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Indian English Poetry

• Although the inheritance of the English language went through many stages of
modifications in India, the most subtle impact of the British colony in India was the
English language. Indian English poets in the late 1940s started to adopt a post-
Romantic legacy that exchanged a received stylistic collection to local elements. And, it
continued for several decades without any radical breaking of European tradition. The
Indian English poets came from various backgrounds and they were united through the
use of the English language. Many of them read English as an academic subject, some
worked in journalism or media, but few of them had professional experience like Keki N.
Daruwalla, a police officer by profession, Gieve Patel was a doctor, and Jayanta
Mahapatra was a Physics teacher. The Indian poets of the period had two motives that
wreathed them together as Indian poets that their self-imposed compulsion to write in
English and the notion that nobody would write in any language except their own
language. The poets inspired by the second motive strived to make the English
language as their own and gradually elements of Indianness started to make its
presence felt in Indian poetry.
• The shift from the romantic tradition to a verse more about the postcolonial present that
expressively addressed the sentiments, ethos and anxieties of people of India,
earmarked the post Independence Indian English poetry. English and American
modernist poets like T. S. Eliot became standard inspirations for the Indian English
poets. One of the exponents of ‘new’ poetry in the post- Independence was Nissim
Ezekeil, a Bene-Israel original migrated to India, who was an admirer of T. S. Eliot and
W. H. Auden and who expressively writes about the search for identity and alienation,
which are also the major shaping forces of his poetry. Moreover, the post Independence
Indian English writers felt the need of sharing their thoughts to one another and that
necessitated the creation of ‘groups’ that facilitates the poets to discuss new trend and
developments in poetry in Europe. The notable contributor to the group formation was P.
Lal whose coherent efforts fructified the formation of Writers’ Workshop in Calcutta that
really ushered the beginning of ‘new poetry’ in India. The practitioners of the new poetry
unanimously believed that the English language was a boon for the nation as the nation
is fortified intellectually by the English language that has given a new lease of life to the
practitioners of creative literature. The group of modernist anthology actively worked by
P. Lal voiced for the need of a private voice in postcolonial present as, “we live in an age
that tends so easily to demonstrations of mass approval and hysteria.”
• The chief motive that inspired the Indian English poets to embrace the foreign language
was the scope and ranges that the language facilitated them. The new language
enabled them to get wider audiences that in reality brought modernity to India. In due
course of time, the Indian English poets intended to clothe new intensions in poetry.
Moreover, they also endeavoured to discover themselves in that process. One of the
early Indian poets to receive universal recognition was Dom Moares. He was the winner
of Hawthornden Prize in 1958 and was the first Indian poet to receive such a global
recognition. He represented the ‘new’ Indian English poets who lived in England for
many years and candidly proclaimed himself to be more a British poet than an Indian
poet, but The Penguin Companion to Literature expressively named him to be an Indian

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poet because of his considerable and indicative contribution to Indian poetry. His
sensuous imagery like “the curds/of sea” is a testimony of his poetic roots in India
despite his repeated protestations. Some of his well-known works are “A Beginning”
(1957), Poems (1960) and “John Nobody”.
• The Post Independence period saw the rise of many Indian poets in English with
international repute and among them are Nissim Ezekeil, A. K. Ramanujan, R.
Parthasarathy, Jayanta Mahapatra, Kamala Das are prominent but they are different
from each other from their outlook and experience. Nissim Ezekeil’s deliberate and
desperate attempts to become a part of Indian culture did not provide him efficacious
remedies to his incongruous identity formations that tried to address through his poems
but his success lies in his minor poems leaving behind traumas of alienation. His “Night
of the Scorpion” is one of the finest poems in Indian writing in English that poignantly
explored the cultural ethos of the Indian society behind the sting and tried to learn the
Indian views of evil, superstition and suffering. His poetry is a testimony of his mastery
skills and he is technically sound that he wrote his poetry in comprehensibly tight
structure.
• A. K. Ramanujan was one of the doyens of post Independence Indian poetry and a
versatile scholar, decided against returning to India and continued teaching in the
University of Chicago although he was born and brought up in India. His thirty years of
stay in India and his assimilation with Indian culture moulded his Indianness. His
analytical study of the Indian cultural ethos forms the structure of the poetry, and his
prolonged stay in England caused a note of assimilation of traditional Indian Culture with
the modern social outlook of Europe. “An outsider’s” portrayal of Hindu culture
interspersed with critical dissection of sensitive religious issues make him truly a
contemporary postcolonial Indian poet. Such an approach is all-pervasive in some of his
major poems like “The Hindoo: The Only Risk”, “The Hindoo: he doesn’t Hurt a Fly or
spider either”, “Some Indian uses of History on a Rainy Day”. His Contribution to Indian
English literature was recognised by Sahitya Akademi and was awarded the prestigious
Sahitya Akademi Award after his death in 1999 for his poetic collection The Selected
Poems.
• Jayanta Mahapatra was the recipient of Sahitya Akademi Award, he started his poetic
career with the publication of “Close the Sky, Ten by Ten” and continued publishing
various poetic volumes in English like “A Rain of rites”, “Waiting”, “Relationship” etc. His
colloquial style with striking images won the hearts of many readers. He frequently
portrayed the Jagannathan Temple with vivid imagery and extended his poetic forte to
reflect psychological conflicts in love and sensuality.
• The rise of Indian Women English poets becomes synonymous with the Indian
Independence as the PostIndependence Indian English poetry saw the emergence of
many female poets and Kamala Das became the doyen among them. Sexual frankness,
expressive sensual longing are some of the important traits of her poetry that made her
truly a post Independence Indian English poet. Her longing for physically intimate
relationship is expressively evident in her poetic line like “the musk of sweat between my
breasts.” A deeper study of her poems reveals that she did not attempt cheap popularity
but it portrays that she is ‘beloved and betrayed’. Her traumatic frustration in love and
marriage is evident in her autobiography “My Story”. She wrote three poetic volumes,
“Summer in Calcutta”, “The Descendants” and “The Old Playhouse and Other Poems”.
• R. Parthasarathy was also an important Post Independence poet who initially believed
the superiority of western culture and believed that he belonged more to England than to
India, but such a belief received a setback when he realised that his Indianness could
not be willingly diluted. His Rough Passage portrays the theme of identity formation
based to Indian and western cultures.

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Indian Drama:

Indian drama has a rich tradition and its origin can be traced back to the Vedic Period. Indian
plays were very simple in the Vedic Period and Sanskrit drama continued to flourish till the 15th
century, but its progress was hammered by the various nasty invasions. However, a new lease
of creative ingenuity was grown up after the British arrived in India as K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar
observes that the English education was the ‘open sesame’ to knowledge that encouraged
freedom and power. It effectively dilutes the old bonds of traditions and conventions. Thus, it
shed a new light into the dark rooms of bizarre faith, and transformed it to a new world with new
possibilities. However, Indian drama saw the comprehensive development after the
Independence as the dramatists before Independence did not give enough density to reliability
and ‘stageworthiness’ of their plays. Indian drama received a fresh start when Kendriya Natak
Sangeet Akademi got under way in January 1953. The setting up of Sangeet Natak Akademi in
1959 was another stimulus to the Indian drama. By 1960s, Indian English drama saw the
concoction of various fitting styles and techniques from Sanskrit and western theatre. By the
1970s, Indian English drama fully flourished in the hands of Badal Sincar, Vijay Tendulkar,
Girish Karnad and Mahesh Dattani. They were instrumental to the modernisation of Indian
theatre. Bold metamorphosis and efficacious experiments in terms of thematic concerns and
technical virtuosity accelerated the modernization of Indian theatre. Moreover, their use of
legends, myths, folklores, history fructified imposing results. They do, however, exhibited Indian
drama at national level as they dramatically intellectualised human life in India coupled with its
particulars and ingredients
• Modern secular plays were introduced in India by the British in the 19th Century. Since
then modern Indian theatre underwent several stages of changes with many
convolutions. Basically, in the 19th Century, two streams of drama were presented–one
was Shakespearean plays and classical Sanskrit plays. Shakespearean plays were
translated into various regional languages to cater to the needs of the Indian audiences,
as they preferred more to enjoy plays in their native language. The British’s arrival in
India and the consolidation of imperial power in India brought many contradictions and
conflicts that the first Indian playwright in English. Krishna Mohan Banerjea addressed
these convolutions in his plays. His “The Persecuted or Dramatic Scenes Illustrative of
the Present State of Hindoo Society in Calcutta” (1831) is a testimony of his eagerness
to represent the contradictions and conflicts of Indians with the British cultural ethos. The
most unique playwright of the mid 19th century was Tyagaraja Paramasive Kailasam
(1885-1946) who wrote in English and Kanada and his English plays were different from
Kanada plays. He believed that, “delineation of ideal characters requires a language
which should not be very near to us.” His English plays are based on myths of the
Mahabharata with a Shakespearean historical method, but his plays were severely
scrutinised by the drama pundits for his use of extravagant and bombastic Victorian
language
• Most of the playwrights of the mid 19th Century to mid 20th Century, followed classical
Indian myths and Shakespearean dramaturgy and Sri Arobindo, H. Chatopadhyay and
T.P. Kailasam were some of the major exponents in that period. In addition, the
playwrights of post Independence followed the similar trend and wrote on ethical and
moral issues. Dilip Kumar Roy wrote “Rama Rajya” (1952) in collaboration with Indira
Devi and the play used the epic story of the Mahabharata with an attempt to put a
modern touch in it. Swami Avyaktananda was another post Independence Indian
playwright chiefly known for his play “All Prophets Day”. The play addressed
convolutions related to national integration and secularism. However, the plays written
by Asif Currimbhoy (1928- 94) made a new beginning in Post Independence Indian
drama. His plays are rich in theatrical devices. He dexterously used dramatic devices
like monologues, choruses, songs, sound effects that accelerated theatrical impacts. His

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notable plays are Inquilab (1970) and Sonar Bangla (1972) that have substantial impact
on Indian politics in postcolonial India. His Hungry Ones (1965) is known for his
comment on human predicament that all human beings are in chains and none is free
that captivity comes from external forces or it could be family, religion, country and
society.
• With the treatment of epic stories to Shakespearean adoption, Indian English plays
moved along with Asis Currimbhiy’s theatrical experimentations. Indian English plays of
1970s started addressing contemporary political and social situations through unique
dramatic presentation by Gurucharan Das. His “Larins Sahib” (1970) is a clear indication
of his application of historical past the play is straightforward attempt to entertain
audiences instead of a supposed assumption to relate past with the present.
• The most enduring impact on post Independence Indian English drama was Ebrahim
Alkazi. He was first director of National School of Drama, and he was trained in London
at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He dexterously wreathed costume, music, light
design with acting and speech accelerated the beginning of a language that was unique
to the city audience. His fourteen years of stay in Bombay not only resulted in
presentation of notable English playwrights but also influenced many Indians to follow
his footsteps. Such an encouragement was capitalised by Nissim Ezekiel and Gieve
Patel. Nissim Ezekiel’s “Nalini” is considered to be the most successful play. His other
notable works are “Sleepwalkers” and “Marriage-Poem”. Gieve Patel was one of the
followers of Ebrahim Alkazi who believed that language has a special role to play in
theatre. In addition, his dexterous use of the English language is expressive in all his
plays and each play is so minutely constructed that he achieved the desired specific
end.
• Therefore, Indian English drama developed gradually along with playful experimentation
of the English language in the hands of Gieve Patel. He intentionally modified the
English syntax and grammar that fructified a unique rhythm of speech. As he says, “I
attempt to create a speech that perhaps does not exist in real life, but which never the
less appears perfectly natural on the stage when spoken with understanding by actors.”
• The plays of Asif Curimbhoy, Nissim Ezekeil and Gieve Patel among others emboldened
the later Indian English playwrights to consolidate its position in the world. Vijay
Tendulkar, Mahesh Dattani, Badal Sircar are some of the most famous Post
Independence playwrights who became popular in the latter half of 20th century. Vijay
Tendulkar is primarily a social analyst and his social commentary on the Indian social set
up from a journalist point of view is all-pervasive in his works. He never claimed to be a
champion liberator of women, but he raised voice against the negligible position
accorded to women. His preoccupation that women are the victims of the institutional
body of power constituted his major plays like— Kamala (1981) and Fifth Woman. He
was awarded Saraswati Samman for his play Kanyadan (1983), and the play exhibits
male chauvinism and hypocrisy.
• Mahesh Dattani is one of the renowned Indian English playwrights whose penetrating
insight into Indian urban society is widely extolled. His “Bravely Fought the Queen”,
“Dance Like a Man”, “On a Muggy Night in Mumbai” are esoteric to some extent, but the
vogue for socio-economic plays is well explored with subtle effects. These plays testify
his predilection for exploring a perverse relationship between postmodern urban society
and individuals. Pseudo work ethics, facades of honesty and an antipathy towards the
society and the world at large have precipitated the ethical standards of the Indian urban
society. Home has become an eyesore where people fight and clash to create their own
space and time. A perverse refusal to follow family bonding coupled with lack of
adaptability and preposterously narcissist attitude, have precluded from strengthening
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• Badal Sircar’s forte as a dramatist lies in delineating middleclass society, his projection
of modern life from the existential standpoint designed him as a truly postmodern Indian
dramatist. He is commonly known as the “barefoot playwright” who stands in the
vanguard of new theatrical movement in India. His Procession (1972) is a quest for a
real home in a so-called equal society. His other important plays like Bhoma (1974) and
State News (1979) are situated on his concept of the Third Theatre.

Indian Prose:
• To wield the English language for the explication of Indian views fructified new gateways
of the elucidation of Indian scenario. As you have read in the previous unit, Raja
Rammohan Roy was an ardent advocate of English education in India and he happened
to be the first Indian to write prose. In addition, Indian English prose never showed signs
of enervation. From the simple, pointed style of M. K. Gandhi’s prose to Jawaharlal
Nehru’s panoramic display of world history and then to the agile prose with political
sensitive issues constitute the major prose works following the Independence. Apart
from political prose, autobiography, travelogue, religious writing, historical writings as
well as social criticism continue to thrive in the context of postcolonial Indian prose.
• One of the exponents of non-fictional prose in the postcolonial India was Nirad C.
Choudhuri who ventures to explore political and religious development in India. His first
attempt at literary prose was a meticulous commentary on the quintessence of the
colonial Indian army. He highlights the unjust recruitment policy of the colonial Indian
army and its pernicious impact on society. Another remarkable contribution of N.
Choudhuri to Indian prose is “A Passage to India”; it was a result of his short visit to
England in 1955. He admired the British ethos and eulogised its rich cultural heritage,
but critics often say that his adulation was a result of observing British culture with a
rose-tinted spectacle. He redeemed his reputation with his more balanced work “The
Intellectual in India” (1967). He surveyed various intellectual traditions in India and
underlines the reformist zeal of the modern Hindu intellectuals and dogmatism of the
Muslim counterparts that diluted social reforms.
• Apart from the non-fictional prose, Indian English literature saw the phenomenal
development of literary criticism. Various factors are accountable for the remarkable
development, the opening of many different universities with Post graduate courses
have accelerated the proliferation of critical activities. Krishna Chaitanya is first among
the notable postcolonial Indian prose writer whose “A New History of Sanskrit Literature”
ventures to draw a balanced literary evaluation of the Sanskrit studies in India. Other
notable contributor was S. C. Sen Gupta who wrote Shakespearean Comedy and
Shakespeare’s Historical Plays. K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar is also a notable contributor to
post Independence literary criticism and his Shakespeare: His World and His Art exhibits
his proficiency as a literary critic

Indian Fiction:

• Indian fiction in English did not produce substantially important novels immediately after
the Independence because “many writers felt there was something unpatriotic about
writing in the language of recently departed”. Many Pre-Independence Indian writers
continued writing fiction but the recognition of R. K. Narayan’s creative prowess by
Sahitya Akademi provided the much-needed fillip to Indian fiction. He was awarded
Sahitya Akademi Award in 1960 for his “The Guide”. The Post Independent Indian fiction
saw the rise of character development and psychological depth, depth wise
developments of narrative than lengthwise development became the hallmark of Post
Independence Indian fiction. The writers were also haunted by a sense of alienation and

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were largely discontented from modern lives. Moreover, the advantageous social
condition was capitalised by the women writers and the theme of alienation came to “a
special edge in the numerous novels published by women in the period.” The most
prominent post-Independence women writers are—Anita Desai, Kamala Markandaya,
Nayantara Sahgal and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
• Perhaps the most prominent novelist to immerse in the upshots of Indian Independence
was Khuswant Singh. Various political developments after the ethnic violence caused by
the partition found its apt expression in his Train to Pakistan that was published in United
States under the title Mano Majra. The novel is an expressive representation of the
ramifications of partition. Simple villagers were living peacefully before the Partition
irrespective caste, creed and religion, but the situation was altered after Independence
when a mob became ferment to kill Muslims travelling through the village on a train to
Pakistan. Many innocent lives were saved at the cost of a generous and ‘impulsive Sikh
peasant’ who died when attempting to stop the attack. The novel become a critique of
corrupt officials, policy makers and politicians who fermented the whole situation in the
name of liberty. His other notable works are—I Shall not Hear the Nightingale (1959) and
Delhi: A Novel (1989).
• The emergence of psychological novelist provided a different colour to postcolonial India
fiction. Anita Desai was one of the post Independence novelist who has a pertaining
insight into the characters’ psyche that is praiseworthy. She fabulously made her
characters face success and agony through aesthetic experiences in their lives, and she
added a feather more to her cap by dexterously blending nature, experience, myth, and
cultural formation of an artist. Her notable fictional works are Cry, the Peackock; Fasting,
Feasting; The Artist of Disappearance; and In Custody. Another women novelist of
considerable repute is Nayantara Sahgal, the niece of Jawaharlal Nehru. Her novels are
critique of hypocrisy and shallow values of the upper class people of the society. Her
important works are—A time to Be Happy (1958), Storm in Chandigarh (1969).
• Most of the Post Independent Indian fiction writers were dissatisfied with the metropolis
and modernity. Arun Joshi and M. Anantanarayana were expressive in their
dissatisfaction with the metropolitan Indian culture. In his “The Apprentice” (1974), Arun
Joshi portrays the adaptation of a corrupt means by the government official to survive in
the post-Independent corrupt society and provided low quality materials in the Sino-
Indian war 1962, and the victim was one of his childhood friends. His other major works
are The Strange case of Billy Biswas, The Foreigner, The Last Labyrinth and The City
and the River.
• Like the Greek god Dionysos, who was dismembered and afterwards reassembled—and
who, according to the myths, was one of India’s earliest conquerors—Indian Writing in
English has been called ‘twice born’ (by the critic Meenakshi Mukherjee) to suggest its
double parentage. While, I am, I must admit, attracted to the Dionysiac resonances of
this supposedly double birth, it seems to me to rest on the false premise that English,
having arrived from outside India, is and must necessarily remain an alien there. But my
own mother tongue, Urdu, the camp argot of the country’s earlier Muslim conquerors,
became a natutralised sub-continental language long ago; and by now that has
happened to English, too. English has become an Indian language. Its colonial origin
means that, like Urdu and unlike all other Indian languages, it has no regional base; but
in all other ways, it has emphatically come to stay…
• Indian English, sometimes unattractively called ‘Hinglish’, is not ‘English’ English, to be
sure, any more than Irish or American or Caribbean English is. And it is a part of the
achievement of the writers in this volume to have found literary voices as distinctively
Indian, and also as suitable for any and all purposes of art, as those other Englishes
forged in Ireland, Africa, the West Indies and the Unites States.

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• However, the Indian critical assaults on this new literature continue. Its practitioners are
denigrated for being too upper middle class; for lacking diversity in their choice of
themes and techniques; for being less popular in India than outside India; for possessing
inflated reputations on account of the international power of English language, and of the
ability of Western critics and publishers to impose their cultural standards on the East;
for living, in many cases, outside India; for being deracinated to the point that their work
lacks the spiritual dimension essential for a ‘true’ understanding of the soul of India; for
being insufficiently grounded in the ancient literary tradition of India; for being the literary
equivalent of MTV culture, of globalising Coca-colonisation; even, I’m sorry to report, for
suffering from a condition that one sprightly recent commentator, Pankaj Mishra, calls
‘Rushdie-it is…(a) condition that has claimed Rushdie himself in his later works’.
• The first Indian novel in English was a dud. Rajmohan’s Wife (1864) is a poor
melodramatic thing. The writer, Bankim, reverted to Bengali and immediately achieved
great renown. For seventy years or so, there was no English language fiction of any
quality. It was a generation of independence, ‘midnight’s parents ’, one might call them,
who were the true architects of this new tradition (Jawaharlal himself was a fine writer).
Of these, Mulk Raj Anand was influenced by both Joyce and Marx but most of all,
perhaps by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. Raja Rao, a scholarly Sanskritist, wrote
determinedly of the need to make an Indian English for himself, but even his much
praised portrait of village life, Kanthapura, seems dated, its approach at once
grandiloquent and archaic. The autobiographer Nirad C. Choudhuri has been,
throughout his long life, an erudite, contrary and mischievous presence. His view, if I
may paraphrase and summarise it, is that India has so culture of its own, and that
whatever we now call Indian culture was brought in from outside by the successive
waves of conquerors. This view, polemically and brilliantly expressed, has not endeared
him to many of his fellow Indians. That he was always swum so strongly against the
current has not, however, prevented The Autobiography of An Unknown Indian from
being recognised as the masterpiece it is.