This blog is a response to a task assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad Sir. The syllabus of the Department of English, MKBU includes paper no.- 208 Comparative Literature and Translation studies which include around 9 articles. We (students) are assigned a task of classroom presentation of assigned articles in a pair. In this blog we are supposed to write abstract, key points/arguments and concluding remarks on all three articles of Unit 1 of paper Comparative Literatures and Translation Studies. It also includes the recording of class presentations presented by respective students. Blogger and her partner have made a presentation on the third article, presentation and a video of a particular article is embedded (as per the task).
ARTICLE 2
Comparative Literature in India
Amiya Dev
Abstract:
In his article, "Comparative Literature in India," Amiya Dev bases his discussion on the fact that India has many languages and literatures thus representing an apriori situation and conditions of diversity. He therefore argues that to speak of Indian literature in the singular is problematic. Nonetheless, Dev also observes that to speak of Indian literature in the plural is equally problematic. Such a characterization, he urges, either overlooks or obscures manifest interrelations and affinities. His article compares the unity and the diversity thesis, and identifies the relationship between Indian commonality and differences as the prime site of comparative literature in India. He surveys the current scholarly and intellectual positions on unity and diversity and looks into the post-structuralist doubt of homogenization of differences in the name of unity. Dev also examines the search for common denominators and a possible pattern of togetherness and Dev underlines location and located inter-Indian reception as an aspect of inter-literariness. It is t/here Dev perceives Indian literature, that is, not as a fixed or determinate entity but as an ongoing and inter literary process: Indian language and literature ever in the re/making.
Comparative Literature in India (Detailed points from article):
In this article, Amiya Dev is discussing an a priori location of comparative literature with regard to aspects of diversity and unity of India. Scholars of literature either for unity of Indian literature or for a diversity and distinctiveness of the literatures of India. Instead of this binary approach, Dev's proposal involves a particular view of the discipline of comparative literature because he argues that in the case of India the study of literature should involve the notion of interliterary process and a dialectical view of literary introduction. According to census and Sahitya Academy there are a total 22 major languages in India and literature in all these languages. In general, the perspective of India as a hegemonic language and literature area is ubiquitous.
We have a plurality of so-called major literatures in India, we are confronted by a particular problem: Is Indian literature, in the singular, a valid category, or are we rather to speak of Indian literatures in the plural?
Literary histories written in India by Indian scholars also focused and still focus on a single literature. This single-focus perspective is a result of both a colonial and a post-colonial perspective, the latter found in the motto of the Sahitya Akademi: "Indian literature is one though written in many languages" (Radhakrishnan). However, this perspective was opposed by scholars who argued that a country where so many languages coexist should be understood as a country with literature (in the plural). Presently, a different kind of resistance has emerged to the unity thesis in the form of what may be called "hegemonic apprehensions." In brief, arguments of unity in diversity are in Dev’s opinion suspect, for they encroach upon the individualities of the diverse literatures. In other words, a cultural relativist analogy is implied here, difference is underlined and corroborated by the fact that both writers and readers of particular and individual literatures are overwhelmingly concerned with their own literature and own literature only. It is from this perspective the Academy's motto "Indian literature is one though written in many languages," the retort is "Indian literature is one because it is written in many languages."
Dev mentions Gurbhagat Singh who has been discussing the notion of "differential multilogue". He rejects the notion of Indian literature because the notion as such includes and promotes a nationalist identity. As a relativist, Singh accords literatures not only linguistic but also cultural singularities. With regard to the history of comparative literature as a discipline, he rejects both the French and the American schools as well as the idea of Goethe's Weltliteratur. His insistence on the plurality of logoi is particularly interesting because it takes us beyond the notion of dialogue, a notion that comparative literature is still confined to; enabling us to understand Indian diversity without sacrificing the individualities of the particulars.
Singh's notion of differential multilogue reflects a poststructuralist trend in Indian discourse: poststructuralism understands difference as a notion of inclusion, that is, mutuality. Thus, it cannot accept the single-focus category "Indian" without deconstructing its accompanying politics. If Indian literature had not been so heavily publicized and hammered down, as it were, into our national psyche, if our individual literatures had been left alone and not asked to pay their dues to "Indian literature," there would be no resistance to the notion of unity in diversity.
Ironically, Indian poststructuralism inflicts upon itself a sameness with difference- speakers elsewhere and does not seem to recognize that difference-speaking in India may be different from difference-speaking elsewhere. At the same time, this poststructuralism does not seem to recognize that given all the differences pertaining to the Indian experience, underlying it and tying together the different entities, there may be a commonality, a sensus communis of a broadly cultural kind.
Jaidav develops an argument for this cultural differential approach. Jaidev's notion of an Indian sensus communis is instances of "national" and racial image formations which suggest homogeneity and result in cultural stereotyping. The concept of an Indian sensus communis in the context of Singh's differential multilogue or Jaidev's differential approach brings me to the question of situs and theory. That is, the "site" or "location" of theory and of the theorist are important factors. If situs means cultural and linguistic rootedness then the notion of commonality is applicable.
Jaidev's concept of oneness provides an ambience for particular concerns with regard to cultural and artistic expression such as the case of language overlaps, the bi- and multilinguality of authors and their readership, openness to different genres, the sharing of themes based in similar social and historical experiences, emphasis on the oral and performing modes of cultural and artistic transmission, and the ease of inter-translatability. On the other hand, Jaidev suggests these characteristics of Indian cultural commonalities are rooted in a situs of the premodern age of Indian literatures.
Aijaz Ahmad's In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures describes the construct of a "syndicated" Indian literature that suggests an aggregate and unsatisfactory categorization of Indian literature. Ahmad argues the notion of "European literature" is at best an umbrella designation and at worst a pedagogical imposition while Indian literature is classifiable and categorizable.
Further, he argues that while European and African literatures have some historical signifiers in addition to their geographical designation, these are recent concepts whereas Indian homogeneity has the weight of tradition behind it. In Ahmad's argumentation, the problem is that in the "Indian" archive of literature, Indianness ultimately proves limited when compared with the differential literature comprising each of the twenty-two literatures recognized by the Sahitya Akademi.An "Indian" archive of literature as represented by an "English" archive -- while non-hegemonic on the one hand by removal from a differential archive but hegemonizing by a latent colonial attitude on the other – also reflects the official language policy of the government: English, while not included in the Indian Constitution, is still recognized as a lingua franca of government, education, etc.
V.K. Gokak and Sujit Mukherjee who were speaking of an Indo-English corpus of literature that was created out of English translations of major texts from major Indian languages.
Ahmad's concern is with the hegemony of English, although he does not suggest its abolition in a way which would be close to Ngugi's arguments. It is true that the ideal of one language in India has been made real by now by ideological and political mechanisms. The official national language is Hindi and if literary texts from the other languages could be translated into Hindi, we could possibly arrive at a national Indian literature. However, in this case we would again arrive at a hegemonizing situation. On the other hand, it is clear that in the realm of education, English is the largest single language program in our colleges and universities.
Swapan Majumdar takes this systemic approach in his 1985 book, ‘Comparative Literature: Indian Dimensions, where Indian literature is neither a simple unity as hegemonists of the nation-state persuasion would like it to be, nor a simple diversity as relativists or poststructuralists would like it to be. He suggests that Indian literature is neither "one" nor "many" but rather a systemic whole where many subsystems interact towards one in a continuous and never-ending dialectic.
Same route of literary history, Sisir Kumar Das has taken with his planned ten-volume project, A History of Indian Literature, whose first volume, 1800-1910: Western Impact / Indian Response, appeared in 1991.
The underlying and most important finding is a pattern of commonality in nineteenth-century Indian literatures. Das's work on the literatures of the nineteenth century in India does not designate this Indian literature a category by itself. Rather, the work suggests a rationale for the proposed research, the objective being to establish whether a pattern can be found through the ages. One age's pattern may not be the same as another age's and this obviously preempts any given unity of Indian literature. Thus, Das's method and results to date show that Indian literature is neither a unity nor is it a total differential.
In many ways, Das's work is similar to K.M. George's two-volume Comparative Indian Literature of 1984-85. George's work was not as comprehensive as Das's: it only dealt with fifteen literatures and that too in a limited way. In Dev’s view George's work also demonstrates Western hegemony. For example Poetry was discussed in terms of "traditional" and "modern" but as if traditional was exclusively Indian and modern the result of a Western impact. Another problem of George's two volumes was that although they were titled Comparative Indian Literature, there was no comparison built into the findings and the fifteen individual literatures were placed simply side by side.
The Gujarati poet Umashankar Joshi -- a supporter of the unity approach -- was the first president of the Indian National Comparative Literature Association, and the Kannada writer U.R. Anantha Murthy is the current president of the Comparative Literature Association of India. Comparatists reflect the binary approach to the question of Indian literature as explained above. However, the Association also reflects a move toward a dialectic. The method of Comparative Literature allows for a view of Indian literature in the context of unity and diversity in a dialectical inter literary process and situation.
Dev suggests other aspects which support his understanding of Indian literature in an inter literary process: we are located in our own languages -- whether with an active or passive bilinguality -- where we have access to one or two other languages. Through inter-Indian translation we have also access to texts from a fourth and more languages. Now, as readers, consciously or subconsciously we place the texts in additional languages beside our original and first text. Inter-Indian reception presupposes that our situs is in our first text, that is, first language literature.
Video recording of this article's presentation, presented by my classmates Divya Parmar and Mayuri Pandya
Presentation of the article by Divya Parmar and Mayuri Pandya
Conclusion:
In the concluding part of the article, Amiya Dev assures the readers, scholars and the students that the problems of unity and diversity are not unique to India. He discussed that if, for instance, Canadian diversity, it would have been from the outside, that is. from an Indian situs. Comparative Literature has taught us not to take comparison literally and it also taught us that theory formation in literary history is not universally tenable. He suggested that we should first look at ourselves and try to understand our own situations as thoroughly as possible. Let us first give full shape to our own comparative literature and then we will formulate a comparative literature of diversity in general.
It is common to find it challenging to read original articles and summarize them. As a result, I have simplified this article through my understanding and with the help of ChatGPT. Simplifying articles is helpful in achieving a better and clearer understanding of the concept, which will make reading the original article easier. The main aim is to help students or readers understand the concept so that they can read the original article with ease. CLICK HERE FOR A LAYMANISED ARTICLE.
I hope this blog is useful.
[Words- 1930]
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