Indian Writing in English

Series on Indian Literature: Part 2

Indian Writing in English (IWE) is the segment of Indian Literature that is closest to my heart.

The Beginning

English was introduced as a medium of instruction in the Indian education system, alongside several other British colonies, by Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1835. English literature was introduced as a subject in universities at this time.

Today, a little over 25% of the children in India attend English-medium schools, second only to Hindi-medium schools which are attended by about 40% of children.

The first novel published in India in English was ‘Rajmohan’s Wife’ by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1864 (Goodreads Page). It’s a potboiler set in feudal, rural Bengal (east India). It has been favourably reviewed by Oindrila Mukherjee of Scroll.in in a series on ‘near-forgotten books from the past that are worth reading in the 21st Century’. She writes, ‘I recommend reading it for itself, for pure entertainment, preferably on a night when the rain is clattering on your windows and the wind is howling outside, threatening to knock all the books off your bottom shelf.’

Salman Rushdie, on the other hand, pointed to ‘a sense of artifice and discomfort of the earliest users of the English language’ and called this novel a ‘dud’ in the ‘Introduction to The Vintage Book of Indian Writing: 1947-1997, edited by Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West.’

Be that as it may, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay went on to write exclusive in Bengali after this debut work in English and these later Bengali novels received much more acclaim.

The Complexities of Indian Writing in English

About 55% of the books sold in India are in English, followed by about 35% in Hindi. The other vernacular languages have a much smaller readership. However, recently there has been a surge in the translations to the vernacular languages, pointing, perhaps, to a growing segment of non-English readers in India.

The discussions around IWE can be quite polarising. Many IWE authors, including me, are often asked: how Indian is a novel written in the language of the colonisers? The question underscores an implied essence to what it means be an authentic Indian. IWE writers are also labelled as imitative and accused of lacking creativity/novelty.

Most of this ‘feedback’ from India, if it can be called that, is not about the work itself, but about identity, class and power. Writing, in general, is often a pursuit of those with a certain economic and/or cultural privilege. Writing in English is perhaps more so.

The discussion with readers of Indian Literature, or IWE, abroad tend to be around other topics like: ‘Why do you choose to write in English?’ It can come from any point of view ranging from the more curious ‘Is it your first language?’, ‘Are you as comfortable writing in English as you would be in your mother tongue?’ to the more intolerant ‘I don’t think that qualifies as either Indian or English language literature.’

To all this, my response is simple. Writers should be free to choose the language they write in. Several exophonic writers make a conscious choice about their literary language, for several reasons. For Indian writers to choose English as their literary language, the reasons are manifold. A few of those, I highlight below:

1. With 22 official languages and hundreds of dialects, English is the de facto lingua franca in India. For a writer with an interest in wide readership, it’s perhaps the question of what gives their work the widest possible audience.

2. When the medium of instruction in schools is English, one learns everything in English. It becomes natural to express oneself, especially while writing, in English. In such schools, Hindi or another local language, is taught as a separate language. That’s the only subject for which one reads and writes in a local language. This is not to say that it’s not possible for writers to write in their local language, it’s just to say that it’s perhaps not the natural path. I know a writer who made a conscious choice to write in Hindi as he grew older and developed a political reservation against English. But it is an exception, not the rule.

The choice of the language is also about the belief that authentic Indian writing can only happen in a local language. In the same introduction to the anthology, Rushdie writes, ‘…the ironic proposition that India's best writing since independence may have been done in the language of the departed imperialists is simply too much for some folks to bear. It ought not to be true, and so must not be permitted to be true.’

While it can seem arrogant without context (and because Rushdie also included his own writing in the anthology), it makes sense as a response to a generic vitriol against IWE. Criticism against a particular novel is understandable, but against an entire category or a group of individuals is intolerance.

Amit Chaudhury, an IWE writer, indirectly responded to Rushdie’s remark: ‘Can it be true that Indian writing, that endlessly rich, complex and problematic entity, is to be represented by a handful of writers who write in English, who live in England or America and whom one might have met at a party?’

I don’t have the broader context around this statement, but if I were to venture a response, it would be something like this: Indian writing cannot be fully represented by any sub-section of writers. It is represented by all Indian writers. Those who write in English, and those who write in another Indian language; those who live abroad, and those who live in India. Anyone who claims one small subsect is more or most representative of Indian writing, (and if one reads Rushdie’s introduction in entirety, it’s not the claim), is simply mistaken. As writers, and as readers first, we are fortunate to have a diversity of voices and languages that make up Indian writing.

It is possible that the best of Indian writing, according to a particular reader or a panel of judges, might be in English. Why not? It’s perhaps equally likely to be in Hindi, or Bengali, or Tamil or another local language for another reader or a panel of judges.

Amitav Ghosh withdrew his novel The Glass Palace from Commonwealth Writers’ Prize after it won “Best Book” in the regional Eurasian category. He cited objection with the term “commonwealth”—it’s imperialist connotation—and with the English language requirement in the competition rules. He doesn’t have an objection against writing in English, which he continues to use for his own writing. His objection is only against institutions being exclusionary towards writing in other languages.

I belong to a similar camp as Ghosh, tending towards being more inclusive and less exclusionary.

The debate is perhaps important, perhaps inane. Indian writers will, hopefully, continue to choose their literary language freely. Indian readers will continue reading the writers they love, in their preferred reading languages.

In parting, here’s yet another hopeful thought. Given that the large language model driven Artificial Intelligence has been (carelessly?) released to masses, I find myself hoping that one of the many potential goods that come from it is the creation of a level playing field for literature in translation. If every novel were to become available in any language a reader wanted to read it in, it might obviate the entire ‘language of creation’ barrier. Any context specific corrections that the automated translations miss could be fixed through crowd-sourced editing from the readers, thus training the LLMs to get it right over time. This is not to say that we don’t need specialized translators: their work makes a huge difference to the quality of the translation. However, as of now, only a handful of bestsellers are translated into a few select languages. There’s room, and need, to do a lot more.