Literature In Indian English Literature

It was during the reign of Emperor Jahangir that literature started gaining importance. The Mughals welcomed Captain William Hawkins, the commander of the British Naval Expedition in a very humble manner. While India was under the British rule, the medium which was generally used for understanding by the masses was English. At that time, the creative writing in English was supposed to be an integral part of the literary traditions. The writers of those times focused particularly on writing Indian English Dramas and Poetry which appealed much to the common man. Every possible author tried to write in the “British Mother Tongue” as they were highly sophisticated and educated. As The East India Company spread its wing in southern peninsula of India, English language started gaining new pockets of influence, but it was still time for the first English book to get published and seek the attention of the masses. The late 17th century saw the advent of the Printing Press in India but the publication was confined to either printing The Bible or the government decrees at large. Then, the newspaper printing started gaining popularity. It was in the 1779s, that the first English Newspaper named Hickey 's Bengal Gazette was published in India. The Indian English Literature saw an upheaval when a person by the name of Dean Mahomet published a book in London entitled Travels of Dean Mahomet. This was particularly Mahomet 's travel narrative that could be categorized as a Non-Fiction and a