Introduction: Viewing Colonialism and Modernity through Indian Literature

A few years ago, during his visit to Cornell University, the leading Indian writer U. R. Ananthamurthy asked a group of South Asia specialists why Indian literary texts are so rarely given the kind of careful attention critics give to major texts in European and American literature. In the discussions following his public lecture to students and faculty, in which he spoke at length on two works he sees as “foundational” in the history of the modern Indian novel, Senapati’s Chha Mana Atha Guntha (1897–99) and Tagore’s Gora (1907–09), Ananthamurthy went on to talk about the need for extended textual readings as well as cross-regional analysis of the literary traditions in India.1 He called for textual comparisons that highlight similarities and differences in the way common themes and similar social situations are treated in fiction. Part of his point was that several strands of cultural and social influence run through Indian literary texts and it is impossible to see these strands clearly if our focus remains confined to any one work, or even to the works of any one linguistic and regional tradition.