The Indianness of Indian English Literature

Indian English literature began as a by product of the Indo- British encounter. Indians first started learning English for the purpose of trade and commerce. Expository prose writing, letters and speeches were the first to be published. The first Indian author in English, Dean Mahomet, published his memories, The Travels of Dean Mahonet, in 1794. There have been outstanding Indian orators like Vivekananda, Tilak and Srinivasa Sastri. Indians have published biographies, autobiographies, travelogues and humorous sketches in addition to scholarly monographs in various fields of knowledge. Many of the contemporary novelists and poets have written good prose. But the achievement in poetry and fiction have drawn attention away from non fiction prose writings. Prose can be used for a variety of non fictional purposes. Indians have used it for political propaganda, for writing history and philosophy, and for bringing about social change. Indians have written biographies, autobiographies and travelogues in English. Then there is the field of belles letters, light personal essays. Vivekananda used brisk prose for putting across his ideas. He was a very good public speaker. Speaking demands short, easily understood sentences. Sri Aurobindo and Ananda Coomaraswamy liad the foundation for an Indian school of literary criticism based on Sanskrit poetics. Their prose style reveals the carefully balanced, ratiocinative prose which is the hallmark of a scholar. Gandhiji as a thinker, his concept of 'Hind Swaraj' is especially important in the modern age, which is the era of globalization. Nehru shows that different categories of prose are not mutually exclusive when narrating his prison experience, one finds beautiful descriptions of nature. And he can analyse this thought even in the midst of describing the swift course of events, combining expository and narrative prose.
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