UNIT 1 THE CONTEXT OF THE EARLIEST INDIAN ENGLISH WRITINGS Structure 1.0 Objectives 1.1 Introduction 1.2 The Earliest Indian English Writings 1.3 Roy: Pre- Eminent Promoter of Indian English Letters 1.4 Roy's Influence on Aspiring Indian English Writers 1.5 LetUsSumUp 1.6 Questions 1.0 OBJECTIVES The main objective of this unit is to familiarise the student with the context of the earliest Indian English writings. We shall begin by looking at the circumstances that enabled the rise of Indian English Literature and the nature of this literature during its formative years. We shall also take a brief look at the circumstances that enabled the.rise of Indian English Literature, as a large network of educative and cultural activity. A significant portion of the Unit will focus upon Rammohun Roy as a preeminent promoter of Indian English letters in the era of early introduction and plan formation. The influence of Rammohun Roy on aspiring Indian English writers of the nineteenth century will also be explained and investigated. 1.1 INTRODUCTION In their book, The Politics ofindiansjenglish, N Krishnaswamy and Archana S Burde have divided the history of English in India into five phases, each phase starting with what, according to them, was a landmark event in the colonial encounter between India and England. Obviously, in this encounter, the British interests were an active and a decisive factor. Krishnaswamy and Burde chart the events associated with the British policy and the years in which they took place thus: 1600 - the year the East India Company was started 1813 - the year the East India Company's Charter (for trade and commerce in the Indian subcontinent) was renewed 1857 - The Mutiny year - this was also the year when the first three universities were set up at Bombay, Calcutta and Madras 1904 - the year the Indian Universities Act was passed, which gave the British government a tighter control over higher education in India 1947 - the year India became politically independent It was in the phase between 181 3 and 1857 that some of the most important developments took form vis-a vis the rise of Indian English writing. In 18 13, while renewing the Charter permitting the East India Company to carry on with its trading and commercial activities in the Indian subcontinent, the British Government and the British Parliament attempted to make the Company more accountable to British interests than earlier. The East India Company had hitherto functioned within narrower limits of trade, not concerning itself with political issues and social ideas. Its activities, then, would be made to assume larger, though less tangible parameters. Already, as per the Pitts India Act of 1784, the Company was answerable in minor as well as major matters to the British Parliament and the British
Beginnings of Indian English Writing Government. This was in spite of the fact that the Parliament or Government did not directly control the administration of 'Indian Affairs'..Thus the Charter renewal was accompanied by 'advice' that the Company make itself more responsible and responsive towards the 'welfare' of the natives of those territories from which it operated. From 18 13, therefore, the Company was given the specific charge of 'educating' the natives, appealing to them at a different level. As the Company's 'India Affairs' expanded beyond Bengal and the Deccan, its original locations in India, into other Indian states such as Baroda, Hyderabad, Poona, Oudh and Travancore, the Company also engaged in its educational enterprises by setting up or helping to set up colleges in Calcutta, Poona, Delhi and Agra. Apart from the Hindu College in Calcutta, which came up due to the individual initiative of certain educated Bengali gentlefolk, aided and abetted by English officials, all the others were the outcome of the patronage of the East India Company. All these colleges were colleges for oriental learning. Education in English language and English literature and about the West as a whole was provided only at the Hindu College, Calcutta. I The Company's education policy took on a definite 'I\nglicist7 direction, however, when its administrative apparatus - namely the Governor - General in Council - adopted, in 1835, for the provinces under its preview, Thomas Babington Macaulay's Minute on Education recommending that Britain officially support English education in India and withdraw. support to Arabic and Sanskrit education. Macaulay argued that "English is better worth knowing than Sansht and Arabic;" that "the natives are desirous to be taught English;" and that "it is possible to make natives of this country thoroughly good English scholars." By 1837, the missionaries had begun to provide a significant part of the facilities for teaching English. Not very long thereafter, English became the language of administration and judiciary in India even as the vernaculars continued to be used in several instances: Almost simultaneously subordinate level positions in the judicial and administrative institutions were thrown open to Indians by a government resolution. In 1853, the year when the Company's Charter was renewed once more, under the pressure of government personnel to manage the widening domain of its "India activities", the Company decided to open up its highest Civil Service appointments to Indians by allowing them to appear for a competitive examination set up for this purpose. As a follow up of the Wood's Despatch of 1854, the first formalised and formulated education policy statement of the East India Company three universities were established in 1857 at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras respectively. English education engendered ho kinds of writing in English by Indians in addition to the already available genre of bureaucratic writing. These were journalistic communication and freelance compositions. The English print-media was used for publishing both the latter kinds of writing. These were the earliest specimens of Indian English writing. They brought out the need, on the part of the British, to communicate things directly and usefully to the Indian populace. In the next section we shall examine some of the earliest Indian English writings. 1.2 THE EARLIEST INDIAN ENGLISH WRITINGS In this Block we will not only discuss the beginnings of Indian English Writing in India but will also be dealing with three of the earliest Indian English Writers1 poet$. Hence, a look into the origins of Indian English poetry in India would not be misplaced. Makarand Paranjape has talked about the "two related pre-conditions that had to be met" before "Indians could write poetry in English". These two pre-
conditions are, what he has called the "Indianization of the English language" and the, "Anglicization of the Indians", (Introduction, p. 1, Indian Poetry in English, Makarand Paranjape (ed), 1993, Macmillan India). The Context of the Earliest Indian English Writings The first precondition was met with the landing of Vasco da Gama in Kerala in 1498. Trade routes came to be established between Portugal and India and a number of Indian words found their way into English usage. Closely on the heels of the Portuguese followed the English, the Dutch and the French traders who not only opened up trade routes but also colonised several settlements in India particularly after the historic Battle of Plassey in 1775 between the British and the Indians.. However, as we are all aware the English were the ones who not only established trading links with India but also came to rule India for more than a hundred and fifty years. This happened particularly after the British East India Company was set up in Bengal. Moreover, many Englishmen in India began writing poems on the Indian subject matter. The second pre-condition came to be fulfilled when England came to be a major colonial power in the eighteenth century not only in India but also all over the world. This necessitated a colonial practice that covered various aspects of life including literary writing. Indian poetry in English: The earliest Indian English poetry came to be written in Bengal as Bengal was where the British first established a foothold. The literary activity surrounding the writing of Indian English poetry too came to be centralised in I Bengal particularly in Calcutta, because of which it became a totally urban phenomenon. Not only was it a phenomenon of the city but it was also confined to just a few established Bengali families. From there on it was to spread to Madras and Bombay. Even more than a hundred and fifty years later it has not lost the peculiar characteristic of being an urban phenomenon. Since in those days one needed to belong to a certain sectlon of society in order to be English-educated, Indian English writers were largely upper class and caste pe2ple as will be seen in the units that follow. This influenced their choice of themes and subjects as well. When the earliest Indian English writers began writing poems in English, there were many Englishmen and women in India who were also writing about Indian themes and about Indian subject matters. In those days poetic writings by either English men and women or by Indian writers writing in English were not distinguished from each other: these poems were clubbed under the broad banner of Anglo-Indian Writers. However, with the passage of time and India's independence from foreign rule, Anglo Indian Literature as literature written by the English in India came to a gradual end. From then onwards, various terms came to be employed to describe the literary activity called writing poetry by Indian writers in English. Terms like, "Indo- English", and "Indian Literature in English" came into popular usage. These are merely descriptive in nature and avoid as they do any attempt at definition. We have adopted the term Indian English writing since Indian English is now a global phenomenon. However, it needs to be pointed out that even today Indian English writing including poetry, short story, novel, drama is still largely an elite and urban phenomena. It should also be pointed out that Indian writing in English also faces serious charges, one of them being that most of what is written under the broad umbrella of Indian English writing has nothing "Indian" about it. It appears that Indian English writing whatever, its faults will continue to survive through the ages. In the words of Makarand Paranjape: ' [It is] Best to see Indian poetry in English as aphenomenon as valuable for what it symbolizes asfor its own achievements. It embodies the legacy of colonialism, the secret shame of our past made blatant. Likewise, it chronicles, albeit indirectly, our struggle against colonialism and oppression. (p.6) Coming back to our narrative, according to M K Naik, the author of the authoritative A History of Indian English Literature, the pioneering published works in English by Indians appeared in the early nineteenth century, "more than two decades prior to
Beginnings of Indian English Writing Macaulay's Minute of 1835". Clearly, Naik's search for the origins of Indian English writing did not take him as far back as 1794, the year which witnessed the publication of The Travels of Dean Mahomet by Dean Mahomet (1739-1851), a Patna -born recruit of the East India Company's Bengal Army who had converted to Christianity and emigrated to Ireland after finishing with his services to the Company. His book, written in the epistolary mode, narrates to an imaginary friend the experiences of travelling with the colonial army. Naik's genealogy of Indian writings in English starts with a somewhat later work entitled Accounts of the Jains by Cavelly Venkata Boriah included in Asiatic Researches or Translations of the Society Instituted in Bengal for Inquiring into the Histoy and Antiquities, the Art, Sciences and Literature of Asia, Vol ZX (London, 1809). However, we have to push back the history of Indian Writing in English to the middle of the eighteenth century. Boriah (1776-1803), an assistant to Colonel Colin Mackenzie (1753-1821) - the first Surveyor-General of India and well known in South Indian history for the collection, Mackenzie Manuscripts - was described by Mackenzie as a "youth of the quickest genius and disposition." A master of a number of languages including Sanskrit, Persian, Hindustani and English, he studied mathematics, geography and astrology; wrote poetry in Telegu, discovered ancient coins and deciphered ancient seals. His Account of the Jains has been described in the essay itself as "collected from a priest of this sea at Mudgeri" and "translated by C Boria." This essay of twenty-eight pages is therefore not an original essay, though it is of historical importance as possibly the first extended effort at writing in English by an Indian located in India. Raja Rammohun Roy's tract on A Defence ofhindu Theism (1857) may be regarded as the earliest enterprise at original Indian English writing. The scion of an aristocratic Bengali household, Rammohun Roy (1772-1833) was born in a village named Radhanagr in the Hooghly district of Bengal on the 22"* of May 1772, to orthodox and conservative Bengali Brahmin parents. There is not much chronicled information about his early life. What is known however is that he did his elementary education in the village school in Bengali (which was his mother tongue). When he was twelve years old he left home and joined a Muslim school in Patna to study Persian and Arabic. This enabled him to read the Koran as well as the Sufi saints in the original. Through the medium of these two languages he then taught himself the principles of lslarnic religion and culture. From this vantage - point of an alternative to Hinduism, he began to critique Hindu orthodoxies. At the age of sixteen his anti- Hindu posturing incensed his father to such an extent that the latter kxpelled him from home. Rammohun Roy used this dpportunity to travel far and wide. He went to northern India and spent three years in ~ibet in his quest for knowledge of Buddhism. From there, he travelled to Benaras to study Sanskrit, all the while acquiring knowledge of several religions, and especially of Hinduism whose texts he read in detail at Benaras. Reconciliation with his father brought him back to Calcutta and to employment with the East India Company in 1803. His employment with the Company sent him on a posting to Rangpur in 1809 where he met Marwari Jains and learned about Jainism from them and studied the Jain texts. His initiation into Western ways of life sharpened not only his critical attitude towards Hindu practices, but also prompted him to justify Hindu precepts, that, were, often misrepresented by the Hindu priesthood. Rammohun Roy is largely remembered as the man who fought to abolish Sati (a Hindu social practice of a wife's immolating herself on her husband's funeral pyre in order for h ~m to get salvation) and as the founder of the Brahmo Samaj. However, he has contributed much more than that. As mentioned earlier, Rammohun Roy had studied many religions and his perception and understanding of the different religions of the world helped him to draw comparisons between them and the Vedantic philosophy of Hinduism. Because of his deep understanding of religions and an open
mind, he could sieve through the good points of the various religions. Rammohun Roy resigned from the East India Company and came back to Calcutta in 1815. He, was dissatisfied with the system of educ2tion pjevalent in India and the method of teaching English. He formed an association with the help of both Hindu'and English scholars. He even started a school where he introduced several "modern" subjects like Science, Mathematics, Political Science-and English. The Context df the Earliest Indian English Writings I Like other nationalists of his age, he was also against the British rule in India. Still over time he began to realise that India could actually benefit in terms of education and by exposure to Christianity. Rammohun Roy also founded the Atmiya Samaj in 1815. This Sabha was to publish a weekly called the Bangal Gazette under the editorship of Roy. He also published a Persian newspaper called Miratul- Akhbar and a Bengali weekly called Sambad Kaumudi. He laid great stress on the development of Bengali. His Gaudiya Vyakaran (a work in Bengali) is highly rated among his prose writings. Since his target audience in these writings wsis primarily British and secondarily Indian, Rammohun Roy was constrained to write in English, a language available to both sets of readers. This also served to keep him away fiom both sets of readers. Raja Rammohun Roy went to England in November 1831 as the Ambassador of the Mughal Emperor Akbar Shah 11. In 1832 he visited Paris but returned to England the same year. In 1833 he went to stay in Bristol where he fell ill with meningitis and died on 27" September 1833. He was buried in the grounds of Beech House. However, ten years later his friend Dwarakanti Tagore had him reinterred at Aron's Vale. These biographical details help us to understand the changing attitudes of Rammohun Roy in the course of his intellectual career. They also throw light on the dynamic modem spirit he represented. Let us now discuss Raja Rammohun Roy as : a pre-eminent promoter of early Indian English Writing. 1.3 ROY: PRE-EMINENT PROMOTER OF INDIAN ENGLISH LETTERS h Sisir Kumar Das has remarked, in A History of Indian Literature, Volume VZII, Rammohun Roy was the first important bilingual Indian writer to write in English in the nineteenth century. Between 181 7 and 1820, apart fiom writing Defence of Hindu Theism, Rammohun Roy translated an abridged version of the Vedas, the Kena, the Isa, the Numdaka and the Katha Upanishads into English as well as into Bengali. Similarly, he used Bengali as well as English in his campaign against idol worship and Satipratha and the ill treatment of widows in Hindu society, as well as his criticism of the Chrifhian missionaries. In fact, he also translated his major writings in Bengali into English. It was imperative for him to use English extensively for his writings because his writings represented a continuous conversation with both the intelligentsia of Britain and the intelligentsia of nonbengali communities of India. Except in his translations, Rammohun's English prose is powerfully polemical. As Bruce Carlisle Robertson has noted in his article, "The English Writings ofraja Rammohun Roy", included in An Illustrated History of Indian Literature in English edited by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, the evolution of Rammohun Roy as a writer in English reflects not merely his growing confidence in the causes that he espoused, but also his deepened facility in the fluency of his use of the language. Rammohun Roy was especially at home with English writing by the last decade of his life during which he authored some of his most significant pamphlets including two "Petitions against Press Regulations" (1 823) drafted by him and signed along with him by his supporters. It should be noted that Rammohun Roy's 1823 Letter to the Imperial masters pleaded for western scientific values, and not merely for English as the medium of instruction. Rammohun Roy advocated western education and social change and was a promoter for the translation of the Hindu Shastras into the vernacular (Bengali) as well as the promoter of Bengali Journalism. He made great
Beginnings of Indian English Writing efforts at translating English scientific and literary texts into Bengali as well. Such diversity enabled him to have a comprehensive view of the developments in India. I Coming to the question of Press Regulations, we observe an important fact of Rammohun Roy's activism. The passing of a Government ordinance in the same year suppressing the fi-eedom of the press occasioned petitions about press regulations. In the first petition, addressed to the Governor-General, Rammohun Roy argues: Every Good Ruler, who is convinced of the impegection of human nature, and reverences the Eternal Governor of the world, must be cohscious of the great liability to error in managing the aflairs of a vast empire; and therefore he will be anxious to afford to every individual the readiest means of bringing to his notice whatever may require his intederence. To secure this important object, the unrestrained liberty ofpublication is the only eflectual means that can be employed. i See the terminology in this passage couching the criticism made by Roy of the intolerant attitude of the rulers. There would obviously be a gap between "the External Governor of the World" and the "Good Ruler." Roy deftly assumes the role of interpreting who a "Good Ruler" is. The presentation of "the bestrained liberty of the publication" is the only answer to the question posed. When the petition was rejected and the Press Regulation Act was passed, Rammohun Roy addressed another petition, this one to the King-in-Council. In this petition, he counsels his addressee: Ifyour Majesty's faithfir1 subjects could conceive for a moment that the British nation, actuated solely by interested policy, considered India merely as a valuable property and nothing but the best means of securing its possession and turning it to advantage, even then it would be of importance to ascertain whether this property be well taken care of by their servants... therefore the existence of aji-ee Press is equally necessary for the sake of the Governors and the governed. The subtext of this question is indeed very sharp. Words before "even then" signify the callous intentions of the British rulers. Meanwhile, his attempts at reforming native society by weeding out some of the corrupt customs of Hindu society went on unabated. As a step in this direction, he founded the Brahmo Samaj in 1828, which was the earliest endeavour of its kind in the nineteenth century, to revitalise Hinduism. He probably prepared the "Trust Deed of the Brahmo Samaj" (1829) with the help of lawyers. In the following year he sailed for Britain as the ambassador of the Mughal Emperor who conferred on him the title of Raja. Here he published his bbexposition of the Practical Operation of the Judicial and Revenue Systems of India", a document remarkable for its indictment of the drain of wealth from India under the rule of the British and the British complicity in the structures of local economic exploitation. D&ing the last year of his life, Rammohun Roy wrote a short autobiograpnical sketch at the request of his friends. This short sketch is of interest as the pideering eiercise in Indian English writings in a genre that flourished and flowered in many, many directions during the following century. It has become a basis of selfexpression of a person at once colonised and free enough to think differently. Raja Rammohun Roy was essentially a humanist and a religious reformer. He had entered the services of the East India Company where he rose to great heights but he left the Company in order to serve the people. He was well vkrsed in the Sanskrit texts of the Hindus, as well as the texts of Islam and had also been influenced by the
liberal thinkers of the Western world. He decided therefore, that he needed to reform ~induism and what he perceived as the evils of Hindu society. With this in mind, he,formed the Brahmo Samaj at Calcutta in 1828. He propagated the abolition of Sati, and advocated widow re-marriage. Some ardent admirers of Roy also credit him with being the first Indian feminist, as he examines what may be called the "encroachment of modernity on the ancient rights of females", in his book Brief Remarks Regarding Modern Encroachments on the Ancient Rights of Females (1822). In one respect, Roy's views on women in India would be of particular significance. Being a reformer and a social activist, Roy would place the plight of the Indian woman into the overall change that he envisaged in the contemporary society. It was not for him thus to theorise about the women question but to create a climate in which women could breathe freely. His'contributions were largely in the field of social reform as he set about reforming various aspects of Hindu Law, led several protests against restrictions on the Press by the imperial government. He even tried and mobilised the Government against the - then oppressive land laws and asked for the association of Indians in the Government. He was also a most vociferous and vocal advocate for the introduction of a western system of education in India. We are however more concerned with his last position as an advocate of the western system of education, as it was largely due to his lobbying that English Studies gained a foothold in India. Moreover, the purpose of talking about Raja Rammohun Roy here in the first unit of this block is not only to study his contributions but also to draw attention to the fact that he was capable of influencing the next wave of Indian English writers in particular and Indian English writing in general. The Context of the Earliest Indian English Writings 1.4 ROY'S INFLUENCE ON ASPIRING INDIAN ENGLISH WRITERS By the year of Raja Rammohun Roy's death, a group of students educated at Hindu College, Calcutta, had emerged on the scene of Indian English writing. Known as the Young Bengal group, these students started an English magazine Pantheon, in the pages of which they discussed controversial and contentious social issues such as superstitions in Hindu society, the status of women and class disparities in India. In the context of the nineteenth century, this went far beyond what could be termed "reform". The youth of the day wished that their country could come as close to modem attitudes as possible. This would pave the way for a vibrant resurgent India in the days to come. Indeed, the Indian Natiotzal Movement owed a great deal to the efforts of figures such as Raja Rammohun Roy, Derozio and Kashiprasad Ghosh (1 809-1 873). Some of them appreciated the potential of English as a language for creative expression as well. The common mentor of this radical group of students was, more often than not, the highly charismatic English teacher of Hindu College, Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809-1831). Derozio, a Calcutta Eurasian of Portuguese - Indian ancestry, wrote in English since that was the only language he knew, but the issues that he wrote about were far removed from the concerns of English literature of the contemporary era. He too, like Rammohun Roy, took up social themes in his writings, but his favoured mode of self-expression was verse rather than prose. Thus Derozio innovated a new model of English poetry through his Indian English writings, as did his peer Kashiprasad Ghosh (1809-1873) and some ' of his pupils of Hindu College after him. Though largely derivative from British models in terms of stylistics, these texts represented thematics that were undeniably Indian. Sisir Kumar Das has summed up the fundamental problematic raised by the emergence of these early Indian English writers: Why did they write in English at all? Was it a curious exercise by the young men with the language of the new rulers of the country, or was it a serious attempt towards a search for a new medium suitable for a new literary perception?
Eiginnings of Indian English Writing 1.5 LET US SUM UP This Unit has looked at some of the circumstances - social, political, cultural - that led to the emergence of Indian English writings on the literary scene of the subcontinent of India during the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century. The writings of some key contributors to this movement are examined - especially the writings of Raja Rammohun Roy and some enthusiasts of the Young Bengal group of Hindu College, Calcutta, whom his writings inspired. 1.6 QUESTIONS, a) Discuss some of the circumstances that led to the emergence of English writings by Indians. b) Comment on the importance of the English writingsof Raja Rammohun Roy in the history of Indian English writings coming out of the subcontinent of India. C) What was the nature of the influence of Raja Ramrnohun Roy's English writings on the English writings of other Indians (who wrote in English) in the early nineteenth century.