Raja Rao’s Kanthapura: New English Literatures Perspective By Dr. Shrikant Singh

Raja Rao’s Kanthapura: New English Literatures Perspective

By Dr. Shrikant Singh

Published in Ashvamegh Launch Issue, February 2015

India had a long history of literature in English before the present interest in post-colonial literatures but her writers were formerly considered minor trivial and provincial. Indian English novelists had the last touch with contemporary social reality. They lived in ivory towers built on the life of landed aristocracy of fairy tales or historical romances or religious scriptures. With the appearance of Gandhi on the Indian political centre-stage, the political life of India is recharge and Indian literary values reoriented.

With the publication of Raja Rao’s Kanthapura in 1938, Indian English fiction took a different and distinct turn. Kanthapura was a significant shift not only for what it said but also for the way it said. Only after mastering modernism and giving it local significance could the new literatures have joined the modern world (Encyclopaedia 1114). Therefore, Raja Rao in his Kanthapura, created a form of modernism – ironic, sceptical and innovative technique such as puranic texture and recurrent use of Hindu myths and legends which is Indian in subject – matter local language usage, local history, racial or national pride, political independence and demands for social justice are among the characteristics of the novel, as are concern with national mythology, with documenting local ways, usually in a realistic literary style.

It seems that Kanthapura is a unique novel of the time partly due to its highly innovative form n technique. Its form is unique because it is predominantly organic and natural – the characters, the event, the crisis, the glories of the Gandhian struggle and the desolation of the deserted village-the point where the novel ends – all seem to rise naturally in the Indian air from the soil just as wild flowers grow on a river bank. This organic quality of growth is one of the special features of Kanthapura as a novel, as a work of art. Moorthy, Range Gowda, Bhatta, Ratna, Subha Chetty, Rangamma, Venkamma and many other men and women seem to be rising from the soil of Kanthapura so naturally that they breathe life and activity into it and use words as natural tool of their feelings and innate desires. (Major Indian Novels, 36)

“Kanthapura is a novel of village life – a village in the far interior of Mysore in south India in the valleys of Himavathy….,” (C.D Narasimhaiah, 39) but it is no less true that Kanthapura is India in microcosm and that what happens in this village on the social, religions and political planes also happens in other villages (and cities) of India. Kanthapura is thus particular and general, specific and especial, highly individualistic as well as the universal in the creative writers cosmos. (Major Indian Novels, 23). The colonial conflict evident from the very first para “there on blue waters, they say, our carted cardamoms and coffee get into the ships the Red-men bring, and so they say, they go across the seven oceans into the countries where our rulers live,” (K:6) and an old man’s view that the British had  come to save our dharma “for hath not the lord said in the Gita, whensoever there is ignorance and corruption I come, for I, says Krishna, am the defender of dharma, and the British came to protect our dharma”(k-94) are representative conflict. Similarly the phenomena of caste-confusion, uprooting of craftsmen, winding gap between the height and the low and desolation of villages are common to all Indian villages.

Raja Rao quite successfully makes use of local style of English language. In fact, he creates an Indian variety of it and uses it with flexibility, ease and elegance. In Kanthapura, his form of  address, Bhattare from Bhatta, Moorthapa from Moorthy derived from original Kannad is indeed meaningful expression in English since it catches the original rhythm of Kannada speech. Many of Indian festivals such as Sankar-Jayanti, Harikatha, Bhajan etc. are expressed directly in the local language arouse their original emotions. These apart, the novel also uses some Indian phrase recurrently to evoke native ethos e.g. “To tell the truth,’ ‘he said this and that,’ ‘Going this way or that way, ‘ ‘For this reason and that reason’ (k:57), ‘if this government’s people were really sons of their father (k:99) etc.’ these are conscious expression of the novelist to enrich his Indian English language. It was the first conscious attempt to create an English dialect which could be adjusted to the Indian emotional make up to suit the Indian soil. He tries to create an Indian English, which could complete with Irish and American varieties of English. In the foreword of Kanthapura he says, “we have grown to look at the large world as part of us, our method of expression therefore has to be a dialect which will someday prove to be as distinctive and colourful as the Irish and American. Time alone will justify it (k:5). To quote Salman Rushdie “what seems to be happening is that these people who were once colonized by the language are rapidly remaking it, domesticating it, becoming more and more relaxed about the way they use it- assisted by the English languages enormous flexibility as of size, they are carrying out  large territories for themselves within its frontiers. (Encyclopaedia). But it was Kanthapura which gives K Pathak first the strength to say, “but the question whether Indian English were really capable of using English for creative purposes is already a matter of the past. N case of many writers of new literatures kinds of language distinguish people and differentiate the local from the colonizer and alien. Kanthpura’s language does not travel that far yet by replacing the stiffness of approved standard English with more natural, personal form of speech fulfilled a literary need.

Kanthapura superbly documents local ways in a realistic literary style. When there was no water in the village for long, the villagers would ask goddess Kenchamma, “tell us, Kenchamma why do you seek to make our stomachs burn?” similarly when Moorthy saw a half sunk linga he said, “why not unearth it and wash it and consecrate it? .. and so the Sankar – Jayanthi  was started that very day.” (k:13) Rangamma was told by a lady “every fellow with Matric or inter asks, “what dowry do you offer? How far will you finance my studies? I want to have this degree and that degree.” (k:33) Bhattare informs Rangamma the way people think in the city: “the public temples are under the government …. And I shall let the pariahs in and which bastered of his father will say, No? … but really aunt we live in a strange age … do you know in the city they already have grown up girls, fit enough to be mothers of two or three children, going to the universities? And they talk to this boy and they boy; and what they do amongst themselves, heaven alone known. And one, too, I heard, went and married a Mohomedan. Really, aunt, that horrible! (k:33).

The theme of Kanthapura is the continuity of Indian tradition in a rural setting as well as the political resurgence of the nineteen thirties in rural India. Deeply rooted in age –old Indian tradition the rural folks are deeply stirred and activated by the movement for gaining India’s freedom from foreign rule. Thus the legendry history of representative Indian village is brought in close association with its newly gained political consciousness, its deep stirring caused by

Gandhi’s defiance of the British Imperial power and movement of non-violent, non-cooperation, an effective tool for gaining independence.

Meaning, in Kanthapura, emerges from the relationship between two world, the fictional worlds created by Raja Rao out of his experience and the real world. And our understanding of Kanthapura will depend upon our realization of this relationship. Kanthapura is a novel or realistic situations, of political resurgence, a work of realism in fiction. It is the image of real life, observed in a visionary state of mind. In Kanthapura a significant phase of history of contemporary India is given a sense of immortality, a characteristic of a great fiction.

Kanthapura Raja Rao adapts the age-old Indian art of storytelling to the modern experiments made by European novelists and unquestionably evinces a rare skill in the handling of the narrative technique (kk Patrhak 65). It is written from the point of view of “I” as witness. Achakka, a simple, old village woman is the witness narrator. The weaving of Puranic texture in Kanthapura served a definite purpose “just as there are endless and innumerable purans as, so there are endless episodes in Kanthapura.” (Chetan Karnani 41). An important aspect of Raja Rao’s narrative technique is the extensive use of symbols, myths and legends. The novelist employs them in all his writing, and through them he not only fully explores and communicates his vision of life, his theme but also gives a compact form to this book. The mythical-cum-symbolic design of this novel coupled with its political and social overtones prompts us to believe that the novelist was very serious about his business in commingling fact and fiction, reality and illusion, the concrete and abstract, and by doing so he added an additional punch and meaning to his utterances (Dwivedi 162). Here myth has been used to enlarge the functionality o fiction. In fact myths are symbolic representation of human soul and represent the deepest expression of collective human imagination of the locale and as a representative voice of the entire nation, the national myth of Lord Shiva, Lord Krishna, Ram-Ravana have been woven into the texture of Kanthapura. The narrator of the novel tells us that as soon  tells us that as soon as Gandhi was born, “the four wide walls began to shine like the kingdom of the sun and hardly was he in the cradle than he began to lisp the language of wisdom,” (k:17) and then the image of Lord Krishna swims before the narrator of the tale:

“you remember how Krishna, when he was a babe of four, had begun to fight against demons and had killed the serpent Kali, so too our Mahandas began to fight against the enemies of the country. (k17) Similarly, the myth of Rama – Ravana very aptly signifies a fierce battle between the forces of Good and those of the Evil. Thus in Raja Rao’s Kanthapura myths work into text as a symbolic mode of expression. There seems a tendency towards selective recreation of reality. In such writers who use myth and history purposively literature acquires simultaneity with the present (Myth and History 7). Kanthapura uses both to present India where the past mingles with the present, and the gods mingles with men. (KV) Religion is so enmeshed with Indian’s life that even politics has to be served in religious garbs. Jayaramachar while serving political end’s says “Shiva is he here – eyed; and Swarj too is three- eyed: self –purification, Hindu – Moslem unity, Khaddar. Then he talks of Damayanthi and Sakunthala …. Never had we heard Harikatha like this (K:16).”

Viewed from new English literatures’ perspective, Kanthapura is a breakthrough indo-Anglian novel in many senses of the term. It is modern in terms of usage of modern technique, local language, theme and locale. The words of Meenakshi Mukherjee present a very clear picture:

“The novel in the sense we understand it today is concerned with circumstantial reality with the concrete and particular that are influenced very largely by time and place. In this sense Kanthapura is a modern novel and its oral tradition of mythicizing etc. is a well-chosen technique.” It is new literature also in terms of its relationship to nationalism and nationalist movement, treatment of issues of national pride, rejection of colonial values, in documenting local ways in a realistic literary style and of course in the use of national mythology. Protest which has built into new literatures which reflect a concern with feminism, social change, social injustice, alienation, exile and decolonization are naturally absent because Kanthapura predates Indian post-independence writings. Yet underpinning of some of protest tendencies cannot be ruled out of it.

Works Cited:

1.       Coyal, Martin and Others. Encyclopaedia of Literature and Criticism. Gale Research Inc. New York: 1991.

2.       Pradhan, N. S. Major Indian Novels: An Evaluation. Arnold Heinemann. New Delhi: 1985.

3.       Rao, Raja. Kanthapura. Orient Paperbacks, New Delhi: 2001.

4.       Narasimhaiah, C. D. Raja Rao. Arnold Heinemann. New Delhi and London.

5.       Mukherjee, Meenakshi, “Myth as technique in Twice Born Fiction”, Heinemann, New Delhi: 1974.

6.       Jha, Rama, Gandhian Thought and Indo Anglian Novelists. Chanakya Publications, New Delhi: 1983.

7.       Pathak, R.S. Indian Fiction in English. Problems and Promises. Northern Books Centre, New Delhi.

8.       Dwivedi, A. N. Papers on Indian Writing in English. Atlantic Publishers and Distributors. New Delhi.

9.       Rao, A. S. (ed) Myth and History in Contemporary Indian Novel in English. Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, New Delhi: 2000.

Introduction to the Author:

Dr. Shrikant Singh is the Head of English Department at Nava Nalanda Mahavihar, an international university in Nalanda. In addition, he is a course writer with I G N O U, New Delhi. His area of Interest includes public education through organizing seminars, workshops, debates and speeches on social, spiritual and interpersonal issues. His favourite area of interest is to explore the Interface between Buddhism and Literatures in English.

Kanthapura Summary

Kanthapura Summary

Next Foreword

Kanthapura recounts the rise of a Gandhian nationalist movement in a small South Indian village of the same name. The story is narrated by Achakka, an elder brahminwoman with an encyclopedic knowledge about everyone in her village; she tells the story in the meandering, nonlinear style of a sthala-purana, a traditional “legendary history” of a village, its people, and its gods.

Achakka begins her tale by situating Kanthapura in its immediate landscape, the Western Ghats mountain range in southwest India that has recently become a center of the British colonial spice trade. The village’s patron deity is the goddess Kenchamma, who fought a demon on the Kenchamma Hill above Kanthapura ages ago and has protected the villagers ever since. Achakka introduces the village’s numerous residents of all caste. She introduces the educated and well-off brahmins, including the wealthy orphan Dorè, who proclaims to be a Gandhian after attending a term of university in the city, and the much more beloved Moorthy, who refuses to marry into one wealthy family after another. Then she introduces the potters and weavers, who are largely turning to agriculture, and finally the pariahs, who live in decrepit huts at the edge of town. But caste does not always translate to wealth. The loincloth-wearing brahmin Bhatta and the shrewd but honest patel and sudra Rangè Gowda are the village’s two most powerful figures.

One day, Moorthy finds a linga (small idol depicting the Lord Siva) in Ahakka’s backyard and the brahmins begins convening prayers for it; soon thereafter, Moorthy begins collecting money from everyone in the village to have a Harikatha-man named Jayaramachar perform his religious discourse about Mahatma Gandhi’s promise to save India from foreign domination. This creates a commotion, especially as Moorthy begins to convert other villagers to Gandhi’s cause and a Muslim policeman named Badè Khan moves into town. Patel Rangè Gowda will not give Khan a place to stay, so he goes to the nearby Skeffington Coffee Estate, where the presiding Sahib offers him a hut among the workers. Meanwhile, Moorthy convinces various villagers to start spinning their own wool and weaving their own khadi cloth, since Gandhi believes that foreign goods impoverish India and sees weaving as a form of spiritual practice.

But Bhatta despises Gandhism, for his business runs on high-interest loans to small farmers who sell their rice to city-people. He decries the modernization of India and the erosion of the caste system, so he proposes establishing a brahmin party to fight Moorthy’s spreading Gandhism and wins the support of many villagers, most notably the rambling Waterfall Venkamma, the priest Temple Rangappa and his wife Lakshamma, Moorthy’s own mother Narsamma, and his own wife Chinnamma. Moorthy, who has a vision of Gandhi giving a discourse and decides to dedicate his life to the Mahatma’s work, wins over the wealthy widow Rangamma, at whose large house he stockpiles spinning-wheels and books about nonviolent resistance. The powerful Swami in Mysore promises to excommunicate anyone who “pollutes” the traditional system by interacting with people from different castes, and when Narsamma finds out that her son Moorthy will likely be first, she is distraught and refuses to associate with him. But he does not budge and, when the Swami excommunicates his entire family after Moorthy is seen carrying a corpse, Narsamma dies on the banks of the nearby River Himavathy and Moorthy moves into Rangamma’s house.

The narrative cuts to the Skeffington Estate, where the maistri convinces coolieworkers from impoverished villages around India to come do backbreaking work in horrible conditions at the estate. Their wages are low and the Sahib finds every available means to keep them indentured at the Estate for life, from beating them to raising the prices on daily goods to stealing their wages to, most insidiously, encouraging them to spend their money drinking at the nearby toddy stand. Nobody has managed to leave for ten years, even as a new Sahib has taken over who is kinder than the first (except to the women, Achakka notes, whom he systematically raped until he became embroiled in a legal battle for murdering a father who refused to give up his daughter). But Moorthy’s Gandhians, with the help of the brahmin clerk Vasudev, begin teaching the coolies to read and write and recruiting them to join the protest movement. Badè Khan breaks up one of these lessons, which only strengthens Moorthy’s resolve, and soon a coolie named Rachanna moves off the estate and into Kanthapura. During the commotion some of the coolie women grabbed the Khan’s beard, and Moorthy takes personal responsibility for this attack, which runs counter to the Mahatma’s doctrine of nonviolence. He fasts for three days, meditating continuously in the village temple and receiving visions of Siva and Hari as Rangamma, the wise elder brahmin Ramakrishnayya, and the widowed pariah girl Ratna care for him. He grows stronger, responding to threats from Waterfall Venkamma and Bhatta with love and resolving to launch what he calls the “don’t-touch-the-Government campaign.”

Moorthy approaches Patel Rangè Gowda with his plan, and the powerful town representative and landowner quickly resolves to follow the Mahatma. Together, they convene a Village Congress, which promises to serve as a local branch of Gandhi’s Congress of All India. Moorthy visits the house of the former coolie Rachanna, who is now living as a pariah in the village, but finds himself anxious at the thought of going inside or drinking the milk Rachanna’s wife Rachi offers him, since he grew up as a brahmin and has never actually been so close to a pariah. He does so nonetheless and soon convinces a congregation of confused pariah women to spin cloth and join the movement. But when he returns home, Rangamma makes him enter through the back and drink Ganges water to purify himself.

Bhatta soon realizes that he can lead Venkamma to “set fire where we want” if he can find her daughter a husband, so he arranges a marriage with his favorite lawyer, the middle-aged widow Advocate Seenappa. Shortly thereafter, during the holy festival of Kartik, the police come to Rangamma’s house and arrest Moorthy. Rachanna cries out, “Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!” (or, “Glory to Mahatma Gandhi!”), a battle cry that the Gandhians employ when the police attack them through the rest of the book. The police begin beating and arresting the rest of the villagers, taking 17 in total and releasing all but Moorthy.

In jail, Moorthy refuses the help of lawyers and spiritual leaders until Advocate Sankar, the Congress Committee Secretary in nearby Karwar city, tells him that the national movement needs him released. Moorthy falls at Sankar’s feet and the lawyer holds an enormous meeting for his benefit, although a nameless old man (whom the Swami has paid off) speaks in defense of the British government and the “Beloved Sovereign” Queen Victoria. The Police Inspector comes to the meeting and arrests another of its leaders, Advocate Ranganna, and news spreads fast in Kanthapura by means of a newspaper Rangamma has begun to publish. The villagers read it voraciously, with even the illiterate insisting that others read it to them, and they debate when and whether Moorthy will be released.

Rangamma and the Gandhian Nanjamma go to Karwar to visit Advocate Sankar, who is notorious for being an honest and socially-conscious man. Rangamma decides to stay for awhile, and meanwhile the colonial government fires Rangè Gowda, installing another patel for the village in his place. Moorthy is sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, and the wise elder Ramakrishnayya dies after stumbling into a pillar during heavy rains the following day. During his cremation, the Himavathy River overflows and swallows his ashes.

The villagers decide that the widowed girl Ratna should replace Ramakrishnayya to lead the village’s readings from Hindu scriptures, and after Rangamma’s return she begins to interpret the texts Ratna reads as calls for the end of British rule in India. The women resolve to form their own Volunteer group, and Rangamma begins to lead them in group meditation and drills to practice nonviolent resistance to beatings from the police. On an auspicious day soon thereafter, the villagers perform a ceremony honoring the Goddess Kenchamma before planting their fields, and Venkamma decides to move her daughter’s wedding to the same day as Moorthy’s homecoming from prison so that villagers will be forced to choose their allegiance. On the day he is supposed to arrive, the villagers wait to receive him but he does not come, until they realize that the police have secretly escorted him back into Rangamma’s house and go there to greet him, shouting Gandhian slogans and nearly starting another clash with the police.

Moorthy again takes the helm of the village’s Gandhian movement, reminding the others about their obligation to speak Truth, reject caste hierarchy, and spin wool each morning. The villagers follow the news of Gandhi’s protest of the British salt tax, in which he marches to the sea and makes his own salt, and they bathe in the holy Himavathy River at the precise moment Gandhi reaches the ocean and the police start arresting his followers en masse. Moorthy and Rangamma continue to lead the others in practice drills, waiting for orders from the national Gandhian Congress, but soon discover that the Mahatma has been arrested and decide to officially launch the “don’t-touch-the-Government campaign” by protesting toddy stands, refusing to pay taxes or abide by the colonial government’s orders, and setting up a “parallel government” for their village that keeps Rangè Gowda as Patel.

Two days later, 139 Kanthapura villagers march to the toddy grove near the Skeffington Coffee Estate and Moorthy refuses to honor the Police Inspector’s orders to back down. The Gandhians climb into the grove and begin tearing branches off the trees as the police beat them down with lathis and arrest three villagers: the pariah Rachanna and the potters Lingayya and Siddayya. They corral the rest of the protestors into trucks, which drive them off in different directions and drop them by the side of the road in various parts of the Western Ghats. The protestors march back toward Kanthapura, encountering cart-men who support Gandhi’s movement and offer to take them home for free as well as people in the nearby village of Santhapura who decide to join their Satyagraha movement.

The next week, the villagers repeat their protest, encountering various people from the region who proclaim their oppression under British rule and ask Moorthy to help them. When they reach the toddy grove, the Police Inspector marches the coolies off the Skeffington Estate to Boranna’s toddy stand, but the Gandhians convince the coolies to join the protest instead of drinking. The police are more violent this time, and they seriously injure Rangamma, Ratna, and Moorthy before dumping the rest on the side of the road, as before. But when they return to Kanthapura, the Gandhians discover that many of the coolies and Gandhi sympathizers from the region have decided to join them, and their movement continues to grow as they launch various other protests, get 24 toddy stands in the area to shut down, and closely follow the accelerating national protest movement.

Besides the few brahmins who still oppose the Gandhi movement, the villagers refuse to cooperate with the government, which infuriates the police and leads them to more and more aggressive tactics. The police barricade every exit out of town, secretly arrest numerous protestors (including the movement’s two main leaders, Moorthy and Rangamma) in the middle of the night, and begin assaulting female villagers. One officer nearly rapes Ratna, but Achakka and some of the other women Volunteers find her just in time and decide that she will be the new leader of the protest movement. This group of women, whose perspective the narrative follows closely from this point onward, hide out in the temple and watch Bhatta’s house burn down. But a policeman sees them and locks them inside overnight, until the pariah Rachi lets them out.

Three days later, the villagers undertake their fourth and most consequential protest against the police. Rich Europeans come to Kanthapura as the government begins auctioning off the villagers’ land, and they bring coolies from the city to begin working the fields. Gandhians from around the region, including Advocate Sankar, flood into the town to help the protest effort. Achakka and the other women begin questioning their loyalty to Gandhi, wondering whether nonviolent resistance will truly save their livelihoods, but soon the march is underway and the police are more vicious than ever before. One of the protestors raises the Gandhian revolutionary flag and the police begin firing against the protestors, massacring them even as they proclaim their commitment to nonviolence. The women hide out in sugarcane fields as they watch their neighbors and party-members get slaughtered, and as they begin to flee Kanthapura, Rachi decides to burn the village down.

Rachi makes a bonfire and sets the village alight before all the women continue marching as far as they can from Kanthapura, across the mountains and into the jungle, where people honor them as “pilgrims of the Mahatma” and offer them a new home in the village of Kashipura. In the year since Kanthapura’s destruction, Achakka explains, the villagers have scattered and moved on with their lives, and Moorthy has been released from prison, although he gave up on Gandhi, who started to compromise with the British, and decided to join Jawaharlal Nehru’s movement for the equal distribution of wealth. Rangamma is still in jail, and the only person who has returned to Kanthapura is Rangè Gowda, who tells Achakka that the village has been sold away to city-people from Bombay.

Jennings, Rohan. "Kanthapura Plot Summary." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 28 Jun 2018. Web. 12 Dec 2018.

Book Review

Live Love Light

An Anthology of poems by Parneet Jaggi

Published by Writer Workshop, Kolkata

ISBN 978-93-5045-93-2,

Total Page 76, Year 2015, Prize 150

Life is a great mystery. Poetry comes to convey this mystery and its meaning to the dwellers of the world. To understand poetry is perhaps more difficult than to write it simply because the poet is alone when he meditates and compose poem. But when a poem reaches in the hands of various kinds of persons, the man who interprets it has to be more cautious than the poet himself because the interests, the nature and intellectual gifts of all persons differ from one another in every respect. Some poets do not require any interpreters because they write in a simple way. Their poetry is thought provoking and philosophical. Parneet is one of such poets. She makes effort to organize her thoughts and feelings into a coherent, unified worldview. Her poems record thoughts and feelings experienced naturally over the course of life. Her second anthology Live Love Light the best example of this.

Live Love Light is a bunch of fifty eight beautiful poems written in a very reflective mood by a sensitive and spiritually inclined personality. In the very first poem ‘Lesson of Life’ Parneet yearns to surrender herself to the divine design. Her staunch faith in God is clearly visible. She was born in a Sikh family and Sikhism is the thread which binds all the poems in this anthology.

In Sikhism, it is claimed that only in human form, the living entity has the intelligence to understand divine laws and thus the soul could hope to free itself from the cyclical bondages of births, deaths and rebirths. It is asserted that the soul has ability to reach God only after being born in a human body. This thought is inherent in the poems of Live Love Light.    

In ‘Surrender’ she is very close to Swami Vivekananda who in his poem ‘Quest for God’ sings:

…….. it is He.
When dire calamity seizes me,
The heart seems weak and faint,
All natures seems to crush me down,
With laws that never bend.
Me seems I hear Thee whispering sweet
My love, "I am near", "I am near". 

            ‘Shower of Joy’ reminds me W. H. Davies’ poem ‘Leisure’. In the similar mood she says that beauty is scattered in nature around us and we have no time to look and enjoy it, perhaps because “We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”  So, she suggests “Let us relish showers of joy/and drive away all the gloom.” In ‘Chords’ she says that the things of nature and the events of world definitely cause trouble and vexation of spirit. In ‘Karma’ she marvels “Logic fails to calculate karmas/ Why need a record?” In poem ‘Brick and Cement’ she points out that all desires that perplex and bewilder us are certainly false and meaningless as they cannot satisfy and give happiness to us.

‘Go Home Ma’ is one of the best poems in English poems that I have read on the subject female foeticide. The consolation give by unborn girl to her mother definitely has power to bring tears in the eyes of humanity. In this anthology two poems are explicitly written on women: one is ‘The Woman’ and another is ‘Joys of a Woman’. Through poems like ‘God Chose You’, ‘A Free Gift’, ‘A Gift’, ‘The Ultimate Dwelling’ Parneet presents herself a very sensitive thinker and spiritually inclined poet. In the poem ‘Pain of a Koel’ she explodes the popular myth that Koel’s song is synonymous with beauty and perfection. The song is not of fullness and fertility but of the pangs of separation. Even the song of a koel is unable to express the depth of its sorrow.     

 Parneet’s greatest achievement as a poet of inwardness is her brilliant, diamond-hard language. Word and mood are intrinsically woven in the poems of Live love light. She writes aphoristically, meaning that she compresses a great deal of meaning into a very small number of words even then this can not make her poems hard to understand on a first reading.

Shakespeare in Indian Literature and Cinema

William Shakespeare, a born genius, myriad minded and skilled artist has a prominent place not only in English Literature but also in Indian Art and Literature. He has captured heart of all readers and in all ages. His plays have a special appeal on us –the Indians and that is why we enjoy his plays before we actually understand them.

It was 1775, when during American war of independence many things came to India from England and Shakespeare was one of them. It was he who touched the very heart and soul of Indian writers and scholars. And since then he has been the source of inspiration for countless writers, scholars, artists and film producers in India.

Shakespearean Literature has definitely crossed the limits of time and space and has been reigning in the literary world of different countries and different languages for centuries. In India the bard has become an inevitable part of the curriculum for teaching English in various universities and school boards. Critics feel that the striking peculiarity of Shakespeare’s mind was its generic quality, its power to communicate with minds so that it contained a universe of thought and feeling within itself.          He might be nothing in himself but he was all that others were or they could become.

It is generally believed that Richardson was the first who created literary taste for Shakespearean drama in the minds of Indian audience and the students of Bangal in the beginning of 19^th century. Richardson was a teacher and he used to teach his students how to recite and act the scenes of Shakespearean plays. In 1837, first time some students from Bangal performed The Merchant of Venice in the house of Governor. In 1853 students of Oriental Academy staged Othello.  The same group of students performed The Merchant of Venice in 1854 and Henry IV in 1855.

In 1868, Oriental Theatrical Company came into existence in Mumbai. After that some Parsi companies took over the task to play Shakespeare’s dramas in various parts of India. Actually these companies or theatrical groups paved the way for Shakespeare in Indian art and cinema.   These groups did a lot to popularise the bard in Indian society in local language. King Lear as Haar jeet in 1902, Twelfth Night as Bhool Bhuliayan (1905) and Anthony and Cleopatra as Kali Nagin are some of the translations by Parsi companies. But later translations like Raja Lear in 1915 and Measure for Measure as Bagula Bhagat in 1923 are perhaps better translations than the earlier ones. Translation of Shakespearean plays was first published in a magazine named ‘Shakespeare’ brought out by Narayan Parsad ‘Betab’ (1872–1945)

It is true that Shakespeare has been quite papular through translation and adaptation on Indian stage. Scholars and audience may have their own reasons for liking him; readers of all generations are attracted towards him. His plays have been translated in almost all Indian languages. In 1957-58 Rangeya Raghav translated fifteen plays in Hindi. Great writers of Hindi Literature like Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Amrit Rai and Raghuveer Sahey also tried their hands to translate the immortal plays of Shakespeare. Recently Surjeet Hans, a retired professor from Punjabi University, translated all plays of the bard in Punjabi.

Hindi writers and playwrights like Jai Shankar Prasad and Upender Nath ‘Ashq’ adopted Shakespearean plays in their different creations. These masters took hints from the bard’s plays and used them in their own creations in a different manner. For example some critics trace Lady Macbeth in the character of Anant Devi in the famous play Skandgupta by Prasad, Chacha Beta of ‘Ashq’ resembles with King Lear, Sanjogita Swayamvar by Shreenivas Das has the antecedents of The Merchant of Venice. Our national leaders like Pt. Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi were also influenced by Shakespeare. It is said that Pt. Nehru culled an epigraph from Shakespeare’s sonnet in his book The Discovery of India.

The themes of Shakespearean drama are beautifully woven in the texture of Indian cinema. Noted Bollywood director Vishal Bharadwaj quoted as saying: 'Shakespeare is the greatest storyteller ever. His stories have layers of spectacular human drama. I think they can be adapted anywhere and in any language. I can live my whole life on Shakespeare.' Adapting Shakespeare's work to Indian ethos is the latest 'in' thing. After critical acclaim for the 'Macbeth'-inspired 'Maqbool', director Vishal directed 'Omkara' - based on 'Othello' with the badlands of Uttar Pradesh as background and Haider –based on Hamlet with the background of Kashmir. Vishal is not the first to adapt Shakespeare. The prolific writers have been adapting earlier in Bollywood productions. Some Bollywood blockbusters, including 'Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak', were said to be inspired by 'Romeo and Juliet'. Likewise, Gulzar's acclaimed 'Angoor' was based on 'The Comedy of Errors'. Director Sohrab Modi recreated Hamlet in his 1935 film, Khoon ka Khoon, with some scenes even utilising a portrait of Shakespeare as a prop. And the list is very long.

Habib Tanveer not only translated many plays of Shakespeare in Chhatisgarhi dialect but also adopted the same style, prose and blank verse in his writing and made the bard available in the remote area of rural India. The finest example is Kam Dev ka Apna Basant Ritu ka Sapna which is the translation of Mid Summer Night Dream.

Shakespeare is universal. It is his vision of life and art that cross the boundaries of culture, space and time. In his own words:

              How many ages hence

             Shall this our lofty scene be acted over

             In states unborn and culture unknown.    

Gandhi on Education

Nation is to commemorate century year of Mahatma Gandhi’s return to India from January 2015. With the arrival of Gandhi a gust of fresh thoughts rejuvenated India. He through his speeches and writings touched every cord of Indian life and education is one of them.  Gandhi’s views on education have been compiled and edited in two slim books, Basic Education (1951) and Towards New Education (1953).  These writings are mostly miscellaneous, consisting of letters, speeches, extracts from books, and so on, but together they may be taken to constitute a coherent philosophy of education.

            Mahatma Gandhi had read Emerson, Ruskin and Mazzini. He also had read The Upanishads. All confirmed the view that education does not mean knowledge of letters but it means character building, it means knowledge of duty. This belief is articulated in his life and works. He believes that generally people do not have any idea of what true education is. We assess the value of education in the same manner as we assess the value of land or of shares in the stock exchange. We want to provide only such education as would enable the students to earn more. We hardly give any thought to the improvement of character of the educated.

In a letter to his son Ramdas, Gandhi writes: “True education lies in serving others; oblige them without the feeling of one-uppishness. ... I am not worried about your bookish learning as long as you perform your duties and observe solemn ethical conduct. For me carrying out fundamentals of ethics is duty.” For Gandhi to do good to others and serve them without any sense of egoism – is the real and true education.   

According to Gandhi the true occupation of a man is to build his character. It is not necessary to learn something special for earning. Gandhi was of strong belief that the man who does leave the path of morality never starves. So he advises his son in a letter that learning to live a good life is in itself education. All else is useless.

In his book Hind Swaraj he writes: “What is the meaning of education? It simply means knowledge of letters. To teach boys reading, writing and arithmetic is called primary education. A peasant earns his bread honestly. He has ordinary knowledge of the world. He knows fairly well how he should behave towards his parents, his wife, his children and his fellow villagers. He understands and observes the basic rules of morality. But he cannot write his own name. What do you propose to do by giving him knowledge of letters? So the knowledge of letters does not make men of us. It does not enable us to do our duty.”

He once said that education is that which helps us to know the atman, our true self; God and truth. To acquire this knowledge, some persons may feel the need for a study of literature, some for a study of physical sciences and some others for art. But every branch of knowledge should have as its goal knowledge of the self. That is so in the Ashram. Students carry on numerous activities with that aim in view. All of them are, in Gandhian sense of the term, true education. Those activities can also be carried on without any reference to the goal of knowledge of the self. When they are so carried on, they may serve as a means of livelihood or of something else, but they are not education. In an activity carried on as education, a proper understanding of its meaning, devotion to duty and the spirit of service are necessary.

Gandhi was of firm belief that literary education should follow the education of the hand- the one gift that visibly distinguishes man from beast. He says that it is a superstition to think that the fullest development is impossible without the knowledge of the art of reading and writing. That knowledge undoubtedly adds grace to life, but it is in no way indispensible for man’s moral, physical or material growth. His purpose is to “put training in craft on the same footing as education in letters. Those who thoroughly understand this point will never be eager for a literal education at the training in craft. Their book-learning will shine better and also prove of greater benefit of the purpose.” In this way, Gandhi wants our education has to be revolutionized. The brain must be educated through the hand. He asks, “Why should you think that mind is everything and hands and feet nothing?” Those who do not train their hands and go through the ordinary rut of education, lack ‘magic’ in their life. An education which does not teach us to discriminate between good and evil, to assimilate one and eschew the other is a misnomer. 

Gandhi says that there are certain aims of education and first of them is nationalism. He writes that education is just a means. If it is not accompanied by truthfulness, firmness, patience, and other virtues, it remains sterile and sometimes does harm instead of good. The object of education is not to earn money, but to improve oneself and serve the country. If this object is not realized, it must be taken that the exchequer spent on education has been wasted.

Indian community must realize that without the right kind of education the community will not only remain backward, but become increasingly so. Knowledge is justified only when it is put to good use and employed in public cause.

Addressing students at YMCA, Madras on April27.1915 he asks: “Are you receiving an education which will make you worthy to realize that ideal which will draw the best out of you, or is it an education which has become a factory for making Government employees or clerks in commercial offices? Is the goal of the education that you are receiving that of mere employment whether in the Government departments or other departments? If that be the goal of your education, if that is the goal that you have set before yourselves, I feel and I fear that the vision the Indian society pictured for itself is far from being realized.”

  In Young India, (1 October, 1919) he writes “If education is to be bought at the price of manliness and self-respect, the price is too heavy. ‘Man does not live by bread alone.’ Self-respect and character are above means of livelihood or a career. I am sorry that so many students have taken their expulsion so much to heart. The parents as well as students must revise their ideas about education. Education is treated merely as a means of earning a livelihood and acquiring a status in society. These are not unworthy ambitions. But they are not everything in life. There are many other honourable means of acquiring wealth and status. There are many independent activities in life which one may undertake without having to contemplate loss of self-respect. And there is no better or cleaner passport to status in society than honesty and selfless service of fellow-beings. If, therefore, after due effort, the college door remains banged in the students’ faces, they should not lose heart but seek other means of livelihood. And if the other students will empty the recalcitrant colleges as a matter of respectful protest, they and India will not be losers, but both will be considerable gainers.”

Fearlessness is the foundation of all education, the beginning and not the end. Purity of personal life is the other indispensable condition for building a sound education.

Gandhi exhorts that teachers must be men or women of high moral character. Conditions must be created to enable the poorest Indian to receive the best possible education. There must be a happy union of literary knowledge and Dharma. Education must be related to the conditions of life in our country. And the heavy burden on the minds of young men resulting from the use of an alien language as the medium of instruction must be removed. Unless education is reshaped so as to fulfill the foregoing the level of the life of Indian people cannot be raised. True national education should be imparted through the language of each province. The teachers must be men of high ability. The school should be located at a place where students would get clean drinking water, pure air and a peaceful atmosphere. The surroundings must be perfectly healthy. The scheme of education must provide for securing to the students knowledge of the main occupations and religions of India.

In Harijan 2 November 1947, he writes that the Basic Education has grown out of the atmosphere surrounding us in the country and is in response to it. It is, therefore, designed to cope with that atmosphere. This atmosphere pervades India’s seven hundred thousand villages and its millions of inhabitants. Forget them and you forget India. India is not to be found in her cities. It is in her innumerable villages.

The following are the fundamentals of Basic Education:

1. All education to be true must be self-supporting, that is to say, in the end it will pay its expenses excepting the capital which will remain intact.

2. In it the cunning of the hand will be utilized even up to the final stage, that is to say, hands of the pupils will be skillfully working at some industry for some period during the day.

3. All education must be imparted through the medium of the provincial language.

4. In this there is no room for giving sectional religious training. Fundamental universal ethics will have full scope.

5. This education, whether it is confined to children or adults, male or female, will find its way to the homes of the pupils.

6. Since millions of students receiving this education will consider themselves as of the whole of India, they must learn an inter-provincial language. This common inter-provincial speech can only be Hindustani written in Nagari or Urdu script. Therefore, pupils have to master both the scripts.

Gandhian educational ideas, founded as they are on certain eternal principles, will not lose their fundamental relevance in the years to come. Policy makers will have to think of a self-supporting primary education, which will improve the lot of the poorest of the poor.  That such an education would be based on action, problem-solving, and practical activity, rather than mere book learning is also perfectly valid.  An integral education, which allows the whole being of a person to grow, an education which emphases character-building and cultural identity, is once again, obviously desirable.  It is equally clear that nation has failed miserably in state-sponsored schemes to provide free, compulsory primary education to all.  The Gandhian model, therefore, retains its relevance and attractiveness. 

References:

Gandhi, M. K.  Basic Education.  Bharatan Kumarappa, ed.  Ahmedabad:  Navjivan,

1951.

-----. Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule.  1909; Ahmedabad: Navjivan, 1984.

-----.  Towards New Education. Bharatan Kumarappa, ed.  Ahmedabad:  Navjivan, 1953.

Varkey, C.J.  The Wardha Scheme of Education:  An Exposition and Examination.

Madras:  Oxford University Press, 1940.

GAURI: A FEMALE SUBALTERN WHO CAN SPEAK

The Peasant Woman by Russian poet Nicholai Nekrasov, the story of Sita in Ramayana and the writings of Ali Sardar Jafri inspired Anand to write his tenth novel Gauri. It was first published in 1960 under the title The Old Woman and the Cow and later re-issued by Orient Paper-back in its present name. Anand, who is the creator of memorable male characters, portrays for the first time a woman in her tenderness and resilience. In the author's own words, Gauri is "my offering to the beauty, dignity and devotion of Indian women." The novel fore-grounds the issue of gender, apropos of the rebellious behaviour of a young rustic Punjabi wife, first given in a marriage to a poor and violent villager, then sold off by her mother to an aged merchant and finally rescued by a benevolent medical man.

            This novel, as indeed all Anand's fiction, expresses his indisputable concern for suffering humanity. It forces one to ask a few questions about the Indian character. We do call our woman 'Devi', 'Mata' and 'Luxmi' and claim that our society has always been giving due respect to women. But at the same time, we also beat them, set them ablaze or turn them out of the houses. Gauri eloquently exposes the hypocrisy of our society. It not only voices a strong protest against the ill treatment of women but also explores through the example of a poor and illiterate girl what woman in India should do for her emancipation.

            Gauri is depicted by Anand as a female subaltern, subjected to an inferior status in a male-dominant society. The removal of the disabilities of the Indian woman and her freedom from various forms of oppressions and suppressions has been an unending process. It is true that the law of the land does not admit of inequality on the basis of sex, but old social and psychological habits and reactionary resistance of the orthodox sections of society initiate against the law. The conventions of society create a subordinate status for a woman who is denied the freedom to take decision, even with in a family. Anand's novel presents his deep concern for the subaltern status of women which renders them as slaves "bound and fecund for the service of the hearth."

            Through the pathetic character of Gauri, Anand has shown that suffering is inevitable lot of women like that of any other subaltern. He attempts, in Gauri, to subvert the patriarchal order which perpetrates marginalization of woman. Like a true feminist, the writer opposes sexism and endeavours to arise and transform 'false consciousness' which subjugates women.

            Woman in the Indian society has to play the traditional roles like a submissive wife, procreative agent or an incarnation of sacrifice and so on. Gauri fits into the category of the submissive wife in the beginning of the novel. When Panchi, the bridegroom rides her pony to the wedding place to the accompaniment of Angrezi music, he tries to imagine his would be wife "for there was the prospect of the prize of a girl whom he could fold in his arms at night and kick during the day, who would adorn his house and help him with the work on the land." (p.11) He remembers how his parents- in- law kept up the constant refrain during the negotiation that "Gauri is like a cow, very gentle." (P.11) The metaphor of the cow easily brings to our mind the docility, sublimity,   harmlessness, virtue, holiness and such other properties attached to the animal in Hindu religion. Panchi felt like a holy bull going off to marry the little cow Gauri (P.13).

            The metaphor of "holy bull" and "Cow" easily bring out the contrast between the dominating party and the submissive party respectively. Eventually the wedding between Panchi and Gauri takes place in spite of the incidental problem of dowry hindering the matrimonial procedure. Panchi is able to have the first look at his wife only after the marriage when she is ceremonially received into his family. Gauri begins her matrimonial life as a docile wife. She has, obviously, accepted all the norms of the patriarchal society and therefore, tries to conform to them as far as possible. She nourishes all the rosy dreams about her future and tries to be 'Sita' as her mother advises her.

            But life is not as simple as she thinks. The familial as well as societal environment seems to be very antipathetic to her. After the marriage, Panchi, a chauvinist, rules over her like a master over a slave. He forces her to submit to his impatience and pettiness without protest. Her duties are to cook, to clean, to please her husband's libidinous desires and to submit herself humbly to his male chauvinism and physical violence. He asserts again and again his male prerogative to beat and 'chastise the wife if she goes wrong' in the name of 'Dharma'. There is draught and famine for which Gauri is blamed as she is considered an inauspicious bride. Panchi’s joint family life breaks up. This mishap too, is ascribed to her evil presence.

            Away from the joint family and undisturbed by Kesaro (aunt of her husband), Panchi and Gauri come closer. He slowly begins to understand her love and affection for him.

            But one day the wicked Kesaro visits again and poisons Panchi's mind against Gauri. Hearing the destructive words, Gauri picks up unexpected courage and catches hold of Kesaro by the bum of her hair and pushes her out of their house. After her departure, the idea of Gauri's evil stars injected in him by Kesaro continues to possess Panchi. Above all, Kesaro's accusation of Gauri's liaison with Raj Guru in his absence arouses suspicious in him over her character. Gauri's devotion and ardent love for him makes his mind oscillate between loving and hating her. One morning she tells him shyly: “I am with a child and we shall have another mouth to feed." (P.101) but instead of getting excited by the news, he kicks her shouting: "Go, go, and get out of my sight. Go to your mother, the whore...." She fells at his feet, begged with hand joined before her for head. "Do not send me away."(P.102) But he kicks her left and right.

            Gauri, broken hearted due to unexpected behaviour she gets from her husband, prepares to leave the house because mother in her makes her realize her responsibility of protecting the child in her womb. Nothing can, perhaps, be more pathetic for a woman in our country than to be driven out by her husband, to go back to her parent's house, to be considered an unnecessary burden. Anand portrays this single episode in two ways. In his short story 'Lajwanti', Lajwanti comes to her parents' home after being beaten by his brother- in -law Jaswant .But her father takes her back to her parents- in- law's house and says, "Kill her if you like." The poor Lajwanti has no option but to commit suicide. She jumps in a well but is saved to suffer more humiliations.  In Gauri, the poor Gauri is sold by her parents "in lieu of cash and wiping out of the mortgage on house as well as the cow, Chandari."

            She is bought and brought by force the Hoshiarpur by Seth Jai Ram Das. The Seth tries to win her heart by putting up a garb of religiosity and also by offering her jewellery. Gauri resists his advance through her hysteric fever. Sensing her illness, Jai Ram Das calls doctor for her medical treatment. Jai Ram Das tries again to woo and win her heart with several gifts, but Gauri is very firm in her rejection of him as her husband. She tells him that she could be his servant rather than his wife. As he has bought her he wants to have his money's worth. Although she has been trapped into a dire situation by the contingencies of her life, she  grows very alert about her goal of life. It is her belief in wifely loyalty to Panchi and chastity which enable her to retain her integrity against all the odds of life.

            When her physical illness becomes problematic, she is hospitalized in Col. Mahindra's Nursing Home. The Nursing Home proves a turning point in her life. Dr. Batra, the partner of the nursing home is strongly attracted towards the young and pregnant Gauri. He wants to help Gauri and he also has his own axe to grind. He warns Seth Jai Ram Das, "I hear this girl has been bought by you for cash from her guardians. I shall report this matter to the police" (P.140).The Seth tries to defend himself by clarifying the fact that "I have put ‘chaddar' on the woman and married in that way"(140). With the helps of doctors and by the assertion of Gauri, it is finally arranged that Gauri should be retained in the hospital as an employee. The Seth grows helpless and gives up the idea of possessing Gauri any more.

            But a wife living away from her husband is never safe as she becomes the object of temptation for the lusting men. A sophisticated womanizer, Dr. Batra pursues Gauri systematically. Gauri is not aware of his elaborate plan of seduction. One day, when Dr. Batra is about to seduce Gauri in the hospital room, Miss Young prevents it by bringing it to the notice of Col. Mahindra. Thus, Gauri undergoes a hell of trouble on account of her youth and gender. She like Tess suffers on account of the predatory male attention to her beauty. The admirable quality in Gauri is her sterling integrity.

            Meanwhile, Gauri's husband Panchi repents on having abandoned his wife. He goes to the parents'-in-law's house to bring her back. Laxmi (Gauri’s mother) repents her sin and brings back Gauri from Mahindra's Hospital. But when she comes back to Panchi, he is again torn between his desire for her loving presence and his suspicion of her chastity. Gauri's warmth, however, strengthens him and he is able to give a befitting treatment to the gossip-mongers. But the strength again wanes when he has to face the people of the village who are bent upon making him realize that he has made a mistake by accepting his wife after her being stayed in somebody else's house in Hoshiarpur. His suspicion of the wifely chastity in recognition of the social opinion is easily comparable to the archetypal situation in the Ramayana where Lord Rama has to clarify the washer- man’s doubt about Sita's chastity by abandoning her. Panchi wants to test his wife, he asks her, "Tell me the truth, bitch......What is the proof of your purity." (262) .She says, "I have been true to you." The suspicion in Panchi about her is so strong that he behaves very irrationally. He kicks her saying, "You have cut my nose, bitch from Peplan Kalan! What curse upon my fate prospered in my marriage with you, daughter of a whore?"

            Gauri is so deeply hurt by his irrational accusation that she does not want to be cowed down by it. Her stay in Dr. Mahindra's Hospital has awakened her sense of identity and courage of conviction. The courage born out of her inner purity enables her to defy the irrational husband and the gossip-mongering society. She asserts, “And if you strike me again, I will hit back" (263) When Hoor Banu tries to console her she says, "They are telling him that Ram turned out Sita because everyone doubted her chastity during her stay with Ravna!....I am not Sita that the earth will open up and swallow me. I shall just go out and be forgotten of him..." (264)

            Panchi has behaved like Rama by listening to the loose tongues of the village but Gauri refuses to be like Sita. She has obviously, grown from the stage of docility to that of defiance in spite of being uneducated and rural. "Her face shone from the pressure of her stricken heart, transfigured from the gentle cow's acquiescent visage of the time when she had arrived in Panchi's house, to that of a woman -with a will of her own." (264) She knows that she is carrying the child of Panchi in her womb, but she cannot accept his atrocities any longer. She wants to go to Dr. Mahindra's hospital to deliver her child so that" her child would not be the coward the Panchi was or as weak as she had been." (264)

            Gauri is not presented as a meek and docile woman, as most of the heroines of Tagore are. She shows her real vim in the circumstances when they become seemingly uncongenial. The cow-like gentle Gauri presented in the first chapter, under goes epic transformation mainly through suffering and at the end of the novel, she succeeds in vindicating her right to an independent life free from the Violations and abrasions of male supremacy. Gauri is, definitely, not a ‘revolutionary woman’ but an individual who has convincingly succeed in becoming a human and whole and refuses to be a subaltern.

                                                                             

                                                           REFERENCES

   Anand, Mulk Raj.   Gauri.  New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann; 1981