The Concept Of Indianness In Raja Rao's 'Kanthapura'.

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Hitaxi H Bhatt.

Roll no:-  03

Sem:-    M.A  (Sem -1)

Year :-  2015-16

Enrollment no:-

Email id:- hitaxidave81@gmail.com

Paper :- 04 ( Indian Writing in English – pre independence)

Topic:-

THE CONCEPT OF INDIANNESS IN RAJA RAO’S KANTHAPURA

Submitted To:- Heenaba zala

Smt. S. B. Gardi,

Department Of English.

M. K. Bhavnagar University.

Bhavnagar.

 THE CONCEPT OF INDIANNESS IN RAJA RAO’S KANTHAPURA

Intrestingly, the essential flavour in many images used by the Indian fiction writers in englishis Indian. In fact, their inherent indianness cannot escape talking metaphorically or obliquely by implication is general in natural with Indians. In everyday language they often use imagery as a means of expression, reinforcement, endorsement, illustration, evocation, and also as objective correlative. Indeed, their minds have a remarkable ability to shift gears smoothly from ‘the literal to the fanciful’ with a view to enhancing the possibility of wider implication.

Indianness as a way of life as a culture, as a socio-political and economic ethos, is too immense to be accommodated into a concept. Any attempt at conceptualisation of indianness is married by the immense variety is matters of language, caste, subcastes, creed, sex, superstitions, food, and dress habits in India. The diversity within the country is much greater than the one that is found among the various nations of Europe. Yet underneath the surface of diversity there are certain commonly shared features, emotions, taboos and sentiments that contribute to a unified vision of Indiannes.

English has been in India for nearly two hundred years. With varying degrees of emphasis from time to time it has been enjoying the status of  the official language of the country without being included in the eight schedule of the country’s constitution. It has been and still continues to be the medium of higher education in most of the states in India. An increasing number of English-medium schools not only use English as the medium of education at the primary and secondary levels, but also create in the Indian society the English-knowing elite, cutting across the linguistic, religious, caste, and regional barriers. A cultural profile of the Indian society shows that its upper strata are more English than the English. A good number of creative writers in India have taken to English as their creative medium of poetry, novel, drama, and other forms of writing. Most of these writers are bilingual and some are trilingual. But the choice of the medium is dictated by the factors of proficiency in the language, pre- Indian and international readers, and such other things. Many of these writers are influenced by their mother tongues in their use of English language. In spite of their choice of English as their medium, they are not alien to the Indian way of life. In their themes, sentiments and emotions and also in their thought process they are much Indian as any creative writer in any Indian language.Back to the concept of indianness, it is restricted to mean the distinctive features of Indian English, which make it look and sound different from the Englishness of british English and also different from American English. It is presupposed here that the English language has so much diffused to the various  level of the Indian society  that it can be termed Indian English  like other varieties of English, such as Australian English, American English, African English, and so on.. more than those who have only working

knowledge of English, it is the creative writers who have shaped and contributed to the growth of indian English.

The concept of Indianness is, therefore restricted to the kind and style of the English language used by Indian writers of all hues and levels. It is applied here to the restricted body of Indian English writers purely from a linguistic standpoint, namely, collocations, syntactic devices and literal or idiomatic translations from the mother tongue from this perspective the Indianness of English is traced to the following sources. Kachru identifies the following sources of indianness in Indian English.

1)    Transfer of context:-  This implies the transfer of cultural contexts , which are not available in any English –speaking society. For example the caste system, social attitudes, religious Indian storywriting, from transfer of context from one language community to another.

2)    Transfer of meaning in L1 to those in L2:- meanings of certain lexical items in the native language of the writers are transferred to corresponding lexical unit in the native language into English. For example in british and American English the compound flower-bed is associated with gardening. But the same compound word, is made to mean a bed decorated with flowers on the nuptial night.

Sometimes this kind of transfer is extended to longer units of speech, such as phrases, clauses or sentences:

a)     turmeric ceremony

b)    salt giver

c)     three-eyed

d)    fall at your feet

e)     a licker of your feet

f)      a dog is a lion in his own street.

Many examples of this kind are available in kanthapura:

a)     purnayya has a grown-up daughter who will come home soon.

b)    Now my seenu too, was going to go with him

c)     He wanted me to be his dog’s tail.

d)    You are the son of my woman/ concubine

You will get a marriage greeting today

3) Transfer of form- context component:-  This is a combination of the earlier two, where typically Indian contextual units with their specific formal items are transferred to Indian English. The process involves indianisationn of the functions of speech, such as abuses, curses, greetings, blessings, flattery, and so on.

The following are some of the examples of this kind

a)     You goose-faced minion

b)    A sinner may go to the ocean, but the water will touch only his knees.

c)      You shall not light your kitchen fires.

          Many of these examples shows one aspect of Indian English which is essentially cultural in its context. The indianness of Raja Rao’s kanthapura as perceived by his literary critics may be described as literary stylistic perceptions.  It may be noted here that there is a perceptible difference between the literary critic’s approach and the linguist’s approach to indianness. The following is a survey of what the literary critics of raja rao mean by his indianness.

            C.D Narsimhaiah, one of the earliest critics of raja rao, traces his indianness to the ancient Sanskrit tradition and to the compulsions of the theme of the novel. Further narasimhaiah comments that raja rao prefers the Indian idiom “crush it in the seed” to the English idiom “nip it in the bud”, because  the latter has an asthetically offensive image which is not accepted by Indian sensibility. Next C.D.N observes that the English proverb one swallow does not make a summer’ and its indianised  version “a cock does not make a morning, nor a single man a revolution.” K.Ramchandra Rao observes that Raja Rao infuses the tempo of Indian life into his English expression. Pual Vergheese describes kanthapura as a minor  Indian classics and attributes its greatness to its style and theme. He appreciates “the skillful adaptation of the English language to incorporated the idiom and rhythm of the regional language.” Raja Rao himself is inclined to trace it to the ancient Sanskrit language.

            Raja Rao’s prose also registers a gradual advance in his verbal conscious ness as he moves from novel to novel, a technical virtuosity which is rarely achieved by any other fiction writer  in India. The novel keeps all the native ingredients of expression. The political upheaval that has rocked kanthapura is fully explored in the grand detours and involutions of the style, imparting to it a vernacular resonance without radically disturbing the natural structure or manner of English. English  thus localised by Raja Rao is neither a mask not a habit, but a passion and the genius of he place described by the narrator.

However, we do not accept his view that raja rao’s English is a sanskritised version of the alien language. He takes pains to proves that his Raja Rao’s long phrases and long sentences are due to the influence of Sanskrit syntax and ‘ Sanskrit samasa’. In spite of Raja Rao’s knowledge of Sanskrit, we are inclined to believe that his Sanskrit is not used in day to day life in social.

 A mere passive knowledge of English. The drift of the present study is that Raja Rao is much influenced and his English is much patternes by Dravidian rhythms and kannada sentence patterns. This argument is justifiable because themasse  involved  in the story are uneducated and half-educated kannada,telugu and tamil speakers. Even the narrator cannot be creadited with the knowledge of Sanskrit.

Therefore we tend to believe that Raja Rao wrote in the language of the masses in its English is patterned on the king’s English, it cannot also be claimed that the indianness of his English is based on Sanskrit, the language of the elite, and minority community in the south. More than the Sanskrit flavor. It is Dravidian flavour in general and the flavor of the kannada village idiom in particular that Raja Rao imparts to the his English. It is very clear that Raja Rao imparts to the his English. It is very clear that he is influenced more by the living idiom of the masses than by the dead language that still survives in religious ritual and the culture of elite classes. Spitting is habitually used in India to give expression to anger and also as a physiological and behavioural reaction accompanying it.it is often used in these writings and shapes into a kind of image to emphasize one’s hatred for something or to abuse or ridicule the thing or to show atrocities or disapproval of something. In joshi’s ‘ the foreigner’ I was born an Indian and had been spat upon; had I been a European, I would have done the spitting. Spitting is often present as a suggestion , too. In kanthapura gowda shows absolute trust in moorthy. ‘ I know you are not a man to spit on our confiedence in you.’

         Many similies and metaphors that these  writers use appear attractive and evocative mainly because they have been transliterated into English from some Indian language. Some of these through  not very fresh and original help the writers present the scene a little more realistically. Exaggeration is a quality shared by many of these writers and let it be noted here that exaggeration as a trait is common to many Indians. To my mind, what is most notable about their imagery is the inherent indianness.

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