To briefly remember and recollect the beginnings, Raja Rammohan Roy strongly advocated the Western instead of Oriental education. The founder of English literature in India was virtually and indirectly Lord Macaulay, Raja Rammohan Roy has inculcated in the native minds love for the English language and later a passionate zeal for literary creation in it. With the passage of time a handful of eminent writers emerged on the Indian literary scene who produced literary specimens of considerable standard that blazed a new trail and guided many young aspiring writers. Therefore, the appearance of Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Toru Dutt, and others on the literary horizon is not an event that can be described as fortuitous but a natural corollary. Ever
ABSTRACT Nayantara Sahgal is one of the most prolific writers in India. Much of Sahgal’s later fiction has dealt with the politics of Post – Independence India and the changes in lifestyles and attitude that beset the urban elite. Her sardonic and evocative descriptions of contemporary India and its corrupt politics have won her wide acclaim in India where she is known as a political Journalist and Civil Liberties Activist. In her last novel, Mistaken Identity her concept of emancipation reaches its pinnacle where her female character is out and out rebel. Sahgal focuses on cultural identity, a phenomenon that is very delicate, especially in a country having a diversified culture like India.
The universal success of Vikram Seth made him the first writer of Indian Diaspora to enter the globe of influential international writers and leave a permanent mark on the global literary sight. Other Indian English Literature novelists of status of modern times include V. S. Naipaul, Shobha De, G. V. Desani, M. Ananthanarayanan, Bhadani Bhattacharya, Arun Joshi, Khushwant Singh, O. V. Vijayan, Allan Sealy, Sashi Tharoor, Amitav Ghosh and others. The writer in the genre of Indian Literature in English, who shook the world, was Arundhati Roy. Her novel, The God of Small Things, won the 1997 Booker Prize and became a worldwide best-seller overnight. Rohinton Mistry, Firdaus Kanga, Kiran Desai, Sudhir Kakar, Ardeshir Vakil, and Jhumpa Lahiri are some other renowned writers with Indian origin.
Indian writers like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (Bengali, 1838-1894) and others made use of this newly acquired concept of nationalism to attack colonial rule, and in the process created their own brand of nationalism, rooted in the native land. Bankim Chandra wrote many historical novels like Durgesh Nandini (1965), and Anand Math (1882), acquired a pan-Indian popularity and made nationalism and patriotism a part of dharma. This was a distinctive concept of universalism that was accepted by many as a reply to western colonialism. Revivalism and reformism were natural corollary of the newly emerging idea of nationalism. Rabindra Nath Tagore (Bengali, 1861-1942) said that the unity of India always be in the diversity.
Since, Tilak had openly supported the armed resistance and the Swadeshi movement, he was exiled to Burma. There was a huge turbulence in the Indian political scene. Bharathi without caring much about these developments continued to write fiercely in India. With a simple and yet fabulous technique of combining the rhythm of spoken language in a ceaseless flow of prose and poetry he captured the imagination of the Tamil people. His collection of songs on national unity, Swadesha Geetangal (meaning songs on Indian nationalism), was published in 1908 which was followed by Janma Bhoomi (meaning motherland), published in
The history has seen many great writers like Raja Rao, Mulkraj Anand, and R.K. Narayan. These were the writers who made this genre popular and gained world recognition. In the recent years, Indian writers in English have been widely recognized by the West. Writers like Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Shashi Tharoor, Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai, Jhumpa Laheri have either won the prestigious literary Prizes or they have been short listed for it. Most of them have been praised for their innovative English.
These Indian women novelists get awareness because of their high educational and intellectual standards. These writers have created a way for the younger generation of Indian women
He was a poet, dramatist, actor, producer; he was a musician and a painter; he was an educationist, a practical idealist who turned his dreams into reality at Shantiniketan; he was a reformer, philosopher, prophet; he was a novelist and short-story writer, and a critic of life and literature; he even made occasional incursions into nationalist politics, although he was essentially an internationalist. ((Iyengar: 99). Rabindranath Tagore is India’s greatest genius and has been the supreme inspiration to millions of modern India. He was, in integral whole, the Rishi, the Gurudev. His fecundity and vitality were amazing -next only to Mahatma Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo.
Kamala Markandaya is one of the finest and outstanding woman novelists of post independence India ,internationally known as the writer of Nectar in a Sieve. She belongs to both the East and the West . India is the country of her birth and upbringing and England that of her adoption. She lived for some time in a South Indian village and gained the first-hand knowledge of Indian rural life. She was a journalist in India before migrating to London.
The emergence of dalit literature in Kannada as an independent genre and its institutionalisation as a recognised area of experience along with the increasing presence of the untouchable communities in the public arena forced the cultural world to recognise caste discrimination as an important aspect of Indian life to be reformed and rectified. Progressive writers and young voices like Devanooru Mahadeva, Siddlingaiah, were alredy raised in Kannada writing. The movement influenced by Marx and Ambedkar also vocally supported these causes and the progressive union writer’s demand for dalit representation in literature and as well as in cultural