Essay on the Role of Regional Literature in Cultural Integration

Essay on the Role of Regional Literature in Cultural Integration

Introduction:

Language and Culture are inseparable from one another. However, despite the diverse linguistic peculiarities in India, the regional literature while depicting the peculiar nuances or the local culture, also rises above the merely local, to reflect in full measure something that is national in character.

Development of Thought:

Regional literature in fact, has often contributed to the fostering of a national identity-a national consciousness and a national, culture. India has always been a linguistically diverse community. Even in the ancient times there was no language which was spoken by everybody.

Sanskrit was only the language of the elite whereas Prakrit and Ardha Magadhi were more commonly spoken by the masses. During the Mughal rule Persian took the place of Sanskrit as the court language while Urdu and “Hindustani were the languages of the common masses in North India. However the Dravidian languages continued to flourish in the south.

A survey of the modern day regional languages and literature reveal an attempt at integration especially in Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati and the Southern languages; however the pace of Endeavour towards national integration in Hindi and Punjabi has been relatively slow.

On the whole from the ancient texts in Sanskrit to Bengali literature which pioneered the 19th century Indian renaissance, to modem day regional literature, what is reflected is an attempt to break the narrow walls of provincialism and build bridges of integration and peace between the far-flung cultures of India?

Conclusion:

While regional literature is doing a commendable job of integrating India, we must remain on guard lest these languages should become reactionary and unleash retrogressive and parochial trends.

There is no gainsaying that language has a direct relation to the national form of artistic creative Endeavour. But in the case of such multi-cultural nations as Russia and India, literature can not be the only criterion in determining the national form of writing.

Literatures in various Indian regional languages, though rooted deep in their diverse linguistic peculiarities at the same time belong to a ‘greater’ Indian literature because they reflect in full measure the specificity of a national Indian style.

This national style has evolved on the basis of a cultural community that developed in the course of time. It is that cultural community which makes the Indians, despite regional limitations and variety of faiths and languages, regard themselves as a single integrated whole.

It is this concept of a single national entity that forms the ingredients of national integration, which is nothing but the spirit of cohesive co-existence between diverse cultural and linguistic communities.

As for the historical background of this linguistic diversity, it is significant that India did not have one-and-only-one language as its ‘only’ language even in the ancient period. It was said in the Vedas

Jana Vibhrati Bahudha Vivachasm

Nana Dharmanam Yathavasam.

It means: “People speak many languages. They belong to many religions. All live happily together.” Sanskrit was, at best, the “cultured” language of north India, the language of royal courts, scriptures, epics, and literary opuses.

The common people, however, used Prakrit or the ‘natural’ language. Gautam, the Buddha, used one of its forms, Pali, for preaching his message far and wide. Jain Mahavir also used another form of Prakrit, called Ardha-Magadhi, for his ethical teachings.

By the end of the ancient epoch, Sanskrit became a classical language, no more in common use. Its place was taken by Persian which became the court language of Delhi Sultanate. Later, English assumed the same role and became the language of the government and the administration.

It became not only the state language, but also the second native Indian tongue of all educated Indians, a kind of ‘Esperanto’ for all Indian states and regions.

By the close of the ancient age, most of the modern regional languages of India had come in vogue. These included the four south Indian or Dravidian languages, such as, Tamil, which came down from the ancient times, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.

Even today every fifth person in India speaks a language different from the north-Indian Indo-European, Sanskrit based languages.

Other regional languages include Assamese, Bengali and Oriya in the east, Gujarati and Marathi in the West, as well as Hindi, Punjabi and Kashmiri in the north, besides these 12 regional languages, six more are listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution; languages which have no region’ as such, namely, Sanskrit, Urdu, Sindhi, Manipuri, Konkani, and Nepali.

The Sahitya Academy has given recognition to not only these eighteen languages but also to English and some more Indian languages, namely Maithili, Dogri and Rajasthani.

Beginning from the east, Assamese carries the double responsibility of fostering integration; first, between the various undeveloped tribal languages of the north-east and, second, with Bengali with which it shares major letters of its alphabet. This dual responsibility has resulted in the composition of literary works, which deal with people living in the hills and plains of Assam and neighboring regions.

Some such works are Birendra Bhattacharya’s Janpith winning lyaruingam, a novel about the people of Nagaland; B K Barua’s novel about the tea-garden workers; and the translated compilations of Assamese folk songs by Hem Barua and Prafulla Goswami.

Though not much has been written in Assamese about other Indian regions, there are works written against the British imperialism, like Abdul Malik’s Piyali Phukan, or the stories on partition and on the plight of the minorities.

The late Ambikagiri Rai Chaudhury, an ardent nationalist poet, Nilamani Phookan,and Jogesh Das, are some more names whose works in Assamese are helping the cause of national integration.

Bengali has been the pioneer of the 19th century Indian renaissance as well as of the national independence struggle. Several modern movements in ants and literature have sprouted in Bengali first and, then, spread over to other regional languages of India.

After the establishment of the British Raj nationalist feelings became pronounced in the works of Madhu Sudhan Datta, Bankim Chatterji, Nabin Sen. D.L.Roy, Rakhal Bannerji, Rabindra Nath Tagore, Vivekananda and Aurobindo.

This was the liberal all-embracing tradition which made Tagore write poems on Guru Gobind Singh, Shivaji, Taj Mahal, and on Indian mythological as well as Buddhist Jataka tales.

Contemporary Bengali literature also has many works on other regions, like Assam, Rajasthan, and Bombay (such as. Bombai Pravas), on South Indian temples (such as, Mandire Mandire), and on Indian saints and heroes like Guru Nanak, Gandhij and Shivaji. Mahashweta Battacharya’s novel on Maharani Lakshmibai of Jhansi evoked an all-India response.

There has also been a tradition of communal amity running through the cultural life of Bengal which is best reflected in the ‘Baul’ songs of Muslim poets who received patronage during the Muslim rule in Bengal. Some significant Indian Muslim poets and writers in Bengali include Qazi Nazrul Islam, Qazi Abdul Wadood, Syed Mujtaba Ali, and Humayun Kabir.

It was also this spirit of communal amity which made the struggle for freedom so meaningful in Bangladesh, where there are a score of good Muslim writers in Bengali like Begum Sophia Kamal, Shamsur Rahman, and Humayun Azad.

Book wherein entire India is taken as a whole are few and far between in the Oriya literatures. But, sure the literary works of such great nationalists as Gopabandhu Das and Nilakantha Das depict the whole of India on a single canvas.

Some best Oriyan works, which deal with the call-of-the-mother-earth theme, such as, Kalindi Charan Panigrahi’s Matira Manisha and Guru Prasad Mohanti’sAmritara Santana, have been translated into other Indian languages. Mohanti’s work on tribal life, Mali Matala, won the Janpith award, an honour to which another Oriya, Sachi Routray, has been lately elevated.

Routray has also written on other Indian heroes like Baji Rant. Last but not least, translations of Gandhiji’s works have been rendered into Oriya by Nandini Satpati.

In the western zone, Marathi and Gujarati languages are best considered together. The tradition of writing in these two languages is reflected in the works of Tilak and Gokhale in Marathi, as well as Gandhiji, Mahadev Desai, and K. M. Munshi in Gujarati. The thread of communal integration runs deep in western India.

That is why we find Parsi authors from Bombay writing in Gujarati and Muslim poets like Ghani Dahiwala, Adil Mansuri, Sheikh Ghulam Muhammad, and Amar Shekh writing in Marathi.

Among the living Marathi writers Dr Y.M.Pathan, Syed Amin, and Hamid Dalwi are Muslims. The great Marathi saint-poet, Chakradhar, was first a Gujarati Prince; similarly, Kakasaheb Kalelkar, though a Marathi, has been an eminent Gujarati writer. Again there is a Marathi work, Khristayan, of Father Stephens, a Christian missionary.

There are also many translations from one language into another. Insofar as the India nature of works in these languages is concerned, we have the Marathi works of G.N Dandelkar on Bhakra Nangal, of S.B.Biwalkar on Gandhi’s to Noakhali, and of Jyotsna Devadhar on Rajasthan.

In Gujarati, too, there are novels about Saurashtra, Mewar, Malwa, Punjab and Bengal. Hari Naryan Apte’s novel. Pan Lakshat Kon Ghato, has been translated from Marathi into many other Indian regional languages. While Marathi novelist. V.S. Khandekar, was awarded the Jnanpith for Yayati, Pannalal Patel, a Gujarati novelist was also awarded the same in 1985.

The pace of Endeavour towards national integration in north Indian languages is relatively slow; the more so in the literature of Hindi language.

Although there are many translations published in Hindi from all other regional languages, yet very few literatures from the Hindi-speaking regions of north India have written in other regional languages or used the cultural milieu of other provinces as a basis for their works.

However, there are notable exceptions, such as Nirala’s work on Shivaji, Amrit Lai Nagar’s Suhag ke Nupur, which makes use of a Tamil mythological tale, as well as the historical novels on Maratha heroes by Brindavan Lai Verma and Acharya Chatursen.

The journalistic works of Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi and Banarasidas Chaturvedi have also contributed to the cause of national integration.

Among other north Indian regional languages, Punjabi has very few non- Sikh writers, such as Chatrak, Nandi Satyarthi, Gargi, and Shiv Kumar. The leading poets of nationalism in Punjabi are Gurumukh Singh Musafir and Hira Singh Dard.

Although most of the famous Punjabi novelists, like Vir Singh, Nanak Singh, R.S.Bedi, Jaswant Singh Kanwal, Dilip Kaur Tiwana and K.S.Duggal are progressive in their outlook, yet they have never ventured beyond their regions.

Modern Punjabi poets, like Amrita Pritam, who won the award, Mohan Singh and Harbhajan Singh, taking inspiration from Waris Shah and Bulle Shah has also written on sulfats’ with a wide range. But the impression remains that the Punjabi language writer like his counterpart in Hindi, is also by and large conservative.

The Kashmiri language has a limited modern literature; still both Muslims and Hindus have contributed their bit. Among the poets there are such names as Mehjun whose ghazals are well known, Zinda Kaul Masterji, Ved Rahi, and Nadim. Mohammed Amin Kamil, Akhtar Mohizuddin, Ali Mohammed Lone, and Ved Rahi are also quite popular all over India as short story writers and novelists.

Of the foot South Indian languages, Tamil is the oldest; it has also a remarkable tradition of patriotism and nationalist consciousness.

Subramanya Bharati, the rebel poet, sang ‘Gandhi Panchakam’ and Yogi Shuddhanad Bharati wrote an epic on Aurobindo. Subramanaya Bharati’s patriotic poems inspired thousands of people during the independence struggle and gave eloquent expression to personal freedom, national liberty and the fundamental equality ft all men.

Several Tamil writers have used the backdrop of other cities and provinces for their novels and stories. There are many translations in Tamil of other Indian writes such as Tagore, Sharat Chandra, Premchand, Khandekar etc. There are also Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist authors in Tamil as much as in the other three Dravidian languages.

In Malayalam, the tradition of Swati Thirunal, who composed songs in Sanskrit as well as in Hindi, and the ‘Mani-Pravala’ genre are great national assets which still continue to integrate all languages, communities, and castes.

The great poet, Vallathol Narayana Menon, wrote a long poem on Mary Magdelene and compared her with Kubja in the Bhagavat. A novel by a Malayali author, Anand, has Bombay as its locale.

Again the works of Malayali Christian authors like Joseph Mundasseri and K.M .George, of Muslim writers like Muhammad Basheer and of Hindu novelists like T.S.Pillai, G.S.Kurup and S.K.Pottekatt have strengthened the bond of communal amity.

Moreover, the Malayalam stage has also contributed its bit, for the socio-political message of such a powerful play as Kottu Krishi has certainly crossed regional barricades and helped the cause of national integration.

The nationalist trend in Telugu literature is best reflected in Gurazada Apparao’s famous line “Deshmante matti kadoy Desh mante manushu loy”, the country is not mere land, it is the people. This tradition has been carried forward by progressive poets like Shri Shri, Desharathi, C.Narayana Reddy, Arudra, and the Christian author Joshua -to name only a few.

The literature of the fourth southern Indian regional language, Kannada, has also been a melting pot of such diverse traditions as Jain, Lingayat. Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and Christian. In modern Kannada literature the nationalist trend occurs in the works of K.V. Puttappa, D.R.Bendre, and both Jnanpith winners: V.K.Gokak; R.S.Mugali; and Malwad; they seem to have drunk deep at the well of Aurobindo’s nationalist philosophy.

Two Kannada novelists, Masti Venkatesh lyengear and K.S.Karanth, have also been honoured with the Jnanpith award; their works are progressive and deal with rampant national and social evils.

The plays of Adya Rangacharya and T.P.Kailasam as well as Lankesh have also contributed to the cause of national integration by debunking the sham, shibboleths and hypocrisies prevalent in modern Indian life.

Again, there are several Kannada writers whose mother-tongue is Marathi, like Bendre, or who write in Marathi, like S.B. Joshi. A Kannada writer also received a Sahitya Akedemi award for his work on Bankim Chatterji.

The modern Indian literature in the twelve regional languages is thus doing it can to break the narrow walls of provincialism and linguistic chauvinism. It is well on its way to bind and integrate the people as well as to make bridges and break barricades between the far-flung cultures of India.