Modernization of Indian Literature

Submitted By-

AYUSH GAUR

SM0117012

Faculty in Charge

Ms. Aparajita Dutta Hazarika

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, ASSAM

GUWAHATI

23 APRIL, 2018
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Research Questions

1.2. Literature Review
1.3. Scope and Objective
1.4. Research Methodology

2. INDIAN LITERATURE BEFORE INDEPENDENCE

3. INDIAN LITERATURE AFTER INDEPENDENCE

4. INDIAN LITERARY MOVEMENTS

5. WESTERNIZATION OF INDIAN LITERATURE

6. CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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 CHAPTER – 1

INTRODUCTION

Indian literature refers to literature produced in the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the
republic of India. The republic of India has 22 officially recognized languages. The earliest
works of Indian literature were orally transmitted. Sanskrit literature begins with the oral
literature of the Rig Veda a collection of sacred hymns dating to the period 1500–1200 BCE. The
Sanskrit epics Ramayana and Mahabharata appeared towards the end of the first millennium
BCE. Classical Sanskrit literature developed rapidly during the first few centuries of the first
millennium BCE as did the Tamil Sangam literature. In the medieval period, literature in
Kannada and Telugu appeared in the 9th and 11th centuries respectively. Later, literature in
Marathi, Odia and Bengali appeared. thereafter literature in various dialects of Hindi, Persian and
Urdu began to appear as well. Early in the 20th century, Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore
became India's first Nobel laureate. In contemporary Indian literature, there are two major
literary awards; these are the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship and the Jnanpith Award. Eight
Jnanpith Awards each have been awarded in Hindi and Kannada, followed by five in Bengali and
Malayalam, four in Odia, three in Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu and Urdu, two each in Assamese and
Tamil, and one in Sanskrit. The development of modern Indian literature has been marked by
certain characteristics, some of which it shares with modern literatures over the world. There has
always been in all countries and ages a conflict between the orthodox and the unorthodox, but in
India, because the new impulse was identified with an alien culture and foreign domination, the
clash of loyalties has been sharper. The very impact of Western thought, with its emphasis on
democracy and self-expression, stimulated a nationalist consciousness which resented the foreign
imposition and searched for the roots of self-respect and pride in its own heritage. For instance,
Rabindranath Tagore's novel Gora is a masterly interpretation of this built-in conflict in the very
nature of Indian renaissance, a conflict which still persists and has coloured not only our
literature but almost every aspect of human life. The first outstanding Bengali poet of the
nineteenth century (and the last in the old tradition), Iswar Chandra Gupta (1812-59), whose
remarkable journal, Sambad Prabhakar, was the training-ground of many distinguished writers.

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1.1 Research Questions

 What was the influence of colonialism on Indian literature?

 How did the western thoughts influenced the Indian Literature?

 What were the influences on Indian literature after independence?

 What do we mean by Indian literary movement?

1.2 Literature Review

 TRADITION AND MODERNITY IN INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH –

SHODHGANGA
This article on modernization of Indian literature explains the evolution of Indian literature
from the Vedic period to the modern time. It also tells how the western thoughts, culture or
beliefs influenced our Indian literature.it also explains the modernity that came in the Indian
literature before independence during the British rule and the modernity that came after the
independence and during this period how did the Indian literature got evolved. It also give
reference of many people like Rabindranath Tagore who helped in the modernization of
Indian literature.

 SHUANI, IMPACT OF WESTERN CULTURE ON INDIA

This article explains how the western culture, thoughts influenced the vernacular literature
of India. It also explains other things like westernization’s impact on politics, Indian society
and other things.

1.3 Scope and Objectives

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Scope: The scope of this project is to study the modernization of Indian literature, how was the
literature influenced before independence and after independence. It also talks about how
literature was influenced by western thoughts and how this literature led to literary movements
and encouraged the freedom struggle in India.

Objectives: The objectives of this project are as follow:

 To study about Indian literature before independence.

 To study about Indian literature after independence.

 To study Indian literary movements.

 To study about westernization in Indian literature.

1.4 Research Methodology

In this project, the researcher has adopted Doctrinal research. Doctrinal research is essentially a
library-based study, which means that the materials needed by a researcher may be available in
libraries, archives, and other data-bases. Various types of books were used to get the adequate
data essential for this project. The researcher also used computer laboratory to get important data
related to this topic. The researcher also found several good websites which were very useful to
better understand this topic.

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 CHAPTER – 2
INDIAN LITERATURE BEFORE INDEPENDENCE

The new era of modern Indian literatures may be said to begin in 1800, when Fort
William College was established in Kolkata and The Baptist Mission Press in Serampore, near
Kolkata. The college was founded by the East India Company to provide instruction to British
civil servants in the laws, customs, religions, languages, and literatures of India in order to cope
with the increasing demands of fast-growing administrative machinery. Reading material, during
this time, was translated from the Sanskrit classics as well as from foreign literature, and
dictionaries and grammars were compiled. William Carey, who was also one of the founders of
the Baptist Mission Press, himself wrote a Bengali grammar and compiled an English-Bengali
dictionary as well as two selections of dialogues and stories. 1

Later in the second half of the sixteenth century, books in Tamil and other Dravidian
languages began to be printed. Many foreign missionaries learnt the languages of the people.
They not only translated the Bible and wrote Christian Puranas but also rendered considerable
service to the languages by compiling the first modern grammars and dictionaries. Although the
printing-press came to south India much earlier and the foreign missionary enterprise functioned
much longer and more zealously than in Bengal, the impact of Western learning as such was
comparatively slow and the resurgence of literary activity bore fruit in its modern form much
later than in Bengal. The establishment of Hindu College in 1817 and the replacing of Persian by
English as the language of the law and the increasing use of Bengali were other landmarks which
encouraged the introduction of modern education and the development of the language of the
people. It was, Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) who laid the real foundation of modern
Bengali prose. The form which he gave to Bengali prose revealed its rich potentiality in the
hands of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820-1891) and Akshay Kumar Datta (1820-1886), both
of whom were primarily social reformers and educationists. Because they were men of serious
purpose who had much to say, they had little use for the flamboyance and rhetoric natural to a
language derived from Sanskrit, and they chiselled a prose that was both chaste and vigorous.

1
Modern Indian literature, https://www.indianetzone.com/42/modern_indian_literature.htm accessed on 18-04-
2018,7:00pm

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Pathfinders rather than creative artists, they standardized the medium which their younger
contemporary, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-94), turned with superb gusto and skill into a
creative tool for his novels and stories. He is known as the father of the modern novel in India
and his influence on his contemporaries and successors, in Bengal and other parts of India, was
profound and extensive. Novels, both historical and social, the two forms in which he excelled,
had been written before him in Bengali by Bhudev Mukherji and Peary Chand Mitra. Mitra's
'Alaler Gharer Dulal' was the first specimen of original fiction of social realism with free use of
the colloquial idiom, and anticipated, however crudely, the later development of the novel. But it
was Bankim Chandra who established the novel as a major literary form in India. He had his
limitations, he was too romantic, effusive, and didactic, and was in no sense a peer of his Great
Russian contemporaries, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. There have been better novelists in India since
his day, but they all stand on his shoulders. 2

Though the first harvest was reaped in Bengali prose, it was in the soil of poetry that this cross-
fertilization with the West bore its richest fruit. With the emotional temperament and lyrical
genius, the Bengali language is supple and musical, as though fashioned for poetry. Michael
Madhusudan Dutt (1824-1873) was the pioneer who, turning his back on the native tradition,
made the first conscious and successful experiment to naturalize the European forms into
Bengali poetry by his epic in blank verse, 'Meghnadbadh Kabya', based on a Ramayana episode
unorthodoxly interpreted, as well as by a number of sonnets. He led the way but could not
establish a vital tradition, for his own success was a tour de force of a rare genius.

2
ibid

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 CHAPTER – 3
INDIAN LITERATURE AFTER INDEPENDENCE

Indian Literature after Independence of the country witnessed some major changes in
terms of literary writings. Indian independence may be a historic event for its socio-political
significance. But according to some writers, this event has had an outstanding impact on the
creative writing done in various regional languages of the writers. India's nationalism at the point
before independence was a nationalism of grief and mourning. Thus, most of the new age writers
through their writings portrayed the terrible fake world that was based on the western
modernism. However, in a country like India, the vast culture of the past does not go off
completely. With the independence of the country the cultural rhythm of the past certainly broke
down as a result of modernistic experimentations. Rabindranath Tagore, Sarat Chandra
Chatterjee, Vallathol Narayana Menon, Munshi Premchand, Mardhekar and Iqbal, to mention a
few towering peaks in the Indian literary scene in the first half of this century, had given their
best before independence.3
Post-independence India did see greater awareness on the part of the reading public as well as the
government of the existence of many more and richer languages and literatures, beyond the
limited periphery of one's own mother-tongue or province. Some states entered a big way by
giving prizes and awards and much translation work was encouraged. Writers received the
opportunity of visiting new places and publicize their works. All this, with all its limitations, did
stimulate a literary climate. Further, the industrial and scientific advancement throughout the
country after independence also had an impact on Indian literature. In spite of the new vistas
opened to the writers in the form of writing for the new mass media like the film, the Radio and
TV, the character of Indian literature continues to remain feudal, romantic, pastoral, idyllic and
medievalist. Interestingly, the post-independence literature of the country showed signs that
permanent literature springs out of great tragedy. The partition of India did sear a poignant scar
in the souls of many writers, particularly in Punjabi literature, Urdu literature, Hindi literature,
and Bengali literature. Many moving short stories and poems have been written on this subject

3
Indian Literature after independence
https://www.indianetzone.com/50/indian_literature_after_independence.htm , accessed on 17-04-2018,3:25PM

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by authors like Amrita Pritam, Kartar Singh Duggal, Krishan Chander, Khushwant Singh,
Premendra Mitra and Manoj Basu, to mention a few names. The martyrdom of Mahatma Gandhi
was another such event, about which soul-stirring poems were written by Vallathol Narayana
Menon, Wamiq Jaunpuri, Bhai Vir Singh, Shivmangal Singh Suman and others. Hardly there
was any mentionable little classic produced during this period. Some progressive critics
oversimplify the situation by saying that the Indian writer comes from the lower middle-class,
which is facing several physical and financial hurdles. One of the functions of literature is to
elevate but nothing seemed to inspire them. But after 1948 there were several tragic events, but
hardly any great literary piece was written. It was commonly believed that Indian independence
did not bring any special bloom in the meadow or the field of literature. There were many
successful novels written before the independence of the country, which won Sahitya Akademi
Awards, and were even translated in English and Russian and several other languages. An
identity crisis developed among the writers and poets of the fifties and sixties, the age considered
as 'dark modernism'. The particular identity crisis of the writers and the clash between traditional
cultures and western modernity is mostly found in the writings during those days. The concept of
experimentation also developed under the western influence. It emerged as a chase for new
values and their sources.4

Even disillusionment creates great literature. Various reasons have been cited behind the
production of any good work after independence. The first reason for no great work in the
creative field was that the writer, being in a period of transition between the traditional and the
experimental, was not able to sift and choose and to properly discriminate between the deadwood
and the living from the past. The second reason was the constant search for a new idiom. In a
way, all the languages were not fully developed, yet they possessed a rich untapped reservoir in
their classics. However, the creative writer's frustrations in translating poetry from any foreign
language into Indian language are worth taking to consideration. Thirdly, the Indian authors
lacked identity crisis. One of the greatest impediments in the way of the growth of indigenous
literature of India after independence was the dominance of double-standards.

4
ibid

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 CHAPTER – 4
INDIAN LITERARY MOVEMENTS

Indian literary movements integrally belong to the category of spontaneous outbursts both prior
to and after Indian independence. However, before delving deep into this phenomenon, it is first
necessary to grasp that background which had given rise to such historical and almost
uncountable freedom movements in the Indian context. India has essentially served as a country
which has remained a forever witness to umpteen incursions, encroachments and unlawful
invasions and capturing

Modern Literary Movements

During pre-independent India, when British were trying to take over virtually every aspect of
native population and their classified life, any literary section of native India and their endeavour
to rise forth was always mercilessly quashed by British forces, trying to propagate their point of
view. The English were in fact always in the lookout for suitable situations to throttle Indian
viewpoints and behave in a sadistic manner. In this context of Indian literary movements, the rise
of local printing press and newspaper propagation was indeed assayed to restrain down every
action that might lead to public incitement and sedition against the ruling government. 5

Amongst the noted literary movements of this era was the Progressive Writers' Movement which
was established in Kolkata during 1936, prior to the Partition of India. The writers of this group
promoted the theories of anti-imperialism, voicing concerns against rampant unlawfulness and
social evils of that time. It was also referred to as the 'Anjuman Tarraqi Mussanafin-e-Hind'.

Likewise, Indian literary movements also gave rise to luminary writers creating a respected
position of their own by placing their illustrations in a rather hidden manner, stating the crux
subtly. Men like Rabindranath Tagore, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhay, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
and even Raja Ram Mohan Roy were capable enough to silence the ruling Britishers and earn

5
Indian Literary Movements, https://www.indianetzone.com/39/indian_literary_movements.htm, accesed on 17-
04-2018,11:00pm

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veneration in turn. The rise of Urdu or the overwhelming rise of the Little Magazine in the hands
of native revolutionists had won pan-Indian acceptance, at times even making the rulers reluctant
to go against the ruled. Such was the magnificence and contagiousness of these thousands of
young Indian nationals, that various Indians had indeed had taken up the pen to display anti-
British protests through literary movements and employing the local language.

Contemporary Literary Movements

The post-independent scenario is still witness to a few of such literary movements in India,
which have been successful enough to make their mark and make the Indian government turn
restless in their chair. However, some of them like the Dalit Literary Movement were doused in
communal disharmony and quarrel amongst backward and prestigious class in contemporary
Indian times. Present day Indian literary movements are more often than not inclined towards
going the religious or casteist direction, deviating a bit from their original course of literature and
writing. The present social and economic scenario has been integrally linked with literary
sections, which are wholly mirrored by these authorships.6

Another significant literary movement is the Hungry Generation Movement launched in Bengali
language strengthened by writers consisting of Samir Rorychoudhury, Shakti Chattopadhyay,
Malay Roy Choudhury and Debi Roy. It developed during the 1960's in Kolkata, West Bengal.
Other influential Hungryalist writers involve Tridib Mitra, Falguni Roy, Binoy Majumdar,
Basudeb Dasgupta, Alo Mitra, Anil Karanjai, Karunanidhan Mukhopadhyay and so on.

6
ibid

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 CHAPTER – 5

WESTERNIZATION OF INDIAN LITERATURE

The Christian sea-power in India brought with them western civilization and culture in to
the country and introduced many new elements into India’s cultural heritage. In the closing years
of the eighteenth century channels of Indian culture were getting dry. The creative had
disappeared in fine arts, literature, Science, Philosophy and religion. The impact of the west and
English education was keenly felt on the vernacular literature of India. Through the English
language the western literature were thrown open to Indians and a flood of ideas was let loose.
Thus there spread a great mental expansion similar to that which the European nations
experienced when English language was introduced and taught.

The Western literature offered several brilliant specimens in different branches of

literature and Indian writers copied them. The best of the writers of the Indian vernacular
literatures have been western in spirit in outlook, in literary devices, in the choice and treatment
of the subjects though they retained close connection with ancient Indian life style.

They represented the spirit of the west in a half oriental mind setup. The Indian prose
literature began with the translation of English prose works. Our prose writers wrote essays in
the light of western ideology. They imitated western style and translated them in their writing.
Even Rabindranath Tagore was no exception to that influence. The Indian drama was
considerably influenced by the Western drama. The details about the stage craft and the
projection of individual characters and the social problems in modern Indian drama are the
outcome of the study of Western drama. Ibson Galsworthy and Bernard Shaw have been imitated
by the Indian writers. The growth of One Act Play in Indian literature is the result of the Western
literary influence. Indian stories and novels too were influenced by the western literature. Poetry
was also considerably influenced. English sonnet, Ode, and Blank verse were imitated.
Madhusudan Duttad in Bengali, Ayodhya Singh Upadhyaya in Hindi has achieved marvelous
success in Blank Verse duly influenced by the Western culture. Western scholars played
significant role in composing dictionaries and grammars in Indian vernaculars. Christian
missionaries set up Indian vernacular press to spread divine message of the Bible. Later on the

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Western scholars wrote the history of Indian people mobilizing the mind set-up for their rapid
evolution and expansion. Under the Western influence many vernacular printing press were
established and many newspapers on Indian languages were published. In 1780 Hicky
commenced the publication of the “Bengal Gazette” in English. This was followed by the
publication of the first vernacular newspapers “Bengal Samachar” in 1816 and the “Bombay
Samachar” in 1822. The first Hindi newspaper “Banaras Akhbar” was published in 1845. The
newspapers and periodicals of the Indian languages brought close contact with numerous
countries of the world and provided opportunities to study the literatures and know our social,
political and religious evils. With the result we could able to make a comparative assessment and
rejuvenate our ideas in the world perspective. Our ancient language Sanskrit was restored to us
through English. Colebrook, Wilson, James Prince, Max Muller and other scholars began to
study Sanskrit edited and published famous works of Sanskrit and focused the attention of the
Indians towards the rich heritage of their Sanskrit literature.Moreover, English language had a
great impact on the Indians and apart from its utilitarian value as a language of higher education
in the sciences and as a 'link language', a fair number of Indian writers, including such eminent
thinkers steeped in Indian thought as Vivekananda, Ranade, Gokhale, Aurobindo Ghose and
Radhakrishnan, have voluntarily adopted it as their literary medium. There has been, from
Derozio in the 1820s to R. K. Narayan today, an unbroken tradition of some gifted Indians
choosing to write in English. Many of them, like the Dutt sisters, Toru and Aru, their versatile
uncle Romesh Chunder, Manomohan Ghosh, Sarojini Naidu, and, among contemporaries, Mulk
Raj Anand, Raja Rao, Bhabani Bhattacharya, and many others, have achieved distinction.7

It was Rabindranath Tagore who naturalized the Western spirit into Indian literature and
thereby made it truly modern in an adult sense. He did this not by any conscious or forced
adaptation of foreign models but by his creative response to the impulse of the age, with the
result that the Upanishads and Kalidasa, Vaishnava lyricism, and the rustic vigour of the folk
idiom, are so well blended with Western influences in his poetry that generations of critics will
continue to wrangle over his specific debt to each of them. In him modern Indian literature came

7
Shuani, Impact of Western Culture on India; http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/india-2/impact-of-western-
culture-on-india/4773 accessed on 18-04-2018,9:00pm

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of age, not only in poetry but in prose as well. Novel, short story, drama, essay, and literary
criticism, they all attained maturity in his hands. 8

8
Modern Indian literature, https://www.indianetzone.com/42/modern_indian_literature.htm , accessed on 18-04-
2018,7:00pm

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 CHAPTER– 8
CONCLUSION

Concept of Modern, Modernity and Modernization are tremendously notorious, mostly because
of their ambiguity and vagueness. Each one lacks any precise meaning. Modernization has
assumed a lot of significance particularly after the end of the Second World War, in the 1950’s
and 1960’s. Industrial Revolution in England and to some extent, French Revolution in France
brought Modernization to limelight. Volumes of literature written about these three concepts
have contained many contradictory observations and conclusions. As a result, no single theory of
modernization has been justifiably presented to explain the process of modernization for social
change. The modern Indian literature is the representation of each aspect of modern life. Happily,
despite this clamor of sophistry, patriotic piety, and political bias, good literature continues to be
written and, as it justifies itself, it helps to sharpen the reader's sensibility. Since the time of
Tagore a growing minority of intelligent critics well versed in the literary traditions of their own
country and of the West have bravely maintained a more wholesome approach that is neither
overwhelmed by the burden of the past nor overawed by the glamour of the latest fashion. This
healthy trend of the modern Indian literature should gain in strength with a growing realization
that, in the republic of letters as in that of men, a sensitive and well-trained critical apparatus and
its judicious and fearless exercise are a prerequisite of happy results.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 TRADITION AND MODERNITY IN INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH –

SHODHGANGA

 SHUANI, IMPACT OF WESTERN CULTURE ON INDIA

INTERNET SOURCES

 https://www.indianetzone.com/39/indian_literary_movements.htm

 https://www.indianetzone.com/42/modern_indian_literature.htm

 https://www.indianetzone.com/50/indian_literature_after_independence.htm

 http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/india-2/impact-of-western-culture-on-india/47733

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