Preface

The recent spurt in Indian Writing in English (IWE) has brought to the surface an aspect which is highly unsettling. Almost without exception, the new breed of writers are persons who hail from an elitist background and very often manage to attain media eminence by forces other than their literary achievements. Monographs or critical articles on their works usually list the merits and concentrate on textual analysis. A closer appraisal of the situation led me to the conclusion that in the case of IWE, extratextual factors, generally ignored or bypassed, deliberately or otherwise, by university teachers and the media, invariably creep in. Since these elements overwhelmingly determine the writers' inclusion/exclusion both from the IWE canon and the campus curricula, they become the focus of my study. I would hesitate to label this book as literary criticism, nor would I call it a work of sociology. It cannot be called literary criticism because it is concerned with the study of sociocultural forces that make an author in an Indian environment. It cannot be called sociology because its main concern is evaluation of a recent body of works in this branch of literature. Midway between the two, my book may be described as an example of socio literary criticism.

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Lives of western writers are open books to us. In the sphere of IWE, whereas particulars of  writers hailing from humbler backgrounds are known, the. detailed biographies of affluent writers intriguingly lie concealed. To my mind, it is essential to excavate the past of a writer before he is taken up as a subject of study. The writer's personal life is as much for public display as his name and work. Public fame has its own obligations in the case of any celebrity. My approach [1], therefore, may seem unconventional, and at places, a bit uninhibited. Not only how an author writes but how he lives, is important in the Indian context. If one can decipher many meanings in a text, one can also decipher many meanings in the life of the writer of the text. Readers may be so provoked as to consider portions of the narrative as harsh and unfair. But the objective of the discourse could scarcely preclude such a methodology.

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Despite all the clamour about globalisation, for the purpose of this book, Indian Writing in English implies writings by Indians, generally based in India, on things Indian. However, there is a category of writers who often make global peregrinations and are widely discussed in India both in the groves of academe and in the media. Their inclusion was but ineluctable. Some inconsequential authors, too, have been brought in, in order to highlight the sociocultural forces which make them manifest.

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ENDNOTES

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1. A biographical approach to literature does, of course, always carry with it the danger of reductionism. But the origin of this book partly stems from certain ideas on literature enunciated by Roland Barthes (1915-1987) in Le degré zéro de lecture (1953), Mythologies (1957), S/Z (1970), and Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes (1975). Since it is not possible to dwell on all his theories here, I shall touch upon some of his basic concepts. According to Barthes, "A book is the product of a different self from the one we exhibit in our habits, in society, in our vices." Literature, for him, is a self-contained and self sufficient linguistic activity. He supposes that what are generally known in English as 'works of the imagination' contain neither moral truths, nor information about society, nor living characters, nor revelations about the author.  

2. Barthes maintains that all cultures are political ideologies reflecting the interests of the class in power. Literature is a branch of culture and, therefore, it has ceased to be something taken for granted as natural. It is seen as a cultural product of particular societies, varying with them as laws or religions vary, and in no way guaranteed as an automatic and integral part of the human condition. 

3. Literature, opines Barthes, has become dissociated from the society consuming it. Since it serves no substantive social function, it is fairly valueless'. He asserts that 'no mode of writing is more artificial than this one'; and that 'literature has lost the innocent sell-assurance whereby it could present itself as a wholly natural activity.' Barthes' more complex theory of how literature works is elaborated in 8/Z "It filters events through a preconceived network of cultural, moral and intellectual references, and makes no attempt to cut through established cliches. Only when society has resolved its conflicts (which is a distant ideal), that literature will be able to go beyond the alienation which has characterised it." Barthes changes the emphasis from the writer as an individual to the writer as the mouthpiece of a social group. Of no writing is this more true than in the context of Indian Writing in English, whose practitioners largely constitute the country's influential elite, or are closely aligned with them.

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Acknowledgments

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Grateful acknowledgements are made to the editors of the following journals, magazines and newspapers where ideas and materials used in some of the chapters first made their appearance: Indian Book Chronicle, Critical Forum, Mainstream, Faces, Eminence, Indian Express and Patriot. Thanks are also due to All India Radio, Delhi, for broadcasting several of my critical Talks pertaining to Indian writers in English.