The document provides a history of the evolution of English in India from the 15th century onwards. It discusses key events like Vasco da Gama's visit in 1497, the establishment of the East India Company in 1600, and Lord Macaulay's Minutes on Education in 1835 which established English as the medium of instruction. It also outlines the establishment of universities in major cities in the 1850s, as well as developments in Indian theatre, literature, and the impact and writings of the Indian diaspora. The document traces the changing role and status of English over time in India's political and educational landscape.

1. English in India: History, Evolution and Future
Ms. A. Patricia Romila
Assistant Professor of English
St. Mary’s College, (Autonomous)
Thoothukudi

2. I’ll have them fly to India for Gold
Ransack the Ocean for Oriental Pearl!
Dr. Faustus
Christopher Marlowe
● Written in the same year as East Indian Company launched upon its
trading adventures in India
● Like Dr. Faustus, the British Empire always ambitious of Power.

3. How did English in India flourish?
● The History ranges of about 150 years
● The voyage of Vasco da Gama to India
● Establishment of East India company
● Orientalists & Anglicists

4. Time Line of English in India
1497 - Vasco da Gama visits the Fort of Calicut
1600 - Establishment of East India Company
1813 - Charter Act
1835 - Minutes of Lord Macaulay
1835 - Renaissance in India
1858 - Crown Rule

5. Time Line of English in India
1839 - Lord Auckland’s Minutes
1854 - Wood’s Dispatch
1857 - Establishment of 3 Universities
1882 - University of Punjab
1882 - Hunter Commission
1887 - University of Allahabad

6. 1497 – Vasco da Gama visits the port of Calicut
The Mugal Empire was ruling India during that time

7. 1600 – Establishment of East India Company
● William Jones, Thomas Minro
● The Royal Asiatic Society of
Bengal was established in 1784.
● “Brahmanised Britons” or
“Orientalists”
● western civilsation into India
● They favored classical languages
like Sanskrit and Persian

8. 1813 – Charter Act
● Many Charter Acts are there
● First Governer General of India : Sir William Benntick
● The First Newspaper: Hicky’s Bengal Gazette
● Private Schools and Colleges
● Raja Ram Mohan Roy: Hindu College (1817)

9. 1835 – Minutes of Lord Macaulay
● Franka Linqua – The Official Language of Administration
● Thomas Babington Macaulay – His Ideas in 1833 – Father of English Education
● “The great object of the British Government ought to be the promotion of
European Literature and Science among the natives of India.”
● Before he came to India he asserted in the house of the Commons, “To trade with
men is infinitely more profitable than to govern savages”

10. 1835 – Minutes of Lord Macaulay
● 1835 - “Macaulay’s Minutes on Education”
● “A Class who may be interpreters between us and the millions
whom we govern- a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour,
but English in Taste, in opinion in morals and in intellect.”
● A sum of Rs. One Lakh was allotted for oriental education

11. 1835 – Minutes of Lord Macaulay
● “The Education in India will make Indian People demand European
Institutions, European life style, European way of living. I may not be
alive to see that thing happening. But if it happens, that will be the
proudest day in the History of British Empire”
● “Any Good book in any shelf of any European Library can surpass the
Arabic and Sanskrit Literature”

12. 1835 – Minutes of Lord Macaulay
● “My Plan is to convert each and every Indian towards English
and they should feel it that English is really a better language”
● Ngugi Wa Thiang’o – “To get rid of colonization we must first decolonize
the mind.”
● Jawaharlal Nehru – “English is a major Window to the Western World”

13. 1839 - Lord Auckland’s Minutes
● Between 1836 to 1842, Lord Auckland served as the Governor
General of India
● Anglo -Afghan war
● Termed as most unsuccessful Governor General of India
● Wrong Decision Making - Poor Organisation

14. 1854 – Wood’s Dispatch
● Introduced by Charles Wood in 1854
● Magna Carta of English Education in India
● Establishment of medical, engineering, law and other institutes of
professional education.

15. 1835 – The Renaissance in Modern India
● 20 Years from 1835 – 1855
● Renaissance in India begins with Raja Ram Mohan Roy
● Roy: The Understanding of these Modern Subjects would give Indians a
better stand in the world
● Autobiography - In Athenaeum and the Literary Gazette

16. 1857 – Establishment of Universities
● University of Kolkata
● University of Madras
● University of Mumbai

17. 1858 - Crown Rule (1858 to 1947)
● Otherwise called as the British Raj.
● India became the founding member of the league of nations
● “British India”
● Introduction of the paper currency act of 1861

18. 1882 - Establishment of University of Punjab
● The University of the Punjab was formally established with
the convening of the first meeting of its Senate on
October14, 1882 at Simla

19. 1882 – Hunter’s Commission
● Hunter’s Education Commission was founded in 1882 by
Lord Rippon Building(1880 - 1884 AD) during the British
Rule.
● Primary education under the Local Self Government Act

20. 1887 – Establishment of University of Allahabad
● 22 September 1887 - Fourth Oldest Modern University

21. The Gandhian Era
● 22 Indian Languages, 8000 Dialects
● In the early 20th century English became the official Language of India
● The Nationalist movement created an Anti- English Sentiment
● The Gandhi wave from 1920 to 1947

22. General themes of the Era
Social and Political Problems Struggle for Freedom
East- West Encounter The communal clash
Condition of the untouchables The Landless Poor
The downtrodden The economically exploited & oppressed

23. English in India Today
● English became the common means of communication
● Recent Survey: 4% of the population use English
● India becomes The Largest English Speaking Community outside USA and UK
● R.K Narayan: “It is the only Language I am really familiar with. It is the
only language which is transparent and takes on the hues of the country or
region where the story set”

24. English in India Today
Linguistic Experiments
- Eg: Salman Rushdie’s Chutnified English(Mix of Mumbai Hindi & English)
- Arundathi Roy – Indigenize English Language to get the Local Flavor
- Pre occupation with the experience of Diaspora
- Hybridization of Culture.
- Indianisation of English - Braj Kachru Code Mixing & Code Switching

25. Topics to be covered: (Apart from Poetry, Prose, Short Story, Fiction & Drama)
Indian Translations
Indian Aesthetics
Indian Modern Theatre
Indian Diaspora

26. Indian Translations
● Large scale translations from regional language into English
● Bengal Renaissance – Influences of English Romanticism
● Father of Bengal Renaissance – Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1774-1833)
● Mirat-ul-Akhbar – Persian Literature (Writings on Religion)
● An abridgement of the vendanta and renderings of Upanishads

27. Indian Aesthetics
● In Indian aesthetics, a rasa (essence) denotes an essential mental state
and is the dominant emotional theme of a work of art or the primary
feeling that is evoked in the person that views, reads or hears such a
work
● The theory of rasa is attributed to Bharata, a sage-priest who may have
lived sometime between the 1st century BC and the 3rd century

28. Indian Modern Theatre
● Modern Indian theatre: amalgamation of art, dance, music & dialogues
● The modern Indian theatre started to grow more in the 1850s
● Safdar Hashmi's 'Janam' (1973-89)
● Badal Sircar's 'Satabdi' (Calcutta)
● RP Prasanna's 'Samudaya' (Karnataka, 1975 to mid 1980s)

29. Indian Modern Theatre
● 1922 – IPTA (India People’s Theatre Association) was established.
● In January 1953, 'Sangeet Natak Akademi' was set up and it gave a
cultural confidence and drama got a new footing in India.
● Ebrahim Alkazi dictated the newly found National School of Drama and
worked for the growth of modern Indian theatre

30. Indian Modern Theatre
● Few of the pioneers of modern Indian theatre
● o Ranchhodbhal and Nanalla Kavi in Gujarat
● o Verasalingam, Guruzada Appa Rao and Ballary Raghavachari in Telugu
● o Santakavi Varadachari and Kailasam in Kannada
● o Laxminath Bezharua in Assamese,
● o Kerala Varma Thampuran and C.V. Raman Pillai in Malayalam
● o Ramshankar Rai and Kalicharan Patnaik in Oriya
● o P. Sambandha Mudaliar in Tamil

31. Indian Modern Theatre
● Vijay Tendulkar's Marathi's play 'Ghashiram Kotwal' used traditional folk forms in
modern theatre.
● His Work: Silence! The Court is in Session (1967)
● Manjula Padmanabhan with her play, 'Bitter Harvest'
● Mahesh Dattani is another promising playwright, who has done one play named,
'Do the needful' for the BBC among his 13 plays.
● Badal Sarkar: An influential Indian dramatist and theatre director
● Founded his own theatre company, Shatabdi in 1976. He wrote more than fifty plays
● His Works: Evam Indrajit (1963)- Amal, Vimal, Kamal, Nirmal- mansi

32. Indian Diaspora
● Writings of the writers born in India but settled in abroad
● Expatriate writing occupies a significant position between cultures
and countries.
● Cultural theory is mainly created by people who live in the margins.
● The causes for migration of People are War, Exile, Trade and
slavery, Towards greener pastures

33. Indian Diaspora
Salman Rushdie Bharati Mukherjee
V.S. Naipaul Jhumpa Lahiri
Rohinton Mistry Kiran Desai
Boman Desai M.G. Vasanji
Shyam Selvadurai Amitav
Ghosh
Vikram Seth

34. Indian Theorists
Homi K. Bhabha: Terms: hybridity, mimicry, difference, and ambivalence, third space
Gayathri Spivak - “Can the Subaltern Speak?” - Try to find ways of accessing the subjectivity
of those who are being investigated
Dinesh Chakrabarty - Histories of the workiing classes and of subaltern studies
Arjun Appadurai, and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan (both from New York University), Kumkum
Sangari (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Gauri Vishwanathan (Columbia University) and
R Radhakrishnan (University of California at Irvine) are fascinating figures in contemporary
thought.

35. Awards - Booker Prize Winners
● V.S. Naipaul - In a Free State (1871)
● Salman Rushdie - Midnight’s Children (1981)
● Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things (1997)
● Kiran Desai - The Inheritance of Loss (2006)
● Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger (2008)
● Rohinton Mistry - Only author whose all the works have
been short listed and nominated for Man Booker

36. Awards - Nobel Prize
● Rabindranath Tagore - 1913
● V.S. Naipaul - 2001 (Indian Diaspora)

37. Three Phase - Writer’s Calssification
I Phase - Pre Independence - Humanist Phase
II Phase - Post independence - The Post Colonial Predicament
III Phase - English in India today - Re-imagining India