Triveni Journal

1927 | 11,233,916 words

Triveni is a journal dedicated to ancient Indian culture, history, philosophy, art, spirituality, music and all sorts of literature. Triveni was founded at Madras in 1927 and since that time various authors have donated their creativity in the form of articles, covering many aspects of public life....

Towards Indian English

Dr. K. Venkata Reddy

The most challenging task of the Indian creative writer in English is the problem of using the English language in a way that will be distinctively Indian and still remain English. Long Raja Rao declared: “We cannot write like the English: we should not. We cannot write only as Indians. We have grown to look at the large world as part of us. Our method of expression, therefore, has to be a dialect which will some day prove to be as distinctive and colourful as the Irish or the American.” This hope, widespread among Indian writers, critics and readers, has been realized, to a great extent, thanks to the sincere efforts of a few creative writers.

For a long time, “Indian English” used to be a term of disapprobation, implying an insecure grip on English idiom or an infelicitous use of English vocabulary. Though that meaning still persists in many quarters, among the writers at least there seems to be an awareness that English is a pliant language, which each writer has to fashion anew to serve his particular purpose. What is more, for an Indian writer this fashioning will have to be different from what a British or American writer does inasmuch as the definition of good English varies not only from century to century but also from place to place. American, Irish and Australian English derive much of their vitality and distinctive colour from being based on a vigorous vernacular which expresses a response to experience that is understood by, if not common to, all levels of their national society. But, in India, English is primarily the language of educated people whose own first and distinctive tongue is an Indian language.

Hence the question whether the Indian writer is able to achieve the interfusion of “the world of words” and “the world of sensations.” This depends, to a great extent, on “the intimacy or adaptation” and the level reached in the process of naturalization of the language which the writer puts to a creative use. This problem is squarely met by an American or Australian writer for whom English is the language of natural discourse. He is, there­fore, able to tap its resources most adequately to create the different nuances of feeling and emotion appropriate to the ethos he breathes in. But the Indian writer has obviously no such choice. He is woefully caught in a peculiar situation where he has to deal with the non-English speaking areas, and has to overcome the difficulty of conveying through English the vast range of feeling, modes of observation and instinctive responses.

Small wonder, therefore, if English in India tends to lack the force and passion of demotic speech. Though English in India is a highly competent intellectual instrument, it is not the repository of instinctive feeling and belief. The religious and domestic emotions, the superstitions and taboos and expectations of life, the texture of everyday experience, “the nervous system of Indian life” do not find a natural and immediate outlet in English. The serious consequence for the Indian writer in English is a “fracture of dislocation” between his subject-matter and his chosen language of expression.

All this, however, does not mean that the Indian writer is always incapable of expressing himself in English, or communicating the ranges of ideas and sentiments. There are at least a few creative writers who have circumvented the linguistic hurdles with a commendable measure of success. With their continuous experi­mentation they have lent to the English language a peculiarly Indian tone and colour by way of infusing “the tempo of Indian life” into their English expression.

While remaining faithful to the familiar contours of the vernacular sensibility, creative writers like Mulk Raj Anand, R. K. Narayan, Bhabani Bhattacharya and Raja Rao have manipulated the linguistic resources of English in their own characteristic way. They have been seeking to discover language correlatives to convey the complexity and pressure of the Indian scene. The quality that makes their writing unique is their ability to approximate their speech to the idiom that is peculiar to their region.

More than any of his contemporaries, Mulk Raj Anand seems to have felt the urgency of giving the alien language an “Indian domicile.” His experiments with style are consistent with his world-view. Rendering proletarian speech correctly in English is his aim, and his unconventional diction and radical experiments with vocabulary are all geared to this end. He distinguishes between “Baboo English” and genuine Indian English used for artistic purposes. He endeavours to impart to the English speech the raciness and colour the tonal resonances and idiomatic intimacies of his vernacular. He does not mind even distorting the English syntax and idiom in order to lend self-consistent authenticity and exactitude and to reproduce the tonal richness of his vernacular speech. No doubt, his bold attempts to reproduce the nuances and locutions of usage prevailing in his mother-tongue prove, at times, disastrous. They distort the sensibility as much as they refract the idiom. Expressions like “Is this any talk” is a literal translation of “Yeh koi bath hai” in Hindi.

A common complaint against Anand’s language is the excessive use of swear-words and abuse like “rape mother”, “illegally begotten”, “eaters of monstress” that form the natural mode of conversation of the peasants. But the point is that the awkward oath-­ridden language of his characters soon establishes itself as an acceptable convention in the reader’s mind, for we wish to hear of their plight and of their society. Yet we do not expect to achieve any real intimacy with them, for their private beliefs, passions and anxieties are so remote. The stylized English that Anand imposes on his low characters works because it acknowledges the distance that necessarily exists between the subject and the reader.

Like Anand, R. K. Narayan succeeds remarkably, with his limited resources, in the presentation of the Indian life and scene. But, unlike Anand, he does not pressurise the English language into yielding stylistic nuances alien to it, but lets it dissolve itself into the Indian scene and thereby gain a tonal quality all its own. Only occasionally does he attempt to enlarge the sentence structure with an addition of a phrase or a clause. He achieves effect by parenthesis rather than by extension, by ellipsis rather than by elaboration. Narayan’s English, on the whole, is evocative and fairly simple, well adapted to reflect the generally uncomplicated mentality of his characters. It is a clear, efficient prose with a slightly stilted idiom. In spite of his general lack of flexibility, Narayan has still effectively conveyed the whole emotional complex through a verbal medium which is at once authentic and self-consistent.

Raja Rao and Bhabani Bhattacharya are two other writers who have been able to create a definite and distinguishably, “Indian English” rooted in the vernacular tradition. Bhattacharya deliberately tries to recreate the Bengali rhythm in the English language by doing away with the syntactic distinction between a question and statement. Bengali sentences, unlike English, often leave out the verb “to be.” Bhattacharya seems to transfer this feature to his English occasionally, as in “Who more proud than I on this day” instead of “Who is more proud”, etc. Another device with him is to use a number of short sentences together in a way that sounds natural when an Indian speaks in English. For example, “Why speak? What use! Trees and rocks have a heart. Not man. Why speak?” Thus, through experiment with sentence structure, Bhattacharya attempts to indicate a different ethos.

Raja Rao exhibits a rare originality and an uncanny ambidexterity in attempting to communicate the materials of Indian life and scene through a language which superbly conveys its theme and the amplitude or vision. This he achieves without lapsing into “Baboo English” or grossly transgressing the syntactical or grammatical patterns of the normal English. His linguistic experi­ments are as original as those of the West African writers like Chinua Achebe, Amos Tutuola and Gabriel Okara who introduced the rhythms of their native speech into English. He makes an earnest effort to transmute into English a local idiom with its distinct echo of regional speech and reflection of local colour: “If you are the sons of your father, do what this learned boy says.”

As a result, Raja Rao has been able to forge a new language and style for the expression of the Indian psyche. And in his vigorous search for a new diction and sensibility, he has created an “avant garde” fictional style suited to the expression of the native thematic material! “And hearts began to beat, and yet we saw no Moorthy, and yet no Moorthy, and yet not a hair of his head was seen.” What distinguishes Raja Rao from others is his wonderful capacity to allow the disparate elements dissolve into the Indian scene and personality. He imbues his English with Indian rhythms and intonations, his similes and metaphors smelling the soil. His whole narrative is so geared to native mores that his English develops an unmistakably Indian ethos.

Thus, the Indian creative writer in English, who naturally encounters many problems both in the choice of his artistic medium and in the projection of Indian experience in a language which has no natural spoken environment in his society, has succeeded to a great extent in giving English a peculiarly Indian tone, colour and resonance thereby forging the medium, “Indian English,” that will best answer his needs without distorting the truth or falsifying the sensibility. He has been able to prove that English is flexible enough to accommodate any experience.

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