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Translating Modernity
Colonial Modernity and the Modern Child in Early Children’s Literature in Kannada.
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Sowmya Dechamma

                                                                      I
The categories of modern and modernity constitute that which deviates from what is broadly considered as tradition and convention. These categories are associated with particular kinds of changes at different times and spaces (Williams 208-209). They create an accommodative space which allows various degrees of difference at different spaces and time. The difference in viewing the modern in the post-colonial era lies in conceptualising our own times as being modern, conceptualizing it in a self-critical, self-reflexive manner unlike during the colonial period.

To the Europeans of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, modernity sought to break with what had become dominant and dominating conventions. Modernity supposedly had to stimulate rather than dictate any particular nature of thought. The post-enlightenment phase of the nineteenth century witnessed a move towards secularism and discourses about the rights of individuals, concepts of democracy, equality, rationality and the idea of progress—now associated with capitalism and industrialisation. Faith in reason and the belief that all objects can be subjected to a demonstration and verification got strengthened implying that all knowledge can be generalised. Everything that was outside this framework or outside the generalised law became the “other” of modernity. In the context of colonial India, as this study will argue, reason became a procedure to construct order—whether social or political and the lower-castes became the “other”.

Another aspect of modernity that is crucial to this study is the emergence of the individual. All individuals were thought of as equal before law. However, as Dilip Menon points out, “[…] the individual was subordinated to a perception of the community as the unit of social and political order” (Menon 75). He also argues how this individual was located in a private sphere. This private sphere in turn was located within the religion and tradition of the colonized which the colonizer, the harbinger of modernity, was careful not to tread.

As Edward Said’s classic Orientalism so clearly illustrates, “reason” became the reason to treat the colonised as the “other” of modern. Corrigibility, the act of correcting the non-modern, the primitive, came to be the justification for colonialism. The Orient and its inhabitants supposedly lacked reason and hence were bereft of knowledge—in the way Europe defined it. Corrigibility was thus shown as a possibility within the scope of modernity. For this to be possible, the non-modern had to confront the modern. This paper argues that the colonizer's use of modernity/reason to justify colonialism was in turn manipulated/translated by the modern educated Indians who were mostly brahmins and landholding castes to justify systems of caste, class,                  Edward Said                          religion, and gender.  In the complex process of making colonial modernity, such systems were fostered under the guise of “Indian dharmic tradition”, “Vedic spiritual tradition” and “superior cultural values” as against the unspiritual material West.

This paper locates modernity in the context of colonial India and specifically in the context of the Kannada speaking regions of what is now Karnataka. Colonial modernity has meant different things for different people.

The term colonial modernity has come to acquire a delightful vagueness in recent writing. It is never clear whether it is a spatial term—modernity occurring within a colony rather than the metropole; or a temporal term—modernity experienced while under colonialism; or indeed some perversion of modernity occurring in the colonies. […] a notion of colonial modernity has to be both historical and contextual. The specific contradiction between a rhetoric of universal modernity and practice of accommodation with existing faultlines of power tradition and custom is what characterizes colonial modernity in India. (Menon 76)

Colonial modernity here refers to modernity as construed by brahmins, lingayats and few other privileged upper-castes in the Kannada speaking region who benefited from modern systems, institutions and ideas that colonialism brought with it. Though modernity in the West sought radical breaks and changes from traditional value systems and institutions like church and feudalism, modernity in the context of colonial India was not anti-traditional. What the Indians did was to re-write liberal humanist notions so as to support their own agenda. The response of the above mentioned section of formally educated to modernity varied in terms of education, region and other socio-cultural orders. The response of this elite from the Kannada speaking region is studied here through the medium of Children’s Literature. I argue that colonial education and changes wrought by it in the existing system together with many other factors, resulted in what can be called colonial modernity. It can be seen as an imaginary new space, a new context and text produced by way of translating both modernity and tradition. That is, colonial modernity is seen as a product resulting from external colonial pressure and the urge to self-fashion oneself within a selected traditional sphere. Elsewhere Partha Chatterjee has argued that colonial modernity for the Bengali Bhadralok meant the creation of a material outer sphere that symbolized the modern associated with the West, the positive aspects that colonialism provided them while at the same time positing a spiritual inner sphere that symbolized the superior spiritual/cultural values of the East (Chatterjee 6). For Chatterjee, this self-fashioning of tradition into the modern world represents the emerging nation. While agreeing with Chatterjee on the refashioning of the tradition by the elites, I carry the argument further to say that while this refashioning constructed the idea of India as a nation that is spiritually and culturally superior to the West, it also simultaneously constructed the “other”—the non-modern, traditionless lower-caste even as these discourses excluded the lower-caste from the process of nation building. And, as pointed by Chatterjee, it also constructed the binary of the spiritual feminine and the rational/modern masculine—both definitely Hindu upper-caste.
 
This translated version of modernity, when manifested into Children’s Literature of late nineteenth and early twentieth century, led to the birth of a new/modern idea of the child, which if not contradictory was in conflict with the traditional notions of the child. Children’s Literature as a genre meant exclusively for children was considerably new in the context of India. I look into how the educated class of the Kannada region (which was then under five different provinces) imagined a new society, new home and a new child as part of their over-all project of social reform. How did the notion of an ideal modern child figure in Children’s Literature? Also, I shall see how the very idea of Children’s Literature is a product/result of such imagining. In what ways did colonial modernity affect/influence the prevalent notions of the child and in what new terms did these notions get re-written in school texts meant for children, and in translated and adapted texts from English. Towards this end, I look at translations and other works meant for children focussing on the works of M. S. Puttanna, H. Manjappa and excerpts/stories/lessons from school texts that belonged to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

                                                                    II
The encounter of non-Europe with Europe leading to the colonisation of the former made the world of non-Europe, its life, culture, an object of derision and contempt based on enlightenment ideas of primitivity. This eventually led to a culture dictated on the colonised by the logic of power as the superiority of the modern, European and the knowledge that inheres in it. The question is, how this modernity, a variation of western modernity, gets translated into the society of the colonised. At such junctures, it is important to know how the colonised represented themselves and who among the colonized had the means and privilege to represent themselves and project it as the identity of the nation. One should also be aware that the framework of modernity which the colonised fit themselves in, was a sort of self-fashioning. This self-fashioning took place along with and in response to the changes brought by colonial rule. The colonial power, the impact of the entry of English—the language that belonged to the powerful coloniser, the print media and changes in public and private spheres built up a pressure which resulted in the self-fashioning of the educated colonised. Various studies have established how the native elite recognized the challenge represented by the new cognitive and communicative networks associated with colonial rule/western education. All over India, the native elite provided a significant proportion of funds to establish schools, colleges, native newspapers etc. This negotiation of the new “literate norms” through the project of education was intended to overcome what were perceived within the colonial discourse as fundamental deficiencies (read cultural) of Indian knowledge and culture. But yet, there existed certain indigenous systems of knowledge and values, which were not compromised. The coming together of both these knowledge can be described as representing the moment of negotiation resulting in the emergence of new genres, setting new literary trends, writing new ideas and much more. In the colonial culture, we can aptly describe this moment as the “moment of translation”. The birth of the modern child is a process that very much belongs to this moment of translation and of negotiated self-fashioning. Thus we see that the response of the colonised to modernity within the structures of colonialism was indeed complex.

Quite a few scholars see colonial modernity in India as a mere copy of European/British ideas of progress, and more than often, the same is referred to as a simultaneous process of being modern and traditional, strengthening the prevalent caste and class identities. This study argues that in the process of the emerging modern, notions of progress, equality, democracy and secular got rewritten and translated by the educated elite. These notions were accepted only with modifications, modified in a space where such notions could be discussed and possible reforms talked about. But simultaneously the space had to hold the elite's elite position. This led to a translationthat interpreted modern terms/ideas so as to fit into the above-mentioned modern space. Hence, the translation referred here is a constant process of interpretation and negotiation. The process here includes the educated upper-castes’ interpretation of colonial education, the modern ideas that came along with it and the changes that were felt necessary. This process of translation is of a complex nature, which draws its resources from multiple sites and multiple texts. What the upper-caste educated did was to draw their resources from select traditions and a select modernity to frame a highly interpretative version of colonial modernity, where both tradition and modernity are mediated and get modified in the process. Translation here becomes a process of representation, self-representation, interpretation, rewriting and rereading of texts and identities. It is seen as negotiating relations between unequal cultures and identities, unequal in terms of power and social hierarchies.

This complex process of redefining modernity can be referred to as colonial modernity, the changes which colonialism brought in certain sections of the colonised society. The question of modernity and what was modern to the people of Karnataka, the English educated of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century certainly had links with the colonising Europe. Colonial modernity is that which was translated and got translated accordingto the needs of the Kannada intelligentsia. These responses varied from anti- feudal demands, free from exploitation from both colonial and locally dominant, the demand to be treated as citizens rather than subjects, protest against their cultures being treated with contempt and affirmations of the worth and superiority of their own cultures and ways of life. Such responses came from the English educated Indians belonging to the upper-castes, to whom the privileges of both tradition and modernity were accessible. As Menon points out, for the lower-castes to whom the high-tradition and high-culture of the upper-castes were not accessible, colonial modernity provided a space that was altogether different from that of the upper-castes, a space that gave them access to the knowledge that tradition subordinated them (Menon 112). The way the space of colonial modernity was used by the upper-castes was not only exclusionary of the traditions/customs/values of the lower-castes as the analysis of the texts show, they also did not recognize the unequal caste structure and even if they did, they devalued whatever belonged to the lower-castes.

The members of this new category, who emerged from the new education system, belonged to various communities. The unconscious/conscious fear that the upper-castes had of losing their hold on communities under them due to changing configurations of the time made them redraw their authority through different means possible to them. This section of English educated upper-castes resisted a complete modernisation in European terms and at the same time bargained for its advantages. Though this elite was small in number, their influence was far-reaching for they belonged to a privileged section of the colonised who mediated between the rest of the masses and the colonizer.

Javeed Alam suggests that equality in caste-bound societies signaled inferiority for the upper castes. It also signified a sense of loss, loss of dignity, worth and value which they had held in society (Alam 103-104). How did such complexities get translated into the works of literature, and into the ideas that were prevalent thereby using culture to defend the status quo? The identity of the English educated assumes importance here. This Indian educated middle class was not homogeneous. Aijaz Ahmad terms this class as the “Third Estate” which,
[…] designate[s] a broad social category in the urban life of early colonial transition, wherein a nucleus of the professional petty bourgeoisie has been assembled in urban society but is yet to assume a full-fledged class character because most members of this emergent social category continue to overlap quite decisively with the commerce and ground rent. (Ahmad 341)

By the 1880's, this section of elite was socially established to some extent. Association of an individual's identity with one’s religion was not new. But associating religion and culture to re-establish, re-assert the hierarchical identities in the wake of modern equality for gains in politics as well as cultural and social politics allowed/forced the English educated Indian middle class to translate/rewrite European modernity in a particular fashion. According to Raghavendra Rao,
Religion came to play not as merely other-worldly reference point for material, spiritual and cultural resources for constituting and operating life-worlds, but even more significantly as a source of regulation, guidance and inspiration in the secular non-sacred domain of life.                                                                                         (Rao 10)
  That, such relocations were the need of the hour during the colonial times is important. Religion and culture became a solace for the bourgeoisie, the middle-class intelligentsia and other elite through which they tried to carve a place for themselves in the colonial state and the modern nation. These modern exercises of translating and negotiating tradition and modernity represents the moment of rupture in tradition. Using religion as a political platform, the intelligentsia's activities involved a cultural re-establishment constituting a systematic and effective reaction against the threat posed to their superiority. Cultural themes and interpretations offered ground for notions of self-identity (personal and collective), the historical specificity of society, shared characteristics of people, civic responsibilities, national respect, future commitments, etc. (Alam 130)
Since the control, production and distribution of almost all literary and cultural artefacts were in the hands of the colonial state, the missionary and the upper-castes of specific regions, it is interesting to probe into how the above discussed colonial modernity manifested itself in literature, specifically in Children’s Literature. The child then (even now) was considered as something, which needed moulding in order to live up to adult aspirations. These aspirations at the time of late nineteenth and early twentieth century had lot to do with colonial modernity and the complex historical process underlying the making of it. In the West, modern childhood came into existence with the growth of industrialism, the spread of Protestant values, emergence of modern technologies, and the consolidation of colonialism. Children formed one of the first social groups on which the model of the brave new world promised by these forces was tried out (Nandy 61). The children in nineteenth century India were not an exception. A similar process as in the West can be traced during the times of colonial modernity in India. Children were the immediate target group on whom a hopeful future could be burdened upon. The new world, new society and its order which the adults visualised were tried upon children through powerful media like Children’s Literature. They were made a means of reconciling the past and the present of their changing societies. What was required of the child was not to be completely modern in European terms, but to imbibe a “correct training”, a “proper education” to realize their own position as belonging to a separate, superior culture. This “proper training” was what can be considered as modern. The idea of the non-modern other than being associated with the feminine and the lower-castes, is also related to various social practices outside the expected social behaviour inculcated through this proper training. For e.g., Srikantesha Gowda, a scholar and a writer in Kannada during late nineteenth century, says how Indians were least bothered about imparting proper education to their children. He criticises parents who are unmindful of their children playing around in mud and throwing dung at walls at the age of 7/8 years—an age when they should rather be at school. According to Gowda, these children and their social behavior belong to the non-modern world. There was an urgent need felt by the colonised to train children in right ways. As Foucault argues, this act of correct training comes from a calculated power. The success of this disciplinary power comes from the use of hierarchical observation, normalising judgement and a combination of both. Such procedures of training manifest the subjection of those who are perceived as objects (here children) and objectification of those who are subjected. Power relations and knowledge relations are clearly superimposed in such procedures.
The colonized elite which emerged as a hegemonic class articulated the social needs of “Indian” society and spoke on behalf of the masses. Literature is a sort of narrativisation of their social needs. One can also see it as social reform through other means. Such power helped the elite to translate knowledge into literature reasserting the existing hierarchies. The fabricated reality in turn gets re-written to suit the needs of the authoritative only to exclude, repress, censor, mask and conceal factors which try to contest the exploitatory system. This is done through very many subtle ways. Existing caste, class, gender structures aretranslated so as to represent “realities”. The system that was unquestioned till then was under the crises of encountering equality, a notion unwanted by the brahminical elite. This equality had to be contested. In pre-colonial times, a child was part of a structured community and “naturally imbibed” the functioning of the system. Colonial modernity and the new education changed this harmonious scenario. Hence, there rose the need to teach the child how to reflect upon itself inorder to know the network of relations in the society, how it functioned and also to show where “others” stood. The institution that collaborated with the English educated upper caste towards this agenda was the school run by the colonial government, missionaries and some private institutions.

In the West, the notion of the child had traveled from the early centuries of being near to original sin to the nineteenth century Victorian morals where it had to shape its childhood to attain a perfect adulthood. In India, the perfect adulthood was characterised by establishing one's caste/social identity. There were also the rising capitalistic notions of industriousness, promptness, honesty, etc. In short, a disciplinary social identity that went along with the perfect adult. The literature that was meant for children including the school text had much to do with establishing such ideas as legitimate. Though schools were meant for all, one has to note that by the end of nineteenth century, children who went to school were mainly brahmins and a few other upper-castes (Lingayats, Gowdas). The syllabus of the school texts and the content of other works for children reflect the ideas of re-establishment of values/ethics of the existing system translated by the powerful elite for the children.

Children and Children’s Literature is taken as a platform wherein one can pass-on the tradition—a tradition which was in danger of being contested. School was a place where indoctrination and imposition seemed natural. The tension between modern, secular values of equality, liberty, etc., and those of tradition which held hegemonic hierarchical values as sacrosanct was evident in the daily practices and observances of brahmins and other upper castes. Mainstream writers of the time tried to resolve this tension in their works meant for children. It was a very systematic way of translating tradition and translating modernity to a child who is visualised as a bearer and carrier of “modern tradition”.
                                                                    III
In what follows in the paper, I shall discuss texts by M. S. Puttanna, a teacher, translator, member of many text book committees and Hardekar Manjappa, a native scholar and teacher. I shall also look analyze few school texts of late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As we shall see further, the texts Puttanna and Manjappa wrote for children un/consciously carried the assumptions of their communities in their discourse of Children’s Literature. The language and the environment created in their translations of (actual translations, texts written along the lines of English books) modernity is something that was akin either to their communities or to the shared values of literary communities participating in the production of Children’s Literature.

Yet another area of translation was the early school texts also known as Kannada Readers/Primers. Elphinstone, Munro and others introduced English education in Karnataka as early as 1819-20. The Basel Mission, established in 1834 in Mangalore, was the foremost in establishing schools, printing presses and publishing school texts. By the end of nineteenth century, missionaries, the Government, and some private institutions ran quite a number of primary schools. The kind of alliance which the publishers and printers of textbooks (mostly Europeans Basel and Macmillan) had with the writers of these books in the vernaculars makes an interesting study. This collaboration is a complex historical process in which selective incorporation of the pre-colonial culture is accommodated as new imperial formations are negotiated (Joshi 10-12). On the surface, the alliance seems to work in contradictory terms with both parties seemingly having contradictory agendas. But, the Europeans with their colonial/missionary agenda and the elite native writers, the English educated upper-castes with their very subtle anti-colonialist, strongly nationalistic and conventionalist ideologies, work well together.  Most of these texts had the English school texts as models. By re-writing them in Kannada, they found a new way to propagandise the hegemonic views of the hindu society. Now to the actual texts that demonstrate how such an alliance negotiates between different agendas.

Devarushrishtikartha (God, The Creator) is a lesson in the 2nd standard Kannada Reader.  The lesson tells its readers that whatever not made by human is god-made. God becomes the provider of all needs to all creations, to which no human can give an explanation. "All we can do is plough, dig wells and some other mortal things. But can we bring life to a seed? Can we shower rains? If god hadn't made the sun we wouldn't have lived at all” (Petkar 45). The lesson offers rationality to all un-understandable things. What is more important here is that god is not named, nor associated with any particular religion or attached to any nation. This is where we can see an active but implicit collaboration between the colonial state/missionary and the Indian intelligentsia who were involved in writing/translating the school texts. What notion of god does this alliance carry and how is it deployed? The world of the modern is a space, which at least theoretically does not have space for god. Interestingly, colonial modernity provides a space for a harmonious god with a harmonious alliance between religion/caste values and modern values. Colonial modernity is a sort of alloy made of selected elements/values to allow the binding of such elements function smoothly. God, in spite of the 33 crore gods of the brahminical belief, doesn't get mentioned with any particular name. Neither do these Semitic gods make way to the anti-Semitic gods of the coloniser. God is the single answer to all unquestionable—a possibility possible only to Him with a capital H. Except to gender, god alludes to no other attachments. The problem of choosing a particular god falls on the child, who most probably went to a christian missionary school and at home followed brahminical customs (considering the fact that a large percentage of children who went to school were upper-castes). In the first edition of the textbook (1876), the lesson is numbered 27, in the second edition (1912), the same lesson gets promoted to the first. The alliance between the missionary, the upper-caste writers of the lesson and the colonial government works smoothly—not only in the above example but also in the case of representing/translating particular notions of caste, religion and gender.

The point here is to note the fact of how in the context of such an alliance, the children were expected to behave in private and public spheres. The public sphere was more open now and there had to be a balance between the public and the private. The school was one such public space, which created a space for all irrespective of differences (that most schools practiced discriminatory practices is another issue, but yet, that was a new space symbolising a secular space). The school was also a place where one’s identity got consolidated in terms of history, emerging nationality, in terms of modern ideas which the colonial education propagated and in terms of a socio-cultural superiority. The regulation of behaviour also went hand in hand, both at school and at home. For the school going child, its identity at home was quite contradictory to that in school. There surely existed a tension between the idea of a secular identity and that of the hierarchical/hegemonic identity perpetuated at home. At school, there supposedly had to be an interaction with all sections of students whereas at home/village/town, spaces were clearly marked for different children. But every child was expected to carry a sense of national pride subtly developed in terms of selective tradition and history in works meant for children. Behaviour regulation consisted in knowing and following rewritten traditions of religion, caste and gender and also in following the emerging capitalist notions of industriousness, honesty, and respect towards people in a higher level, goodness etc. Not that these notions were not existent before, but they attained a new meaning through colonial modernity by serve new causes.

Kalavu (Theft) a story from the text book (Petkar 38) very implicitly tries to inculcate values of the modern, liberal, humanistic ideas that include the idea of the Self. The story is built around the concept of possession. The individual becomes the source of meaning and history in the modern world. This is very much related to the feudal class structure that is closely structured with the caste structure. The rich feudal lords are always honest, good and helpful and it is also true for people who are good, honest, hard working and disciplined who are always favored with money. Two lessons in different ways narrate how by bad luck a rich fellow loses all his wealth but again by virtue of his goodness gains back every thing. These views are typical of the rising middle class bourgeoisie which wanted to consolidate its hold on its property by virtue of the new capitalist notions. Elsewhere Krishna Kumar has suggested that the ideological agenda of colonial education was linked to the problems of transferring bourgeoisie ideas of private property and economic order to the colonial situation (qtd. in Naregal 3454). As discussed earlier, the act of corrigibility enters here, thereby generously allowing people from the lower class to be as good as, as hard working, industrious, honest as the upper class who are perfect models of richness, peace and happiness. In a supposedly democratic space, the lessons narrate how it might be possible to attain higher strata by being so and so even while it does not give a single example of such. Rather, there are stories which ask the children to be satisfied with what they have. Asking for more would only upset the system of which one is a part and that would only spoil things for oneself.

 Joint family and community living are supported in the private sphere of the family while in the public sphere individuality for men/boys is strongly recommended. That one should be educated in the new ways of the world and one should be aware of the functioning of the external society was strongly felt. Children are encouraged to access modern knowledge only to reconnect to their own powerful traditions. The lessons make it very evident that no questions against the dominating conventions are encouraged. Two editions of the same 2nd standard texts, first in 1876 and the other in 1912 mention nothing explicitly about the caste and religion in their stories and lessons: that there is a hierarchical system of caste does not get mentioned anywhere. But, there are quite a few stories in which men belonging to lower-castes are characterised as thieves, liars and untrustable. Brahmins are the ones who get trapped and deceived in the thefts and lies contrived by the other castes. There are preconceived notions of what is absolutely bad, good, evil, sin, beauty, rich, poor, etc., and have an interwoven pattern. Every lesson when analysed gives interesting results. At many places, animals are used to personify characters like good, evil, honest, truth and so on. Contradictions exist very often. Tiger symbolises authority and power, a creature in the higher rung of the animal order. Simultaneously, it symbolizes badness. A Fox trying to be like a tiger gets burnt implying that never should one try to imitate someone above you. A child who tries to save a Tiger cub is eaten by the same: the last line gives the moral—"Do not save the bad". What is beautiful should not be masked with bad qualities and what is not beautiful should see to it that goodness will mask the ugly. It would be interesting to probe into the details of why animals are used as symbols representing certain characteristics specially in Children’s Literature; whether they are examples of multiple symbols or symbolic mediators between the psyche of adult and children's world. In any case, such repeated notions make the child establish certain qualities and characteristics—accepting them (at least for the time being) as unquestionables. Caste and gender were two such notions, which were deployed in translated ways only to be fixed again in certain defined spaces.

The absence of girls in two editions (1876, 1912) of the second standard books is quite prominent. They make their entry through defined spaces. There is no girl in play or in school, which is meant only for boys. But the roles of mother and sister are very clearly described. Consider this lesson called Hudugara Tiluvalikegalu (The Wisdom of Boys) (Petkar 56). A boy called Shivu keeps pestering his mother to give him a piece of jaggery. How much ever the mother gives, the unsatisfied Shivu keeps asking for more. It was when he was crying at the top of his voice, his father makes an entry. The father takes a piece of jaggery as big as a black berry and another as big as a goose berry and asked Shivu to choose the bigger one. It was only then Shivu chose the biggest and went away satisfied.

We can read this story as re-telling of several notions. The mother being unable to control the child becomes a puppet to son's wishes. Moreover, she lacks the rationality to solve even a small problem. It takes the father's cleverness and authority to decide what would keep the boy silent. In early children's fiction sports, outdoor activities, adventurous acts remain a domain of men/boys. There is hardly any interaction between the inner domain of female and the outer one of the male. Maleness is asserted in various ways. A lesson called Bidda Bantanu (The Wrestler who Fell) (Petkar 58) narrates how two men wrestle with a spirited sportsmanship. Invariably, one of them loses. The last line quotes the loser who with his hand on his big moustache says—"So what if I lose? My moustache is not smeared with mud." The metaphors that strengthen the masculinity include the spirit to fight, the symbolic moustache and the hand on the moustache. Femaleness is seen as the “other” to this physical strength and also the “other” of mental faculties of reason and rationale. Girls do play. But playing is boundaried within the house and only with the brother. A girl child neither has friends outside nor interaction outside her own domestic domain. Girls, women and their life altogether remain un-translated, nonexistent. A boy child in contrast shares his life both inside his household and also through interaction with the outer world. This clearly illustrates how colonial modernity clearly demarcated the public sphere as modern/material and the private sphere as spiritual/domestic. It also allows the men/boys to negotiate between these two spheres while restricting the women/girls to the private. It is also noteworthy that nothing is permissible without the permission of parental authority. This authority is explicit in dialogues and also narrated in stories using animals as characters. A lamb that sneaks out in spite of its mother's warning gets eaten by wolves. The boundaries in which child should function is clearly drawn.  

An interesting narrative is a lesson of two cows—one belonging to a brahmin and the other to a smith. The cow belonging to the brahmin is well mannered and obedient whereas the cow belonging to the smith is spoilt and bad. The smith's cow is known for its notorious grazing in everybody's field whereas, the brahmin's cow grazes only in its limits. One fine day the hungry cow of the brahmin gets tempted by the smith's cow's call to graze in a lush green field belonging to someone else. In the process, the owner spots the cows and the innocent brahmin’s cow is caught. The smith's cow is cunning enough and also is used to escape from such tricky situations. The brahmin's cow has now learnt a lesson not to mingle with “other” bad cows. The story succeeds in translating the brahmin superiority into the form of values. The story that looks natural on the surface imports very important socio-cultural values. On one hand, it perpetuates the notion of private property — not to graze in the land that belongs to someone else. It also talks about the value of being satisfied with what one has and not to ask for more. On the other hand, the differential behaviour of cows indicates the values imbibed even by animals of lower-castes. To reflect upon one's own position, there has been an encounter with the inferior other. The other inferior is never another brahmin but always the other of brahmin — a lower-caste. There is also the appropriation of qualities of non-Brahmin badness as inherent to the “other”, thereby retelling the facts of where one stands in the ordered hegemonic structure. Colonial modernity, through its apparatuses such as school and school text books reasserts the hegemony of caste.
Another story is of a crow that sees peacocks dancing and desires to be one of them. It plucks its feathers, fixes the fallen peacock feathers and enters the group of peacocks. The peacocks are clever enough to know a crow in their midst and they chase it away. The crow went back to its own group only to be looked down with disgust for trying to be someone else. Its own community had no place for it.  This story of how a crow wanted to be a peacock and gets rejected by both peacocks and crows can be read as the necessity to remain within one's own limits and domain. Identities had come by birth and changing it was unacceptable to the whole system of structures. Crossing such well laid identities would only harm those trying to transgress.

Other than these 2nd standard texts, the study of 5th and 6th standard Kannada Readers also suggests that all the texts have a similar pattern despite initiating certain new beginnings. Caste and caste system in the name of varnas are introduced. This is done through a lesson which tells about the various religions/dharmas of the world. Existing inequalities are prominent in their absence. The system of religion is introduced through lessons as well as in stories. Stories telling how goodness can exist even among Muslims and Christians, how good is present amidst the barbaric cultures of the “other” find their place in the texts. Most of the stories are derived from the Sanskritic traditions and epics. The same text also includes lessons of modern European science, Geography, lessons about pre-colonial India and about the working of the present colonial state. Everything is narrated as an inevitable part of history. The process of colonisation is accepted as an irreversible and opportunistic part of history from which selective gains are bargained for. Gauri Viswanathan locates such beginnings of modern Indian education as growing out of […] a body of utterances that embodied the collective attitudes of a hegemonic class. The introduction of English knowledge is described as an experiment, an instrument of discipline of management born out of the unstable foundation of knowledge. (Vishwanathan 4)

The forms of knowledge produced were not exclusively and entirely by a single hegemonic group but always through multiple sites and determinations (colonial, anti-colonial, brahmanic, traditionalist, conventionalist etc.), involving different kinds of histories (including constructed histories) of both dominant and emergent groups. The site here in discussion the education system, more specifically the content of the school text, which was used as a base for all intended/un-intended agendas. The mind of the intelligentsia worked towards a rebuilding of a hurt pride. This went into the texts and lessons which undoubtedly reclaim a losing past, reassert the cherished value system through a supposedly modern, rational outlook. The new education system intended to create a modern set of people who could proudly proclaim an identity of their own and associate themselves to a glorious heritage while at the same time be modern in their education and outlook. The system also worked towards giving a modern rationale, a reason for the existing order and structures within India. If there were problems in the bygone heritage, in the structures prevalent, that was overlooked either as negligible as against the evils of changing the system or as necessary for the functioning of an ordered society. The mobilization of Indian culture was as crucial to the European construction of its identity in contrast to the oriental other as it was to the reconstructed Orient’s attempts to define itself (Niranjana 1).

If an institution like school institutionalised ideas of colonial modernity in many ways, individuals like Puttanna and Manjappa belonging to the heterogeneous group of emerging elite took the responsibility of propagating liberal humanistic ideas within the set values of tradition and morality. Children’s Literature was a base used by such writers who envisaged a modern child fulfilling the needs necessary to suit the ongoing changes which was more often than not was resisting such changes.

M.S.Puttannna, (1854-1930) a pioneer in the Kannada prose, wrote a lot for children. His works for children include translation of Thomas Dey’s Sandford and Merton to Kannada as Sumati Madana Kumara Charitha (1897), various school text books for the old Mysore state and a collection of the stories called Neethichinthamani published in 1884. As Niranjana argues, translation has long been a site for perpetuating unequal relations among peoples, races and languages. It thus helped in perpetuating dominant ideologies. Puttanna's writings and translations can be seen here as representing ideas, ideologies and characteristics, and as texts underwritten by several values, which he felt the modern child should inculcate.

Puttanna was one of those early English educated who came from an affluent brahmin family. It would not be very unsafe to say that most of Puttanna’s contemporaries did not accept European ideas as they came to them. Puttanna's overall project was to educate one and all, to instruct children through a moralistic education. But the modern child emerging from such an education had to be aware of how the society functioned and its role in the functioning of the society. The function of education through children's texts or through school was to impart a modern knowledge of the world and simultaneously assert the hegemonic order giving it a logic drawn from various sources like god, dharma and religion. As discussed earlier, such logic redefined categories of caste, class and gender, making them necessities of the given system.

Puttanna's translation of Sandford and Merton into Kannada as Sumati Madana Kumara Charithe intends to inscribe good character in children and tell them about the uses of education through a story of two boys. Thomas Dey does this through a church priest who teaches the boys to read and write. To read and write is not the main agenda. The church's involvement in the education system in order to regulate children's behaviour according to religious scruples seems to have attracted Puttanna to appropriate it in his translation. Puttanna translates this to a system of gurukula where a pundit (jois) teaches shlokas to brahmin boys. It is important to note that the system Puttanna translates into is of the ancient gurukula, the abode of learning for a brahmin for a period of twelve years and what is taught there is Sanskrit shlokas. On one hand, the system of school was supported by the upper-caste elite, the English educated and on the other hand, the gurukula tradition remains the ideal way of imparting education (traditional). The whole story revolves around how the boys should behave with respect to their teacher, to their parents, family and to their immediate surroundings. The English boy becomes a model for translation that would suit the Kannada brahmin's need. Education becomes an important institution of instruction for this miniscule section to reorder social organisation by acquiring a kind of moral and cultural superiority in relation to other sections, may it be the Europeans or the non-brahmin “other”. What is important is that education through assimilation and contestation (of other cultures) became the prime site for the development of the notion of culture for the intelligentsia (Joshi 12). 

Puttanna greatly supported the education of the girl child. Neetichintamaniwas in fact a textbook written for the use of the students of Mysore Maharani girls’ school. He insisted that his second wife, who was 8 years old when he married her and he probably being in his late 20’s that she should not object learning to read and write in his house. The stories in Neetichintamaniare drawn from various sources of legends, history, epics and others. They are undoubtedly didactic and moralistic in nature. The ways in which these moral, didactic and spiritual values change to attain new meanings in the modern space created by the educated Kannadigas of the colonial era is interesting. As Partha Chatterjee argues, the material domain of the external world to which the English educated had to alter themselves was justified so as to fight the colonial domination with their own weapons. But that did not mean we could ape the west completely forgetting our own self-identity.

[…] it is the spiritual which lies within, which is our true self, it is that which is genuinely essential. The world is the external, the domain of the material; the home represents our inner spiritual self, our true identity. The world is also typically the domain of the males. The home in its essence must remain unaffected by the profane activities of the material world and woman is its representation. And so, we get an identification of social roles by gender to correspond with the separation of the social space into ghar and bahir.
                                                                        (Chatterjee 238-239)
The idea that girls should be educated was strong. But education meant safeguarding the spiritual and moral domain of the brahminical identity. Education for girls was surely a deviation from the past where formal schooling, the system of gurukula was only meant for brahmin boys with few other exceptions. What should go into the making of a textbook or a storybook meant for girls was very clear. Neethichintamani is the epitome of an example for this. In his preface Puttanna makes it very clear that any education, whether formal or related to the shashtras, should be moralistic–neethi is the word he uses. Without neethi, any scholarship ceases to be of any use. The notions of omnipresent God, being obedient to elders, soft mannerisms, good eating and drinking habits, truth, patience, forgiveness, right judgement, satisfaction, patriotism, friendship, etc. are examples of neeti to be followed. And for girls, neeti was included stories like Pativratya, Gandanalli Preethi (Love for One’s Husband), how to be obedient to one’s husband, love towards one’s children, and many such. A story which narrates how Sathi Devi goes to the yagna conducted by her father Daksha, in spite of her husband Shiva's warning—only to be humiliated by her father, defines spaces for women where after marriage the husband and his wor(l)d becomes sacrosanct.

There are two stories titled Ajaagurukathe(Carelessness). The first is that of a king called Nruga. Nruga a king of Surya dynasty during the Kritha yuga had conducted various yagnas and was known for being a very honest king—a dharmapalaka (one who follows dharma). A brahmin called Brahmasharma once received a cow as godana from the king. He had it tied in his backyard. The cow somehow escaped and went back to its shed in the palace. Oblivious of this fact, the king once again gave the same cow as godana to another brahmin. Meanwhile, Brahmasharma in search of his cow found it elsewhere. Both brahmins went to the king in order to resolve the dispute. The king, immersed in some other work, did not pay much attention to them. The angry brahmins cursed him to be a chameleon. The moral is very clear: the king might be a follower of dharma, but there can be no higher dharma than the appeasement of a brahmin. The other story is also on similar lines. Sage Agasthya gets angry on Kubera and his friend Manimantha for accidentally spitting on him from the sky. He curses them to be destroyed by mere mortal human beings.  The message here being—even gods need to be careful enough not to upset a brahmin.
The issue in the first story is not whether the problem of the cow is resolved. The emphasis is more on the brahmin's curse that would surely be inflicted on the king. Not even gods or kings can overlook a brahmin. Such assertion of the caste hegemony read by brahmin and few other children invariably helped them create/maintain a superior cultural and social identity. The space of modern with its new reading habits, new printed texts accessible to whoever could afford them thus helped rewrite the same old structure. God's importance seemingly ceases here. It is the relation within the human world, which assumes more importance. Such social relationships and their network became inviolable in a space which defended the authority of the superior by a rationale constructed by the authoritative.
M. S. Puttanna's domain was the old Mysore State. The school texts referred in the chapter belong to the Kannada region under Mumbai province. And, Hardekar Manjappa (1886-1947) was from the northern part of Karnataka. He was a journalist, teacher and writer. His writings included Swakarthvya Siddhanta, Buddhiya Matu, Vijayavani, Sthri Neethi Sangraha, Kachadevana Kathe, Vivekanandara Charithe, Gandhijiya Matuand many other stories. If Putanna's works were highly Sanskritised and brahminised, Manjappa's works were equally influenced by the Lingayat tradition. His intention in writing for children was that "children should necessarily know at least a bit of the adult world: the vachanas of Basavanna are a must for children. […] Songs in praise of Basavanna and his vachanas are necessary for a child's moral education”
(Manjappa 1134-1135). Manjappa was also equally influenced by the Gandhian ideology. It is important here to note that Manjappa was not English educated but a well-respected and influential scholar in Sanskrit, Kannada and Vedic philosophy.
Manjappa’s Buddhiya Matu (Words of Wisdom) is a list of do's and don'ts. This is in the mode of conversation where a teacher advises his male student. I summarize some here:
 Marriage: The main assertion here is that one should be extremely cautious before getting into the bond of marriage. Brahmacharya with or without marriage is a virtue. One should not give in to the pleasures of the world. More importantly, one should choose a proper wife or else, she would become a burden throughout one's life. One should also not make one’s wife suffer unnecessarily.

  • Friends should be chosen with care.
  • No gambling, liquor, cigarette and beedi. Coffee, tea, cocoa are not to be drunk, especially in hotels, for such places are unhygienic where hundreds of people eat and drink in the same vessels.
  • One should never join drama or dance companies or see such unwanted entertainment.
  • One should choose one’s profession with care—may it be agriculture, business, or something else. If in government service, bribery should be avoided and the grievances of people should be kept in mind. One should at every instance know the rules of the government. (Manjappa 1136-1155)

Manjappa gives a very important place to one's health. According to him, "health is the working man's capital." He argues that a healthy life is necessary to enjoy the three essentials of life—women, wealth and land. Food has to be necessarily vegetarian. Physical exercise is a must not only for men but also for women who were increasingly becoming idle. Exercise will not only benefit women but more importantly the next generation, which will otherwise bear the burden of ill-health. There are detailed discussions about sleep, dress and goseve (cow worship). Very interestingly, Manjappa intended to impart sex-education to children. (He remained single by choice and avoided spicy food in order to restrain his desires). Sex-education he says is a must, which is unfortunately neglected in school texts. In a small essay titled Veerya Rakshane (The Protection of Semen), Manjappa puts forward the following views:

It is important for one to know the importance of semen at the right age. If not, it will be misused thereby causing misfortunes. Sex must be used only for reproduction. Masturbation is harmful for health and also to one's spiritual life. Boys should make use of semen only after the age of twenty-five and girls after sixteen years. Wrong use will certainly lead to incurable diseases. (Manjappa 1186)

 Though sex-talk was permitted in some ancient scriptures, discussing it in a public space through the medium of books meant for children was definitely new. The modern space if not its ideas seem ideal enough to impart conventionalist education. Whether it may be dining in public places where different kinds of people eat (hygiene/purity is only possible within upper-caste households, anything that might bear a backward/lower-caste presence is always impure/polluted), may it be the role of women which is again defined through set frameworks, modernity does not allow these categories to change. Instead, modernity is only talked in terms of new jobs for men who are asked to develop newer sensibilities.

Speaking of the varnashramas (Manjappa insists that children should know about the varna system), Manjappa says:

 I believe in the varna system of the Vedic age and not the incomplete one which is prevalent now. It's also my belief that the system of varna is natural to human beings. Hinduism has indeed given it a classical outlook. We inherit varna by birth. Nobody should exchange their varna according to their wish. Varna associates itself only to one's profession. It is wrong and against the hindu dharma to think that one varna is superior to the other.  
                                                                                        (Manjappa 1236)
It is obvious that the varna system which is the basis for the caste structure gets a rationale in such works. The reason given is the structured order of profession. And this varna associated with one’s profession is given by birth and trying to change this in any way is undesirable. At the same time he contradicts himself by talking about the notion of equality within the same unequal structure. But interestingly, there is no mention of the discriminatory system which leads to the discussion about equality.

Manjappa's modern children are necessarily the responsible future generation of the desha about which he was very much concerned. All the above suggestions and advises went into the fashioning of the child towards being a swadeshabhaktaand performing swadeshaseva. One had to abandon the wrong path (influenced by the west) and return to the fold of one’s own country’s tradition as good and virtuous. Interestingly, as Raghavendra Rao points out, Manjappa regards colonialism as a “historical necessity, as a temporary setback necessary to take the country on a progressive path” (62 and 83). Hence, it was necessary to make maximum use of modern education, which was a sure path towards a progressive desha. Children were indeed the right persons on to whom such education could be imparted. 

Interestingly, Manjappa is not explicitly anti-colonial. He wants children to know the working of the colonial government. But politics and the cultural/social life are held as binaries with no connections whatsoever. As Partha Chatterjee’s delineation of ghar  and bahir makes it clear, the two worlds of politics/material/modern and socio-cultural/spiritual/familial are clearly marked out. Children and Children’s Literature thus became a base for adults to propagandize hegemony in newer ways. Everything that was considered an inseparable part of this “modern tradition” went into the making of the modern child. As said already, children who were to access such literature were those for whom it was meant—brahmins and a few other upper castes. There was hardly any space open for contestation in such a space. As Dilip Menon shows, resistance to such traditional hegemony emerged from the writings of the backward and lower-castes for whom modernity and colonial modernity provided a different space altogether. But for the upper-caste, modernity was not meant to contest tradition. It was meant as a means to continue the powerful tradition of the privileged with a new rationale.

Colonial modernity therefore gave new means to the authoritative to assert the already existent exploitatory values. Knowledge had its own space. It was a means, supposedly rational and modern to reassert the upper caste male agenda. As Tejaswini Niranjana argues, these translations [here of modernity] are over-determined, determined by multiple forces giving rise to multiple practices (320). A modern child did emerge from this discourse in a way, which was more a systematized way of indoctrination, thereby inscribing ideas of male/female, and that of caste in subtle and not so subtle ways, determining their behaviour and regulating them. Though schooling was open to all, the ranks of scholars were filled largely by young men of higher castes who saw knowledge of English as a new means to obtain the blessings of colonial government. This section of the upper-castes, who were a minority but held ample power, always saw to it that the means of various intellectual productions were controlled by it so as to fulfil the agendas of its own community. As Padikkal says, literary production became a means by which the dominant group constructs, translates and interprets its reality and its history (Padikkal 220).

As argued before, the ideas/identity perpetuated by of the mainstream discourse was perceived as the existent natural process in the social and cultural world. The “other” to this powerful identity hardly had any voice. The upper-caste modern male represented and spoke for the rest of the masses. This non-negotiated, monolithic, high cultural image of modern childhood that was imagined and circulated in discourses of Children Literature excludes, marginalises and constructs the “other” communities. The multiple regional-historic-cultural systems and literary patterns and structures of thought identified here in selected texts for children can be seen as similar to what can be obtained in other systems (Rao 6). What colonial modernity expected of the modern child is the maintainence of a traditional self-identity through various structures of the modern world. This idea of the modern child got inscribed in texts and was perpetuated so as to create a new generation that would make the best of modern education and help in building a modern system, away from the blind traditions but associated with spirituality, with a rational tradition and with traditions that clearly established the superior identity of certain sections of society. 


See Dilip Menon’s two articles “A Place Elsewhere: The Nineteenth--Century Subaltern Novel in Malayalam” and “Caste and Colonial Modernity: Reading Saraswativijayam” in his The Blindness of Insight: Essays on Caste in Modern India.Pondicherry: Navayana, 2006, where he talks about what colonial modernity meant to the lower-castes of Kerala. Unlike Partha Chatterjee’s bhadralok for whom colonial modernity was closely associated with the building of nation and nationalism, for the lower-castes, it meant envisaging the individual and family free of slavery, coming out of the caste structure into a space where nation was more fluid and complicated.

This is not to say that literature for children did not exist in India prior to colonialism. But such literature usually consisted of epics, legends, tales that were “abridged” for children in various forms and was mostly oral in nature. With the coming of schools, printing press and the change in the reading habits of children, Children’s Literature as a genre gained a new meaning unlike literature for children that was prevalent before.

The work is not entirely limited to what Roman Jakobson would call “translation proper”. Translation here is mainly thematic and theoretical. Translation is used as interpretation, a constant process of re-reading, re-writing of texts and ideas relating not only to literature but also to that of society, which get mediatized/translated into works of literature. Translation here becomes a process as complex as intertexuality and ceases to be a one to one process of finding equivalent meanings and structures in a closed, boundaried framework.

Among many other studies see, Gauri Vishwanathan,Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India .New York: Colombia UP, 1989 and Veena Naregal, "Colonial Bilingualism and Hierarchies of Language and Power: Making of a Vernacular Sphere in Western India", EPW Dec. 4 (1999): 3446-3456 and Krishna Kumar,The Political Agenda of Education. A Study of Colonialist and Nationalist Ideas

New Delhi: Sage publications, 1991.

Partha Chatterjee has elaborated on this dilemma of the Indian middle class intelligentsia. For details see, Partha Chatterjee, "The Nationalist Resolution of Women's Question." Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid. Ed.  Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1989.  

Panduranga Venkatesha Chintamani Petkar, Kannada Eradaneya Pusthakavu. Mumbai: Department of Public Instruction, 1876 and 1912.

Meesege Mannu Hachu is an idiom in Kannada which literally means to soil the moustache. It is used as to when one's dignity/prestige/ego is hurt. In the story the idiom literally means to lose the fight.

Venkata Rango Katti, Kannada Aidaneya Pusthaka. Mumbai: Government Central Book Depot, 1902 and Venkata Rango Katti,Kannada Aaraneya Pusthaka. Mumbai: Government Central Book Depot, 1900.     

Since I could not access these works directly, all my references of Puttanna is from Sujatha H. S., M.S,Puttanna: Ondu Adhyayana.Bangalore: IBH, 1981.

Halappa.G. S., ed.  Rashtradharmadrustara Hardekar Manjappa: Manjappanavara Samagra Krithigala Sangraha, Vargeekarana mathu Vimarshe. Dharwad: H. Manjappa Smaraka Granthamale, 1966.

Lingayats are the religious followers of the 12th century reformer Basavanna who are now one of the most powerful communities in Karnataka. 

Hennu, Honnu, Mannu(Women, Wealth/Gold, Land). According to the “traditional wisdom”, these are the three essentials in a man's life to be made use of with utmost sensibility.

Rao discusses the same point with reference to the ideas of four important thinkers in Kannada during early 20th century. The argument here is carried over to Children’s Literature.

Works Cited

Ahmad, Aijaz. In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literature. New Delhi: OUP, 1994.

Alam, Javeed. India: Living with Modernity.New Delhi: OUP, 1999.

Chatterjee, Partha. "The Nationalist Resolution of Women's Question." Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History. Ed. Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1989.

Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. New Delhi: OUP, 1995.

Foucalt, Michael. Discipline and Punish; The Birth of Prison.London: Penguin, 1977.

Halappa.G. S., ed.  Rashtradharmadrustara Hardekar Manjappa: Manjappanavara Samagra Krithigala Sangraha, Vargeekarana mathu Vimarshe. Dharwad: H. Manjappa Smaraka Granthamale, 1966.

Joshi, Svathi, ed. Introduction. Rethinking English. Essays in Literature, Language and History. New Delhi: Trianka, 1991.

Katti, Venkata Rango. Kannada Aaraneya Pusthaka. Mumbai: Government Central Book Depot, 1900.   

Katti, Venkata Rango. Kannada Aidaneya Pusthaka. Mumbai: Government Central Book Depot, 1902.

Kumar,Krishna. The Political Agenda of Education. A Study of Colonialist and Nationalist Ideas. New Delhi: Sage, 1991.

Menon, Dilip. The Blindness of Insight: Essays on Caste in Modern India.Pondicherry: Navayana, 2006.

Nandy, Ashish. " Reconstructing Childhood; A Critique of the Ideology of Adulthood." Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias; Essays in the Politics of Awareness. Ashish Nandy. New Delhi: OUP, 1987.

Naregal, Veena. "Colonial Bilingualism and Hierarchies of Language and Power: Making of a Vernacular Sphere in Western India", EPW Dec. 4 (1999): 3446-3456.

Niranjana, Tejaswini, P.Sudhir, Vivek Dhareshwar, eds. Interrogating Modernity: Culture and Colonialism in India.Calcutta: Seagull, 1993.

Niranjana, Tejaswini, P.Sudhir, Vivek Dhareshwar, eds. Introduction. Niranjana, P.Sudhir and Dhareshwar 1- 18.

Niranjana, Tejaswini. "Colonialism and the Aesthetics of Translation." Niranjana, P.Sudhir and Dhareshwar 319-333.

Padikkal, Shivarama. "Inventing Modernity : The Emergence of the Novel in India." Niranjana, P.Sudhir and Dhareshwar 220-241.

Padikkal, Shivarama. The First Phase of Kannada Novel (1800-1930).  (Unpublished Doctoral Thesis.) Mangalore: Mangalore University, 1986. 

Petkar, Panduranga Venkatesha Chintamani. Kannada Eradaneya Pusthakavu. Mumbai: Department of Public Instruction, 1876 and 1912.

Rao, K. Raghavendra. Imagining Unimaginable Communities. Hampi: Kannada UP, 2000.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New Delhi: Penguin, 2001.

Sujatha.H.S, M.S,Puttanna: Ondu Adhyayana. Bangalore: IBH, 1981.

Vishwanathan, Gauri. Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India. New York: Colombia UP, 1989.

Williams, Raymond. Keywords. New York: OUP, 1976.


Dr. Sowmya Dechamma teaches at the Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad. Her teaching and research interests include Contemporary Indian Literatures, Minority Discourse, Language and Cultural Politics.



Courtesy: weekly.ahram.org.eg

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