Trends of Realism in the Telugu Novel

“In any work of art, perspective is of overriding importance. It determines the course and content; it draws together the threads of narration; it enables the artist to choose between the important and the superficial, the crucial and the episodic. The direction in which characters develop is determined by perspective, only those features being described which are material to their development. The more lucid the perspective...the more economical and striking the selection.” (Lukacs: The Meaning of Contemporary Realism)¹

There is no Realism without a perspective. Realism is an accepted trend today in Indian fiction, but perspectives of individual writers differ. Unless one goes into the outlook and philosophy of the writer, assesses his response and reaction to the society of which he is a part, as expressed in his novelist’s art, one cannot judge what kind of a Realist that particular writer is. George Lukacs, an eminent Marxist critic, formulates his theory of Realism in accordance with the Marxist perspective of social change. Recognizing two phases in the development of Realism in European literature, Lukacs designates them as Critical Realism of the bourgeois society, in which the perspectives of the individual writers vary and differ; and Socialist Realism of the later capitalist and the new socialist societies in Europe, wherein the one perspective of socialist consciousness will tend to prevail. In between, there may be a phase of Realism, which is generally known as Naturalism, and Lukacs characterizes it as lacking in perspective. “Bourgeois naturalism expressed the bourgeois writer’s bafflement, his inability to discover a rational pattern in the multiplicity of facts”.² Finally commending Socialist Realism more as a trend for the future of literature in the emerging society than as an accomplished fact of literature, Lukacs avers that “Critical Realism will have a prolonged existence in the new socialist society”.³ “Socialist Realism is a possibility rather than an actuality”. ⁴

It has been necessary for me to take Lukacs’ formulations as a point of departure for my paper on the trends of Realism in Telugu fiction, because the problems of Realism are not dissimilar, though they may not be identical in contemporary world literature. It is not necessary we should accept in toto the theory of Realism postulated by Lukacs, but it is good as far as it goes and many of his observations and formulations certainly help to identify certain significant novels of Realism in my own language, and to relate them to the changing society from the Marxist point of view; for we cannot deny that we are all socialists now!

The first significant novel in telugu published in 1878. Rajasekhara Charitram by the great social reformer, K. Veeresalingam Pantulu, was a Realist novel. It presents the feudal society in decay; the author’s perspective is that of cultural reform, and the emphasis on the reform of the individual man through rational, thinking and enlightenment. Ramachandra Vijayam by Chilakamarti Lakshminarasimham, a follower of Veeresalingam, was another accurate picture of the social life of the time, 1894, in the fertile Godavari delta in Andhra known as Konaseema; its perspectivete is that of enlightenment and advancement in life through modern (Western) education, in contrast with the traditional Sanskrit education. These two novels depict the life of the middle-class Brahmins during the late nineteenth century with the perspective of social progress and economic change. They are examples of Critical Realism. Chilakamarti’s another remarkable novel Ganapatiof the same period is a powerful realist novel, though generally misjudged as a humorous work. It depicts the poverty degradation and misery of the poorer Brahmins without property or education, who rely on their ingenuity to eke out a living. Though the author’s perspective is one of satire and humour, today one can perceive the economic and social forces acting upon the individual at that period and analyse them and learn much, which understanding is not otherwise available from any social document of the period. It is something like Marx reading Balzac’s novels to understand the social forces of the period in France. In realist fiction, says Lukacs, “a character is typical...when his innermost being is determined by objective for at work in society”.⁶ Ganapati is a typical character in this fashion, and critical recognition to the character in this light is yet to be accorded; not only because criticism is slow in adjusting its perspectives, but also because the author Chilakamarti himself had a different perspective when he created Ganapati; the perspective of an amused onlooker. “Writer’s conscious views and his understanding and portrayal of the things in his work–the two might be diametrically opposed,” but what matters is the reality of life in relation to the period of time caught in the work of art. That way Ganapatiis a great period-piece.

After the three novels now described one might expect the early Telugu novel to have started off promisingly in the Realistic mode. But it was a false start, and during the years that followed even Chilakamarti wrote romantic novels. Historical novels so-called but in fact Romances became the fashion of the day. It was in 1921U. Lakshminarayana published his Maalapalli(The Untouchables’ Village) which was before long banned by the British Government for its powerful realism. A great novel it remains for its Realism, which is that of great art, not measured by the Marxist yardstick alone. With untouchables as the central characters, for the first time in Telugu fiction, the agricultural set-up in its transition from feudalism to bourgeois society, the importance of the change-over from barter to money, the influence of the Soviet Revolution and ideas of trade-unionism, and the role of the Untouchable as an agricultural labourer, along with the repressive methods of the British imperialism branding troublesome population as criminals and confining them in “settle-merits” and the hellish condition of the British jails, were graphically portrayed in their complex reality. What we have here is not merely the critical realism of the bourgeois writer, but a revolutionary and prophetic realism pointing towards socialist realism of an India to be. The future is contained in the present. The novel is firmly rooted in its historic social context, but something more than what can be measured by the known Marxist yardstick is forcefully present in this novel. The perspective is that of the timeless Vedanta (or Sanatana Dharma), not in its intellectual form known to the educated and to the pundits, but the dynamic variety practised as a way of life by humble people like Ramdas, the untouchable hero of the novel, who is as real and as practical as Mahatma Gandhi was to be on the national scene in the years that followed the publication of the novel. One cannot just dismiss this perspective of the novelist as traditional, or mystic or romantic, because the perspective, though it cannot be intellectually categorized, is forward-looking, socialistic, and valid to Indian life-situation of the time, as the Mahatma’s was in the political field Maalapalli is a great Realist novel in Indian fiction by any criterion. It depicts a period of socio-economic change in fullness and depth, and is comparable to Tolstoy’s War and Peace. It was also the first novel written in spoken Telugu, in the real language of the people in the Guntur District of Andhra Pradesh at that period.

After Maalapalli, for over twenty years Telugu fiction was dominated by Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Chalam, Adivi Bapiraju and other romantics. Viswanatha’s cultural nostalgia, Chalam’s fee-love proclivities and Adivi’s fervour for perfection and beauty exclude them from the Realist tradition. During the period Kodavatiganti Kutumba Rao alone kept Realism alive with his novel Chaduvu(Education), which portrays accurately the period of non-co-operation movement, the trade-depression and wide-spread unemployment among graduates in the ’Thirties leading to disillusionment about the Western educution as a means of livelihood and advancement. By 1945 the romantic tradition petered out and instead of original works translations from other languages and imitations abounded in fiction. The translated novels of Premchand, Saratchandra and others were popular in the ’Forties. In 1945 appeared Gopichand’s Asamarthuni Jeevayaatra (The Life of an Incompetent Man), which portrayed a disillusioned bourgeois youth suffering from schizophrenia. In 1946 appeared Rachakonda Viswanatha Sastri’s Alpa Jeevi (The Little Man), which portrayed from inside the character of a Government clerk, who was also a (inferiority) case-study of Adler’s complex. Around the same time Buchi Babu’s Chivaraku Migiledi (What remains at the end), a case-study of Freud’s Oedipus complex. The romantic tradition was effectively shattered by these outstanding novels in search of psychological realism, probing the depths of the human psyche with the help of psychological concepts and creating something new and original in the field of the novel. Critical Realism was kept alive by Kutumba Rao in novels like Vaarasatvam(The Inheritance) giving a picture of the Second World War years.

After 1947, Realism had a new birth in the Telugu novel and became the dominant trend. Naturalism appeared in a few novels, which remain a significant contribution to literature. “The distinction between Realism and Naturalism depends on the presence or absence in a work of art of a hierarchy of Significance in the situations and characters presented”.⁷ (Lukacs) The novels Manchi-Chedu(Good and Evil) and Apasvaraalu(Discordant Notes) written by a hotel-server, Natarajan, under the pen-name of “Sarada” describe graphically the seamy side or urban life and the distress and misery of the lower middle-class and the have-nots especially of the women-folk among them, ruthlessly exploited in individual and family relationships. The perspective is neither psychological nor sociological; there is no “hierarchy of significance”; it is just detached observation, and does not offer either consolations or conclusions. What was said of Flaubert, the great name in Realism, applies here: “He rejected utopianism with a gesture of ascetic defiance–he viewed his age without hope, but also without fear”.⁸ And the most notable thing was he shed no tears! The disillusionment with urban life leading to lack of perspective is the characteristic of P. Sambasiva Rao’s Anveshana(The Search) depicting life in Hyderabad City in the ’Fifties. Here we have a montage of true-life scenes individually recognizable but totally meaningless.

The trend of Critical Realism asserted itself with B. Kantha Rao’s Dagaapadina Thammudu (The Betrayed Brother), and influence of Premchand’s Godaanis discernible here. Kantha Rao’s novel portrays an exploited ryot migrating from the countryside to the city in search of employment as an industrial worker. Instead of employment he lands in jail. The author’s perspective is one of moral conscience in man, with which he judges the transition of the age from feudalism to bourgeois milieu.

In G. V. Krishna Rao’s Keelubommalu(The Marionettes), we have the kind of Realism that raises questions without answering them. It was Ibsen who said: “My concern is to put questions, not to supply answers”.⁹ And Chekhov declared, “Only the question a writer puts must be reasonable. The answers may be unreasonable. But that does not invalidate the work as long as it is based on a reasonable question”.¹⁰ Keelubommaluasks the question: “What may be the power of a lie?” The result is a chain of events ruining families, causing bitter factions, and spreading panic, misery and disaffection all around, till the liar is crowned with political recognition and hailed as the leader of the village community! This outcome may look unreasonable, but there it is! It is a social fact! When Krishna Rao ends his novel with the exit of the one and only sane person in the village, we think the author is unduly pessimistic. The novel is a good period-piece. Then came from the pen of Mahidhara Ramamohan Rao a bunch of novels depicting the political currents and cross-currents in Andhra Pradesh, especially delineating the part played by the Communist Party of India in the area. The political struggle in Telengana was effectively portrayed by Atwar Swami in his Prajala Manishi (The Man of the People) and Gangu. These novels may be called novels of political realism; because here the accent is not on personal relationships; it is on political relationships; and the individuals become but actors on a political stage. It is no doubt desirable and even necessary to have literature with a political perspective; but a caution has to be sounded here. Let us listen to Lukacs: “Of course, there has always been a type of literature passionately engaged in day-to-day political issues. It will, let us hope, continue to exist, and there is no reason why it should not aim at artistic perfection. But it is disastrous to subsume all literature under this head. Writers must be allowed to find their own point of contact with day-to-day politics, and be allowed to work out suitable means of dealing with it”. ¹¹

Following the founding of the Progressive Writers’ Association, Critical Realism came to be recognized as the proper literary creed. This was a conscious acceptance of something, which was already a matter of practice with creative writers keenly aware of being rooted in their age and society, When this conscious acceptance of an attitude grew into a creed, and that into a narrow political perspective, the literature of Realism began to wither away, Round about the ’Seventies when the Revolutionary Writer took over Realism in the name of commitment to Socialist Realism and Revolutionary Realism, the death-knell of Realism as such was sounded. Lukacs designates this development as “Revolutionary Romanticism” and observes. “Revolutionary Romanticism is the aesthetic equivalent of economic subjectivism...The reasons are evident, economic subjectivism confuses what is subjectively desirable with what is objectively there. It reduces perspective...to the level of practical day-to-day exigency. Life is thus robbed of its poetry. For the poetry of life lies in life’s wholeness and self-sufficiency. This poetic quality is inherent in all human development, in a man’s individual fate, in growth and change. It reveals itself also in the “slyness” of reality, of which Lenin used to speak–implying that the laws of existence are more complex than thought can easily express, and the realization of these laws a process so involved as to elude prediction. That profound awe in the face of experience we find in great minds–Leonardo or Lenin, Goethe or Tolstoy–is based on this knowledge. As is the enduring spell of all works of art that evoke life’s inexhaustible dynamism”.¹² Commitment to Marxism of a creative writer has to be viewed differently from that of a politician; otherwise creative writing will deteriorate into “literature as illustration, based on the requirements of agitation”. ¹³

In the last fifteen years, Realism has given us notable novels, especially from women writers like Vasireddi Sitadevi, Dwivedula Visalaksbi, Binadevi and Madireddi Sulochana. Matti Manishi (Man of the Soil) by Sitadevi has in its centre Varudhini, a Bovary-like heroine, but with a difference. This woman from the countryside born in the class of the landed-gentry but married to a ryot because of her father’s decline in fortune makes a bid for power and social status through her romantic involvement with a townsman and dies a tragic death like Madam Bovary. The–bourgeois character of this woman is “typical” in the sense that her “innermost being is determined by objective forces at work in society”.¹⁴ Her adversary and an equal match to her in intensity of personal will is her father-in-law, Sambayya, the man of the soil, who loves the land he tills, and who succeeds in claiming his grandson by Varudhini to agriculture after her death. In terms of social change, however, Sambayya is seen fighting a lone battle already lost. The perspective of the novel is the individual’s struggle against socio-economic change; and it provides a fascinatingly true picture of contemporary life etched indelibly on the memory of the reader.

In eschewing the conventional “happy-ending” which a sop to the average reader, Visalakshi, Sitadevi and others have added significance and lustre to their realist portrayals of men and women. Binadevi in her relentless indictment of an unjust society in the novel called Hang Me Quick or Punyabhoomi Kallu Theru (Holy Land, open your eyes) has made a significant contribution to the growing literature of Critical Realism. Madireddi Sulochana is a prolific writer focussing her torch of Critical Realism each time on a new sector in society, and most of the pictures and characters she draws are vivid with detail and enrich one’s perception of contemporary society. Malathi Chandur’s recent novels are pieces of investigative reporting on certain professions and select fields of work. Kesava Reddi’s novel, The Incredible Goddess is an admirable piece of Critical Realism on bonded labour and the plight of the Harijan, but his perspective has invited the disapproval and wrath of the committed Marxists. Kesava Reddi’s perspective in its implications is anti-political, because political vested interests would keep the Harijan confined to his narrow caste-walls. In the novel, Harijan is used against Harijan as an instrument of oppression; we see the sub-castes among Harijans fighting against each other; and in the finale, it is the failure of the Harijan to overcome his mental barrier of caste, which renders him incapable of asserting his common humanity with a person from the upper caste, who befriended him and who was dying for his sake. This incisive probe into the caste-psychology of the oppressed in our society is unacceptable to politicians who trade on caste-differences, and indigestible to Marxists who cannot conceive of a bond of friendship based on common humanity between an upper caste and a lower caste man.

This is the point which leads us to think whether the concept of Socialist Realism as it is understood by Indian writers today will be an adequate yardstick at all for measuring the future literature of Realism in our society. “Socialist Realism”, according to Lukacs, “differs from Critical Realism, not only in being based ona concrete socialist perspective, but also in using this perspective to describe the forces working towards socialism from the inside”.¹⁵ It is this formulation that makes committed Marxists and their followers conceive of literature of the future on a rigid ideological basis. But Lukacs knows enough of the creative processes in literature to say: “Literature depends on actual experience; resolutions, however well-meant, are no substitute for it”.¹⁸ “Socialist Realism is a possibility rather than an actuality; and the effective realization of the possibility is a complex affair”.¹⁷ According to Lukacs, with the change of society into a socialist society the basis of Critical Realism will of necessity transform itself into Socialist Realism. Therefore Critical Realism will have a prolonged existence even in a new socialist society, Since a writer’s greatness springs from the depth and richness of his experience of reality, a substitution of Marxist ideology for experience will not result in Socialist Realism. Lukacs agrees that “the stronger a writer’s ties with the cultural heritage of his nation, the more original his work will be, even where he is in opposition to his own society and calls in a foreign tradition to redress the balance”.¹⁸ In view of these elucidations, one can see that Socialist Realism will be an emerging perspective based on the true achievement of a socialist existence; and till then one has to do with Critical Realism only. This is as it should be.

In the foregoing review of the Telugu Novel of the Realist mode, we have noticed how different perspectives of the writers over a hundred years, enriched the growth and development of the Realist tradition, and these works of each period provide us with an insight into the change of society from lime to time. To determine this direction of change culturally is impossible even when one concedes that the socio-economic future is bound to be towards socialism and a classless society. The cultural transformation will always be a discovery to be made again and again through not only literature but also art, philosophy and religion. The Realist Novel will remain both an instrument of cultural change and a means of its discovery.

Ref: Lukacs: The Meaning of Contemporary Realism.
Pub: Merlin Press, London. 1963, 1979

Notes: 1. P. 33, 2. P. 119, 3. P. 107, 4. P. 96, 5. P. 122, 6. P. 71, 7. P 34, 8. P 61, 9. P 69, 10. P 69, 11. P 120, 12. P. 125, 13. P 119, 14. P 122, 15. P 93, 16. P 106, 17. P 96, 18. P 103.