Dialectics of Defeat: Some Reflections on Literature, Theatre and Music in Colonial India Author(s): G. P.

Deshpande Reviewed work(s): Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 22, No. 50 (Dec. 12, 1987), pp. 2170-2176 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4377856 . Accessed: 08/02/2012 07:26
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of Defeat Dialectics Some Reflections on Literature, Theatre and Music in Colonial India
G P Deshpande In and and 7Tends tendenciesin Indianliterature theatretoday owe theiroriginto the colonialexperience. the and of enterprise thosetimeswereremarkably threelanguageareasdealt withherethepatternsof aesthetic creative -of centurywhenthe bhadralok BritishIndia hereis limitedto the nineteenth similar.Thescope of the argument and ideals of the to moresand morals.And it was in contra-distinction the arrogance triedto imitate Victorian age that India'ssearchfor a bourgeoissensibilityand identity was carriedout.
Now is a phaseof fatiguein historyand yet herearecrowds menandwomenengaged of in preparation. in Theyyearnfor ushering a newspotless earth in accord with their vision of the humanityforgingahead. -Jibanananda Das WHATthis essay attemptsto do is properly speakingthe subject of a book. It tries and takes a look at what happened to the aesthetic and creativeexperienceand urges of the people of Indiaduringcolonialtimes. It could be called colonial aesthetic experience.What follows, therefore,is not a literaryhistory of modern India. Rather it is an attempt to identify some trends and tendenciesin Indian literaturesand theatre which owe their origins to the colonial experience. The three language areas that I have kept in view for the purpose of the argument which follows are those of Bengali, Hindi and Marathi. However,it is my belief that the tendenciesdiscussedhere are not limited to these areas only. In other areas and languages too these tendencies mustbe no less visibleand marked.The only *difference might be chronological as, for example, it is in the case of the three languages discussed here. The dates of the first 'modern' plays in Indian languages might vary. They, in fact, do; but that has more to do with the time of the Britishtaking over a given area under their imperial wings. Otherwisethe aesthetic and creative experience of the Indian people during the colonial period shows remarkable similarities. There are no doubt, differencestoo. But they are outside the scope of this paper. What I am concernedwith are the patterns of, and tendencies in the, aesthetic and creativeenterpriseof Indian people during colonial times illustratedby;selectexamples from the above mentioned language-areas. What follows is by no means a literaryor aesthetichistoryof the threelanguageareas. In fact an attempt has been made to keep the numberof author-names titlesto the and minimum. At times important writers or poets are left out. Authorslike Jibanananda Das or Hari Narayan Apte would have naturallyfeaturedin any literaryhistory.As this essay does not claim to be literary historysome significantomissions fromthis account have been left as they are. It is
2170

whenthe Britishacquired in the late sevenit teenthcenturyhad by now become a major centreof political and economic power.The empirehad spreadand the British rulersat Calcutta needed an army of trained administrators who could deal with the natives and their problems in the vernacular.Fort William College was establishedwith that purpose in mind. Close. to Calcutta in the had Srirampore missionaries established the first.printingpressand startedbringing out theological works like the "Dharma Pustak",the title of the Bengali translation of the Bible. Any accountof literary in movements colonial Indiawill haveto give due creditto the role playedby these institutions in the new literature and theatre that grew and developedin the whole of India in the 19th century. Through these institutions colonialism made an interventionin the field of artsand literature whichhad far-reachlfg consequences.With the decline of Sanskrit as an instrument of cultural expression severalthings had died. The most notable casualty of that phenomenon had been the decline and eventual eclipse of theatre. Worksin Sanskrit continued to be written once in a way. Secular aesthetics was not altogether unknown to Indian tradition, both classical and folk, but it had ceasedto make an impact in any significantway.The bhakti movement and the resurgenceof poetry that it brought from the 12thto the 17thcenturieshad also been forgotten.The bhakti poetry by the end of the 18th century was no longer read as poetry or even as poetry of the revoltagainst brahminism The single most important intervention which it in fact was. A strange lapse of that colonialism made in the culturallife of memory had occurred.Poets like Thkaram India over the last two centuries has been or Kabirwere now being interpreted essenthe establishmentof the Fort William Col- tially as writers of 'devotional poetry. A lege in Calcutta in 1800. Rarely are the measureof the declineof Sanskritcriticism historicaleventsso obedientof the compul- can be had'from the work of Madhusudan sions of the calendar.Come nineteenthcen- Saraswati,a critic who was a contemporary tury and begins rightin the first yearof that of Akbar and of the poet Tilsidasa. century a new era in the history of Indian MadhusudanSaraswati'swork on the rasa literatureand theatre, an -era of imperial theory pleaded for the inclusion of the intervention. The college was establishedby bhaktiin the rasas.But his discussionof the the East India Company to train its ad- bhaktirasamakes no referenceto Thlsidasa in ministrators the languages of India. The his contemporaryand easily the most well college providedfacilitiesfor teachingSan- known of the bhakti poets of north India skrit, Arabic,Persian,Hindustani,Bengali, or Hindusthanas it wasthen called.Literary Tamil, Marathi, and Kannada.The city of criticismthus, had becomea dead enterprise Calcuttawhich was an obscurelittle village well before colonial rule came to India.
Economic and Political Weekly December 12, 1987

also possible that other commentators or historians might choose different or better examplesto illustratethe trendsand tendencies than I-havechosen. In any case the attempt has been to describe a trend or a tendency and see its connections with and the roots in the colonial experience. In that sense, which author or a playwright represents tendencybest is not verycenthat tral to my argument. As will be seen the scope of the argument has been in the main limited to the nineteenth century. Referencesto the twentieth centuryare not missing but essentiallythey are complementaryin character.The year 1800 providesthe startingpoint. The nineteenth centurywas the high noon of British Imperialismand the rule of Queen Victoria (she ascended the throne in 1837) which spans the century,showedin manywaysthe quintessential characteristics imperialism. of The bhadralok (the gentry)of BritishIndia tried to imitate the Victorian mores and morals. Modernity,capitalism, liberalism, new literary forms came to India in their Victorianavatara(incarnation).And it was in contra-distinctionto the arroganceand idealsof the Victorianage that India'ssearch for a bourgeois sensibilityand identity was carried out. Our sensibility did not quite become bourgeois but that is another matter. The desire or the objective of the new western-educated elite certainlywas that. It thought that not failurebut non-bourgeois (i e, non-western)aim was the crime!Or so it would seem.

British intervention in the field of literature, therefore,could not havecome at a more appropriate time. Fort William College began its work by standardising the languageswhich it was teaching. It compiled and published first dictionariesin these languages. Not that there were no dictionaries in Indian languages. Nevertheless the developmentof dictionariesis partly a function of a given language being a language of administration,statecraftand so on. Britishrule contributed the growth to of Indian vernacularsby turning them into useful and usable instrumentsof statecraft. With the exception of Marathi during the Maratha ascendancy in western India, no Indian language was used as an official languagethroughoutthe medievalperiodof Indianhistory.That situationchangedwith the British. The dominance of Persian in most partsof northernIndiaas the language of high culture and high administration came to an end finally. The British started the schools in the native languages. The Bombaypresidencyseems to havetakenthe lead in the matter.By the middleof the nineteenth century there were more Marathi medium schools in Maharashtra than ever. The FortWilliamCollegebegan its activities with the renderingof "Hitopades", "Panchatantra" or "Vetal Panchavinsati" and other popular Sanskritworks in Indianvernaculars. In so doing the pandits in its monoploy, opened new vistas before the 'natives' in the use of their languages. It looked as if the colonialists had seen the wisdom of the ancient Indian Vyakarana formulation: saktam padam ('the word is powerful')(some liberty has been taken in the translation of saktam padam. It was possibleand necessaryas the sutrais clearly taken out of its context. Besides slesa is a permissible literarydeviceafter all!) and had decided to master the native word with a viewto dominatingthe native.But it was not a one-waytraffic. Dominanceand loot constitute the essence of imperialism. At the same time it is also true that domestically new kind of economic relations werebeing introduced. The colonial state was very unlike any earlier form of state that the Indianpeople had known. India was forced into a new era. To describethis era as an era of modernity is not really saying much. What happened during the colonial phase was that "differentsides of the great geopolitical divide... two worlds and *two histories",'to use PerryAnderson'sphrases (of course, used by him in a different context) confronted each other. This confrontation was bound to have as strange and unlikely results as the confrontation itself. On the cultural plane the contradictory natureof the results was the most obvious. A sensitive mind was reacting to things Europeanat times with greatenthusiasm,at times with defiance but most often in a way which was a mixture of both of these. Nowhereelse is this.mixedresponseclearly visible as in literature theatre.Probably and the literarymovementsof the 19thcentury

India bring out vividly the fact that the phenomenain movementquite often evince contradictory manifestations. The Indian elite's relationshipwith colonialism is one and such case. The field of literature theatre shows that better than any other. The impact of English was so that thoroughgoing eventhe syntaxin Indian languages underwentchange. There is one whole book aptly entitledas the Englishincarnationof the Marathiprose.2To cite just one example,a sentencelike the following: 'I told him that I would meet him at 7.00 pm' was unknownto the traditionalspeech. Traditionallya speakerof Marathi always said: 'I would meet him at 7.00 pm, I told him' or 'I do not see the sight which you see' would become in the traditional Marathi speech: 'You are seeing sight I do not see' and so on. The sentence-structure changed.Mode of speech changed. It is interestingto see how the traditional forms of address changed. The colonial experiencemade us awareof No worldof discourse. 'culture' a separate as Indian language had a separate term for 'culture' beforethe colonialtimes. Obviously this did not mean that therewas no culture. What it means is that culture as an autonomous world of discourse did not exist. Everythingwas dharma. Going to a temple was a dharma, singing a raga or a raginiwas also a dharma.Dharma does not in this context mean religion. It indicatesa spacewhichan individualcreatesor obtains in a givenareaaction, duty or creation.This space was a part of the total whole. It was a continuous space. Hence such diverseactions as singing or. worshipping or proas creatingwereall described dharma.It was a secular concept except that its secular to meaningis not as relevant this discussion as the fact it disallowed discontinuities in discourse.Encounterwith colonialism and through it with capitalism brought us the world of autonomous cultural discourse. The word 'sanskriti' commonly used for culturein almost all Indian langaugesis in fact an inventionof the colonial times. The other wordbeing proposedat that time was kristi. Loosely translated it would mean 'cultivation' and would be a near-exact translation the German'bildung.It is not of that there was no history to the word 'sanskriti'.Therewas. The "A itereyaBrahmana" refersto begettingprogeny also as 'silpa'(the art of sculpture), hence as 'samskara'.3 At sanany rate,Rabindranath Tagore preferred skriti to kristi partlybecause of these roots partly also because kristi unlike its mneaning in classical Sanskritmeant the fivejatis or sul-groups of the aryans, panchakrstayah,namely Anu, Druhu, Trwas, Yaduand Puru.4 Suniti KumarChatterjee drewTagore'sattention to the usage of the wordsanskritiin Marathi (sometimein 1922) in the sensepofculture.5Be that as it may, finding words for anything is to define it. An attempt was made to define 'culture', define the limir~fcultural discourse and

its autonomy. In a sense the Europeanoccupation forced us to define severalthings. Cultural discourse was one of them. Whether it is Tagoreor Acharya Javdekar or AcharyaHazari PrasadDwivedi, several Indian intellectualsand writershave at differenttimes commentedupon 'culture'and a proper word for it. The linguistic experience of the Indian people underwent a change during this period. It was, of course, different in different areas. In north India the colonial periodmarkedthe final emergenceof Hindi with the Devanagariscript as the language of cultural expression. Ronald Stuart McGregor has succinctly described the phenomenon... "While Hindustani and Persianmightservethe East IndiaCompany as languages of commerce and law it was realised some that therewould henceforth by be a role in north India for another form of language, whichshouldnot relyas heavily as Hindustani on Persian and Arabic vocabularly,but should approximatemore nearlyin vocabularyand culturalaffiliation to the various regional and local dialects spoken by the mass of population and should be writtenin the Devanagariscript. Perhaps Brijbhasa itself might serve but given the currency.of the Delhi speech it (sometimesreferredto as KhariBQlh) was inevitablethat the lattershould become the basis of the new language,Sanskriticrather than Persian in cultural affiliation, not 'createdby the British' but owing its main' development to new conditions brought about by their presence, which begins to come into prominencein the early 19thcentury.. ." (Emphasis added).6 The case of the emergenceof Hindi has been cited becausequiteunwittingly colthe onial initiativecontributedto the processof forging the dialects in the north Indian region into a language capable of modern, culturalexpression.This was true not only of Hindi but also of otherIndianlanguages. The early 19thcenturywritersat least some of them gave the British more credit for it than they deserved. See for example what Sen Ramakamal had to say in his prefaceto his Bengali-English Dictionary (1830): Whatever beendonetowards revival has the of theBengali its and language, improvement in factthe establishment it as a language, of must be attributedto that excellentman and Carey his colleagues (emphasis added).7 Careywas professorof Bengali and Sanskrit at the Fort William College. In short the credit which Sen wished to attributeto Carey was, in fact by laksana (suggested meaning)beingattributed the Britishrule. to

II
That was, however, not the only 'creditable' aspect of the culturalexperience of of the colonial times. Formalisation the modernlanguageoccurred throughthe prominence that prose acquired in Indian literaturesduring the colonial period. Prose traditionswerenot entirelyabsentin ver2171

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nacularliteraturesin pre-colonialtimes. In Marathithe beginningsof the literarytradition are associatedwith the prose writingof the Mahanubhavas(12th century AD). In Hindi or Bengali, however,the prose really beginswith the colonialperiod.Pre-colonial literaryexpressionwas necessarilyin poetry. It has partly to do with the oral tradition whichhas dominatedthe Indiancivilisation. With the printing press, prose became a feasible mode of cultural expression. The first half of the nineteenth century is the periodwhen prose stylesemergein different Indian languages. With writers like Krishnashastri Chiplunkar and his son Vishnushastri(Marathi),and Ram Mohan Ray (Bengali) prose became "the vehicleof philosophic exposition and religious and social polemic".8There is some point in putting Chiplunkar, father and son, and Ram Mohan Ray together because they representthe opposite poles of polemical debatethat beganwith RamMohan Rayand reached high point in Joti Rao Phule.The its Chiplunkarsrepresentedthe other and the opposite side of the debate. Jyotirao Phule who died in 1880 is only now attractinghistorians'attention-which is a pity.Phule unlikeRamMohan Raywho was for reformedvedantismwas a complete rebelagainstthe brahmanicaltraditionand had an organiclink withthe social ethos that the low-caste Marathi bhakti poetry Modern Indian historiography represented. has ignoredthis man until very recentlyand the commonly hearddalit criticismthat the high caste, English-educatedhistoriansfelt at home with the positions taken and the reforms advocated by people like Ram Mohan Ray and Agarkar but would not want to touch a Kunbi (low peasant) like Phule with a barge pole is not entirely baseless. The dalit critics do not underestimate contributionof RajaRam the Mohan Ray and others. But they might like to believe that Phule rather than Ram Mohan Ray "is one of those greatmen who areborn at a criticalmoment in their country's history, and who shape its destiny".9 One may or may not sharethe viewabout the bhadralokpreferencefor somebody of true that beginning theirstock;it is however, roughly with the middle of the nineteenth centuryprose not only became a vehicle of philosophic exposition but also the incisive recordof the "diagnosisof our time".The essay of that name by Karl Mannheim begins thus: Letus takethe attitude a doctorwhotries of to give a scientificdiagnosisof the illness fromwhichwe all suffer.Thereis no doubt that our societyhas beentakenill. Whatis the disease,and what wouldbe its cure?If I had to summarise situationin a single the sentenceI would say: "'We livingin an are
age of transition..
." 10

In a way Ram Mohan Ray and Jyotirao Phule werealso talking of transitionexcept that they werenot uncertainabout the transition as KarlMannheimwas aboutthe transition that he was analysing. On the con2172

trary,they were looking forwardto it. This is the reason that even in their sharpest polemics the early social reformersand the essayists are optimistic. Looking back the most striking quality of the Indian vernacularprose whetherof Ram Mohan Ray or Agarkarand Phule is the general sense of optimism that seems to underlay their writing. Agarkar, Phule and-Ram Mohan Ray are critical of the society and quite ruthlessin theirdiagnosesbut theyarenever pessimisticabout the future of their society. They are the men of vision, Jibanananda Das talks about in his poem cited at the top of this essay. Phule is in fact militantly optimistic. He was the first Indian to have introduced peasantry as a class in his writing. RosalindO' Hanlon has discussed his writingat some lengthin her recentstudy of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and low caste protestin 19th centurywesternIndia."I His most eloquentpieceof writingis aboutwhat the peasants can do about their miserable lot and exploitation.It is entitled "thewhip of the peasantry" ("SetkaryachaAsud"). Phule thought in caste terms. His concern about caste,however, not limitedto prowas testing against the homo hierarchicusthat the caste-systempostulated.He was talking about homo economincus but in terms of the varnas. His literaryoutput has remained largelyignoredbecauseof the bhadralok dominanceof our historiography. Otherwise it would have-been easy to see that he was India'sfirst 'radical' playwright, essayistand poet. Even the 'left- criticism has failed to come to terms with the 'militantoptimism' of Phule'swriting.In a way,colonialismand the fact that Phule was not as fiercelyantiimperalistas Tilak might have-been responsible for'it. Be that as it may, thiecolonial made the Indianintellectualand experience writer aware of the movement of history. Phule representsits most importantexample becausein the latterhalf of the 19thcenof tury as a representative the lower castes and classes he saw the inevitablechange in our societyand how Britishimperialism was historically playinga progressive role.He articulatedthe dialecticsof defeat. He had no use for the liberals' enthusiasm for British rule and at the same time saw vividly the limitations of the orthodox nationalist 12 programme. The encounterwith the west seemsto have producedquite a spectrumof attitudesand both towards west and towards responses the India.MichaelMadhusudan Dutt represents a typical case o'f the confusion and the bewildering responses of the time. This talentedplaywrightand poet to whom one can safely attributethe creditof writingthe first genuinely modernplay ih India ("Sarmistha", 1858) was even doubtful about writing in Bengali. He wrote some rather tepid verse in English but before long discovered that his essays in writing in Englishmade no impacton anyone.His enthusiasm about the things western was so extraordinary that he wroteof his favourite poet Milton: "Nothing can be better than

Milton... I don't think it impossible to equal Virgil, Kalidas and Tasso. Though glorious, still they are mortal poets. Milton is divine"3 This comparison of Milton with the ancient Indian poet like Kalidasis interesting in view of what WarrenHastings had said in his letter to Nathanael Smith on the
"Bhagavad Gita":

worthby It will not be fairto tryits relative with the originaltext of the a comparison but firststandards European of composition; let thesebe takenevenin the mostesteemed and of theirprosetranslations in that. equal I be scalelettheirmerits weighed. shouldnot to fearto placein opposition thebestFrench versions the mostadmired of of passages the
Iliad or Odyssey, or of the first and the sixth books of our own Milton, highly as I veneratethe latter, the English translationof the Mahabharata (emphasisadded).14

Thesetwo responses separated close are by to one hundred years. Warren Hastings wrotethatletterin 1784.Madhusudan Dutt's remarkbelongs to the late fifties of the 19th century.More than two hundredyearsafter the Hastings' letter it is easy to see that he was closer to the truth than Madhusudan Dutt. But that was because Hastings wrote from a position of colonial dominanceand hence could take a more detached view of the two traditions involved. Madhusudan Dutt was a victim of the colonial situation. That was bound to lead to a sceptical atHis titudetowardshis own inheritance. conversionto Christianity itself or his claimthat he was writing Indian mythology in Greek style showed his ambivalencetowardsthe Indian tradition. The nineteenth century intellectual-writer was caught between the two tendenciesof eitherthe rejectionof the traditionor of excessive glorificationof that tradition.It is doubtful if the east and west reallymet in the nineteenthcentury.Rather theyconfrontedeach other.MichaelMadhusudan Dutt and VishnushastriChiplunkar the represented two mutuallyoppositetypes of writersthat this confrontationproduced. There were also interestingparallelsbetween the European attitudes of the nineteenth century and the Indian ones. It was an age of the new. The words nava, navin or nutan (all meaning new) seem to dominate the thinking of the intellectuals and writersof the nineteenthcentury.Comassessment parethis to Holbrook Jack-son's of "The EighteenNineties".In the book of that name "he characterisedthe eighteen ninetiesas typifiedby books titled"TheNew Hedonism"and "The New Fiction"and by movements calling themselves the 'New the and Paganism', 'New Voluptuousness'. in obvious reaction, the 'New Remorse',but also the 'New Spirit','New Humour','The New Realism', 'The New Drama', to say nothing of 'New Unionism' and the 'New Woman"'."5 This is not to suggest that the Indian 'new' was the same as European 'new' of the late nineteenthcentury.They could not jiave been. The European 'new' was the 'new' of the bourgeois experience,
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the 'new' of the triumphant pqwers. and peoples. The Indian 'new'-wasthe 'new' of the defeatedcolonisedpeople.But the search for the 'new' becomes inevitablewhen you become a part of the process of capitalisation (clearly in an extendedand secondary way). The critic of society also takes forms at times comparable to the European critic. Agarkarwrote morethantive essayson 'the dress of our menfolk' in the 1880s. His discussion of the Indian dress (prevalent among the upper-casteMaharashtrians of the time) was not very friendly or appreciative.16 Had he been a novelist he would havemade his characterdismiss it in much the same way as Marcel Proust had his dandified Block renounce the watch and the- umbrella as "insipid bourgeois implements."7 Agarkar's critics of the headgear, coat, the jacketof his contemthe porariesin Pune is, of course, in different terms. Nevertheless,the parallels are striking. Different perspectivesemergefrom the different positions that an essayist like Agarkarin a colonial society occupied and a novelistlike Proust did in France.But the newlyeducatedHindu in the nineteenth century India was in a self-critical mood. His self-criticismlike that of "manybourgeois" of the nineteenth century Europe, as Peter Gay has pointed out, turneditself into "selflaceration". This might,perhaps,explainthe in Hindu revivalism Indiaand contemporary the high tide of conservatism in western Europe. Verymuch likethe bourgeoisie the ninein teenth century Europe the educated hindu of that generationindulged in, to use Peter Gay'swordsagain, "collective denunciations with an ariditythat wouldhavedone honour to a tribe of masochists".18 This led to the phenomenon which George BernardShaw very aptly described in his preface to Dickens' novel "Hard Times" in 1912. He said: "The first half of the nineteenthcentury considereditself the greatestof all centuries.The second discovered that it was the In wickedest". Indiathe time framewas different. But the reversal of estimate was almostsimilar.A tradition createdby Keshab ChandraSen or M G Ranade,Madhusudan Dutt or Agarkarand Phule was replacedby the one created by Bankim Chatterjeeand Vishnushastri Chiplunkar. The 'new' thought was considered to be the greatest thing in the early part of our colonial experience.Beforelong it was discoveredto be the wickedest. Partly this was to be expected. As in Europe in India too "The triumphs of the new,of the secular,of sciencewerefar from complete and undisputed".In 1895, Emile Durkheim could deplore these times of 9 "renascent mysticism".' In India, however, there were not many to deplore the times. Arbind Ghosh and his "Savitri" celebrated 'the renascent mysticism'. Rabindranath and represen1igore, Keshavsut P~remchand ted the high point of Indiarlcreativitybeing

truly universal.On the whole these are exceptions which provethe rule that in a colonial'society understandingthe specificity of the colonial situation and thus establishing reasserting identitywere and the the main objectivesof the creativepursuits. This may be the reason why the novel as a genreneverreallytook off in India.Again Tagore,Bankim Chandra,Premchandand Ketkarcould be cited as great novelists.Yet it would be true to say that the Indiannovel really comes into its own in post-colonial times. Lukacsarguedthat the novelwas the genreof the bourgeoisepoch. It is doubtful if in a colonised society one can actually speak of a proper bourgeois epoch. Indian literatures boasted of various forms of narrative. They werefascinatingand varied. What is not clear is whether they could be described as novel proper.The nineteenth and earlytwentiethcenturyIndiannovelwas closerto traditional narrative ratherthan the polyphonic novel that Bakhtin talked of. Balzacin a famous statementin the preface to "La Comedie Humane"assertedthat he wanted to compete with civil society, not simply "represent"it.20 The Indian novel has remained largelyrepresentational. There has been highly interesting work done lately on BankimChandraChatterjeeand Ketkar. The insightsthat these worksprovideon the fiction of these writersare very useful. Yet it does not quite etablish them as creators of modern fiction which represents"a problematicherowhose idealsweremoreor less systematicallycontradictedby social reality" or as workslikethose of "critical realists like Balzac and Tolstoy" which "disclose dimensions of contemporary history that challenged their own explicit ideoiogies!'2' In aesthetictermsthe Indianbourgeoissensibility is scarcelyfifty years old. In earlier timesit roseto these heightsonly in bits and flashes. That is the reasonperhapswhy the Indianshort story offereda richerfarethan the Indiannovel. Ourgreatnovelshavebeen a proto-history the novel.The hi*ory has of just begun. It might be useful to referto the fact that of some contemporary observers the literary scene had seen the limitationsof the Indian novel. A good exampleof this is the essay wrotein 1905.He was on novelthat Rajwade highly critical of the contemporaryIndian novel and has even suggested that Indian novelists do not understand 'realism'and that they do not see the distinctionbetween 'natural'and 'realistic'.22 In poetry,however,extraordinary heights were reached. RabindranathThgoreis the most well known exampleand hardlyneeds any elaborationhere.Theromantictradition in Indian poetry has been quite strong. ModernIndian poetry begins-withMadhusudan Dutt. In terms of form this extraordinaryman made many experiments.He was the first to write sonnets in any Indian language.He was also the first one to~have discovered music of the blank verse.His the

compositionsin the traditionalmatravrttas (sanskritvariationof the rhymedverse)are not insignificant. In Hindi, Marathi and Bengali like in other languages of India poetrytook to newerforms.The sonnetand blank verse were the most notable ones. Romanticversebecamepopulartowardsthe end of the nineteenth century. In Marathi, for example, the most glorious period of romanticpoetry comes to an end sometime in 1920. This romanticism was, however, markedby despair.Imagesof darkness, long endless nights, loneliness, pessimism mark these writings. There were few like Tagore or Keshavsutwhose poetry rose over this. But they are exceptions.Some critics might doubtthat too becausetheywouldthinkthat these images were a necessarypart of their craft and creativity.One book of criticism of this poetry (in Marathi)was entitled as 'Andhara Yatra" (journeyinto darkness).23 A defeated people were articulating their romanticism. It could have only been romanticism despair.Dialecticsof defeat of results in a co-existence of despair and romanticism.One has not seen ("Andhara Yatra'included) much writing on the endcenturyromanticswhichplacestheirromantic despairin the contextof our colonial experience.What sustainedour poetrywas the fact that the bulk of Indianwritinghad been in poetic term. It was a genre with the longest and the most productivehistory in our literatures.The resultwas that the new poet in India was on firmer ground when he attempted poetrythan prose.His colonial experiencein a peculiarway contributedto his search for the reasons for his despair. Thereis a short essayby RahulSankrityayan on BharatenduHarishchandra.It is called "Bharatendu Pushkin'.24The thrustof aur Sankrityayan's argumentis to comparethe rebellious spirit of the two poets. If Bharatendu was worriedabout the "Bharat Durdasha", Pushkin was worriedabout the declineof Russia,its backwardness. was He painedas much as an Indianof the colonial times was, to have to arguethat Russiahas history.Rahul'sobservations(whichcan be extended to many poets in other Indian languages)are not importantbecauseof the parallelsand the similaritiesthat he sees in the poetryof the two men. [He,in fact, finds it interestingthat the two men lived rather short lives. Pushkin's lifespan was not greater than that of Bharatendu's.] It is doubtful, however,if Bharatendvhad ever read Pushkin. He could not have. The similaritiesin their verse could be dismissed as entirelycoincidental.Rahul'sobservations are important because he has related the work of the two poets to the state in which they found their country. One can, perhaps,takethe argumentone step ahead. Indianpoetryof the nineteenth the early and twentieth century was an expression of a damagedcivilisation. Imperialismintroduced new forms, new modes of expression. But it never completely integrated the aesthetic of new Indian literaturewith its own. It could not have. This is more 2173

Economic and Political Weekly December 12, 1987

in apparent tne poetryof the colonialperiod than perhaps in any other form.

III
Drama was another area where che colseveral onial age introducedand contributed new,hithertounknownforms. In fact, it was an enterprising Russian gentleman, one Lebedoff, who producedthe first 'modern' play in Calcutta on November 11, 1795. It was in English. It appearsthat there was a second performanceof this play on March 21, 1796.25The first modern play by an Indian was also written in English. K M Banerjiwrote "a play in a westernmanner", "The Persecuted" in 1832.26 Soon after however theatre activity began in the Presidencyareas. Prasanna KumarTagore founded the Hindu Natak Mandali in December1831.BalsastriJambhekarwrote an editorial note in the first ever Marathi periodicalDarpana which he had founded in 1832welcomingthe establishmentof the Natak Mandali.27 The first Marathi playwenton stageon November3, 'modern' 1843. It was written by Visnudas Bhave. LakshmanSimha (1826-96)has been credited by Macgregorwith being the father of literature in Hindi proper. He translated in "Sakuntala" 1863. He may havebeen indebted in this enterprise to Iswarchandra of Bengaliprosetranslation the Vidyasagar's which came out in 1854.28The "Sakuntala" wenton and Marathi Malayalee"Sakuntala" stage in 1880. Understandably Shakespeare seems to have provided a major source for early translators. Hamlet, Macbeth,Othello,Merchant of Venice seem to have been particularly popular. Likewise Sanskrit plays provided the other inexhaustible source. Maybebecause of the strong traditionof folk and regional theatre, drama became easily the most prestigious and popular form. In his short span of life Bharatendu wroteclose to two scoreplays Harishchandra both translationsand originals. Right from the beginning of the modern Indian drama the folk and classicalforms havedominated the mode of dramaticcomposition.Sahasrabuddhe traces the history of the Marathi drama strangely from 1880 (the date of Kirloskar's "Sakuntala" going on stage) because he thought that Bhave'splays did not representmodern drama. Bhave'splays mixed "elements from bharud, tamasha, lalit, dasavatara and so on".29This is the statementto make;not most extraordinary only because it does injustice to Bhavebut also because it postulates a misplaced contradictionbetween the traditionalforms of theatre and modern drama. The exact opposite of this attitude was heardby the present writer in a seminar in Delhi where a formerofficial of the SangitNatakAkademi and claimedthe creditfor introducing adopting folk forms for the use of modern theatre.A good one hundredand fortyyears before the official had spoken the process had begun. Even Kirloskarwho, according
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to Sahasrabuddhe is the first genuine modernplaywrightdid the same. Bharatendu used forms like bhanaand sattakain the nineteenthcentury. In Bharatendu'splays, it however, is still the case that dialoguesare written in standard Hindi but the verse is writtenin dialectpresumably BrajBhasa. the After all LallujiLal, one of the foundersof modern Hindi diction had himself said in 1808:"Everyonespeaks Braj Bhasa, it is as greatas Sanskrit.All poets use it. Theythink it to be the source of the great rasa'30 It wouldappearthat evenin Bharatendu's time the Hindi play was linguistically a mixed affair. Theatreacquiredover the years a major political significance.Manywritersattempted to use theatre in the anti-imperialist struggle.Khadilkar whose majorwritingextends from 1890sto about middle 1920swas immensely popular and gifted playwright. He also became a political playwright.A number of his plays were banned. He was jailed a number of times. The use of allegory,satire,recreationand reinterpretation of historyin modern,nationalistterms became a feature of Indian playwriting. At the same time from 1870s onwards Indian theatreshowedremarkable rangeof formal experimentation.On the one hand the traditional forms like Dasavatara or Yaksaganacontributed to the richness of fare along with the Sanskrit forms like Prahasanaor Bhana. On the otherthe Parsi theatre which became popular after the 1870sdepended upon its rich and complex narrative, influencesof Marathi Gujarati and theatre,it generallytended towardsbeing a verydazzlingspectacleand a good narratiye. Manmohan Vasu in his play on Harishchandrawrittenin 1875went fairlyclose to the yatra torm. The point I am trying to make that there was a tremendous formal in experimentation the earlyyearsof Indian theatre.Natya sangit so very popularon the Marathistage will be mentioned later. But its rolein formalexperimentation shouldnot be undermined. At the first yearsof the twentiethcentury theatrehad become quite popular and you have playwrightsliving off their work. G B Devalmight be the first playwrightin India who went to a tourt of law to establishhis royaltyrightsand won the case! Admittedly it is in the twentieth centurythat Bengaliand Marathi theatre reach their high point, a period which has not been coveredin this paper. The excellence of Tagore or a Khadilkar seen essentiallyin the twentieth is century. (Although Tagore'sfirst play was writtenin 1881and Khadilkar's 1891).But in by the turn of the century the modern theatrehad come to stayand was a flourishing tradition in Maharashtraand Bengal. In manywaysthe moderntheatrewas the Indian'sattempt to come to terms with his heritageand to face the situationcreatedby colonialism and the new ideas and bad effects that it generated.Thus Bharatendu attackedthe hypocrisy of the brahmanical societyin his playslike 'VaidikiHinsa Hinsa

na Bhavatior Deval attackedthe practiceof marryingoff young girls to elderlymen in his "Sarada". Later in Tagore and Khadilkar drama attains some height in terms of content as well. In short, theatre became. a vehicle throughwhichmodernIndiandiscovered his self, his tradition, philosophical positions and also political and philosophicalmeaning of existence. In addition to that the 'modern'theatrehelped(decadesbeforethe SangitNatakAkademywas born) the traditional forms survive. Just as modern industry ruined the indigenous handicrafts here. The modern theatre and later the cinema could have done the same. But that did not happen. In terms of music, acting styles, story matter, amalgamationof differentforms and varietyof concernssocial, political and philosophical, of the playwrights,modern Indiandramacame of age in the twentieth century.The active drama moveMentsat least in some parts of the country were also a function of the assertion of identity of those people whetherin Bengal or Maharashtraor Kerala. IV Assertion of identity and retrievalof a culturaltraditionarebest exemplified the by popularity and spread of the Hindustani (north Indian)classicalmusic outsidenorth India where gharanas (the schools) of the Hindustanimusic are based. This is not to say that the Hindustani music was not popular in outlying areas like Maharashtra or Bengal earlier.Indeed the Peshwacourt in Pune patronised visiting vocal classical singers from north India in the eighteenth century.What happened in the nineteenth century is that we now had major practitioners of music, i e, vocalists and instrumentalists in emerging areaslikeMaharashtra and Bengal.in the case of Maharashtra this is particularly notable. Gwalior in north India which has been a home of one of the gharanasof Hindustanimusic was ruledby a Maratha ruling family. Yet prior to the nineteenthcentury you do not hear of any significantMaharashtrian pandit of music. The tradition of Pune-based musicians begins with the nineteenth century. (This would be true of almost all provinceswhere Hindustani musicis popular, namelyBengal, Gujarat,Orissaand Assam. Yousee evenin these provincesmajornames in Hindustani classical music emergingin the nineteenth century and after). The popularity has if anythingincreasedin the twentiethcentury. K L Bhole a major historian of music and Film laterday music directorof the Prabhat Company in the thirties and forties has recordedthat in the late nineteenthcentury three outstanding names emerged on the Maharashtra musical scene: Balkrishna Buwa Ichalkaranjikar,Ramakrishnabuwa Vaze and BhaskarbuwaBakhle.31 All of themhadgone to the northand spentseveral years learning music. They did more than anyone else to popularise Hindustani
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classicalmusicin Maharashtra. legendhas A it that Pandit Bhatkhande who made the firstattemptto transform essentially the oral tradition of music into a written one was once asked why he was 'writing'the music down. His reply among other things illustrates the point made above. He is reported to have said "Maharashtradoes not have muchof art. I thoughtit shouldat least have science!" Earlierin the eighteenthcentury Hindustani music was popularat the court of the Peshwas in Pune. But the singers and the instrumentalistswere from the north. The court patronised them. A popular theatre form in Maharashtra the Tamasha. was The singing in the Tamashadepended upon a lyrical form called the Lavani. Peshwa a Bajirao-II encouraged new form of Lavani which was (like-the Khayal Gayaki of the north) sung not in a Tamashabut at the court. Honaji Bala was the poet who wrote this kind of Lavani which was called BaithakichiLavani (The Lavani which was sung in a court or was sung sitting unlike the traditionalone which was accompanied with a dance). This Lavani was clearly an extensionof the Khayal Gayaki. Nevertheless in formal terms it did not severits connection with the mainstream Lavani. In other words, Maharashtraseems to have turned in a significant measure to practising Hindustani music essentially in the colonial age. By and large it would be true to say that it was in colonial age that the classical Hindustani music became really popular in terms of the numberof its practitioners outside of north India. I have alwayswonderedwhy it was so. One possible explanation could be that in pre-capitalist societies like India thereis a wide varietyof art forms and rich classical traditions. But these areessentiallylocal in character. you If wanted to study music of Agra or Gwalior gharana you had actually to travel there. Classical musicians did travel but the musical traditions did not. It was a bit like localised commodity production. The gharanasmanaged to retaintheir purity by resistingemigration.With the new political set-up this tradition brokedown. The three mastersof whom Bhole wrote in his book came back to Maharashtraand with them began the chapter of Hindustani classical music that the history of Maharashtrahad hitherto lacked. The new socio-economic orderthat colonialismsought to createin the whole of India is partlyresponsiblefor this. at Secondly,in Maharashtra any rate the elite had just lost political power. In 1818 Pune fell to the British.The Pune brahmins *nowhad to asserttheiridentityin some area other than politics. They turned to culture as meansof assertingan identityand a role. Traditionally they had in any case been the intellectuals.It was not altogetherunknown for them to turn away from brahmanical functions. Quite a number of them were landlordsand as such capable of patronising art at local level. The dominance of landlords and absentee landlords in the

an sphereof arts and aestheticsis partly to be the raga form urnderwent aesthetically was attributedto their being a leisureclass of a magnificentchange.The raga structure kind. It is no accidentthat the smallerstates made to look like what a Japanese Bonsai of the Deccan (which were allowed to sur- tree. A natya git (the lyric in the musical) vive by the British)becamemajorcentresof demonstratedall the features of a raga in For musical,activity. example,Mirajbecame encapsulated form. It was raga music In a centre of musical instruments.32 the rendered self-consciously in a theatrical twentiethcenturyMirajbecamefamousnot form. Bal Gandharva easily the greatest but only for the sitars it manufactured also singer-actor the Indian theatre produced because of Abdul Karim Khan easily the (this year happens to be his birth centenary most well known vocalist of the Kirana year) had the intuitive sense of form (Formgefuhi) referred to above. Kumar Gharanawho lived there. It does seem that the spreadand popula- Gandharvathe well known and the most rity of the Hindustaniclassicalmusic in the creativeof the contemporaryvocalists paid 19th century (in our century it has if tributeto the masterby cutting a disc of his anything grown) were a function of this renderingsof the master'ssongs. The disc assertion of the Indian culturalidentity.A had an apt title "Mala Umajlele Bal demoralisedpeople who had lost political Gandharva"("Bal Gandharvaas I underpowerwas tryingto define itself, seek fulfil- standhim").Come the twentiesand the early ment for itself in the manifest excellenceof creativity of the natya sangita disappears. Understandably, Most of the latter-daysingers treat natya the Indianmusicaltradition. it went hand in hand with the more general sangita more as an abridgedversion of the searchfor meaningof India and the Indian raga ratherthan as a form in its own right. tradition. Colonialism and the opposition It is perhaps no coincidence that Bal to it revealed the metaphysics of Indian Gandharvawhich was his adopted name music. The most well known example in given to him by no less a person than terms of form of this quest and its fulfil- LokmanyaTilak. A typical exampleof the ment in music is the experimentationthat close link betweenthe nationalistmovement RabindranathTagore did with the ragas and the arts. The full significance of the generallyknown as RabindraSangit. This natya sangit cannot be understood unless is not the place to go into the meaningand one places it against the backdrop of the importanceof RabindraSangit. Nor is the colonial experienceand the searchfor more present writer competent to do so. There meaningful art forms that the experience seems little doubt, however,that there is seems'to have entailed. The most obviouschangethat colonialism perhapsno betterexampleof modernIndia coming to terms with the classical tradition made to our musical taste consisted in the not merely in terms of its technical details introductionof the gramophonerecord. It but also in terms of retrievingthe philo- broughtIndiansface to face or, shall we say, sophical and aesthetic world of .that ear to ear with art in what WalterBenjamin has called "the age of mechanicalreproductradition. Imperalismforces you to take a look at tion". It is a matter of considerabledebate reproduction' yourself,constantlyto redefineyourself.The if this businessof 'mechanical aestheticpursuitsof colonisedpeoplearefor of art is altogethera good thing to happen. that reasonthe most fascinating.Aesthetics Weneed not go into that here exceptto say of music is by its nature resistantto syste- that the disc music went into far cornersof Indian music has yet to India in a way in which it had not gone matic artiWulation. find its Adorno. In any case what Adorno before.Besidesthis must havebeen a unique says might be of interesthere. He talks of experience for an average Indian that he open forms inmusic. In the westerntradi- could now own music.He had ownedbooks. tion he thinks the developmentsof 'open He had owned portraitsand paintings. He form'has gone throughtwo stages.Now the had owned craft objects. He had never Indian musical tradition is essentially one owned music. That became possible now. of open forms. The ragas encourage an It would be difficult to describe it but a extraordinarydegree of improvisation or change came over the 'traditional'attitude even of "vagueness and . o,cillafions", to to music. Music was either in a temple or borrowAdorno'sdescriptionof the Motzar- in the court of a king or of a zamindaror tian Rondo. I do not mean to suggest that in the chambers of courtesans in urban the centres.Now it enteredthe living room. In Adorno'saccountis usefulto understand to a caste-society like India's this has had developmentsin Indianmusic. Reference his work has been made just to point out tremendoussocial significance.It would be that the practitioners of music during a permissibleoverstatementthat the intercolonial times did in fact show "theintuitive face between Indian sensibility and colsense of form" (Formgefuhi)that Adorno onialism gave the musiciana kind of social whichhe did not andcouldnot sees in Bach.33 Tagore'sRabindra Sangit respectability possess for at least a thousand years. In a shows that. The less well known and at times unduly sense the dark age was over for him. criticisedif not actuallymalignedformalexV in perimentation musicwas the natyasangit This survey has been rathersketchyand in Marathi.It was adaptationof the classical vocal tradition for the use of theatre.Dur- manifestly inadequate. it givessomeidea But ing its best period, i e, from 1880 to 1920 of what our aesthetic experience during 2175

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colonialtimeswas like.Weneed a theoretical perspectivewhich would bring together in a systematic way the aspects mentioned above.Amilcar Cabralhas writtenina consistent manner on colonialism and culture. His insight-that "national liberation" is "necessarilya cultural act"34is more than borpe out by the above survey. But his theoriescannot be entirelyapplicableto the situation of colonial India. He had Africa and Portuguesecolonialismin mind. He has characterisedthe African situation thus: One of the gravesterrors,if not the worst, by committed the colonialpowersin Africa the was to haveignoredor underestimated cufturalstrengthof Africanpeoples. This blatantin the case attitudewasparticularly which domination colonial of the Portuguese deniedthe existence not only categorically values . . but also stubof Africancultural to bornlyrefused allowanypoliticalfreedom of expression.35 It is easy to see that the descriptionwould apply to the colonies of Portugalor France. The natureof the Britishcolonial state was different.Further,unlikein Frenchand Portuguesecolonies in Africa or the Caribbean Indiahad a flourishingindigenouslinguistic and literarytradition. There was no quesDutt'sexampledemontion as Madhusudan strates.Indian writersbecomingin the main writersin English. For a writer in colonial Indiawas not facedwith the problemwhich, for example,Aime Cessairewas faced with. Cessaire writes:-

because of it, it led to the retrieval of cultural,classical traditionsand languages. That in sum was our colonial aesthetic experience which was also anti-colonial
aesthetic experience.

Notes
[An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the.Joint Indo-Soviet Seminar in Leningrad in August 1987. The Semihar was organised by the OrientalInstitutein Moscow and the Nehru Museum and Library. My thanks are due to Ram Bapat, Prabhat Patnaik, C P Chandrasekhar, Anil Bhatti, Utsa Patnaik, Gyanendra Pande who commented upon the earlier draft. Needless to say that I alone am responsible for the views expressed in the paper or such errors and mistakes as there might be in the paper.]

cent mysticism'.However in the translation edited by Steven Lukes (Macmillan, London, 1962), the words are 'resurgent mysticism', see p 33. 20 Cited in Dominik LaCapra. "History and Criticism",Itaca and London (1985), p 125. 21 Ibid, p 115. 22 "RajwadeLekhasangraha" (SelectedEssays of V K Rajwade) in Marathi, Bombay Sahitya Akademi (New Delhi), Popular Prakashan, 2nd Edit-on, 1967, pp 266-77. 23 T V Sardeshmukh: 'Andhara Yatra' (Journey into Darkness), a collection of critical essays, Manj Prakashan, Bombay. Sardesmukh certainly argues that the images of darkness were the high point in that poetry.

24 'Rahul Sankrityayan: Bharatendu Aur Pushkin' (in Hindi) in "Rahul Sankrtyayan 1 Perry Anderson: 'Problems of Socialist ke Srestha Nibandh", Delhi, 1982, Strategy' in "TowardsSocialism", edited by pp 124-129. Perry Anderson and Robin Blackburn, Collins, London, 1965, p 225. 25 See Sukumar Sen: "History of Bengali 2 D V Potdar: "Marathi Gadyacha Ingraji Sahitya Akademi, Delhi, p 191. Literature". Avatara" (The English reincarnation of 26 Ibid, p 185. Marathi prose) (Marathi), Pune. 3 Cited in Nihar Ranjan Ray: 'Krsti, Culture 27 Jambhekar's article welcoming the Hindu Nataksata (The Hindu drama company) evam Sanskrit' in Prabhakar Machwe (ed) appearedin Darpana on February17, 1832. "BharatiyaSanskriti" (in Hindi), Calcutta, For the text of the article see 'Memoirsand 1983, p 18. Writings of Acharya Balsastri Jambhekar 4 Suniti Kumar Chatterj: "Sanskrit, Silpa, (1812-1846)', Vol II, P 27, edited by Itihasa, Jijnasa" (in Bengali) cited in Nihar G G Jambhekar, Pune 1950. Ranjan Ray, Ibid, p 10. 5 Suniti Kumar Chatterji: Ibid, p 7. 28 MacGregor, op cit, p 73. 6 Ronald Stuart MacGregor: 'Hindi 29 P G Sahasrabuddhe: "Maharashtra SanLiterature of the 19th Century', Fasc 2 of skriti', Continental Prakasana, Pune, 1979, Vol VIII of "A History of Indian ... for me Frenchwas a tool that I wanted to p 801. Otto Harrosovitz, Wiesltadon, Literature"' a usein developing newmeansof expression. 1974, p 63. 30 Cited by MacGregor, op cit, p 68. I wantedto createan AntilleanFrench,a 7 Cited in J C Ghosh: "Bengali Literature", that, whilestill being French, blackFrench Oxford University Press, London, 1949, 31 Ichalkaranjikar also started a journal in had a black character.36 Marathi, Sangit Darpan on music, perhaps p 102. the first in India, in 1883. Tagoreor Khadilkaror Premchandwas not 8 Ghosh, 4bid, p 107. creatinga 'brown'English.His tool was tlot 9 This is Ghosh's description of Ram Mohan 32 Unfortunately I was not able to locate any was and could not have been English. He Ray, Ibid. account which traces the history of the cenan inheritor of a classical literary and 10 KarlMannheim: "Diagnosis of our Times", tres of production of musical instruments. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1962, musical tradition. This is an importantdifIt would be interesting to find out when p 1. accurate Nor would it be historically ference. Miraj, a small dusty town at the southernto suggestthat the west denied the existence 11 R O'Hanlon: "Caste, Conflict and most tip of Maharashtrastarted producing Ideology"' Cambridge, Cambridge Universitars. Peter Gay mentions (op cit p 28) that of Indian (or for that matter Chinese) sity Press, 1985. See her summary and in 1884, the English periodical Musical cultural values. It was interestedin reducanalysis of Phule's play "Tratiya Ratna" Opinon reported that Germany (in that ing those values to a secondary position. (Third Jewel), p 122. year) could boast some 424 factories turnThese differences, namely, an existence of (in ing out about 73,000 pianos a year. It is a fairly old literary and linguistic traditions 12 "Collected works of Jyotirao Phule", the Marathi) have been published by pity that suc9 data was not availablefor new of inheritance a classicaltraditionin arts and government of Maharashtra. or old centres of production of musical inmake the Indian situation very different. I struments in India. do not mean to say that the things Indian 13 Madhusudan Dutt's letter to his friend RajanarayanaVasu, cited by Ghosh, op cit, 33 T W Adorno: "The Aesthetic superiorto the things African. I mean were Theory", p 138. to suggest that they were different. We, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1984, 14 Warren Hastings: 'Letter to Nathaniel therefore,need a theoreticianof the Indian pp 313 and 314. Smith' in P J Marshall (ed) "The British form of colonial aesthetic experience. Discovery of Hinduism",Cambridge, 1970, 34 Amilcar Cabral: 'Unite et Lutte' I, p 44, In case of countries like India what colcited in Patrick Chabal 'Amilcar Carbarl: pp 184-191. onialism aid was to set in motion a process 15 Cited in Peter Gay: "The Bourgeois ExRevolutionary Leadership and People's of retrieval of culture. Colonialism in War",Cambridge, Cambridge University perience", Vol 1, Oxford, 1984, p 52. culturalterms was, like a period of disturb- 16 See his five essays on the subject in Press, p 183. for these ancient people. They lost ed sleep G G Agarkar "Nibandha Sangraha" (Col35 Amilcar Carbral,ibid, p 43, cited in Chabal, some, they gained some. In short, collected Essays), Vol III of "Sampurna ibid'. Works of Agarkar in onialismahas been a mixed experience as Agarkar" (Collected of much in cultural sphere as in spheres Marathi), ed by M D Altekar, Pune, 1940, 36 Aime Cessaire's interview with the Haitian at poet Rene Depestreat the CulturalCongress pp 95-124. economy and polity. In India the de .v.at of Havana, 1967, collected in "Aime the hands of colonialism has had a dialec- 17 Peter Gay: op cit, p 32. Cessaire: Discourse on Colonialism" tics of its own. It resultedin the suppression 18 Ibid, p 43. Monthly PReview Press, New York, 1972. of the Indian people. At the same time and 19 Ibid, p 60, Peter Gay uses the term 'renasEconomic and Political Weekly December 12, 1987

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