Spanning the years from 1800 to 1950, this book probes the lives of a dozen makers of modern India, examining their relationships with British colonialism and Indian tradition. Traces religious and social reforms and the impact of the English language on them.

Examines the lives and careers of key players in the making of modern India

Assesses their attitudes to British colonialism as well as to Indian traditions

Analyzes how their use of the English language helped shape the Indian state

Examines the lives and careers of key players in the making of modern India Assesses their attitudes to British colonialism as well as to Indian traditions Analyzes how their use of the English language helped shape the Indian state?

Autorentext

Makarand R. Paranjape is Professor of English in the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was educated at St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi (B.A. Hons.) and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA (Masters and Ph.D.). He is the author/editor of over thirty-five books which include works of criticism, poetry, and fiction, and has also published over 125 academic papers in books or journals published from India and abroad. His latest work includes the two monographs Another Canon: Indian Texts and Traditions in English (2009) and Altered Destinations: Self, Society, and Nation in India (2010).

Klappentext

Today's India is almost completely unrecognizable from what it was at the eve of the colonial conquest. A sovereign nation, with a teeming, industrious population, it is an economic powerhouse and the world's largest democracy. The question is how did it get to where it is now?

Covering the period from 1800 to 1950, this study of about a dozen makers of modern India is a valuable addition to India's cultural and intellectual history. More specifically, it shows how through the very act of writing, often in English, Indian society was radically reconfigured. Writing itself became endowed with almost a charismatic authority, which continued to influence generations, long after the author's death.

By examining the lives and works of the makers of contemporary India, this study assesses their relationships with British colonialism and Indian traditions. Through debate, dialogue, conflict, confrontation, and reconciliation, India struggled not only with British colonialism, but also with itself and its own past, thus giving rise to a uniquely Indian version of liberalism.

The religious and social reforms that laid the groundwork for the modern sub-continental state were proposed and advocated in English by prominent native voices. Merging culture, politics, language, and literature, this pathbreaking volume adds considerably to our understanding of a nation that looks set to achieve greater heights in the coming decades.

Inhalt
I: Introduction.- II:Usable Pasts: Rammohun Roy's Occidentalism.- III: Michael Madhusudan Dutt: Prodigal, Prodigy.- IV: Bankimchandra Chatterjee and the Allegory of Rajmohan's Wife.- V: Subjects to Change: Considering Women's Authority.- VI: Sri Aurobindo and the Renaissance in India?.- VII: Spiritual vs. Historical Facts: Representing Swami Vivekananda.- VIII: Home and the World: Colonialism and AlterNativity in Tagore's India.- IX: Sarojini Naidu: Reclaiming a Kinship.- X: The Sanatani Mahatma?Re-reading Gandhi Post-Hindutva.