Conflict In Raja Rao's The Serpent And The Rope

Raja Rao’s The Serpent and the Rope (1960) is one of the greatest of Indian English novels. As an enactment of East West confrontation and as a philosophical, spiritual novel it stands unchallenged in the annals of Indian English fiction. While the momentum gained by fiction during the Gandhian age was thus sustained even after Independence by these major novels, the new writers that now appeared on the scene brought not a little individual talent to the established tradition. With the exception of a solitary masterpiece like All About H. Hatterr, the achievement of the post Independence novelists cannot on the whole be said to match that of Anand and his two major contemporaries. Bhabani Bhattacharya, whose first novel was published within

On the contrary, it seems to be trying to give expression to the Indian experience of the modern predicament, while frankly modelling itself on Western originals. Another notable writer and one of the leading personalities of the Gandhian age was K.A.Abbas who wrote Inqilab (1955). Although written during 1942 to 1049, the novel actually covers the earlier period commencing from Rowaltt Bill and the Jallianwalla Baugh tragedy to the Salt Satyagraha and the Gandhi Irwin Pact of 1931. The novelist’s ambitious intention is to project the Gandhian Revolutionary Age in its entirety. Inquilab means revolution. Gandhi, Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, C.R. Das, Subhas Chandra Bose, Vallabhai Patel, Rajagopalachari, Sarojini Naidu, Dr. Ansari, Maulana Azad, Dr. Sapru, Abdul Ghaffar Khan and other eminent leaders are depicted in this novel, with all their selfless endeavours for getting freedom from the British rule. In C.F. Andrew’s words, ‘in a sudden movement India’s fetters began to be loosened, and the path-way of freedom was opened.’ (qtd. By K.R.S.Iyengar,