look at the clash of values
between the East and West To Dr. Vincent Swift, “the prototype of the twentieth
century culture-vulture” in the novel, even the quest for spiritual truth has a typical
utilitarian value. But Swami Yogananda, Professor turned Yogi, is modest and
unsure of his mystic powers. Bhattacharya may be suggesting that despite these
two diametrically opposite views there may still be some reconciliation for the
benefit of mankind.
In all my first three
novels The
Stream, The Farewell Party and Look Homeward this theme of synthesizing, the cultures of the
East and the Went figures. Look Homeward is about the East and West encounter and it deals
with the problem of brain drain, with our Indian students going abroad and
refusing to come back. Except Ravi, the protagonist in the novel, all others
become enamoured of the American way of life, its glitter and show. They are
unwilling to return to India because they see it as a country steeped in
squalor, unmitigated poverty and uncontrolled corruption. Dr. Gupta’s marriage
with Rosie makes him a confirmed critic of everything Indian. Look Homeward is a novel with a
message, and finally most of the young men, for one reason or the other, come
back to India with a determination to own it and to be owned by it, however
discouraging the conditions may be. In all these three novels the centrality of
interest is on cross cultural assimilation.
On the whole it can
reasonably be said that Indo-Anglian novel has attained a state of recognition
and acceptance. The contribution of women novelists is equally significant.
Kamala Markandeya with her perception of Indian life, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala with
her presentation of the upper middle class life in urban areas, Anita Desai
with her feminist stance and Nayantara Sahgal with her involvement in the
politics of the day have amply recorded their individualised approaches to life
in their novels.
Even though novel is the
most popular form of writing all over the world, the Indo-Anglian poet, Kamala
Das, Nissim Ezekiel, Ramanujan, Parthasarathy and several others, academics as
well as professionals, have distinguished themselves as poets of promise. Of
course William Walsh feels that “the high point of the Indian achievement in
English is in the novel”.10 In the absence of an established tradition of producing
plays in English, the Indo-Aglian plays have an inherent disadvantage.
Stage-worthiness being the test for a play, most of the plays written in
English do not fulfil this requirement. However, plays of Asif Currimbhoy,
Nissim Ezekiel and others have been enjoyed for their thematic content and
social realism.
Indian criticism on
Shakespeare, Milton, T. S. Eliot and other English and American writers has won
a respectable recognition and acclaim. But the criticism offered on the Indian
writing in English is Johnsonian, full of adulation for some and sad neglect of
others. Even the reviewing of these Indo-Anglian books is biased. Prof. Iyengar
rightly points out, “Generally speaking, book-reviewing is still unsatisfactory
– books are reviewed too late, or reviewed perfunctorily”.11 Of course in the
initial stages critical assessment in any literature tends to be prejudiced and
partial. But I am
sure that the present state will very soon be replaced by a fair, just and
equitable appreciation of all the best works in Indo-Anglian literature.
In the context of the
changing conditions and attitudes towards English in India, it will be
desirable for the teachers of English and other scholars in English to bring
out the best in the Indian languages through a process of comparative studies
or translations. The expertise in and the accumulated knowledge of English
literature and literary criticism should be profitably used for the
interpretation of one’s own literature to the outside world. Comparative
literature, especially when it conforms to the study of genres, will be a
healthy means of enriching both the literatures and it will be a rewarding
experience indeed. There is also the need for interaction of languages and
literatures in India and the best works in one language can be exposed, evaluated and
interpreted through English. In years to come the relevance of English in India
as a link literature will be a reality. One need not be a prophet to visualise
Indian writing in English assuming a major role in the integration of India and
in upholding the cultural heritage of India in the comity of world nations.
In The Discovery of India Nehru poses the
question, “Which of these two Englands came to India? The England of
Shakespeare and Milton, of noble speech and writing and brave deed….. or the England of the savage penal code and
brutal behaviour, of entrenched feudalism and reaction.” (p 285) No doubt we
had the England of the savage penal code during the British regime, now we have
the England of Shakespeare and Milton influencing the commonwealth writers in
shaping a new literature that assimilates cultures of the East and the West.
References
1 Milton, John. Prose Writings, p. 239 (Everyman, Paper-back)
2 Raja Rao, Kanthapura, Foreword.
3 Mulk Raj Anand, ‘The Changeling’, Indian Writing in
English, ed. Ramesh Mohan. p. 15.
4 Ibid., p. 20.
5 Ramesh Mohan, ‘Some aspects of style and language
in Indian English fiction’, Ibid. p. 193.
6 Prof. V. K. Gokak in ‘The Concept of Indianness’
says, ‘One may say, therefore, that the Indianness of Indian writing consists
in the writer’s intense awareness of his entire culture’. Ibid. p. 24.
To Prof. K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar Indianness lies
In ‘The choice of subject, in the texture of thought and play of sentiment, in
the organization of material and the creative use of language’. ‘Indian Writing
in English: Prospect and Retrospect’, Ibid., p.8.
7 Naipaul, V. S. India: A wounded civilization, p. 42.
8 Ibid., p. 43.
9 Ibid., p. 108.
10 Walsh, William, Commonwealth Literature, p. 24.
11 Srinivasa Iyengar, K. R. ‘Indian Writing in
English: Prospect and Retrospect’. Indian Writing in English ed. Ramesh Mohan. p. 6.