Counterrealism and Indo-Anglian Fiction

1. Counterrealism as Alternative Literary History

This book is at least partially a belated response to a significant , polemical, and neglected monograph entitled Indian Writing in English: Is There Any Worth in It? written by Subha Rao and published in 1976. The monograph is a re-working and elaboration of a paper presented, appropriately , at the University of Mysore, then the centre of Indo-Anglian and postcolonial studies in India. Had this trenchant critique of Indo-Anglian writing been written from the perspective of what has been dubbed the “colonial cringe,’’ namely, an uncritical defence of a canonical, largely British, tradition, a response would be an unprofitable exercise since it would seek to resolve on a literary plane what is clearly an expression of cultural bias. Rao’s work, admittedly, does include references to British literature–in fact, Middlemarch is used to judge the only Indo-Anglian text the author refers to, namely, Balachandra Rajan’s The Dark Dancer. But the core of the argument is derived from socio-cultural premises that have a specific and local significance for India, and by extension for countries and regions where alternative linguistic traditions have been revived and foregrounded as an auxiliary to decolonization and nationalism. The failure of Indian writing in English, Notes to chapter 1 are on pp. 189-90. 1 CHAPTER 1 Counterrealism as Alternative Literary History according to this view, is a consequence of factors more complex than that of a duality based on authenticity versus imitation. Subha Rao is not merely dismissive of certain authors or texts: rather, he questions the entire corpus of Indo-Anglian writing for its relevance to an Indian audience, importance in relation to social realities, and absence of formal sophistication. He identifies the project of writing in the English language as the cultural voice of a particular class, its power in postcolonial India, and its capitulation to the hegemonic effects of colonialism in the country. Says Rao: “Our writing in English is ‘the language’ of the urban rich and the educated classes, in association with a kind of life I call the unindian life, to which all of us aspire by the nature of our present ambitions and hopes” (12). English writing, from this perspective, reflects the voice of the colonizer, the vision of Prospero masquerading as the story of Caliban. The problematic status of the English language in relation to the vernacular languages, its valorization by the postcolonial elite, the associations that underlie the use of the language, the audience for whom the texts are intended, the distance that the works demonstrate from a vital indigenous culture, the temptation for authors to exoticize and present the local in a flattering or self-deprecating manner–all these form part of the critique: “When the mind fails in the language in which it is counted a great value to be successful , we will have false standards of success–and also false standards of mental development–because it is not our language, in which we may never be successful” (Rao 14). The hegemonic status of the language, its historical role in the process of colonization, and its declining popularity as a language of everyday speech are thus crucial factors in his evaluation.1 Rao argues that unlike the ambiguity associated with English, indigenous languages, in addition to having a rich and continuous tradition , have evolved with the growth of nationalism; their role has been more significant than that of English. Both at national and regional levels, the socio-cultural forces unleashed concurrently with decolonization found in Indian fiction and poetry a powerful 2 Counterrealism in Indo-Anglian Fiction medium of dissemination. Literature altered, questioned, reflected, and was in turn nourished by centrifugal tendencies in the national imaginary. Rao’s argument is cogent, and it is certainly possible to compile a comprehensive roster of texts that would substantiate his claim. However, his thesis finally rests on a simple binary system: namely, the preservation and celebration of an indigenous, authentic culture in a vernacular language versus mimicry, complicity, and subservience to an alien culture through a continued use of English. In this essentialist scheme, the mindset that goes with English writing “stands opposed to the value of our languages, of our religion, our metaphysics, our great rituals, our music, and our folk-spirit. In short, our life” (Rao 13). Rao’s argument is not entirely new, but its force lies in the way it combines the literary and aesthetic with the...