CHAPTER ONE. Introduction

Transcription

1 CHAPTER ONE Introduction

2 1 CHAPTER ONE Introduction Indian novel in English has shown a great progress in both theme and technique and has recently gained a visible and recognizable currency, especially under the innovative immigrant writers such as Amitav Ghosh, Bharati Mukherji and Salman Rushdie among others who express their Indian sensibility from the inside Western literary canon. The aim of this chapter is then made to present a historical survey of the development of this literary genre, besides tracing the significance of Rushdie as a postcolonial Indian novelist as well as the influence he has left on its progress. Its growth has been traced up to the postmodern period. Despite history and historicity being the central concern of many Indian novelists in English, his treatment of history brings innovations to it, in general. The concepts of myth and history have been examined as a new contribution of his fiction to the general growth of its theme and structure. The chapter principally deconstructs myth and history in his novels. Although he is not the first pioneer who uses myth, he is certainly the most prominent novelist in this field. There has been a lot to be done in the domain of myth and myth criticism from the view of Northrop Frye. In this chapter, attempts have been made to present a brief account of the history of Indian novel in English. The concepts of myth and history, how they are used in the course of the growth of the novel is also a major concern of this chapter. Dr. Srinivasa Iyenger traces the general features of the Indian novel in English and its different phases of spread. Iyenger argues that history as the theme of creative fiction has fascinated many Indian novelists of the past and present (323).

3 2 In spite of its blooming, the recent development and cultural shift in the novel, mentioned, has not been fully explored. Much has been written by Indian critics, but their writings did not go beyond the bibliographical survey and critical evaluation which presently dominate the historiography in this field. Recent critical theories such as new historicism have given new perspectives on historiography and the writing of fiction. This approach becomes a textual practice whose tenets provide a useful inducement for the fictional writer in dealing with the socio-political reality. It studies power relations and looks at culture in terms of a text, breaking down the distinction between the text and context. An application of some of these ideas to Indian novel in English may prove to be a worthwhile experiment. Nonetheless, since literature has become a cultural practice, it is necessary to investigate its resources in their sociological, linguistic and aesthetic complexities. The sudden spurt in Indian Fiction can be ascribed to a wide, cultural text, loaded with layers of socio-cultural and political meanings. It is for these reasons that such fiction has an appeal for the young generation. Furthermore, this genre is enveloped in the writers views and involvement with the socio-cultural and political transformations. It is a product of colonial experience that the historian of it is required to probe and relate to the growth of this area of literature. It was formed by two cultures, the Indian culture and the European culture and, so, any single theory cannot define the evolution of such writing because it cannot relate to one ideology or class, unlike the European fiction that emerged out of a single European ideological superstructure. Jenny Rathod observes that Western theories have sprung form a fairly unadulterated and monolithic sensibility whereas Indian English Fiction is a distinct literary phenomenon, having sprung from both the native soil and the diasporic experience (44). Rathod believes that it is desirable to

4 3 study the Indian novel in English in terms of schools, rather than periods or ages. Political periods such as pre-independence and post-independence are not reliable indicators of literary substance and value, they are only dating the writers and to see the history of this body of literature in terms of clusters of writers who naturally fall together R. K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao fall in one group for their writings have the same characteristics philosophy, self-criticism and effective and gentle irony. Another cluster, for instance, may consist of women writers: Kamala Markandaya, Anita Desai, Nayantara Sehgal, Attia Hussain, and Shashi Deshpande who have explored feminism. The emergence of Indian novel in the scene of literary criticism is itself a hint and an indicator of its important position that incited various critical insights. In his essay, Post Colonialism and Factions in Indian Fictions, C.N. Srinath argues that the Indian English Fiction emerged as an important form of narration not because of the adoption of other mediums and techniques, but because it sprang from the natural authenticity of the Indian experience (34). Srinath has shown that the success of many Indian novels in English in the thirties and fifties has been attributed to the fact that the novelists expressed smoothly the Indian experience. He divides Indian literature into two types and forms of writing: the old Indian literature and the new Indian literature. He argues that in the Indian novels of the 1930 s, for instance, offered an excellent example of art (34). The primary focus of these writers was how to present and reflect the Indian heritage and realistic experience of life. In this phase of writing, writers were interested in the quality of art rather than the use of techniques. Thus, they produced good art and brilliant literature. The earlier novelists were looking at how they express the reality and authenticity of life. Nevertheless, the new generation of novelists is obsessed deeply with the new techniques. They give

5 4 importance to the new theories of literature more than the real experiences of life. In fact, the old Indian writer emerges from the traditional heritage of India without submitting himself to the literary and political theories. However, finding a connection between myth and reality is a characteristic habit of the Indian mind. It is actually a conscious act of the recurring mythic patterns and meanings in the events of contemporary times. Mythic and legendary characters are everlasting contemporaries for the Indians and the two great epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata are of perpetual significance for the people of this myth-ridden land. The keyword in the treatment of myth and history is contained in the notion of representation ; how the novelist represents myth and history and what he represents, how the novelist uses history to achieve his goals, i.e., how he arranges events and characters, his choice of the modes of presentation and narrative strategies. Further, the chapter centers on the Indian writers in English, particularly Rushdie, how he is different from the earlier writers and even the contemporaries. It also probes into how the postmodernist and postcolonial terms are fused together in the cultural and intellectual identity of Rushdie. The chapter examines the knittedtogether narrative strategy which incorporates different tactical devices in his narrative such as magic realism, fantasy, parody, irony, allusion beside other techniques like indeterminacy, chutnification, fragmentation, comic inversion, disorientation, dislocation, comic epic etc. Myth and history in their varied forms are the focus thematically and technically of the Indian historical fiction through the ages, up to the postmodern and postcolonial times. Rushdie has advanced it beyond its traditional and local standards

6 5 and limits. This relationship between history and myth and fiction forms the launching point of various histories that are represented in his fiction. The representation of politics, political figures and events in literature is actually an aesthetic representation of facts in fiction. Politics is not always interlaced with the narration; sometimes it is symbolic and often allegorical. Rushdie filters the world history, national history, invasions and explorations which have been recorded in historical accounts and postcolonial interpretations of the colonial power in his novels. His mythicizing of ordinary common characters or/and demystifying of historical and religious figures in his fictional art constitute two common narrative strategies in his dealing with history. The fictional life of the narrator is fused, interspersed, intertwined and even sometimes entangled with his own ancestral history. Autobiographical elements of the narrator are interwoven with the author s life. The research further explores the relationship between the private and the public. Culture, myth, religion, tradition, heritage are blended and merged by Rushdie to present a curiously hybrid picture. Mainly, this research is an attempt to analyze the use of myth and history by him as a postcolonial writer. This is done through probing deep into the intentional theme and technique of his representational art which reflects a highly engaged and sophisticated writer-critic novelist. History of Indian novel in English is one integrally linked to British domination and triumph of native merit. Its history can be very much aligned to the advent and supreme reign of the British Empire upon India, resting for about two hundred years. Such a prolonged rule establishment by an alien Empire did have both its adverse and beneficial factors, mainly the English education. Though Indian English literature originated as a necessary outcome of the introduction of English

7 6 education in India under colonial rule, it has in recent years attracted widespread interest both in India and abroad. It is now recognized that Indian English literature is not only part of Commonwealth Literature, but also occupies a great significance in the World literature. Today, a number of Indian writers in English have contributed substantially to modern English literature. Professor M. K. Naik remarks: one of the most notable gifts of English education to India is prose fiction for though India was probably a fountain head of story-telling, the novel as we know today was an importation from the West (qtd. in Mahmood 17). Its history can thus honestly be dubbed as the story of a metamorphosing India. This history is located in the myths, in the folklore and the various languages and cultures that dotted all over the subcontinent. India has, since time immemorial, always served as a land of stories, legends, myths and histories.however, Indian novel in English passed through several stages in its development until it reaches its present remarkably global position. Therefore, it is relevant here to mention the different periods of its growth since the common shared characteristic of this novel is the reliance on myth and history as a major component of both its thematic presentation and structural narrative strategy. If Rushdie comes to be seen as a pioneering contemporary Indian novelist, it is because he has adopted and developed certain narrative techniques related to the use of myth and history. Therefore, it is the main concern of this chapter to highlight the beginning of the Indian novel in English which goes back to 1864 when Bankim Chandra Chatterjee wrote his first novel Rajamohan s Wife in English by which he established the novel in English as a major Indian literary form (Iyengar 315). This inaugurating novel in English can be read as an allegory of modern India. It is a social novel about a middle-class woman, who asserts her independent entity and proves her existence before her husband. Structurally, the novel is a simple form of narrative.

8 7 However, it is acknowledged as an accepted narrative mode which uses symbolism as a device to portray the conflict between tradition and modernity. The novel has placed Bankim as a true founder of the Indian novel in English. The history of Indian novel in English, though began to emerge as an imitative British form, it was held strongly soon after by the spiritual prose of Rabindranath Tagore and the anti-violence declarations preached by Mahatma Gandhi. With the appearance of the giants of this kind of art in that historical period, it achieved a new progress. Under writers like Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan, the historical journey of the novel had begun to take its position in the world of postcolonialism. The 1930s and 1940s period was known as the period of pioneering writers whose works marked a remarkable development in Indian writing in English. Iyengar describes the 1930s as the seed-time of modern Independent India which witnessed important political events (332).The Indian novel in English got a definite shape in the hands of the three pioneering novelists Anand, Rao and Narayan. An important fact is that they used history in their novels, not merely as a chronological interaction of facts, but a graphic chronicle of a whole community in the political, social and spiritual spheres at a particular juncture of history. Generally, this development, especially in its early stages, has been critically discussed by many critics and scholars in and outside India. S.L. Bhyrappa illustrated that the Indian novelists started their writings in English as a full mimicry of the European novels (55). Bhyrappa criticized the early Indian novelists who mindlessly took from the European novelists the structure and the themes. Accordingly, these novelists analyzed the problems of man from the Western European philosophy. The

9 8 thematic issues of their work emerged entirely from those visions in England and Europe. So, the early stage was entirely imitative. In connection with this, Prof. James W. Earl argued that not all Indian novelists succeeded to convey the Indian context to the English reader in the West. The basic idea of his argument is that the majority of Indian writers in English could not adeptly textualize the Indian context; the context was not clear to the Western reader. In his view, this is ascribed to their failure of the mastery of the English language as a medium of contextualization. Of course, this observation is made to describe the very situation of the Indian novel in English in relation to its position in the world literature. The second limitation proposed by Earl is that the Indian Novel, both colonial and postcolonial, has been open to political analysis. He means that it does not show clearly, for instance, whether it is with or against the issue of the individual character in society because it lacks an obvious philosophy. The third limitation, which restricts the development, is nativism as an approach to India s unique historical and cultural situation (96-117). In fact, this novel has history of its own. Thus, India might be said to have its own Defoe and its own Fielding. In brief, the Indian novel in English originated, not from others historical background, but rather from its own cultural situation. It is rich in its heritage and tradition, especially the mythological reference. The English reader was invited to see it reflecting the pure Indian traditional thought. The impact of Indian tradition on it is analogous to that of the Bible on the Western classics. The 1930s and 1940s pre-independence Indian novel in English engaged productively with Mahatma Gandhi. Since his character was a source of inspiration for the Indian novelists in English, his arrival on the national scene in 1930 s posed another important stage in the development of this genre. His arrival did not only set the political scene alight, but the literary scene also erupted into tremendous activity

10 9 (Ravi 13). In this stage of progress, politics and literature melted in each other. As a result, the Indian novel emerged as a historical necessity and a national duty reflecting the nation s ambition for freedom. The writers of this period wrote about the national issues, and that the two giant leaders, Gandhi and Nehru, were depicted as mythical and legendary figures. The political and national values were colored by the spirit of religion and tradition. Priyamuada Gopal in her book, The Indian Novel in English: Nation, History, and Narration, argued that the historical Indian novel in English began as a political form whose major theme is national freedom (5). Gopal stressed that the Indian novel in English appeared as a counterpart form to the colonial cultural imperialism. Thus, from the outset, it emerged as an attempt to defend the cultural Indian identity. She added that inasmuch as its very emergence was generated by the colonial encounter, the novel is an ineluctably postcolonial generated by the colonial encounter its concern has been with that equally postcolonial entity, the nation-state. (5) Also, she remarked that the impact of Gandhi on the political and intellectual scenario was inspiring. The novel in this historical epoch concentrated on the depiction of the spiritual unity of the nation and the human values incarnated in the figure of Gandhi. The novels of this period echoed the rhetoric speech of Gandhi and his religious and philosophical ideas. In her book, The Twice Born Fiction: Themes and Techniques of the Indian Novel in English, Meenakshi Mukherjee comments that the major techniques developed by the 1930s and 1940s novelists is the use of the first person narrative. Mukherjee adds that the novels of this era were autobiographical in method. The novelist used to choose a central character as the narrator solves the problem of the

11 10 point of view. The structure takes the singular narrative since the theme is the quest for self. Regarding the use of myth in the novels of this era, Mukherjee comments, the myth was used consciously to enhance the effect of a contemporary situation. She points out that the device of myth has been emulated from the West, but it has been naturalized to the Indian soil. She continues, a world-view is required to make literature meaningful in terms of shared human experience, and the Indian epics offer the basis of such a common background which permeates the collective unconscious of the whole nation. She also maintains that the novelists of this era used history as a record of reality and that the historical novel was adopted as a social reform fiction (31). Among the notable novelists of this period influenced by the national attendance of Mahatma Gandhi were Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, Bhabani Bhattacharya, K. Nagarajan and K.S. Venkataramani. They dramatized the impact of Gandhi in their works and used myth as a controlling method in character s representation. These novelists attempted to fictionalize the character of Gandhi by giving him godly qualities. A visible example is Raja Rao s Kanthapura (1935). The novel is overtly political, centering on Gandhi s struggle for freedom. It narrates his impact on the social and political scene in India. The major narrative technique used in the novel is myth. Rao mythicises the character of Gandhi and endows it with a power of spirituality. Further, he mixes religion with politics to mobilize the social and political context at that time. He encapsulated the Hindu tradition into his fictional work. He compares Gandhi to the god, Shiva, and the British rule to Kali in Ramayana. He mingles myth and reality, facts and fiction together as a useful thematic narrative device in order to strengthen the meanings of national struggle in the modern history of India. The intertwining of mythical episodes within a narrative

12 11 plot has been defined by some critics in terms of a digressional use of a procedure that is typical of the Indian oral tradition. It might be said the distinctive trait about Raja Rao s narrative technique is that he mythologizes the contemporary reality (Alterno 6). Rao has recognized the importance of English language as a tool of creation in the projection of the national history. He struggles to convey the Indian sensibility through English medium. Therefore, in his Kanthapura the Indian tradition and national history has been creatively narrated through a mixture of myth and reality. Peter Morey discusses the techniques adopted by Rao in Kanthapura: Rao s Kanthapura inscribes difference in the myth, legend and song that create the text s multiple perspectives. The technique of situating the story of the independence movement in a single village with a representative Gandhi figure and, unlike Anand, a rapprochement between the untouchables and other castes, reveals the text to be as much as an idealized account of what the early nationalist leaders had called a nation-in-the-making. (165) Morey makes the idea that Rao s Kanthapura thematically defends the image and identity of India. In this sense, the novel can be regarded as an early form of the postcolonial novel in India. Morey stresses: The story of English language fiction on India is also the story of a struggle around representational politics: British writers seek to represent the Indian, colonized. Indian writers strive for a space in fiction to represent themselves, and postcolonial Indian authors offer to articulate identities for Indianness which avoids ethnically specific state-sponsored versions. (2) In its mythical language, this novel is considered as a triumph for the Indian novel in English in connecting the mythical text to the realist history. From a postcolonial view, this technique is an advancing step which gives myth a political and social function in the realist situation of India.

13 12 The period of 1930s and 40s witnessed a parallelism between nationalism and modernism. The Indian life, in general, was inspired by the spirit of nationalism and the ambition of modernism. The most representative examples of the nationalist novels in this period are D.F.K. Karaka s We Never Die (1941), and C.N. Zutshi s Motherland (1944). The two dimensions were interwoven in building the modern national state of India. In line with this parallelism, the writers created a balance between tradition and modernity. Although some critics regarded the 1930s and 40s Indian novel in English as an adoption of the British novel, the advancement made in its structure by the three inaugurators, mentioned earlier, cannot be denied. A significant aspect of the 1930s and 1940s novel is the emergence of the middle class in the field of creative writing against the monopoly of the upper class. In addition to this, there came to the fore a new trend of fictional thought and political vision represented by the emergence of the socialist school of Anand. The novel of 1930s was not only a translation of national patriotism and heroism, but also a mirror of realistic issues of society, one of which is the realistic depiction of misery of the individuals and members of lower class as in Anand s novels, The Untouchable (1933), Coolie (1936) and Two Leaves and a Bud (1937), The Village (1939) and Across the Black Waters (1940). Generally, Anand s novels revolve around the problems of class and poverty, as major social facts in India. His novels dramatize the suffering of the downtrodden class under the hammer of hierarchical, social system. His primary concern was the individual s position in society and his struggle and suffering. His novels are also read as indignant socio-political criticism. His novel The Untouchable narrates Bakha s dilemma which comes under his concern with the individual s position in society. The

14 13 novel shows a deep sympathy and solidarity with the hero. The major significance of this novel is that it gives a picturesque representation of the colonial situation in India, especially the predicament of the hero, who is split between the Indian upper caste fashion and the British style of life. In his second novel, Coolie, Anand shifted the focus from the issue of caste to the problem of class. If Bakha has suffered from the misery of caste system, Munoo has suffered the agony of absolute feudalism. Anand was very much conscious of the social and political transformation that took place in India at that specific historical point of time. Anand s two masterworks, cited above, reveal his influence by the general atmosphere of the late twenties and early thirties, especially the influence of the principles of Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in This period was known as the beginning of the spread of Socialism and the struggle of what is termed as Proletaria in India. Anand is a socialist novelist whose aim and purpose was to write for the sake of society. He was described as a propagandist proletarian. Yet, in his later novels, he has shown a move from dealing with the community ills and inner issues to the discussion of colonial and anti-colonial issues. His novel Two Leaves and a Bud demonstrates how a Punjabi peasant who was destined to work in a tea estate in Assam under unhygienic conditions, has been starved before being shot dead by a British officer. The novel is a portrayal documentation of the British cruelty in India. It was also an attempt by Anand to bridge social realities with political necessities and to register the social injustice and colonial cruelties. Professor Lingaraja Gandhi in his valuable work, Connecting the Postcolonial, Ngugi and Anand, argues that Anand is a writer of both highly human and political responsibility whose understanding of the global situation in the thirties increased his own political responsibilities as a writer (Gandhi 7). Anand himself affirms this view for he says:

15 14 in India life was politics and politics life, especially as most of us grown up with some awareness of the method of the internment camp, of torture and prison and the suppression of civil and political liberties during the last quarter of a century. (qtd.in Gandhi 7) Professor A.S Dasan in his essay entitled Mulk Raj Anand: A Dissenting Pilgrim, describes Anand as a rebel within a pilgrim with a heart of dissent, searching for truth, truth that would change the world for the better and truth that would make all of us free in terms of understanding and comradeship (12). Anand, willfully, brings together Social Realism and Humanitarianism as an effective tactical device to convey his perception of social truth. Unlike Rao who treated religion as a dominating element in the construction of Indian identity, Anand started questioning the validity of religion in the social and human life. Further, he introduced a secular interpretation of history into the Indian novel in English. Another interesting writer in the 1940s is G. V. Desani. whose experimental novel All About H. Hatterr (1948) has been widely valued for its innovative use of English as a creative medium. The novel concerns itself with the social realities of the colonial and postcolonial India. In addition to the works of the major trio, Anand, Rao and Narayan who produced epoch-making pieces of their writings, many other earlier novelists were also active, and a considerable number of novels were produced. These novels include C.S.Rau s The Confessions of a Bogus Patriot (1923), Hari s the Jungle Lad (1924), The Chief of the Herd (1929), and Ghond s The Hunter (1929), K.A.Abbas s Tomorrow is Ours: A Novel of the India of Today (1934), Ahmed Ali s Twilight in Delhi (1940), Iqbalunisa Hussain s Purdah and Polygamy: Life in an Indian Muslim

16 15 Household (1944), Humayun Kabir s Men and River (1945), Mir Ali s Conflict (1947), and Tricumadas s Living Mask (1947). The post-independence novel in the 1950s and 1960s attempted to respond to the problems of national and cultural identity, and the inherited problems of class and caste. In his essay, A Few Thoughts on Indian Fiction, , Stephen Alter observes that Indian Fiction in English began in the 1930s and 1940s as a medium of social protest. Alter identified three challenges which faced the post-independence Indian novel in English: the cultural identity, the use of English language in writing, and the use of fiction as a form of protest against the social problems (14-28). The major challenge was thematic. However, the novel in the 1950s and 60s came face to face with these challenges and made a great effort to respond to the demands of free modern society. The transitional events, including the inner national issues of the Free State and the political sequences that happened, such as the partition and the communal conflicts constituted the most popular fictional gamut of the 1950s and 60s Indian novelists in English. These socio-political events fashioned the representational mode of the writers of this period. Importantly, the Indian novels of this epoch witnessed a turn in terms of technique. The novelists changed their method of exposing a hero. The hero appeared in these novels as a person of ordinary human qualities as he functions in the social or political environment. The novel in this era became more realistic and the aim of the novelist was to highlight the individual s reaction to the incidents around him. It was a period which was burdened with a human dimension. The tragic events which took place in the sub-continent were depicted as part of the common human concern. The dominant concern of the 1950s and 60s novel is with the development and

17 16 psychological depth of the character, often combined with the sense of the alienated individual, dissatisfied with modern life. The mythical and superior character gradually vanquished. There was a shift from the collective into the individual, the extraordinary into the ordinary, and the national epic into the common-man narrative. Mahatma Gandhi was introduced as a person and not as a symbol. Moreover, the treatment of history changed after independence. For instance, history which was a source of independent evolutional identity became a concept of process. Identity came to acquire another dimension in its interacting with other cultural environments. Despite the achievement in the growth of the Indian novel in English in the post-independence period both structurally and thematically, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra argued that the 1950s and 60s were not a period of great innovation for the novel, although they witnessed the foundation of writing careers that have lasted over several decades and which, especially for women writers, brought international acclaim (230). One of the most interesting works of the late 1950s is Narayan s novel, The Guide (1958). The novel traces the struggle of an ordinary man, Raju, in caste-based society and fictionalizes the individual s ambition to secure a position in the social ladder. The general message of this story is that a simple man can be a holy man, not by virtue of class and caste but by struggle and working. Similarly, a social reputation in society is not inherited but acquired by struggle in life and that the way to sainthood and holiness passes through man s sacrifice for others. The Indian writer in this period struggled to move from the representation of merely abstract values to concrete examples of real characters. In his essay entitled, R.K.Narayan: An Appreciation, Sherman Lew proposes that R.K.Narayan is the first Indian novelist in English of international

18 17 repute, preceding Rushdie and Naipaul. Lew praises Narayan as an embodiment of a professional writer who makes a creative use of English in writing, and for his unique fictional and mythical world, especially his imaginary lands of Malgudi. ( ).Yet, it is Khushwant Singh s novel, Train to Pakistan (1956) which attracted the attention of both readers and critics for its exceptional transformation in dealing with the concept of history. It is a novel on the theme of Partition and its aftermath. In terms of technique, politics and humanity are mixed together to present a truthful picture of the incident. The Serpent and the Rope (1960) is Rao s most important works of the 1960s. The novel records the development of his political and intellectual thought. The importance of this novel lies in its deep philosophical and metaphysical theme. Its main theme is a search for spiritual truth in Europe and India. To put it another, it is about the East and West relationship. The novel suggests a juxtaposition of illusion and reality. Iyengar describes this novel as an ambitious and meritorious effort at achieving a total projection of India in vivid fictional forms (406).The novel projects India as a fictional epic and as a source of knowledge and a book of truth. An important feature of this novel is Rao s move from the focus on nationalism to the position of India in the transnational arena. Another important writer who appeared in this epoch is Manohar Malgonkar. In addition to Distant Drum (1960) and A Bend in the Ganges (1964), he also wrote Combat of Shadows (1962), The Princes (1963), The Devil s Wind (1972), and Bandicoot Run (1982). As a historical novelist, Malgonkar tried to display the historical events that succeeded the Indian Independence from cultural and humane perspectives. His remarkable contribution is his insistence on historicizing fiction and

19 18 fictionalizing history. History in his writing is not merely the chronological interaction of facts, but a graphic representation of community in the political, social and spiritual spheres at a particular stage of history. Of the writers who appeared in the 1960s is Dr. Bhabani Bhattacharya. He wrote in this specific period two interesting novels: A Goddess Named God (1960) and Shadow from Ladakh (1966). Bhattacharya s novel, Shadow from Ladakh, in particular, acquired an exceptional value in the history of Indian novel in English due to its deep analysis of culture and power and the work of ideology. The war between India and China which took place in 1962 was viewed as a war between two ideologies: Mao s expansionist absolutist China and Nehru s democratic-socialist federal republic. The novel is also important as it connects a recent India to the world history. Myth and symbolism are two controlling technical devices which have been deployed in the representation of historical fact. Arun Joshi is another shaping mind whose main concern is to examine the Indian vision of life. His novels consistently record the novelist s perception, evaluation, and determination about life. A striking feature of Joshi s novels is his experimentation with different narrative techniques. His first novel The Foreigner appeared in The narrative freely moves across time and geographical space---a common feature of the epoch s novels. Historically and politically, the 1970s were read as one of the most confused decades in Indian history. The general decline on all fronts, the war with Pakistan, and the Emergency declared in 1975, put a severe check on the national progress and on the fictional writing, too. After the 1960s Indian novel in English, like its Western counterpart, shifted focus from the public to the private spheres. It started dealing with new subjects of human existence and man s quest for self in all its complicated

20 19 situations. This shift of focus in themes and techniques becomes clearer, particularly, with Arun Joshi, Chaman Nahal and G.V. Desani who explored new horizons in the novel. Joshi, for instance, emphasized the individual psyche of the protagonist throughout his novels, particularly: The Strange Case of Billy Biswas (1971), and The Apprentice (1974). Like Khushwant Singh s Train to Pakistan, cited above, Chaman Nahal s novels were of importance in the 1970s era, namely his partition novel, Azadi (1975) with which Nahal registered his name as a prominent novelist in the period. His novel is praised for its use of multiple narrators. This technique gives the reader a more sweeping and greater grasp of reality. The novel problematises the inner tension between diverse points of view, raising numerous socio-morals, ethical and eternal human questions. Significantly, Singh s Train to Pakistan and Nahal s Azadi are considered a prominent example of the modern historical novel. They represent the story of the individual using a conscious and overt allegorical relationship to that of the public or national culture (Morey 5). Meanwhile, Nahal s other novels in the 1970s are My True Faces (1973), Into Another Dawn (1977). With the appearance of Indian diaspora as an intellectual force, history of Indian novel in English speaks a different global tongue, unrestrained to any particular culture or heritage. This travelling intellectual class invoked the Muse of Indian soil and preached the advent of the global reign of the writers. Its history was once more standing at the crossroads in the line of postcolonialism, with literature in India awaiting its second best metamorphosis. Rushdie has captivated critics with his mottled amalgamation of history and language as well. He had indeed served as that representative who had opened the doors to an overabundance of writers. Amitav

21 20 Ghosh plays brilliantly in postcolonial realities and Vikram Seth makes use of poetry and prose with an aura of Victorian magnificence. Rohington Mistry tries to decode the confused world fluently and charts the map of the world in his writings. With the emergence of Rushdie and Naipaul, the Indian novel in English owned a far-flung reach. Indian writers of the 1980s found that Rushdie s model allowed them a new freedom of both form and content. His complex narrative of multiple modes and the engagement between the individual and national narrative were new methods in writing they started to adopt. In addition, the new writers found his acknowledgement of multiplicity and his hybridity of language genuinely liberating. It enabled them to tell their personal stories in their own voices as national epics. In connection to this, P.S. Ravi maintained that the major feature of the 1980s novel is that it stemmed from the idea of plurality and multiplicity of attitude, and that the basic job of the novelist of 1980s was to reflect this essential human feature and the various attitudes in the society (22-25). The features of this era will, again, be clarified with some examples when discussing the aspect, After Midnight s Children. The development of Indian historical novel is crowned by the advent of Rushdie s Midnight s Children (1981). The appearance of Midnight s Children was held by critics as a turning point in the history of Indian novel in English. John Mee remarks that it is Midnight s Children which has fired the imaginative and creative potentials of the young novelists of the 1980s and 90s and engendered their innovative theme and technique ( ). This masterpiece created a revolution in its form, techniques, ideas of multiplicity, hybridity and multi-culturality. It is argued that the characteristics of the Indian novel in English today owed much to this

22 21 masterwork of Rushdie. After the publication of Salman Rushdie s Midnight s Children in 1980, Indian novel in English tended to problematize the decolonized nation itself in their representations of postcolonial suffering, focusing on the problems of narrating history rather than on history itself (Jani 235). With postcolonial leanings, the novel tells the story of India s independence as a historical event which connected the fate and future of the nation to that of the individual. Linguistically, it is known for the mastering the English language as a pivotal medium of representation. Society, history and politics have been submerged together and created the fictional truth. Needless to say, it was considered as the floodgate of the Indian novel in English to the West and provided Rushdie with an international fame as a postcolonial writer. Rushdie is, really, an excellent example of a writer in English who masters the alien English and one of those rare writers who raise the issue of the English language beyond the confines of the national terms. The publication of Rushdie s masterwork, mentioned, was a defining moment in the post-independence development of the Indian novel in English, so much so that the term post-rushdie has come to refer to the decade afterwards. A wave of novels that appeared in the periods to come were clearly indebted to and influenced by Midnight s Children. In his essay entitled, Victim into Protagonist? Midnight s Children and the Post-Rushdie National Narratives of the Eighties, Josna E. Rege argues that Midnight s Children ended a debatable argument of the relationship between the self and nation (182). The novel connects the history of the nation to the story of the individual. It deals with politics and history in a way that it does not pretend to offer an accuracy of Indian history. It is received as a form of structural

23 22 innovation which celebrates a multiplicity of modes, an exuberance of language and style, and a combination of hilarious comedy and political satire. Meenakshi Mukherjee points out that Rushdie s Midnight Children is a postcolonial pattern of novel which embodies the postmodern view. It has also been seen as the quintessential fictional embodiment of the postmodern celebration of decentering and hybridity. Mukherjee adds that the novel s instance fits in with postmodernism impulses (Rushdie s Midnight s Children: A Book of Readings 9). Mukherjee copiously admires the novel as a landmark novel, attempting in dangerously adventurous manner to stretch the possibilities of narrative fiction in the general and of what it could be done with Indian material in the English language in particular (10). In short, she is held up by the novelist s panoramic assimilation of various elements in a single piece of art. She describes Rushdie s masterpiece as a novel containing a real innovation in theme and structure: Midnight s Children demonstrated how epic, fable, national events, family saga, advertisements, films, popular songs, newspaper clippings, parody, pastiche and gossip could all gathered up in one comprehensive sweep that is comic, historic and mythical at the same time. Rushdie s energy was infectious, and his example seemed to galvanize in the next few years the Indian English literary scene which had been stagnant for a while, unleashing a flood of new novels that has not yet abated. (10) The historical truth in Midnight s Children has been symbolically expressed in the chapter entitled, Perforated Sheet. Rushdie intends to convey that the essential truth often emerges from some of the distortions. The novel itself exemplifies this. He also insinuates to this idea in the novel: Reality is a question of truth of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible (Midnight s

24 23 Children 165). Mujeebuddin Syed asserts in his essay entitled, Midnight s Children and Its Indian Con-Texts, that Rushdie s novel contains the features of three various schools in writing: the traditional forms and epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana, the modernist and postmodernist techniques. Syed continues that the novel evokes the postcolonial Indian imagination offering new pictures of India and Indianness. He concludes that Midnight s Children attempts to map this eclectic hybridity, and reflects the impossibility of linear and homogeneous forms of literature capturing the plurality of the subcontinent ( ). Nevertheless, the novel registered a great success in theme and structure and also deployed the terms of myth and history in new ways in order to gain new possibilities of historical truth. There is consent among reviewers that the 1980s and 1990s novel gained a prestigious position with the appearance of prominent novelists, such as Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh and others whose works have been internationally acknowledged as writers of established reputation. This is widely evident through the considerable global reach of their works in the field of publishing industry for English language works in India. The 1990s period can also be regarded as a celebrated time of writing. Most of the novels written in this decade have been prize-winning novels. Among the awarded novels are Amitav Ghosh s Antique Land (1993), and Calcutta Chrosome (1996), Vikram Chandra s Real Earth and Pouring Rain (1995). The writers of this period drew maps of significance in problematizing the nation and national identity (Jain 12). Other important novels of the 1980s and 1990s contain Amitav Ghosh s The Shadow Lines (1983), The Last Burden (1993), and The Glass Palace (2000), D.R.Sharma s Miracles Happen (1985), Allan Sealy s The Trotter- Nama: (1988), Vikram Seth s, A Suitable Boy (1993) and Mukul Kesavan s Looking Through Glass (1995). There were also Arun Joshi s The Salt of Life (1990), The Truimph of the

25 24 Tricolour (1993) and The City and the River (1994), Sudhir Kakar s The Ascetic of Desire (1998) and Khushwant Singh s Delhi (1990) which echoed the image of Bombay in Rushdie s Midnight s Children. Of the most distinguished writers who came after Midnight s Children was Shashi Tharoor. His masterpiece The Great Indian Novel (1989) can be read as a political irony and hidden criticism. Besides mythical analogy, Tharoor has employed other literary devices, namely parody and trivia to attack the political hypocrisy, social corruption, and human deception. The salient feature of Tharoor s novel is his use of religious myth for purely secular purposes. The Hindu tradition of Mahabharata was re-read against the backdrop of political situation of the present. The battles for the good in the Mahabharata have been juxtaposed with the battles in the modern Indian scene for political gains. In a form of allegory, Tharoor made a concrete comparison between the glorious past of India as recorded in the Mahabharata and the post-independence contemporary history. His message of allegory is that the leaders, who have been honoured by the nation, betrayed it and turned out to be tyrants and dynastic dictators like their colonial masters. Tharoor s novel is, in fact, a biting commentary on the political history of modern India. The novel is modeled on the ancient epic the Mahabharata in terms of structure and issues, but it has the spirit of its immediate precedence Rushdie s Midnight s Children (1981), the first novel written in the aftermath of the Emergency that deals with national history. Being a novel about national history, The Great Indian Novel has some points of correspondence with Midnight s Children. Like Rushdie s novel, it is a memory novel and uses oral narration. If the former is about broken promises, the latter underlines betrayed experiences. Both novels, as M.K Chaudhury observes, aim to achieve an animated correspondence between myth and reality and use a

26 25 hybrid mode combining history, myth, autobiography, fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, song/verse and are written in a comic burlesque manner (106). Although Allan Sealy divides his time between India and New Zealand, he remains very much an Indian writer. Each of his novels to date, The Trotter-Nama (1988), Hero (1991), and The Everest Hotel (1998), bring something distinctly Indian to what is, after all, a European literary form. In this novel, Sealy adapts the Indian epic Nama form (a form once used to flatter emperors, and ideally suited to Sealy s expansive and digressive style), whereas in Hero, he transfers the formulaic masala movie of India s popular and prodigious film industry from celluloid to paper. In The Everest Hotel, he continues his interest in the form of the novel but leaves behind some of the more irksome postmodernist games that marked the earlier novels. What clearly links these three apparently disparate novels is Sealy s gift for storytelling (Jain 12-13). In a study of the development of the Indian novel in English, P.S.Ravi expounds that three factors have determined its structure: the features of the age, the historical situation in which the incidents of the novel take place, and finally, the writer s vision. Ravi also distinguishes between three major phases in its development. The first phase is imitation. In this stage, the Indian novelist comprised his novel, imitating and translating the form of the British writers, especially Walter Scott, Charles Dickens and Daniel Dafoe. According to Ravi, the 1930s marked the second phase in the development, that is, the phase of adoption. This phase is marked by the advent of the three important novelists of time, Anand, Narayan and Rao. The novel in this period witnessed some visible progress. The theme became Indian, but the structure and technique remained British. The third phase is

27 26 adaption. This phase represents the period of 1980s. It began with Midnight s Children, (1981). It can also be described as the stage of creativity. The novel became independent from the shackles of the British theme and structure. Rushdie s Midnight s Children is an example of creative work of this particular stage of development. It is a mark of visible growth in this regard for its adaption of the circular technique and optional suggestions of endings (11-35). It is also true to classify the 1980s novel as a postmodern novel which follows the principles of the literary critical theory of postmodernism. The dominant feature in this stage of development is the combination of the traditional devices and the new modern ones. The Indian novel in English reinforced its international position through some of the distinguished names in the later period. Of the writers who came in the late 1990s is Indrajit Hazra. He wrote The Burnt Forehead of Max Saul (2000). Hazra adopts fantasy and magic realism as a major narrative technique. Among novels that appear in this period are Upamanya Chtterjee s The Mammaries of the Welfare State (2000), Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya s Executive Life (2000) and Amit Chaudhuri s A New World (2000). Aravind Adiga s debut novel, The White Tiger (2008), won the 2008 Booker Prize. He is the fourth Indian-born author to win the prize, after Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai and V. S. Naipaul. Almost all novels in the late period are political in the sense that politics is the focal point of representation and that history is part of the schematic depiction of the political dimension. Further, the novels of the late period have nearly overcome the challenges of writing in English; they are marked by the experimentation at various levels of language, theme, and technique in a manner that they captivated the literary scene around the world. The mind and setting projected in the novels are prominently cosmopolitan.