Towards the Definitive category of Indian Literature by Aijaz Ahmed.

Explanatory Notes
By Ravi Kant.

Think About It!

What constitutes the category “Indian Literature” ?

 The copious production of Literature in all regional languages as well as in English?

 Oral and written Literature - from the early Vedic period until contemporary modern
and post-colonial productions.
 From Newly emerging Diaspora writings to the recently materialized women
writings.
 The writing from the margins- the radical Dalit and Tribal Writings.

Ahmed begins the essay by problematizing "Third World Literature" as a theoretical category
because it treats ‘literary history’ casually
The category
1. homogenise prolix ( Long and tedious) and variegated (dealing with different subjects)
archive, little understood and hurriedly categorized.
2. This homogenising (of the literature in colonized countries) tendency had its impact in the
way diverse kind of public aspirations were put under the symbol of 'nationalism' and then to
designate this ‘nationalism’ as the determinate (Fixed) and epochal ideology for cultural
production in non -western societies.

The literature in most of these countries such as Africa, India and Latin America, from the
classical/antiquity period until post-independence, is homogenised because of certain
commonalities in their conditions such as they were all colonised and they responded against
colonial forces in which ‘nationalism’ turned out to be a productive force not only to fight
against the oppressive colonial forces but also for the post-independence nation building
project. However, this led to a grossly generalized category of the “third world” and its
literature that doesn’t take social, cultural and political differences within the third world
countries.

Ahmed argues that, by extension, the category 'Indian Literature' (a nation specific category)
cannot be construed as a constructive theoretical coherent category since the category seems
to be a by-product of the “third world literature” only. The partition of the subcontinent and
the rebirth of a secular nation within a multiple culture, variety of traditions and religions,
hierarchy of class and caste structures, twenty- two official languages, more than hundred
unofficial languages and thousands of dialects in diverse geographic settings produce a
literature both multi-layered and multidimensional. Therefore, the historiography of such as
divers and heterogeneous literature needs more attention.

Ahmed explores some of the difficulties we currently have in constituting such categories. He
argues that "Indian lit" as a theoretical category merely cannot be the sum total of the histories
of languages-literature; its regional constituent parts but, it has to be more than the assumption.

Ahmed argues that, apart from lacunae in our empirical knowledge( based on experiences)
there are two significant factors that he wish to emphasize:
1. Development(Orientalism and 19th century print culture) during the colonial period have
affected the process of historiography.
2. cultural productions, given its highly diverse trajectories, may simply not be available for
generalizing theoretical practice because of the restriction posed by colonial state and its
policies.

Cultural Production
Ahmed examines the way material conditions determine the cultural production. It is important
to see how the development of the culture as a whole determines/informs the literary
productions and its objectives.

LITERARY PRODUCTIONS
CULTURAL PRODUCTION
Material conditions—social, political and economic- Base

And since culture as a category is flexible unlike the way it's often been projected as fixed or
constrained, one can examines the fundamental shifts in periodization (the transition from one
period to other in terms of form or genre) than mere breaks in chronology. The culture as a
whole is capable of transcending languages and state boundaries. And this materiality of culture
can account for the dominance of major generic form , their uneven development in terms of
period and region. However, the 19th century construction of a bourgeoisie nation state in
terms of
1.Language 2. Territory completely overlooked the cultural productions based on material
conditions. Moreover, the 19th Century Print culture and the Orientalist construction of
knowledge system are equally responsible for the haphazard historiography of Indian
Literature.

Ahmed argues that the difficulty in considering "Indian lit" as a coherent theoretical
category is not to think that it contains several languages and their histories along with ever
shifting state boundaries, but the difficulty lies in the premises ( in foucaudian terms- the
discourse) that have often governed the narrativization of "that" history Which has
 Privileged "High Textuality" of a Brahminical Kind to posit the unification of this
history( the dominant or privileged text is a product of class and caste hierarchy)
 assembled the history of the main texts of particular language to obtain this unity
through aggregative principle.( peripheral texts/writings in a particular language were simply
overlooked)
 failed attempt to reconstruct the cross fertilization of genres and themes in several
language because of highly idealistic emphasis (ideal unity and
structure), canonizing procedure of the great book variety, and hardly any attempt
to locate lit history within other sort of histories in any consistent fashion.

 NEED FOR THE “OTHER KIND OF HISTORY”- Marxist intervention and

structural History
Therefore, he suggests that there is strong need to look into the histories of political and
economic structures, as advocated by many Marxist historians and scholars, in which one can
come across some of the most profound insights about what or what not can be designated as
literature, since these histories address /analyse material conditions of production other than
the descriptive or institutional history that either states facts or addresses events from
institutional perspective.

Reasons for the underdevelopment of research genre of literary history:

 Sporadic development of institutions / or institutional sites that could produce a

coherent and unified knowledge of the various languages- literature clusters in India ,
either in comparatist framework or as a unified although multilingual object of
knowledge. such as Dept. of comparative lit in academia, independent bodies or literary
collaboration between states. The numbers has increased considerably since the essay
was written in 1992, but it isn't satisfactory. We need institutions so that more and more
work could be done that could bridge the cultural gap between different regional
languages given their common origin or sharing in terms of linguistic attributes. Lack
of comparative scholarship, research and translation. Pg.- 240, Read the case of Urdu.
 Major languages and lit for which no comparative history is available.
 The tradition of circulating text through mutual translations among regional
languages is weakly developed. Even if there are research scholars they are unknown
except in the regional circles. No institutionalized and systematic efforts . Lack of public
institutions for overlapping translation (Pg 236 and 240). Problem with English as a
mediating language since English, as Ahmed argues
I. Most removed in its structure and ambiance hence cannot bridge the cultural
gap between the original and the translated.
II. Oral and performative elements are difficult to capture in English.
III. Bulk of literary intelligentsia in India is not and has not been very proficient in
English.
Although he agrees that the translation of modern prose and realistic narratives
in English translation works fine but the essence of let’s say classical kavya or
Bhakti pada or the melody of doha is difficult to retain in English. However,
M.K Naik, a literary historiographer, argues contrary to what Ahmed speaks in
terms of the inability of English. Naik argues that, theoretically, English in
terms of structure bears close resemblance to European languages and its origin
can be shared with respect to European civilization. Max Muller infact traced
the origin of Sanskrit with indo weuropean family of language. hence he argues
that Indian Literature in English has ingrained so much in our psyche that it has
become the one of the indian languages today which globally represent us.
Hence, one should not treat it as a bastard language or the other that the
colonizers did with us.
 Discrete archives of individual languages , with principal of aggregation either
absent or weakly developed.
 The tradition of reading the literatures of various languages in mutual relation, as
overlapping realities constitute a unified configuration, is weakly developed.
(Comparatist framework)
 Inappropriate information or inadequacies of reliable Information as to text,
author s,g enres, mode of transmission with respect to earlier periods.(pre-colonial)
Some of these languages had distinct origin and autonomous development, like Tamil
 in the South and Sanskrit in the North while some shared socio cultural landscape. Due
to lack of ay theoretical insight as to how these languages mutually influenced each
other while they had their distinct origin is interesting.
 Histories of individual languages as discreet entities also tends to be misleading,
since multlinguality and polyglot fluidity seems to have been chief characerstics-
possibly the characteristic- which give Indian Literature its high degree of unification in
the premodern phase.
 Unilingual vernacular education ( To enforce and promote education in only one
language), rise of regional particularism ( region specificity should be the priority)
and religious ( All Hindus must speak one language- Hindi), speeded up the process
of linguistic differentiation ( This feeling that we do speak different languages,
Ahmed argues is objectively field ) Mohan Singh Diwana states that the writers in
the classical periods were not restrained or compelled to write in one language.
Guru Gobind Singh wrote in Persian as well as Braj Page no (238-239)
 Many notable writers and poets of 16th and 17th century chose to wrote in different
languages which suggests that literature was not confined to one language one
author type. This confirms the prevalence of linguistic fluidity and heterogeneity
across fluid regions and boundaries until the arrival of 19th century interventionist
colonial system of knowledge that reduced this multlinguality to the level of
“Restrictive triadic category”, comprising of - the mother tongue+ the provincial +the
common Hindustani language which was later reconceptualised as a “tripartite division”
in the post -colonial bourgeoisie nation state. The process severely restricted the polyglot
nature of Indian Literature.
 Lack of a kind of comparatist framework with respect to the material history of
overlapping forms and genres. For instance pada, doha and barahmassa (folk poetry)
were the trans linguistic forms used by many poets. The forms and genres were not
confined to a particular use of language (Pg .241) Therefore, a kind of a comparatist
historiography is required that could establish both the heterogeneity and the
fundamental unity of Indian Literature. Moreover, the information pertaining the origin
of these forms in the material history, such as social norms, customs and rituals, social
grids and belief system is essentially required. Ahmed says that we “need to assemble
the genealogies of genre (power structure that allows for a genre or form to exist over
the other) as well as their sociology ( social stratification based on caste and class)
because genre often serves as the very horizon which defines the
I. general sematic field – Where meaning is determined or produced)
II. the presumptions of belief system- (why a particular form- narrative or poetry)
III. the politics of transgression and containment
IV. the very possibility of what ae called the aesthetic effects of individual
utterances, as well as of authors and oeuvres.
Merely enumerating the compositional forms/genre, classifying their aesthetic effect
and properties and slotting various available works under the various generic designation
is not enough.

 19th Century Print Culture

He illustrates the problem of historicizing the “linguistic layerings (the interconnectedness
of various languages) and of a “generic unclassifiability” ( genre is not confined to the use
of one language ) by citing two premodern literary texts which have already gained
canonical status- Ramayana and Mahabharata. He argues that other than their status as
“literary texts” they have also been implicated (consulted/read and interpreted) in histories
of philosophy and religion and the discipline of both of Ancient History and Anthropology
 rely on these texts. In literary aspect, these texts were produced in several languages and
composed in different genres or forms and they are still being reproduced, re-enacted
enacted in performance tradition or cinematic and TV -serial adaptations implies their
popularity as the text with a strong ideological imperative embedded mainly in their
linguistic composition- “the always local and immediate construction of their meaning , the
flexibility of their assimilation into the felt life .” The oral and performative aspects of
literary texts can add a layers of meninges that a printed text having circumscribed meaning
can’t really produce. This could affect the pursuit of a literary critic who has to certainly
rely on “written words- the linguistic units” and the meaning produced by it in a stabilized
textual form, thus establishing a fixed and rigid category of the printed textual hierarchy.
New criticism, the close -reading method which is a universal pedagogy of English
Department- further establishes the text as objective category ( Pg. 244) The 19th century
introduction of print culture destroyed the potential of 17th and 18th century oral literature
coming from the margins – the voice of Dalits , women and peasants. This also changed
the very definition of “literary” began to be associated with the professional petty
bourgeoisie elite away from the potentialities of oral and folk literary components.

In the third part of the essay, Ahmed broadly examines the category ‘Indian Literature’
which claims to have a fundamental unity in terms of “the common national origin of
its authors” and it reflects the common civilizational ethos of the Indian people. This is
a vague generalisation that Ahmed vehemently attacks in this part of the essay.
Reasons
1. Our knowledge of this unity with respect to literature remains more or less opaque
2. Gaps in our knowledge due to
 incomplete kind of evidence which have survived.
 inevitable inadequacy of still developing tradition of literary historiography.
3. Flawed methods of ongoing research: Much of the ongoing research is governed
by the ideology of the literary text as a discreet aesthetic object
 partly canonical in the New Critical way-(depends on the ‘closed reading’ of
the linguistic units- confined to textual explanation and criticism, nothing
beyond the book.
 Partly spiritual in the iconographic mould ( visual images and symbols used
in a work of art are used to derive spiritual meanings)
Thus the literature becomes the temple of these artefacts/objects.
Literature should reflect the material condition of existence, should
relate to the people and culture living rather than metaphysical
abstractions.

Within the above mentioned predicates, we have two different ways of demarcating this
literature- the flawed one with problems :

First version (III)

Traditional Model: This kind of literature privileges the classical texts followed by an eclectic
(wisely chosen) selection of a few medieval and modern. The orientalist are usually held
responsible for this problematic construction of this classification of Indian literature where in
the classical texts were
 Canonized
 Cited as the unique repertoire of Indian culture by the orientalist, such as Wilhem von
Schlegal, Maurice winternitz etc., and later the nationalists like Aurobindo.
 Classical the Priviledged-
vedic ,Sanskritic, religious
and metaphysicla texts of
North Indian antiquity

Medieval

modern

The above mentioned hierarchy has two major limitations:

1. relationship between the canonized text (such as Ramayana or Mahabharata as written
texts of Sanskrit lit) and the obscured network of literary productions (performance or
oral traditions of the epics ) and their social groundings is completely overlooked. In
this context, Ahmed provides a detail example of Tamil literature that despite the
popularity of its tradition, it completely managed to escapes the orientalist construction
of the abovementioned classification because of the inherent Northerly Bias, late
availability of Sangam anthologies or the secularity and worldliness of Sangam poetic
traditions.
2. Religion ( with norms and principles) and metaphysics ( abstract concepts such as soul,
karma etc.) were preferred over the material conditions of the production of literature
such as socio cultural ethos of the time, scope and process of orientalist scholarship
were neither examined nor questioned by the modern historiographers. etc.

Ahmed argues that orientalist construction of knowledge, in this case the above
mentioned model of classification (as Said argues in crisis) was
 Ahistorical and inadequate
 Obscurantist ( deliberately preventing the reality of something from becoming
known) and repressive

Moreover, much of the orientalist scholarship was riven, within its own textual body, by the
contending pressures of
1. colonialist eurocentrism (the idea that the European model of knowledge should be the
yardstick to judge colonized country’s literature and culture) and universalist
humanism and rationalism( the so called better tendencies of the enlightenment that
believed in essential humanness and rationality)
2. riven between colonialist modernity (Colonial -Modernist like Macaulay who
denounced Indian literature and hence by extension, the work done by the orientalist
)and the obscurantist tendencies in which European Romanticism often overlapped
with Indian Brahmanism. ( Sanskrit was admired for its structure and refined qualities
by the orientalist)

Unlike Edward Said, Ahmed doesn’t denounce the body of work produced by the orientalist
scholarship, mainly for the reasons:
1. it at least made the texts, that had been widely scattered and in the sacred possession of
sundry sectarian, (believers of particular sect such as Buddhism or Jainism) and
ecclesiastical groups ( Brahmins and other priestly communities), available to a public
 domain and for the scrutiny of the modern, secular, critical intelligentsia, by collecting,
collating and disseminating.
2. He argues that the historiographers today can productively use the knowledge produced
by orientalist scholarship, while they must also question the very foundation of this
construction- etiquettes of Orientalist readings, selection, emphases- and by
challenging the ideological grid (in Foucauldian term episteme) account for assembling
the particular kind of narrative constituted by t
This narrative greatly contributed in creating a single canonicity of the literary and the religious
texts. For the historical moment was ripe to have various intersection and overlaps. This was
also the time when the canonical kind of Hinduism (Hindu being a pejorative term) was
assembled and this entourage needed uniform beliefs, canonical texts, prophetic traditions and
clerical institutions to establish itself. In this framework two major overlaps can be noticed.
 Overlaps in the fabrication of religious canonicity ( That Hindustan is the land
of Hindus with common civilizational ethos, beliefs and customs) and literary
canonicity were intense as evident in the anthologies of Indian tradition, Indian
literature (would make some room for Muslims) and “Hindu Religion”.
 The work of the orientalist overlapped with the ambitions of a great many of
the Hindu reformers and revivalist alike since many of them believed in hindu
culture and religion.
 Metaphysical grandeur and spiritual timelessness of these texts were framed
over a period of time.
In a nutshell, The orientalist construction of the Sanskrit classics as canonical texts and its later
revival by the nationalists during the anti-colonial resistance at a specific juncture in the history
when the’ Hindu religion’ was assembled is not a coincident. The whole thing privileged
certain kind of reading while disallowed the other. Religiously canonized text ,then, can be
read, as literature primarily for its sublimity (impressing the mind, elevated or lofty in thought
and language) but not in the modern sense of secular or profane writing.

The Bhagvad Geeta is privileged over other Gitas found in the same Mahabharata tradition,
but its sublimity as ‘literature’ ( That it is elevated and lofty in its presentation of thoughts and
language) is so thoroughly framed by its supremacy as metaphysic ( that it talks about non
earthly, philosophically abstract concepts) that it can’t be read in relation to the secular
conditions of its own production. Nor as ideological text whose main task is to offer an
imaginary resolution for real conflict in the secular, material and familial domain. Thus one
cannot question the sanctity of these texts partly
1. by virtue of their religious immunity
2. by their preferred position in the canon.

Some of these texts were read in canonical fashion which are now being questioned by the
literary critic and the modern historiographers. For example, there is not much emphasis on the
medieval tradition or Bhakti by the orientalist scholarship. These were often explained from
the religious point of view as they bear strong resemblance to religious texts. However, the a
modern secular reading of some of the authors and their creations, whether in verse or poetry,
were found to be severely critiquing the caste, class and gender norms. Another example can
be taken from the modern inventory- Andha Yug by Dharamvir Bharati.

Ahmed concludes this section that the kind of reading of a text governed by religious ideologies
would in no time interpellate concrete individuals into subjects, they would be bhakts to a text
like Mahabharata and a time would come that they would believe in the materiality of the text
rather than questioning it, its symbol would be more concrete and effective and its power would
be more evocative .

Second version (IV)

1. This version of ‘Indian literature’ is composed of discrete language -literature

traditions on which the word Indian is superimposed.

2. It appears to be an effect of geography and the nation state; the idea of the nation state
was conceived as a resistance against the colonial regime and retained in the post-
independence times by the modern and political architects of the nation.

3. According to Ahmed, this version does make sense because only by collecting and
collating the documents pertaining literary histories of the different languages along
with the histories of discreet language, one can really think of a possibility whereby a
comparatist framework could be established for a broader theorization and a
knowledge of the unity can be obtained.
For this, we don’t have to rely on the European model, not because we can’t match the
resources, institutions and the workforce of the scholars who have been involved in the
production of the historiography of the western canon, but

 the biases based on race and class and eurocentrism cannot be overlooked in
these western models.
 mostly it is the sheer amount of the histories of the past and present with its
indeterminate cultural boundaries which requires a different kind of conceptual
framework.
Therefore,
we need collaborative work between the Departments in academia- English Dept.in
collaboration with the dept. of comparative literature could work more productively in this
direction.
Highly developed and better funded institutions so that a shift from mass to composition,
quantity to quality can be achieved.

Ahmed conclude the section by quoting an erudite scholar and a modern historiographer Sisir
Kumar Das who suggests that a chronological enumeration of all kinds of literature is the first
requisite, the analytical framework can only be developed later because the current state of our
empirical knowledge does not really warrant confident theorisation of on too broad a scale.

A KEY Point to Remember:

The task of assembling a history of Indian literature and its alleged/claimed/essentialised
‘unity’ can’t be derived
o from trans historic metaphysics ( finding unity in abstract generalizations and
concepts invoking the spirit of common civilizational ethos or common culture
than the social, political and broadly cultural realities)
o from the territoriality of the existing nation state.
o by simply assembling discrete histories of the different linguistic tradition.
BUT

By tracing the dialectic of unity and difference (Marxist approach) through

 1. systematic periodization of multiple languages overlap.
2. By grounding that dialectic in the history of material productions, ideological struggles,
competing conception of class, community and gender.
3. Elite offensives and popular resistance
4. Overlaps of cultural vocabularies and performative genres and
5. Histories of orality and writing and print.

V
In this part, Ahmed examines some of the fundamental problems, in conceiving the
historiography , arise from:
1. Imperialist Scholarship
2. Colonially determined apparatuses
3. Colonial etiquette of mapping our history in culture as much as the political domain

Vedic and
Hindu Classical
Sankritic Texts

Persian and
Muslim Medieval
Mughal Texts

British Modern English Texts

1.

The colonial periodization of the so called ‘Indian literature’, as argued by

many historians and historiographers, is derived from the colonial
periodization of the ‘Indian History’ which has a communalist sort of
framework. The shift from the first to second simply tones down the
communalist angle. One can draw the striking similarities between these
categories and the haphazard manner in which they were drawn.

We know how this kind of periodization, which we have read in the previous
section, constructed the canonical categories in all the three different
classifications. However, the conceptual universe in which the colonial
apparatus of research and education were first assembled turned out to be as
limited and narrowed as demonstrably the categories of the canonization
are. In-fact it was realised by the colonisers that not a single Indian language
or English alone could be used as a language of command, mainly because
the people spoke ‘regional languages’, not the languages established by the
canon.

Relation between Early history of printing press and the grid of colonial
education

Therefore, the first two printing press were established exclusively to

publish colonial documents, news and information in regional languages for
 both Indians and Europeans. These printing presses were evolved and in no
time these began to produce textbooks and other educational materials in
the indigenous languages. This was, obviously connected with the evolving
educational structures sponsored by the colonial state, the Christian
missionaries and the Indian reform movements in which most of the
education and instruction was carried out in indigenous language.

At the same time oriental colleges and schools were established to promote the learning of the
classical languages of India, such as Sanskrit Farsi etc. But most such scholarship survived
mainly through traditional institutions and privately organized circuits. English became the
language of the higher education, especially at the university level while the schooling was
carried out everywhere in the local vernacular.

There were only a handful of highly exclusive public schools where English was taught
exclusively. A key sector of the dominant intelligentsia evolved which was actually removed
from any productive relation with any other of the Indian Languages.

Ahmed argues that the literate population, which was mere 15 percent of the total population,
could be construed as some kind of ‘elite’ since even bare literacy did help in the long-term
dynamics of social motilities. The real educated elite who owned property and or income were
a mere fraction of the 15 percent while the rest of the bulk belonged to the under privileged
strata, especially through the schools established by
 the reform movements
 philanthropies and local entrepreneurs (in case of Ambedkar)
 mission schools and government schools- a few in number but heavily
subsidized.
This bulk was schooled in indigenous languages and a little bit of functional English they were
taught. This vernacular schooling was then greatly supplemented by the evolving vernacular
print networks. This, also well served the purpose of the colonial masters who wanted a class
of public servants and a loyal one to mediate more efficiently between the commoners and the
colonial masters. Therefore, they could retain their own networks of the elite control
exclusively in their language while they deliberately excluded the bilingual servant. The issue
of ‘literature’ could be understood in this broad context.

Ahmed argues that “the constitutive logic of Colonial Discourse analysis is such that significant
practitioners of it have come to construe that English language in India as a pure colonial
imposition.” Ahmed rejects the argument on the grounds that all the national leaders, from
Gandhi to Ambedkar, never really showed any strong antipathy towards English language.
Most regressive kind of opposition to English comes from “more rigidly obscurantist circle
traditionalist feudal lords who had lost the control over the resources. And if it were to be
considered an imposition, it was not in the strict sense but unto the level where the workings
of the colonial management or administration is concerned such as official enquiry and paper
work. The English literature such as poems, short stories and novels was chiefly introduced for
the purpose, following the traditional British pedagogy of learning a new language in which
once you have mastered the basic vocabulary and simple grammar, the literature would help to
understand the process of sentence construction and composition.

The fact that the language was retained as the language of the court and official proves its
impact and practicality. Moreover, the sheer amount of productive knowledge about various
disciplines such as physical and social sciences, the technical fields, historiography and
lexicography etc. had been produced in English. In literature, English had its greater impact
not as composition but through some specific generic forms such as Homeric epic, the sonnets,
tragedy. The impact of realism was the most frequently adapted form of the contemporary
writers who thought it to be well suited to describe the contemporary social and political
complexities of the time. Even though it was introduced as a language of the masters with the
aim to have an adequate knowledge, it was not only well adapted in its immediate context, its
literary form influenced Indian writers who were writing in vernaculars as well as in English.

The contradiction inherent in the colonial apparatus of education produced a class based
division of intellectual function among the new intelligentsias. The division well
corresponded to the differences in their material and social conditions. Based on Ahmed’s
analysis, two dominant pattern emerges in which the intellectuals can be grouped
1)The real elite: Upper class/caste- Landed gentry: two types
a.) Highly Anglicized Urban Elite b). Traditional propertied
 Owned property or had stable income, money wasn’t the concern at all
 had education in exclusive English schools and institutions,
 came to adopt English as the main language of public function,
 used vernaculars with people in household or communities.
 Sometimes learned classical languages such as Sanskrit and Arabic as the languages of
scholastic and courtly eminence in India through private instructions and family
network.
 Turned out to be scholars in the Humanities and the social sciences or chose translation
of Sanskrit/MIL into English ( favrioute past time)
 Anglicized Urban did not desire to read vernacular while the Traditional Propertied
Promoted/ Sponsored vernacular education, outside the apparatus of the colonial
education, to others as a philanthropic concerns or through reform schools and
institutions.
 Traditional propertied had Sanskrit or Persian learnt in their ancestry functional
languages and their ancestors had privileged positions in the ecclesiastical or judicial
institutions (scholastic fractions)

2) The petty bourgeoisies: two types-1) traditional (propertied) (middle castes and petty
property) 2) new professional kind ( served British administration) impoverished sections of
the upper castes,.
 Bi and trilingual in their professional work.
 Cultural life was lived , in the languages of locality and region.
 Received subsidized education in missionary and government schools in vernaculars
while higher education in English.
 Sanskrit Persian knowledge is fragmentary or non-existent.
 Served the interests of the colonizers.
Desired to cultivate English literature and its sensibilities

The contradictions of the education system however, were felt most acutely among the
petty bourgeoisie for the following reasons
1. Loss of traditional culture and language
2. Caught up in between the contending pressure of professional ambition that drove
them towards English while the cultural pressures of their own lives kept them
rooted them in their linguistic communities.
 3. The pattern of their schooling
4. Contradictions in terms of knowledge at school and at universities.
5. Riven by contradiction between the language of administrative command and the
language of felt life.
6. Crisis of the pre-capitalist society( rupture in the feudal system), affinity unto
democratizing dynamic
7. Oppressed by the proximity and power of the moribund structures of feudalism and
colonial govenrnment
8. Adopted rhetoric of reform, in both enlightened( Raja Ram Mohan Roy and
Ishwarchand Vidyasagar) and mystificatory way ( Paramhans and Vivekanad- Arya
Samaj, Brahma Samaj
Consequently, the class who did not have enough property and who felt the kind of sharp
contradictions stated above were the first of their kind to address the question productively and
systematically in literary writings and expression, posed in the term of modern scholarship.
Modern Indian Literature was assembled by these petty bourgeoisie people. Ahmed argues that
the literary clusters which arose in the so-called ‘regional’ languages during the colonial period
were drawn preponderantly from the emergent Third Estate- impoversished sectors of upper
caste and the middle caste who traditionally occupied intellectual function. The class paved the
way for a new modern and secular reading of the Bhakti period- its anti Brahminical character,
irreconcilable tension between consent and transgression, bridge between our modernity and
classics. Etc. They often had a deep investment in negotiating the relationship between our
regional particularities and our civilizational unity. Closer to the idioms of the popular classes.
Would know how to appeal and tap in to their hearts. Moved towards secular historicization
and religious narrativization.

this complex and contradictory cultural landscape also witnessed pressures of:
1) 19th century reform movements: religious reforms tinged with revivalism, the line
between reform and revival were made narrower, recalling or hailing the orientalist
established classic canons as the foundational base and civilizational unity of Indian
culture by enhancing the prestige of scholarship in the classical language, pushed MIL
for proselytization. (absorption in reliving through the discourse of reform), tie up
between religious and educational reforms- Schools like DAV were established by
religious reform societies, with the dream that their petty bourgeoisie son would
maintain the sanctity religious, traditional and cultural conduct while learning
disciplines in other language- Also a rear-guard defence against Western missionaries
with whom they were competing. Given the cultural ambivalences of the colonial
bourgeoisie, the interlocutor of reform movements were often much ready to be co-
opted back into conservative structures while numerous educationl enterprise came to
be controlled by the most reactionary religious elements who were themselves
organised along caste ad class lines. The reform movement really turned out to be a
contradictory fiasco to the impulse towards democratization and secularization of
literature, Traditional elite did produce some scholarly work in secular tradition but
they required a British stamp for the work to be productively called as scholarly. Reltion
between Nationalism and religious revivalism, Reading Discovery for India by
Jawaharlal Nehru as a modern and secular text.
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