Strange as it may seem there is a growing number of Indians who write in English. It is strange on several counts, but primarily because Indian writing in English became widespread after Independence. It is typical of the complexities of the Indian mind that having persuaded the British to leave, they both pioneered the concept of a Commonwealth open to all races and nations in the old Empire, and adopted English as the language of their Constitution, their courts and legal systems, education and administration. Optimistically, they wrote into this Constitution (in English, of course) that Hindi was to become the sole official language fifteen years after Independence.
Languages rarely keep to timetables. Those fifteen years expired in the mid-sixties, but English shows little sign of loosening its hold. More magazines, journals, newspapers and books are published in English than in Hindi, the other official language; and though the number of publications in Hindi is increasing under Government patronage, the number of books India produces in English is going up both absolutely and as a proportion of all books published. India is now the third largest producer in the world of books in English, and few countries produce as many periodicals in English.
The continued popularity of English is not due only to its being India’s ‘Window on the World” in the words of the Ministry of Education. Non-Hindi speaking areas comprise more than half the total geographical area of the county and about half the population. They do not see why Hindi speaking areas should be given an automatic linguistic advantage over them in education, administration, and job-opportunities. And since Hindi areas are the least economically and educationally developed in the country, automatic preference for such people seems perverse: it will only ensure a low intellectual and cultural level in the administrative and other national service. However, the other areas are divided, geographically around the Hindi heartland of the central plains, and linguistically between some 800 languages (yes, languages – not dialects). These use different script and fourteen are nationally recognized. That is, if you were presented with a Rupee banknote, you would find the words “One Rupee” written in Hindi and English on one face, and in twelve different languages on the other face!
Whatever the “official” fate of English in India, it should be clear that its actual role is greater and its actual prestige higher now than it was at Independence, and that it is likely to remain so far at least this generation.
So what has India produced in English? I do not wish to perpetuate the false notion. Some people wrongly believe that a few westernized Indians have started writing in English relatively recently. It is essential to have at least the barest facts if Indian writing in English is to be understood.
The most startling fact is that Indians were contributing to English-language periodicals before the end of the eighteenth century. The first Indian pamphlet was published in 1806, and the first volume, Henry Derozio’s Poems, in 1827. The first Indian autobiography was published in the 1830s and the first Indian novel in English in 1864. India was thus one of the first countries outside America and the ‘White Commonwealth’ (Britain, Canada, Australia, etc) to adopt English for literary purposes. In fact, the Indian demand for the introduction of State-supported English education was what resulted in the foisting of Western (rather than traditional) education in all erstwhile British colonies and laid the foundations for the emergence of English as a world language. Of course, the recent role of America in this cannot be overlooked. But it is not widely realized that English is now being used for creative literary purposes not only in all the ex-colonies of the Empire but also by people of Austrian, Brazilian, Dutch, German, Israeli, Italian, Japanese, Russian and other backgrounds. An increasing number of universities now offer courses in ‘Commonwealth’ or ‘New’ literatures in English, even in such unlikely places as Denmark and Spain. And there is an increasing number of academic and popular journals encouraging study of the field.
Indian writers in English have made a distinguished literary contribution in recent decades. In recognition of this, a string of prizes has gone to Indo-English writers: the Winifred Holtby Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the Duff Cooper Memorial Award, the English-Speaking Union’s Prize for the best novel of the year.
But prizes mean very little: Rabidranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1931 for his Bengali work, though he also wrote in English. Who reads his mistily aspiring English work now? (His Bengali work is, I hasten to say, of a completely different quality.) The Indian writer who is almost as well known today as Tagore was I his day, is R K Narayan. Graham Greene admires him more than any other living English language novelist.
Indian writers now offer a plenitude of material, from comedy to satire, from fantasy to works on national issues, from autobiography to fiction, from journalism to works of lasting merit, from poetry and drama to a chiseled and effective prose.
Indian literature in English has a range and amplitude, a maturity and sophistication that can be envied by many other literatures in English. Opinion is divided on whether it will ever produce a really great writer of the stature of Shakespeare or Dostoyevsky. I remain hopeful. But while we wait for writers who will fill us all with wild admiration and wonder, there is plenty that the critic can savour and the reader enjoy.
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