Arrival of East India Company

The East India Company (also the East India Trading Company, English East India

Company, and then the British East India Company) was an early English joint-stock

company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended

up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China. The oldest among several

similarly formed European East India Companies, the Company was granted an English

Royal Charter, under the name Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading

into the East Indies, by Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600. After a rival English company

challenged its monopoly in the late 17th century, the two companies were merged in

1708 to form the United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies,

commonly styled the Honourable East India Company, and abbreviated, HEIC; the

Company was colloquially referred to as John Company, and in India as Company

Bahadur (Hindustani bahādur, "brave"/"authority").

The East India Company traded mainly in cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre, tea, and, into

China, illegal opium. The Company also came to rule large swathes of India, exercising

military power and assuming administrative functions, to the exclusion, gradually, of its

commercial pursuits. Company rule in India, which effectively began in 1757 after the

Battle of Plassey, lasted until 1858, when, following the events of the Indian Rebellion of

1857, and under the Government of India Act 1858, the British Crown assumed direct

administration of India in the new British Raj. The Company itself was finally dissolved

on 1 January 1874, as a result of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act.

The Company long held a privileged position in relation to the English, and later the

British, government. As a result, it was frequently granted special rights and privileges,

including trade monopolies and exemptions. These caused resentment among its

competitors, who saw unfair advantage in the Company's position. Despite this

resentment, the Company remained a powerful force for over 200 years.

East Indian company is currently owned by Mr.Sanjiv Mehta, entrepreneur born in

Mumbai.

Indian Rebellion (First War of Independence) of 1857–58

The Indian Rebellion of 1857, known to the British as the "Great Mutiny", but to Indians

as the "First War of Independence", resulted in widespread devastation in India and

condemnation of the Company for permitting the events to occur.[citation needed] One of

the consequences was that the British government nationalised the Company. The

Company lost all its administrative powers; its Indian possessions, including its armed

forces, were taken over by the Crown pursuant to the provisions of the Government of

India Act 1858.

The Company continued to manage the tea trade on behalf of the British government (and

the supply of Saint Helena) until the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act came

into effect, on 1 January 1874, under the terms of which the Company was dissolved. The

trading name of the company continued to exist, owned by the British Government

Treasury. In 1974, the company was reestablished by a group of private investors,

focusing on tea and coffee retail. In 2010, the company was purchased by Sanjiv Mehta,

an Indian-born British businessman.

Foundation

Soon after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, a group of London merchants

presented a petition to Queen Elizabeth I for permission to sail to the Indian Ocean. The

permission was granted and in 1591 three ships sailed from England around the Cape of

Good Hope to the Arabian Sea. One of them, the Edward Bonaventure, then sailed

around Cape Comorin and on to the Malay Peninsula and subsequently returned to

England in 1594. In 1596, three more ships sailed east; however, these were all lost at

sea. Two years later, on 24 September 1598, another group of merchants, having raised

£30,133 in capital, met in London to form a corporation. Although their first attempt was

not completely successful, they nonetheless sought the Queen's unofficial approval,

purchased ships for their venture, increased their capital to £68,373, and convened again

a year later. This time they succeeded, and on 31 December 1600, the Queen granted a

Royal Charter to "George, Earl of Cumberland, and 215 Knights, Aldermen, and

Burgesses" under the name, Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading

with the East Indies. The charter awarded the newly formed company, for a period of

fifteen years, a monopoly of trade (known today as a patent[citation needed]) with all

countries to the east of the Cape of Good Hope and to the west of the Straits of Magellan.

Sir James Lancaster commanded the first East India Company voyage in 1601.

Initially, the Company struggled in the spice trade due to the competition from the

already well established Dutch East India Company. The Company opened a factory

(trading post) in Bantam on the first voyage and imports of pepper from Java were an

important part of the Company's trade for twenty years. The factory in Bantam was

closed in 1683. During this time ships belonging to the company arriving in India docked

at Surat, which was established as a trade transit point in 1608. In the next two years, the

Company built its first factory in the town of Machilipatnam on the Coromandel Coast of

the Bay of Bengal. The high profits reported by the Company after landing in India

initially prompted King James I to grant subsidiary licenses to other trading companies in

England. But in 1609 he renewed the charter given to the Company for an indefinite

period, including a clause which specified that the charter would cease to be in force if

the trade turned unprofitable for three consecutive years.

The Company was led by one Governor and 24 directors who made up the Court of

Directors. They were appointed by, and reported to, the Court of Proprietors. The Court

of Directors had ten committees reporting to it.

Foothold in India

English traders frequently engaged in hostilities with their Dutch and Portuguese

counterparts in the Indian Ocean. The Company achieved a major victory over the

Portuguese in the Battle of Swally in 1612. The Company decided to explore the

feasibility of gaining a territorial foothold in mainland India, with official sanction of

both countries, and requested that the Crown launch a diplomatic mission. In 1615, Sir

Thomas Roe was instructed by James I to visit the Mughal Emperor Nuruddin Salim

Jahangir (r. 1605 - 1627) to arrange for a commercial treaty which would give the

Company exclusive rights to reside and build factories in Surat and other areas. In return,

the Company offered to provide the Emperor with goods and rarities from the European

market. This mission was highly successful as Jahangir sent a letter to James through Sir

Thomas Roe:

Indian Rebellion of 1857

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India

Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon erupted into other

mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with

the major hostilities confined to present-day Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, northern Madhya

Pradesh, and the Delhi region. The rebellion posed a considerable threat to Company

power in that region, and it was contained only with the fall of Gwalior on 20 June 1858.

The rebellion is also known as India's First War of Independence, the Great Rebellion,

the Indian Mutiny, the Revolt of 1857, the Uprising of 1857, the Sepoy Rebellion and the

Sepoy Mutiny.

Other regions of Company-controlled India—Bengal province, the Bombay Presidency,

and the Madras Presidency—remained largely calm. In Punjab, the Sikh princes backed

the Company by providing both soldiers and support. The large princely states,

Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, and Kashmir, as well as the states of Rajputana did not

join the rebellion. In some regions, such as Oudh, the rebellion took on the attributes of a

patriotic revolt against European presence. Rebel leaders, such as the Rani of Jhansi,

became folk heroes in the nationalist movement in India half a century later, however,

they themselves "generated no coherent ideology" for a new order. The rebellion led to

the dissolution of the East India Company in 1858, and forced the British to reorganize

the army, the financial system, and the administration in India. India was thereafter

directly governed by the Crown in the new British Raj.

East India Company expansion in India

Although the British East India Company had earlier administered the factory areas

established for trading purposes, its victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 marked the

beginning of its rule in India. The victory was consolidated in 1764 at the Battle of Buxar

(in Bihar), when the defeated Mughal emperor, Shah Alam II, granted control of Bengal,

Bihar, and Orissa to the Company. The Company soon expanded its territories around its

bases in Bombay and Madras: the Anglo-Mysore Wars (1766–1799) and the Anglo-

Maratha Wars (1772–1818) led to control of most of India south of the Narmada River.

After the turn of the 19th century, Governor-General Wellesley began what became two

decades of accelerated expansion of Company territories. This was achieved either by

subsidiary alliances between the Company and local rulers or by direct military

annexation. The subsidiary alliances created the Princely States (or Native States) of the

Hindu maharajas and the Muslim nawabs. Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, and

Kashmir were annexed after the Anglo-Sikh Wars in 1849; however, Kashmir was

immediately sold under the Treaty of Amritsar (1850) to the Dogra Dynasty of Jammu

and thereby became a princely state. In 1854, Berar was annexed, and the state of Oudh

was added two years later. For practical purposes, the Company was the government of

India.

Causes of the rebellion

The sepoys were a combination of Muslim and Hindu soldiers. Just before the Sepoy

Rebellion of 1857, there were over 200,000 Indians in the army compared to about

40,000 British. The forces were divided into three presidency armies: the Bombay; the

Madras; and the Bengal. The Bengal Army recruited higher castes, such as "Rajputs and

Brahmins", mostly from the "Avadh(or oudh) and Bihar" region and even restricted the

enlistment of lower castes in 1855; in contrast, the Madras Army and Bombay Army

were "more localized, caste-neutral armies" that "did not prefer high-caste men." The

domination of higher castes in the Bengal Army has been blamed in part for the Sepoy

mutiny of 1857.

In 1772, when Warren Hastings was appointed the first Governor-General of the

Company’s Indian territories, one of his first undertakings was the rapid expansion of the

Company’s army. Since the available soldiers, or sepoys, from Bengal — many of whom

had fought against the Company in the Battle of Plassey — were now suspect in British

eyes, Hastings recruited farther west from the high-caste rural Rajputs and Brahmins of

Oudh and Bihar, a practice that continued for the next 75 years. However, in order to

forestall any social friction, the Company also took pains to adapt its military practices to

the requirements of their religious rituals. Consequently, these soldiers dined in separate

facilities; in addition, overseas service, considered polluting to their caste, was not

required of them, and the army soon came officially to recognize Hindu festivals. “This

encouragement of high caste ritual status, however, left the government vulnerable to

protest, even mutiny, whenever the sepoys detected infringement of their prerogatives.”

It has been suggested that after the annexation of Oudh by the East India Company in

1856, many sepoys were disquieted both from losing their perquisites, as landed gentry,

in the Oudh courts and from the anticipation of any increased land-revenue payments that

the annexation might augur. Others have stressed that by 1857, some Indian soldiers,

misreading the presence of missionaries as a sign of official intent, were persuaded that

the East India Company was masterminding mass conversions of Hindus and Muslims to

Christianity. Although earlier in the 1830s, evangelists such as William Carey and

William Wilberforce had successfully clamored for the passage of social reform such as

the abolition of Sati and allowing the remarriage of Hindu widows, there is little evidence

that the sepoys' allegiance was affected by this.

However, changes in the terms of their professional service may have created resentment.

With East India Company victories in wars or with annexation, as the extent of Company

jurisdiction expanded, the soldiers were now not only expected to serve in less familiar

regions (such as in Burma in the Anglo-Burmese Wars in 1856), but also make do

without the "foreign service" remuneration that had previously been their due. Another

financial grievance stemmed from the general service act, which denied retired sepoys a

pension; whilst this only applied to new recruits, it was suspected that it would also apply

to those already in service. In addition, the Bengal army was paid less than the Madras

and Bombay armies, which compounded the fears over pensions.

A major cause of resentment that arose ten months prior to the outbreak of the Rising was

the General Service Enlistment Act of 25 July 1856. As noted above, men of the Bengal

Army had been exempted from overseas service. Specifically they were enlisted only for

service in territories to which they could march. This was seen by the Governor-General

Lord Dalhousie as an anomaly, since all sepoys of the Madras and Bombay Armies (plus

six "General Service" battalions of the Bengal Army) had accepted an obligation to serve

overseas if required. As a result the burden of providing contingents for active service in

Burma (readily accessible only by sea) and China had fallen disproportionately on the

two smaller Presidency Armies. As signed into effect by the new Governor-General Lord

Canning, the Act required only new recruits to the Bengal Army to accept a commitment

for general (that is overseas) service. However serving high caste sepoys were fearful that

it would be eventually extended to them, as well as preventing sons following fathers into

an Army with a strong tradition of family service.

There were also grievances over the issue of promotions, based on seniority (length of

service). This, as well as the increasing number of European officers in the battalions,

made promotion a slow progress and many Indian officers did not reached commissioned

rank until they were too old to be effective.

The final spark was provided by the reaction of Company officers to the controversy over

the ammunition for new Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle. To load the new rifle, the sepoys had

to bite the cartridge open. It was believed that the paper cartridges that were standard

issue with the rifle were greased with lard (pork fat) which was regarded as unclean by

Muslims, or tallow (beef fat), regarded as anathema to Hindus. East India Company

officers first became aware of the impending trouble over the cartridges in January, when

they received reports of an altercation between a high-caste sepoy and a low-caste

labourer at Dum Dum. The labourer had taunted the sepoy that by biting the cartridge, he

had himself lost caste, although at this time the Dum-Dum Arsenal had not actually

started to produce the new round, nor had a single practice shot been fired. On January

27, Colonel Richard Birch, the Military Secretary, ordered that all cartridges issued from

depots were to be free from grease, and that sepoys could grease them themselves using

whatever mixture "they may prefer". This however, merely caused many sepoys to be

convinced that the rumours were true and that their fears were justified.

The civilian rebellion was more multifarious in origin. The rebels consisted of three

groups: the feudal nobility, rural landlords called taluqdars, and the peasants. The

nobility, many of whom had lost titles and domains under the Doctrine of Lapse, which

refused to recognise the adopted children of princes as legal heirs, felt that the Company

had interfered with a traditional system of inheritance. Rebel leaders such as Nana Sahib

and the Rani of Jhansi belonged to this group; the latter, for example, was prepared to

accept East India Company supremacy if her adopted son was recognized as her late

husband's heir. In other areas of central India, such as Indore and Saugar, where such loss

of privilege had not occurred, the princes remained loyal to the Company even in areas

where the sepoys had rebelled. The second group, the taluqdars, had lost half their landed

estates to peasant farmers as a result of the land reforms that came in the wake of

annexation of Oudh. As the rebellion gained ground, the taluqdars quickly reoccupied the

lands they had lost, and paradoxically, in part due to ties of kinship and feudal loyalty,

did not experience significant opposition from the peasant farmers, many of whom joined

the rebellion, to the great dismay of the British. It has also been suggested that heavy

land-revenue assessment in some areas by the British resulted in many landowning

families either losing their land or going into great debt with money lenders, and

providing ultimately a reason to rebel; money lenders, in addition to the East India

Company, were particular objects of the rebels' animosity. The civilian rebellion was also

highly uneven in its geographic distribution, even in areas of north-central India that were

no longer under British control. For example, the relatively prosperous Muzaffarnagar

district, a beneficiary of a Company irrigation scheme, and next door to Meerut, where

the upheaval began, stayed mostly calm throughout.

Onset of the Rebellion

Several months of increasing tension and inflammatory incidents preceded the actual

rebellion. Fires, possibly the result of arson, broke out near Calcutta on 24 January 1857.

On February 26, 1857 the 19th Bengal Native Infantry (BNI) regiment came to know

about new cartridges which allegedly were wrapped in paper greased with cow and pig

fat, which had to be bitten off by mouth. The cow being sacred to Hindus, and pig haram

to Muslims, soldiers refused to use them. Their Colonel confronted them angrily with

artillery and cavalry on the parade ground, but then accepted their demand to withdraw

the artillery, and cancel the next morning's parade.[35]

Mangal Pandey

On March 29, 1857 at the Barrackpore (now Barrackpur) parade ground, near Calcutta

(now Kolkata), 29-year-old Mangal Pandey of the 34th BNI, angered by the recent

actions by the East India Company, declared that he would rebel against his commanders.

When his adjutant Lt. Baugh came out to investigate the unrest, Pandey opened fire but

hit his horse instead.[36]

General John Hearsey came out to see him on the parade ground, and claimed later that

Mangal Pandey was in some kind of "religious frenzy". He ordered the Indian

commander of the quarter guard Jemadar Ishwari Prasad to arrest Mangal Pandey, but the

Jemadar refused. The quarter guard and other sepoys present, with the single exception of

a soldier called Shaikh Paltu, drew back from restraining or arresting Mangal Pandey.

Shaikh Paltu restrained Pandey from continuing his attack.[36][37]

After failing to incite his comrades into an open and active rebellion, Mangal Pandey

tried to take his own life by placing his musket to his chest, and pulling the trigger with

his toe. He only managed to wound himself, and was court-martialled on April 6. He was

hanged on April 8.

The Jemadar Ishwari Prasad was sentenced to death and hanged on April 22. The

regiment was disbanded and stripped of their uniforms because it was felt that they

harboured ill-feelings towards their superiors, particularly after this incident. Shaikh Paltu

was promoted to the rank of Jemadar in the Bengal Army.

Sepoys in other regiments thought this a very harsh punishment. The show of disgrace

while disbanding contributed to the extent of the rebellion in view of some historians, as

disgruntled ex-sepoys returned home to Awadh with a desire to inflict revenge, as and

when the opportunity arose.

April 1857

During April, there was unrest and fires at Agra, Allahabad and Ambala. At Ambala in

particular, which was a large military cantonment where several units had been collected

for their annual musketry practice, it was clear to General Anson, Commander-in-Chief

of the Bengal Army, that some sort of riot over the cartridges was imminent. Despite the

objections of the civilian Governor-General's staff, he agreed to postpone the musketry

practice, and allow a new drill by which the soldiers tore the cartridges with their fingers

rather than their teeth. However, he issued no general orders making this standard

practice throughout the Bengal Army and, rather than remain at Ambala to defuse or

overawe potential trouble, he then proceeded to Simla, the cool "hill station" where many

high officials spent the summer.

Although there was no open revolt at Ambala, there was widespread incendiarism during

late April. Barrack buildings (especially those belonging to soldiers who had used the

Enfield cartridges) and European officers' bungalows were set on fire.[38]

Impact of English Education

INTRODUCTION

Just a few centuries ago, English was spoken by just five to seven million people on one,

relatively small island, and the language consisted of dialects spoken by monolinguals.

Today there are more non-native than native users of English, and English has become

the linguistic key used for opening borders: it is a global medium with local identities and

messages . English has become a world language, spoken by at least 750 million people.

It is more widely spoken and written than any other language, even Latin, has ever been.

It can, indeed, be said to be the first truly global language. English is nowadays the

dominant or official language in over 60 countries.

The increase in the use of English in Asia as "overwhelming": at present, the estimated

population using English in Asia adds up to 350 million. India is the third largest English-

using population in the world, after the USA and the UK. Literatures in English are

nowadays recognized as part of the national literatures, and English is also recognized in

the over-all language policy of the nation.

The language has penetrated deeply in the society, which has, in its turn, resulted in

several varieties of English in India. The development of those new varieties is connected

with historical and social factors. The new Englishes have all their own contexts of

function and usage, and they have also, in their turn, affected the native varieties of

English.

Indian English is used mainly by Indians whose native language it is not. It is a minority

language, but yet a language of national affairs, and its status is often called into question

by, as Bailey puts it, "not only by foreigners with their ideas of proper English, but also

by Indians who remain ambivalent about its distinctive features and uncertain about its

future" (Bailey 1991: 145). In fact, many of transplanted kinds of English are so attuned

to the idea of a foreign standard of propriety that their independence remains partial.

The emergence of these new varieties has raised questions concerning the power of

English language, questions of identity and new pragmatics of the language in new,

foreign surroundings. The spread of English across different cultures and languages has

meant the diversification of English, which, in turn, raises questions about the

standardization of English.

The purpose of this study will be to study language attitudes in India (especially attitudes

towards English) and to analyze the use of languages in different domains (family,

friendship, neighbourhood, transactions, education, government, employment).

Additionally, the aim is also to find out about the informants' preference for the model of

the variety of English in India.

A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW: ENGLISH TRAVELS TO INDIA

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF EAST INDIA COMPANY

It was Vasco da Gama who, in 1498, came ashore at Calicut, and restored a link between

Europe and the East. India was "a land of spices and of marvels" to European people.

Portugal's control of the Indian Ocean lasted throughout the 16th century. The turning

point came in the 1580s: in 1580 Portugal was annexed to Spain. Spain was not too

interested in former interests of Portugal, and gradually the control of the East fell

through their hands. The route to the East was opened to the Dutch and English. The

Dutch were first ones to arrive in 1595. The Dutch objective was, plain and simply, the

trade. They were not so interested in proselytizing people, or trying to expand their

empire; they were monopolists rather than imperialists (NEB 392).

The document establishing the British contact with the Indian subcontinent was the

Charter of December 31, 1600, granted by Queen Elizabeth I. It granted a monopoly on

trade with India and the East to some merchants of London - the East India Company was

formed . The company's objective was actually the spices of Indonesia, but because of

Dutch opposition (e.g. massacre of Amboina in 1623), they decided to change plans and

go to India instead. The English won victory over some Portuguese territories in India as

well, and the Mughal court, which resented the Portuguese, granted the English the right

to trade and to establish factories in return for becoming the virtual naval auxiliaries of

the empire (NEB 393).

The English trade became more profitable than that of the Dutch, and the region

gradually fell under British contact and domination. In 1818, the British Empire became

the British Empire of India, instead of the British Empire in India. The diplomatic

settlement remained in force until 1947 (401).

A question that has frequently been asked is: How was this sort of subjection of a whole

subcontinent possible? Probably the answer lies in the innate divisiveness of Hindu

society (class and caste divisions); for the Indians the neighbours were more unwelcome

than outsiders; and the outsiders could actually help in defeating the neighbour. The

outsiders were, in the end, accepted as masters; the Indians would rather be mastered by

them than dominated by a rivaling family inside India (402).

THE POWER OF ENGLISH: THE CASE OF INDIA

The British were given a lot of political stature due to their political power, and they were

required to adopt a pose that would fit their status. Language became a marker of the

white man's power. "India likes gods. And Englishmen like posing as gods". The English

language was part of the pose and power. Indians accepted it, too (ibid).

English was used in India and elsewhere in the colonies as a tool of power to cultivate a

group of people who identify with the cultural and other norms of the political elite.

European values were, naturally, considered somehow inherently better whereas the

indigenous culture was often considered somehow barbaric. English was considered as a

"road to the light", a tool of "civilization". The Europeans thought that they can bring

emancipation to the souls; they considered this as their duty. They sincerely thought they

would contribute to the well-being of the native people in the colonies, and their language

was elevated into being almost divine (6).

English provided a medium for understanding technology and scientific development.

Non-western intellectuals admired accomplishments of the west. European literature was

made available in colonies. Macaulay shows his ignorance towards the native languages

in India by saying.

In India, English gradually acquired socially and administratively the most dominant

roles: the power and prestige of language was defined by the domains of language use.

Ultimately the legal system, the national media and important professions were

conducted in English. Skilled professional Indian became the symbol of Westernization

and modernization. Raja Rammohan Roy was committed to the idea that the "European

gentlemen of talent and education" should be appointed to instruct the natives of India.

English came to be used by Indians, as well.

By the 1920s English had become the language of political discourse, intra-national

administration, and law, a language associated with liberal thinking. Even after the

colonial period ended, English maintained its power over local languages (8).

English was eventually used against Englishmen, their roles and intentions as it became

the language of resurgence of nationalism and political awakening: the medium,

ironically, was the alien language. Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), for instance,

although struggled to create consensus for an acceptable native variety as the national

language, expressed his message to the elite in English (8).

ENGLISH IN INDIA - WHO SPEAKS ENGLISH TO WHOM AND

WHEN?

In terms of numbers of English speakers, the Indian subcontinent ranks third in the world,

after the USA and UK. An estimated 4% of the Indian population use English; although

the number might seem small, out of the total population that is about 35 million people

(in 1994)(Crystal 1995:101). Although the number of speakers of English in India is

somewhat limited (as compared to the total population), that small segment of the

population controls domains that have professional prestige.

English is virtually the first language for many educated Indians, and for many, who

speak more than one language, English is the second one. Indian speakers of English are

primarily bi- or multilingual Indians who use English as a second language in contexts in

which English is used among Indians as a "link" or an "official" language. Only a

minimal fraction of the English-using Indian population has any interaction with native

speakers of English. The population of which was graduate faculty of English in the

universities and colleges), only 65.64 percent had occasional interaction with native

speakers of English; 11.79 percent had no interaction and 5.12 percent claimed to have

daily interaction with native speakers of English (ibid, 110).

THE ROLE OF ENGLISH IN INDIAN MULTILINGUAL SETTING

English serves two purposes. First, it provides a linguistic tool for the administrative

cohesiveness of a country, and, secondly, it serves as a language of wider

communication. English functions in the Indian socio-cultural context to perform roles

relevant and appropriate to the social, educational and administrative network of India.

English is used in both public and personal domains and its functions "extend far beyond

those normally associated with an outside language, including the instrumental, the

regulative, the interpersonal and the innovative, self-expressive function". As pointed out

before, the role of English is not replacive: it overlaps with local languages in certain

domains.

INDIAN ENGLISH LITERATURE

India is the third largest English book-producing country after the United States and the

United Kingdom, and the largest number of books are published in English. Creative

writing in English is considered an integral part of the literary traditions in South Asia.

Indeed, according to the words of an Indian critic Iyengar three decades ago, there seems

to be an acceptance of Indian English literature as "one of the voices in which India

speaks...it is a new voice, no doubt, but it is as much Indian as the others". Sanyal claims,

too, that Indian writing represents a new form of Indian culture. It has become

assimilated and is today a dynamic element of the culture (Sanyal 1987: 7).

It can be said to be a challenge for the Indian novelist to write about his experiences in a

language which has developed in a very different cultural setting; in a "foreign" language;

how to create sense of reality and intensity of Indian life in the medium of English

language (Sanyal 1987: 7). The integrity of the writers writing in English is often suspect

in their own country, and in other English-speaking countries they are treated as marginal

to the mainstream of English literature . Indian English writers are sometimes accused of

abandoning the national or regional language and writing in a western, "foreign",

language; their commitment to the nation is considered suspect. Indian writing in English

dates back to the 1830s, to Kashiprasad Ghosh, who is considered the first Indian poet

writing in English. Sochee Chunder Dutt was the first writer of fiction. In the beginning,

however, political writing was dominant (e.g. Rammohan Roy wrote about social reform

and religion in the medium of English (Sanyal 1987:19).

Stylistic influence from the local languages seems to be a particular feature of much

Indian literature in English; the local language structure is reflected as e.g. the literal

translation of local idioms (Platt et. al: 1984: 181). However, South Asian novelists have

not only nativized the language in terms of stylistic features; they have also acculturated

English in terms of the South Asian context.

A view of the mother tongue being the primary medium of literary creativity is still

generally held across cultures. Creativity in another tongue is often considered as a

deviation from the norm. The native language is considered pure, it is treated as a norm.

This causes difficulties for non-native writers of English: it is not rarely that they have to

defend themselves writing in English.

The thematic range of literatures has been extended in India: in fact, English has

functioned "as the main agent for releasing the South Asian languages from the rigorous

constraints of the classical literary traditions". English has created new experimentation

in the field of Indian writing .The linguistic centre of English has shifted. This means that

English no longer only represents the Judeo-Christian traditions and Western concepts of

literary creativity. The ranges of English have expanded, as the varieties within a variety

have been formed.