DEBATING POST-COLONIALISM: MAJOR ISSUES IN INDIAN NARRATIVES, AND THE CALL FOR AN INDIGENOUS LITERARY HISTORIOGRAPHY (Pages 140-161) by Dr. Seema Bhaduri in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

The western theory of Post-Colonialism holds that literature from post-colonial societies centres exclusively around their repression and suffering under colonial experience, that these societies still live under the shadow of these repercussions. But, even under colonial rule, most Indian prose narratives in English and the regional languages concerned themselves with local lives and problems. While the impact of English social and psychological realism, and their progressive thought was felt in some of them, they showed little or no concern with the political life and powers of white men. Even political novels focused on the lives and dreams of Indian revolutionaries. The Western view of India as its permanent ‘other’, results from its ontological position that all reality is governed by the opposites of self and other. India looks upon reality as being heterogeneous. The western influence therefore remains only one among the several dimensions of Indian life and thought even in its Post-Independence novels. Indian novelists have combined and contrasted Western and Indian literary traditions and values in innovative ways. An indigenous national literary historiography is necessary to explore and record the many Indian literary achievements for the world Keywords: post-colonial societies, psychological realism, political novels, ontological position, literary traditions, literary historiography etc.