Currents in the Literature of Young India.
1. Recent Bengali Thought.
Consciously or unconsciously Maupassant has come to occupy a prominent place in Bengali thought. The most marked feature in the creative work of Bengal today is the predominance of short stories and romance. And in this branch of prose literature, again, women are taking a leading part.
Two sisters, Nirupama and Anupama, both widows, are recognized by everybody as artists of the first grade. The theme of their novels is Woman. They write without a didactic propaganda behind them; but all the same their emotional appeal commands a strong influence on social activities among the Hindus.
Another two sisters, Sita and Santa, both university graduates, are already known in England and America through the English translations of their stories. They also deal with the personality of woman and discuss the modern phases of female liberty in a style which is appreciated by the intellectuals.
The most famous novelist, however, is Sarat Chandra Chatterji, whose realistic creations depict the home and life in Indian cities and villages in all their complexity and tragic depths. In his dozens of publications the reader encounters heroes in every grade of social life.
Another great writer is Pramatha Chaudhuri, a lawyer who received his education in England. His stories are conceived from the standpoint of "art for art's sake." He deals with the problems of modern Indian life in so far as they are likely to be influenced by the impact of developments in the West.
All these writers embody in a subtle manner the discontent which prevails among the intelligentszia with the existing state of things. Each one is looking forward to a new social order, a new art philosophy, a new Weltanschauung. But nobody writes in the style of a demagogue advocating a revolution.
The strength of contemporary Bengali thought is, as has been said, to be found in prose. In consequence, journalism has received a tremendous push in these years. The Prâbasi devotes itself to every branch of life and art. In its political sentiments it preaches the gospel of swarâj (freedom) in open alliance with the radical leaders of Young India. The Upâsanâ devotes itself rather to non-political nationalism and is especially interested in modern Russian literature. It is indeed consecrated to a propaganda in regard to the revival of medieval cottage industries, the reconstruction of rural life, the establishment of free night schools among the peasants and working classes, and so forth. The Sabuj Patra represents all those thinkers who stand aloof from current social or political movements but are advocates of freedom in thought, in literary enterprise, and in artistic creations. The Bhârata-varsha is almost another Prabâsi minus its politics and social message.
All these are monthly reviews. In and through them the writers of short stories, philosophical essayists and art critics convey to the reading public not only the original contributions of their own minds but also the trends of thought in contemporary Europe from Sorel to Croce. Each of them is a La Nouvelle Revue Française and a Deutsche Rundschau in its scope and outlook.
Nationalism is being fed by historical and antiquarian researches. These have given rise to a vast amount of dissertation in folklore, anthropology, ancient paintings and sculptures, philology, and historical interpretation. Young India is almost repeating in this manner the "romantic movement" initiated by Herder and his associates in Germany about five generations ago. Some very creditable historical romance has also come out from the pen of erudite authors like Rakhal Das Banerji. And this possesses as powerful a nation-making force as had the dramas of Dwijendralal Roy, the Schiller of Bengal, about ten years ago.
Another noteworthy phase in the prose literature is the important contribution of Ramendra Sundar Trivedi to the analysis of the concepts and categories in the domain of exact science from physics to biology. One of his writings has appeared in the Archiv für Systematische Philosophie (1911) under the title of Die Wahrheit. In the same line works Jagadananda Roy, who interprets the discoveries of Jagadish Chunder Bose, the physiologist and plant-biologist of world-wide reputation, in a manner hardly less valuable than a prose-poem.
Indian creative imagination is today so very objective and concrete that in the realm of poetry also the most characteristic feature is the ascendancy of realism and a vigorous grasp of the actualities of the world. The pure, idealistic self-expression of a Verlaine is almost a rarity. Curiously enough, in Bengal there is absolutely no follower of Tagore. Bengal has virtually ceased to sing.
Jogendra Nath Bose has written two epics, Prithvîraj and Shivaji. The protagonist of the former was a national hero of the twelfth century, and that of the latter, of the seventeenth. But the compositions, although sometimes rising to poetic levels, are, like Voltaire's "national epic", La Henriade, nothing but versified history planned with the avowed object of teaching a political and social moral to Young India. Like that great Frenchman of the eighteenth century this Indian author has, besides, taken the pains to add "notes" to his own phrases!
The poets are, however, dealing not so much with the romantic past as with the living present. One noticeable trait of the current poetry is the importance given to the different cities and villages, landscapes and historic sites as themes for imaginative portraiture. Another striking feature is the sympathy of the writers with the life of the working classes, the cultivators, the backward races, and so forth.
The most prominent poet in this realistic movement is Satyendra Nath Datta. He writes on every "occasion" of national importance. From the incidents connected with the revolution of 1905 down to the latest agitation conducted by Gandhi to boycott the British administration, perhaps every landmark in the constructive patriotism of the Hindu and the Moslem has left its trace on Datta's poetry. He translates copiously from the literature of foreign countries and has thus enriched the thought of India with adaptations from Chinese, Japanese, Russian, English and French. His contributions to vocabulary and poetic diction are also extremely valuable. Besides, as a herald of democracy and socialism Datta is a kin of the American Untermeyer if not of Carl Sandburg.
The greatest single event in the Bengali literature of recent years is the entry of a number of Mohammedan writers into the field. Their stamp is already noteworthy not only in journalism but in fiction and belles lettres as well. When Habildar Kazi Nazrul Islam has contributed to the monthly, Moslem Bhârat (1921), an ode entitled Vidrohi (The Rebel), ringing, as it does, with the refrain:
"Say, Hero!
Say! 'Erect is my head!
Seeing my head that Himalayan peak
Bends low in shame',"
one feels that Bengal is now on the eve of a great literary outburst, an abandon in self-expression and lyrical enthusiasm which we have sought in vain during the last decade. Perhaps it was left for the fallow brain of the Mohammedans, who have not as yet contributed their part to their mother-tongue, to awaken the slumbering spirit of Bengal's Muse.
2. The Songs of Young Bengal.
FORMAT ALL POEMS IN THIS CHAPTER
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is being appraised as the "greatest man in the world" according to some foreign observers, as "the Tolstoy of Asia" according to others. Hindustan did not wait for this international evaluation in order to be inspired by this heroic personality. Over a decade ago India's poetic soul had shrieked against the tortures perpetrated on her sons and daughters in South Africa. The national grief found expression in the following lines:
"Ah, there, the guileless children of Ind,
Lured by the immigration-agents' snares,
Deprived of home and of self-respect robbed,
Beyond the seas abide in foreign lands."
Thus in Bengali wrote Satyendra Nath Datta whose genius responds as much to the creations of other races and ages as to the stimuli nearer home. Datta's imagination was concrete enough to objectify the struggle and indicate its ways and means. With him Young Bengal sang of the Indian labourers in South Africa:
"Firm is their leader like the tree upright,
His soul flourishes by conquering grief;
On his own shoulders he bears the thunder,
Thus is their success guaranteed of course."
Such was Gandhi, the hero of Greater India in 1912.
This spiritual shakti of Gandhi's is not a new phenomenon. It was a leading current in Indian poetry of the nineteenth century.
A recipe of preparation for life has been prescribed by Hem Chandra Banerji (1885). His message runs thus:
"Take thee to the ocean's deeps,
And crowns of mountains scramble bold;
Planets of the universe
Ransacked be merciless;
Tempests and meteors,
Flame of lightning fierce,—
Grasp, man, audacious-firm;
Venture, then, on life's work."
This creed of kinship with the world-forces will have a universal appeal. Thus, according to Browning, personality embodies
"A principle of restlessness
Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel all:"
In the epics and lyrics of Banerji modern Bengal awoke for the first time to discover its mission in the world. Energist as he was, Banerji's appreciation of the American spirit was embodied in the following eulogistic verse:
"Lo, there's America newly arisen,
To swallow the universe she maketh attempt!
Restless has she grown through her innate might,
Her hu-humkar yells cause the earth to quake.
Disembowel she would the globe, as it were,
And reshape it fresh at her own sweet will."
The creative optimism of the people in the New World certainly found an able interpreter in the New India's poet of dare-devil ambitions. No doubt this Oriental writer caught the spirit of the times which Whitman had in mind when he wrote Pioneers, O Pioneers!
Rajani Kanta Sen has given a fresh lease of life to the traditional folk-melodies by exploiting them as medium for modern emotions. Once in a while the following lines by him will not however fail to touch the serener chords in the human personality:
"Oh for that day!
When all pleasures and pains
Of the world and the flesh
I'll cast away,
And start afresh
With Heaven's blessing kind!
Would that my feet tremble not afraid,
Nor the heart melt sad at mine eyes
Responsive to love's catching tears!"
In the same manner in some of our unsocial moods we may be prompted to the following challenge:
"O man, what avails thee to frighten me?
If it please thee to love me not,
I shall be glad to get away;
Thousand and one beings in this universe
Who would fain wipe off the tears of mine eyes!"
The author of these lines has contributed to India some of its most social poetry and humane message. The above is from Girish Chandra Ghosh, founder of the modern Bengali theatre and dramatic art, who was in every sense a representative poet of the last generation.
Each one of these authors has been in the fight of life. Nor has Rabindra Nath Tagore been a mere on-looker. In Eur-America he has his clientele among the dealers in "universal love." He is even famous for tirades against nationalism. But let the following speak:
"O Thou, who charmest all mankind!
O Thou, whose lands are ever bright
With ray serene of pure sun-light!
Mother of fathers and mothers!
With the blue deep's waters thy feet ever washed,
Thy scarf of green ever waving in breeze,
Sky-kissed on high thine Himalayan brow,
Crowned white thy head with tiara of snows.
First in thy firmament appeared the dawn,
First rose sâma-chants in thy holy groves,
First were revealed in thy forest-abodes
Wisdom and virtue and poesy's self.
Ever beneficent! glory to Thee!
From Thee flows food to countries far and wide;
Jâhnavî and Jumma, streams of thy love;
Giver of sweet sacred milk, O Mother!"
In his speeches, satires, stories, novels, songs and plays Tagore has both positively and negatively sought only one thing, — viz. to visualize India.
Dwijendra Lal Roy's dramas deal with ancient and mediaeval history. But his Leitmotif is one, — the struggle for independence. Each one of his heroes is a Wilhelm Tell. To him, besides, Bengal owes its La Marseillaise.
With this Schiller of the twentieth century Young India sings (1905): —
"Full of gems and grains and flowers
Is this world of ours;
In the midst of it is a land
O'er all lands supreme,
Inspirer of visions is this land,
With memories encircled.
A country such as this
Nowhere else can you find!
Of all lands the Queen
Is the land of my birth,
That's my motherland, O,
My motherland is that."
A chauvinism such as this is as elemental as human blood.
An ideal for youth is furnished by Satis Chandra Roy who died in 1904 at the age of twenty one. The following is an extract from his Message from the Sun:
"You remember him, of course? That boy with large soul,
Surely a chip from Creation's magnanimous self!
Like banyan colossal grows his frame;
And round him Nature scattereth her smiles,—
The joy of unfurrow'd brow, fresh, sublime.
* * * * *
Whither haven't I been? —in quest of man, real man,
Whose spirit is free to receive world's all impress,
Light and deep, —who, feeling one with every atom,
Senseless, sentient, can rise up to an infinite All?
Powerful-armed like that fisher-boy
Into life's ocean he throws himself down
Abrupt, dives deep, and elbowing billows
Heaves most gleefully with laughter again;
Confident-smiling he casts the net of work,
And 'up the fish must' he muses, patient-brow'd.
No doubt he is in love with terror deep!
How else can he smile amidst troubles of the sea?
Herc is life, my friend, life, the joyous life!"
It is in the school of terror and defiance that the world's youth loves to grow up. Roy's message will be appreciated by the younger representatives of all races and ages and will have a special significance to the leaders of the Jugend-Bewegung in present-day Germany.
3. Dutt and Sen.
The vigour of the Bengali language as a medium of expression, is to be tasted in the epic of Madhu Sudan Dutt entitled Meghanâda-Vudha (The Slaying of Meghanada). Dutt was inspired as much by Virgil and Dante as by Milton in his ideology, verse-structure and poetic form. Out of the twice-told tales in the Ramayanic tradition the world has obtained in his synthetic reshaping of cultural forces a most powerful art-structure, which is at once national and universal, a harmonious composition in which are skilfully blended the ancient and the modern.
In this epic reconstruction was New India born,—the India of Hindu, Mohammedan and Christian folk-spirits, the Greater India of rapprochement between the East and the West. Dutt's work stands to the nineteenth century in the same relation as Kalidasa's Raghuvamsha to Vikramadityan India of the fourth and fifth centuries. In his attitude of challenge and defiance Bengal has found, besides, its bible of nationalism, and its gospel of strenuous resistance against tyranny.
Dutt's fire and force pervade the lyrical ballads of Nabin Chandra Sen whose racy rhythm and diction, however, sharply mark him off from the former's stately gait and learned pose. In Sen's poetry the Krishna-legends of the Mahabharata fame have received the same eclectic re-presentation as the Rama-stories in Dutt's. With Girish Chandra Ghosh, the dramatist, Dutt and Sen constitute the triumvirate who have rebuilt the literary art of old India for the Bengal of today. In these great masters of the last generation must be sought the springs of philosophical and social transformation which feed the stream of contemporary life.
Sen's work has been epoch-making in another line. Like Hem Chandra Banerji and Dinabandhu Mitra, whose creative fervour was stirred by the political and legal wrongs perpetrated on the people by the foreigners, Sen has contributed to Bengal one of its most inspiring anti-British productions in verse. This is Palâshir Juddha (The Battle of Plassey) whose title carries its own message, reminding one, as it does, of the national calamity of 1757. With Sen as with Banerji poetry was a spontaneous medium of emotion.
4. Romanticism in Fiction.
In Engel's novel Stoertebecker (1921) Germans are reviving the literary idealism such, for instance, as is associated with Goethe's Goetz and Schiller's Räuber dealing with the adventures of bandit chiefs. The identical romanticism in fiction has been furnished to Young India by Bankim Chandra Chatterji in Ânanda Matha (1885). The song of the robbers in this Bengali story idealizing, as it did, the Rousseauesque "state of nature" has since passed into a war chant of the entire nation. The burden is as follows:
"Hail! Motherland!
Vande Mâtaram!"
Thou art my muse, Thyself my creed;
In thee my heart and soul;
And in my limbs the spirit Thou!
In mine arm Thou art strength;
Thyself heart's devotion;
Thine the images bodied forth
In temples one and all, Mother!"
Thus sang Chatterji's dacoits, — thus sing the patriots, martyrs, swarajists of India.
Karan Ghelo is a historical novel in Gujarati by Navalram. It deals with the exploits of the last Rajput (Hindu) King, Karan, who challenged Alauddin, the Moslem. The motif and treatment make this Gujarati work essentially a kin to the numerous Marathi novels in which Hari Narayan Apte has brought before his compatriots the life and activities of Shivaji or to the novels in Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterji which have for their theme the political and military enterprises of energists in mediaeval India.
The romantic handling of the past with a leavening of nationalism, love of individuality, and the sturdy spirit of freedom which characterize the robber-stories of Goethe and Schiller and the romances of Scott has certainly been a common feature in India's modern fiction, saturated with idealism as it is. In this sense Vande Mâtaram (Hail Motherland) is the message not only of Chatterji's Ânanda Matha but virtually of every literary work, novel or drama, conceived in the background of mediaeval history.
5. Gujarati Prose and Poetry.
On the other side, the spirit of Gustav Freytag, Victor Hugo or Dickens is represented by the author of Saraswati-Chandra, Govardhanram Madhavaram Tripathi, who is reputed to have contributed to the Gujarati people their "nineteenth Purana." In this novel dealing, as it does, with the life of modern Gujarat we are presented with a realistic picture of men and manners such as the eighteen Puranas of old India have perpetuated for us in Sanskrit in regard to previous ages.
The Gujarati Sahitya Parishat (Academy of Gujarati Literature), owes its origin to Tripathi. Academies of literature together with Sammelans i.e. congresses (generally annual) of the men of letters are a regular feature in the cultural life of every language-zone in, India. The institution is as popular among the Telugu-speaking. Andhras of Madras as among the Oriyas of Orissa. The subjects discussed in these assemblies of authors and journalists are throughout uniform. They range from philological, anthropological and archeological investigations to dramatic criticism, the discussion of scientific and technical terminology as well as philosophical dissertations, oriental and occidental.
An author who like Tripathi has interested himself in the same problems of present-day life — but whose modus operandi is the instrument of satire is Ramanbhai Nilkanth. His Bhadram Bhadra is enjoyed by the Gujaratis as an Indian Don Quixote. Nikanth is, besides, a reformer not only in social organization—but also in linguistic taste. In the controversy between the erudite Sanskritized diction and popular vocabulary he has thrown in his lot with the masses.
The poet "Kalâpi" is well known for his translations from Wordsworth. But his place in Gujarati literature is assured by his Kekârava (The Peacock's Notes). The technique of Kalidasa's Meghaduta (Cloud-Messenger) has been brilliantly employed by the author, who, by the bye, is prince of Lathi in Kathiawar, with a most wonderful sense of rhythm.
To a "migrant bird" Kalapi addresses the following song:
"To the land of Kashmir, of sweet springs and balmy breezes!
Dear traveller! linger there in a land that is dear to me —
In a land of uttermost delight and honey-flowing groves
Where shadows of clustered grapes are cast on crystal streams.
* * * * *
"At eventide the Himalayan peaks are dyed with the colour of roses
Then vale after vale, and countless fountains and lakes grow fairer yet,
And the trees in the mountains above the clouds converse with the
stars—
They are bathed in the light of heaven and smile in a happy trance.
* * * * *
"Bethink thee then of the love of thy Master and friend —
My child, my darling, alas! thy tears are falling still, my grief!
But perch in the crown of a mighty tree I have reared for thee,
And I shall recite to thee, my dear, this little song I have made."1
But the poet-patriot who has equipped Young Gujarat with its war-cry is Narmada-Shamkar Lal-Shamkar, in whose anti-British songs much of the spirit that is agitating India's mind to-day was anticipated. His refrain, Jaya Jaya Garavi Gujarata! (Victory to Great Gujarat), has earned for him a pan-Indian reputation. Among his scholarly works the Dictionary of the Gujarati Language is a solid testimony to his capacity for labour.
6. Songs of the Marathas.
The swadeshi-swaraj movement has automatically been associated among Marathas with the revival of Shivaji-cult both as cause and effect. Around this worship of the Frederick the Great of India the best brains of the Deccan have grouped themselves, as explorers and novelists, as historians and artists.
Vinayak Savarkar, whose activity has been epoch-making in various fields of Young India, is also one of the most signal contributors to the songs of latter-day Mahârâshtra. Shivaji is the hero of his historical lyrics. His Sinha-gadchâ Powâdâ (The Ballad of Sinhagad) depicts one of the pioneering achievements of the Hindu nationalist of the seventeenth century. The ballad narrating the devotion of Baji Prabhu Deshpande to the duty set by his master is likewise a soul-inspiring execution in the Shivaji legend.
Besides these "national" lyrics which as in every other province of India are oriented to the present struggle against Great Britain, howsoever varied be the races and the epochs dealt with, modern Marathi possesses a host of songs, which the theatre has contributed to the man in the street and made part of the people's folk-literature. Just at present the melodies sung by "Bal-Gandharva" on the stage are setting the musical taste and standard of the Marathas. He plays invariably the female part, since in Bombay, perhaps in every cultural region outside of Bengal, actresses are yet unknown.
7. Marathi Drama.
The dramatist whom "Bal Gandharva" has thus succeeded in making a popular figure is Krishnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar. This play-wright made his debut with prose-dramas like Kichaka-vadha (The Slaying of Kichaka), which although based on a legend in the Mahabharata was too suggestive and modern to be tolerated by British law and was therefore proscribed. Khadilkar has several other plays in prose of which the themes are derived from Maratha history of the eighteenth century. Bhao Bandki (Family Quarrel) deals with the murder of Narayan Rao through the machinations of his aunt Anandi Bai. Kanchangadchi Mohanâ (The Lady of Kanchangad) is another piece from the same quarry.
Khadilkar's genius is versatile. He has created several types of womanhood in some of his dramas in verse. He has laid under contribution the ancient story of Kacha coming to Shukra for education and wooing his daughter Devajani. The play is called Vidyâ-harana (The Stealing of Learning) and will be found to be more complex in the treatment of the relations between the sexes than is Tagore's Chitrâ which is equally based on ancient legends. In Khadilkar's two other woman-pieces, Rukmîni-swayamvara (The Choosing of her husband by Rukmini) and Draupadî, Marathas can see the female sex in its atmosphere of freedom, individualism and self-assertion.
Khadilkar has taken part in politics, — belonging to the extremist group of patriots. His newly founded daily, Lokamânya (Respected by the People), is the organ of the swarajists.
The founder of the Marathi theatre is Anna Kirloskar. His plays like Shâkuntala and Saubhadra were adapted from the old Sanskrit treatises. Although he did not originate any theme he is the creator of the new drama of the Marathas. He was besides a genuine poet in whose songs the people find the flow of the soul which as a rule is not characteristic of Khadilkar's compositions.
In the work of adapting ancient classics for the modern stage Kirloskar found a colleague and follower in Deval. This latter's Mrichehakatika, Shâpa-sambhrama (based on the Kâdambari of old) and Mukanâyaka have served to bring home to the present generation the literary and cultural tradition of the past on which the contemporary re-valuation is erected.
Altogether in these literary achievements of the Maratha playhouse Bengal will remember the work accomplished for it by Girish Chandra Ghosh, — and the Western students of drama will notice the counterpart of the movement by which the Greek and the Latin sources have been exploited for the modern stage in Europe.
A brilliant poet has been cut off in his prime at the age of 32. This was Ram Ganesh Gadkari. His poetry breathes the atmosphere of undiluted natural sentiment. The elegies composed by him touch the tenderest chord in the human heart. His poems on nature and love possess an originality in the handling of emotion. Gadkari was strongest in the treatment of pathos. Perhaps no composition in Marathi has excited so much universal pity among the people as this sad young author's Ekach Pyâlâ (Just One Glass) acted on the stage. This drama is a study in the drink-evil and domestic misery, — and can always be used in the propaganda for prohibitionism.
While Khadilkar because of his many-sided dramatic productions and feverish fecundity is almost a household word to the literary public, a play-wright of exceptional merit whose popularity is no less patent is Narsingh Chintamon Kelkar, the present editor of the Kesari, the Marathi weekly. His Totayache Banda (Revolt of the Pretender) has for its theme the problems of double personality akin to many of the theses in psychology and fiction which the late war has contributed to literature through the unrecorded deaths of many soldiers.
In 1761 at the Battle of Panipat (near Delhi) Sadasiva Rao Bhao, the chief of the Marathas, was killed in action. But as no trace was found of his body, a pretender came back from the front and claimed to be the ruler of the territory as well as the husband of the widow.
While reading Kelkar's story based on this incident one is easily reminded somewhat of Madame Borel's novel, Le Survivant (The Survivor), in which is presented the study of a strange personality constituted of the physical body of one man and the soul of another who is dead. The Maratha author has tried moreover to visualize the folk-India of the latter half of the eighteenth century. His characterizations are lively and his treatment has the grace of natural humour.
8. Hari Narayan Apte.
In the field of romance Hari Narayan Apte was until his death (1920) the most prominent figure. As an exponent of social reform and social service and as director of the Anandâshrama Publications of old Sanskrit texts he was also one of the most influential makers of modern Mahârâshtra.
As man of letters he has naturally been attracted by that rich mine of legends and hearsays, namely, Maratha history. And nobody has made use of this valuable source of fiction more artistically than Apte.
Among his historical novels the Ushakkal (Dawn) deals with the exploits of the early Marathas. Gad Alâ pan Sinha Gelâ (The Castle came, but the lion is gone) is based on the statement of Shivaji to his followers who had stormed the fort of Sinhagad to the effect that although they had achieved their aim their triumph was eclipsed by the death of their commander, "the lion" Tanaji.
Apte's description of the manner in which people of the lowest class were organized into a mighty army and bands of young patriots used to form themselves into secret associations for political purposes has become a classic among the Marathas. Although in his personal views Apte happened to be an associate of the "moderate" leaders of nationalist India his artistic creations have furnished Mahârâshtra with the tenets of radical politics.
Apte has selected his theme from Rajput annals also, — the source so popular in Bengali drama, poetry and fiction. His Rupa-nugarchi Râjkanyâ (The Princess of Rupanagar) has curiously enough the same plot as Bankim Chandra Chatterji's Râjasinha.
Apte's contemporary piece is Paṇ lakshat kon gheto? (But who cares for it?). In it the novelist holds the mirror up to modern Maratha society, — and has a chance to expose the current abuses in domestic and public life.
9. Bâl Gangâdhar Tilak.
Khadilkar and Apte are unforgettable names in Marathi literature. Equally or rather more so is Bâl Gangâdhar Tilak. His claims to mankind's recognition in other, non-literary lines are of course unparalleled.
For a whole generation Tilak was the "uncrowned king" of Mahârâshtra in the estimation alike of the intelligentszia as of the working men and women. His moral persuasion was eminently successful among the masses in combating alcoholism. Unnumbered families of mill-hands in Bombay and the Deccan loved and worshipped him as father, friend, benefactor.
Vedic scholarship counted Tilak among its veterans of the premier rank. He was one of the brilliant pioneers of modern education in his province, a cause to which he devoted himself at immense personal sacrifice. In his death the world of science has lost a keen seeker of truth, and humanity an indefatigable energist in the service of freedom and democracy.
Prince among journalists, Napoleon among fellowmen, propagandist among philosophers, mathematician, lawyer, orator, this apostle of liberty was the very sun of the social system among the Marathas, — the Goethe of Poona as much in the radiation of influences as in the bringing together of world-forces. A towering personality that he was both in thought and deed, in idealism, organizing capacity and constructive statesmanship, Tilak's lifelong persistence in self-expression has rendered to Marathi language and literature a service which is monumental, which indeed very few men of letters individually have been able to accomplish in the world.
And yet authorship was hardly a vocation with Tilak. His books in English are entitled The Arctic Home in the Vedas and Orion. The only book which he has left for his readers in Marathi is the Gîtâ Rahasya (The Philosophy of the Gîtâ). This was written during his second imprisonment and published shortly before his death. It embodies the maturest experience of his fully-lived life and reinterprets the traditional soul-metaphysics, optimistic as it is, in the interest of a vigorous materialism. This Marathi introduction to the Gîtâ will appear to students of comparative philosophy to be another Voltaire's Essai sur les Mœurs (Essay on Morals), the analogy being confined chiefly to logic and language.
But the entire Tilak-literature bearing as it does the stamp of a mighty intellect is to be found in the columns of the weekly Kesari, the journal which he founded and which has furnished the "whole duty of man" to thousands of its regular readers on every question of life, social, religious, moral, political, literary. The Kesari has long remained the real "national university" of the Marathas. To it the young man of letters looks for suggestions in diction, the historian for judgment and criticism, the scientist for the language of the laboratory, and the patriot for inspiration in martyrdom.
Tilak was not a poet, novelist or dramatist. His medium was the essay, conversation, lecture written or ex tempore. His writings are the compositions of a man of action, pithy, pointed, precise, popular, addressed to the man in the street, to the woman in the home. Supremely a journalist and a lecturer, first and last an essayist and a popularizer, Tilak has imparted to his mothertongue a vocabulary, style and range for which a parallel is to be sought only in the epoch-making achievements of French prose in the eighteenth century through the writings of Montesquieu, the sociologist, and Diderot, the director of the Encyclopédie. Nay, if one should look ahead and try to envisage the future career of the new Maratha in its historical perspective one should have to appraise the literary output of Tilak the prophet, preacher, patriot as a tremendous dynamic force no less vitalizing and momentous for his race than was that of Voltaire for France during the last and the greatest period of his devotion to "reason" and "humanity" through journalistic pamphleteering manipulated from Ferney on the Swiss side of the Lake of Geneva.
10. Themes of Literature.
A Georg Brandes attempting to make a survey of the tendencies in the literature of Young India will have to begin with the statement that there is strictly speaking no "Indian literature" but that the literatures in India are as varied as those in Europe. The languages in which the mind of India speaks are as different from one another as is Portuguese from Russian or Tchech from Danish.
And yet it would not take long to touch the bottom and find that what the Indian mind speaks through all these diverse media, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi or Hindi is invariably the same. The literature of Young India is intrinsically one.
When life is so complex and pluralistic as today it is difficult to classify the "themes" of art. But several leading sources of inspiration for creative literature may here be indicated.
The characters, situations, plots and motives in modern Indian prose and poetry have been profoundly influenced by the study of antiquities, translations from ancient Hindu and Mohammedan literature as well as general archaeological scholarship. A real Renaissance has thus set in in Indian thought, — i.e. a reinterpretation of the past in the light of modern viewpoint and technique. In this transvaluation of values there has been working the all-too familiar romantic spirit.
In the second place, the folk-movements in public life, the anthropological investigations of scholars and learned societies, the cult of social service which has become popular among the educated classes, the statistical studies in regard to peasants' and working men's budgets, the cry of rural reconstruction, these and allied activities have served to enrich the novels, songs and short stories not only with folk-lore material but also with the heroic and the tragic in the life and labour of the masses, the pariahs, the working men and the villagers. The democratic experience of Young India here has its literary counterpart.
Thirdly, as might naturally be expected, Western fiction and drama have furnished Indian authors with many new subjects for conscious imitation or adaptation. And of course the indirect suggestive value of these foreign creations in regard to the treatment of legend, the analysis of attitudes, and creation of types is immense. The sway of the world-spirit or the cosmopolitan element in Indian literature is hereby assured.
11. The Wealth of Urdu.
Pari passu with this creative urge in thought one will have to notice a current of literary activity in India which as in every other country of the world today is manifesting itself in the effort to assimilate the best literary treasures of foreign nations. And this is all the more to be observed in India because here as in Japan, China and Egypt virtually the entire literature on higher science and philosophy has to be borrowed wholesale from the standard classics in the Western languages.
Perhaps the most advanced of all Indian tongues in this direction is Urdu or Hindusthani (as distinguished from Hindi) whose wealth in original poetry and fiction must not however be underestimated.
Writing on the place of Urdu in the Indian vernaculars2 Abdul Majid makes out a short inventory of its borrowed wealth in the following manner:
"In poetry and drama, most of the world-classics have found their way into Urdu. Homer's Iliad, The Mahabharata, The Ramayana (Valmiki's as well Tulsi Das's); Kalidas's Sakuntala, Meghdut, and other works; Milton's Paradise Lost and Tagore's Gitanjali, Chitra, and several other pieces are easily accessible to the Urdu-knowing public. Shakespeare is perhaps the most popular. Most of his plays have been translated and are being staged. Othello, Hamlet, King Lear, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Cymbeline, The Merchant of Venice, Winter's Tale, Measure for Measure, The Comedy of Errors, and As You Like It, have long been available in Urdu. Some of Sheridan's plays, like Pizarro, and selected poems of Sophocles and Sappho, Dante and Goethe, Longfellow and Southey, Shelley and Byron, Wordsworth and Tennyson have also been rendered into Urdu.
"In fiction, next to Reynolds, who it seems has a peculiar fascination for the Indian youth, Scott, Marie Corelie and Conan. Doyle are the most favourite. Almost the complete works of Bankimchandra and most of Tagore's tales have been rendered into Urdu. Latterly R. L. Stevenson, Rider Haggard, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells have begun to come in favour.
"Among general prose-writers the Urdu-speaking public have found their favourites in Macaulay and Carlyle, Smiles and Lubbock.
"In regions of philosophy and psychology, Urdu possesses several dialogues of Plato, selections from Aristotle, Chanakya's Maxims, Seneca's Reflections, Berkeley's Principles and Dialogues, Le Bon's The Crowd, The Psychology of the Evolution of Peoples, and The Psychology of the Great War; and portions of the works of Bacon, Hume, Kant, Mill, Spencer, James and Stout.
"In general history and biography, the names of Plutarch's Lives of Eminent Greeks and Romans, Rollin's Greece, Bury's History of Greece, Thacker and Schwill's General History of Europe, Dozy's Islamic Spain, Wallace's Russia, Abbott's Napoleon, Green's History of the English People, Vincent Smith's Ancient India, Elphinstone's History of India, Malcolm's History of Persia, and portions of Gibbon's Roman Empire may be mentioned as illustrative of many others of equal weight and authority.
"In the domain of politics and economics the following typical names would suffice:—Aristotle's Politics, Mill's Liberty, Representative Government and Political Economy; Bell's Laws of Wealth; Morley's Machiavelli and Reminiscences; Curzon's Persia; Mazzini's Duties of Man; Schuster's Strangling of Persia; Blunt's Future of Islam; Vanbery's Future of Islam; and portions of Seeley and Bluntschli, Wilson and Pollock, Sidgwick and Jevons, Marshall and Morison.
"Allied to political science is the department of philosophical history and in this department may be named the translations of Guizot's History of Civilisation; Buckle's Civilisation in England; Le Bor's Civilisation of the Arabs, and Civilisation of Hindustan; Lecky's European Morals; Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe; and Dutt's Ancient Hindu Civilization.
"In education, besides several manuals like Todd's, Urdu is not unfamiliar with the works of Spencer, Bain, Froebel, Pestalozzi, Herbart and Montessori.
"In science, in addition to numerous popular treatises of a general character like Draper's Conflict between Religion and Science, the Urdu-speaking public is fairly well acquainted with the works and researches of Darwin and Wallace, Haeckel and Huxley, Lyall and Geikie, Tyndal and Bose, Kelvin and Maxwell, Crookes and Lodge.
"To allude to the translations of standard works on law, jurisprudence and medicine is superfluous since quite a large number of them have as a matter of necessity found their way into Urdu.
"It should be noted that in the above lists slightest attempt has been made to be exhaustive. The names given are taken at random and only with a view to give the reader an idea of the kind of the foreign wealth that Urdu literature possesses. To prepare even a fairly complete list of such works would require hundreds of pages.
"Another important fact worthy of notice is that the above lists, sketchy as they are, are mainly confined to the literature of the West. Arabic and Persian stock of Muslim literature, almost entirely, and the sacred Sanskrit and Hindi literature of the Hindus, to a large extent, have been reproduced in Urdu. The Koran, the Gîtâ, the Puranas, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana have each of them several translations in this language. The lives and teachings of the Prophet, of Jesus Christ, of Sri Krishna, of Sri Ram Chandra, of Gautama Buddha, of Guru Nanak and of Kabir, as also the works of Hindu Divines and Yogins, like Vashistha; of saints and mystical poets, like Maulana Rumi and Hafiz; of ethicists and theologians, like Sadi and Ghazali; of epic poets, like Firdausi; of philosophers, like Avicenna; of historians like Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Khallikan and Farishta, are some of the best gems in the treasury of Urdu literature."
12. "National" Education.
The attempt that is being made at the Osmania University of Hyderabad to impart highest education through the medium of Urdu may not therefore be considered to be too ambitious and unreasonable. It must be remembered, however, at the same time that Urdu is the only living language of India in which up till now such an experiment has been undertaken and deemed to be possible. All other Indian languages have still to play the "second fiddle" in India's educational systems,—even in those which are conducted independently of the alien government by "national councils" or "national universities" under the influence of the ideas of 1905.
But the desire to bring the mother-tongues up to the level of an adequate medium of higher education suited to the modern requirements of a progressive life furnishes the élan of swarajist-activity in education. Translations, adaptations and compilations from foreign sources, whether by individual publishing houses or by collective efforts, are necessarily becoming prominent in the journalism and literary life of every important city.
The cry everywhere in India,—as was worded for Bengal by the present writer before the Literary Conferences3 at Malda and Mymensingh (1910-1911)—has been raised to the following effect: "In what ways and in how many years can our literature occupy the position of French, German and English for the study of science, philosophy, history and other serious subjects in the highest classes of a university? The efforts and activities of our men of letters have to be regulated in such a manner as to focus our whole literary devotion on the realization of this single object."
In this as in other trends of literary growth Young India is exhibiting not only the nationalistic animus of the Poles, Tchechs, Serbs and Irish but also the Mazzinian romanticism for linguistic or cultural souls. And it is from such a platform of educational independence and not from the standpoint of a senseless antialienism that Gandhi's proclamation of war against the English language (1921) acquires a deep significance in the history of contemporary civilization. This is but another aspect of the movement by which mankind is constantly being made conscious that India and world progress can go on without England, without the English people and without the British government.
Notes
- Transl. by A. Coomaraswamy and P.V. Vaishya for the Modern Review (Calcutta) for March 1920.↩
- The Modern Review (Calcutta), March 1921.↩
- Vide the essay on Sâhitya-sevi (Man of Letters) in the author's Bengali Sâdhanâ (Calcutta 1912). The essay appeared also in Hindi, Marathi and English (vide the Modern Review, 1911).↩