The presentation explores the complexities of national literature in multilingual nations, focusing on India’s diverse linguistic landscape. It critiques simplistic solutions that advocate for a singular national literature and emphasizes the need for a comparative, relativist approach acknowledging the interplay of various cultures and languages. The document advocates for understanding 'Indian literature' as an interliterary condition shaped by multiple regional expressions rather than a unified entity.

1. National Literature in a
Multilingual Nation
Sujit R. Chandak
Pre-Ph.D. Course presentation
Department of English,
University of Mumbai

2. In this presentation I would attempt to
understand:•
•
•
•
•
Nation and National Literature
Problematic of Multilingual Nation
National Literature: Multiple Languages
Simplistic solutions
Alternative approaches in constructing the
National Literature in Multilingual Nations
such as India
• Questions

3. Nation and National Literature
• Emergence of ‘Nations’ in Europe
• Eric Hobswam & famously Benedict Anderson
have explained the emergence of Nation
• There has been a flood of Nation states in the
post 1940s; the colonies getting free
• Political elite –western educated- made the
choice of organizing themselves in terms of
Nation; Nationalist consciousness developed
with struggle for freedom

4. Nation and National Literature
• Thus, an essentially European concept came to
colonies, where it needed to be altered
• In post-colonial world ‘Nation’ invests aesthetic
expressions with a sense of identifying with the
long struggle against the colonial oppression
and struggle for independence.
• Bruce King describes post-colonial nations as
‘the new centre of consciousness’ (1)

5. Nation and National Literature
• In the Euro-American model of Nation hood
the National Literature was that written in the
national Language; they were mono or bilingual countries
• Most of the post-colonial nations have many
languages, at times multitude
• But still the ‘colonial modernity’ of the leaders
wanted that there should be a national
construction of Art & Literature

6. Problematic of Multilingual Nation
• Multiple Languages and the
need of an official language
of the Nation as also to
connect the diverse masses
• Solved in various ways: By
adopting more than one
language, or all the major
languages, by including the
colonial master’s language

7. Problematic of Multilingual Nation
•
A multilingual sign at the
Hong Kong-Macau Ferry
Pier in Macao
• Easily done in the countries where language
was not something revered and sacrosanct
and people saw it more as a tool. They had
always been bi/multi-lingual

8. National Literature: Multiple
Languages
• Defining and categorizing the National
Literature, as in ‘Indian Literature’, was a much
more tricky issue
• Apprehension was there that it may involve
the privileging of one or some of these
Literature and culture; those which were
expressed in a language spoken by more
number of people & hence patronized by the
state

9. National Literature: Multiple
Languages
• In India there were a
numerous languages which
produced their own literature
• Numbers do not matter in
such issues; what is of
importance is the uniqueness
of each
• This needed to consolidate
with singular idea of a
‘National Literature’

10. Simplistic solutions
• All literature produced in all the languages of
that country as the National Literature
• With reference to Canada, French, English and
Quebec French; in Srilanka Sinhalese, Tamil
and English; in India all the 18 constitutional
languages plus four patronized by Sahitya
Akademi

11. Simplistic solutions
• Symbolic slogans such as
‘unity in diversity’ etc.
were forwarded and
there was an attempt to
resolve the dichotomy of
National Literature (one
literature) being written
in multiple languages

12. Simplistic solutions
• The motto of the Sahitya Akademi was fixed in
the words of Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan as
“Indian Literature is one though written in
many languages”
• The resultant retort to Sahitya Akedmi’s
motto: “Indian Literature is one because it is
written in many languages”

13. Alternative approaches to the issue
• The nature of National Literature has also to be
interrogated by asking whether Indian in ‘Indian
Literature’ is same as the Indian in ‘Indian Nation’
or in ‘Indian Cricket team’
• Do and can the word ‘Indian’ signify different
meaning
• P. P. Raveendran discusses this in his essay,
“Genealogies of Indian Literature” and questions
whether Indian literature as a unified field
bearing the marks of a unified literary sensibility
in fact exists, and goes on to add:

14. Alternative approaches to the issue
• “It might be pertinent to point out that
“Indian literature”, ontologically unified object
that is theorised as connected by a shared
discursive history and shared epistemological
concerns, is not the same as “literature in
India” or “literatures in India”.(2)
• What belongs to the regional is also national;
one cannot belong to the whole of India
without belonging to a specific part of India.

15. Alternative approaches to the issue
• This position of dual identity is explored by
the Marathi playwright, and critic G. P.
Deshpande:
• “When we speak of National Theatre we do so
with almost no knowledge of the various
Indian theatres….the terminology of
“regional” is misleading when it comes to
cultural production. Each mode is uniquely
important; each mode is uniquely Indian” (3)

16. Alternative approaches to the issue
• To define the Indianness of Indian (National)
Literature, framework of Interliterary process
as propounded by the Slovak theorist Durisin
can be used
• He argues to look for relationships arising
from contactual co-existense (4)
• Indian Scholars such as Amiya Dev and others
point to similar directions. Dev, defines Indian
Literature as:

17. Alternative approaches to the issue
• “not an entity but an interliterary condition in
the widest possible sense of the concept
which is related to Goethe's original idea of
Weltliteratur ... The interliterary condition of
India, we should remember, reaches
backmuch farther than its manuscript or print
culture ... bhakti a popular religious
movement as both theme and social issue…”(5)

18. Interliterary Condition of India
BHAKTI movement
• A major theme in many of the
literatures of India
• It is in pre-national time, but the
presence of similar theme across
can be studied as the marker of
some kind of unity
• Whether it is contactual or not
this condition is one which finds
a voice all across the
geographical area of India

20. To Conclude…
• Multilingual nations and the corresponding
need to look for a literature which defines a
Nation are a reality. This cannot be done in a
simplistic manner, without taking into account
the differences of not just language but also
cultures, way and forms of expression and the
life worlds. A Comparative and relativist
approach is the way forward.

21. References
1.
King, Bruce, ed. New National and Post colonial Literatures: an
Introduction, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996
2.
Raveendran, P.P. “Genealogies of Indian Literature.” Economic and
Political Weekly June 24, 2006: 2558-2563
3.
Deshpande, G. P. “History, Politics and the Modern Playwright”.
Theatre India I, 91-97
4.
Durisin, Dionýz. Theory of Interliterary Process. Bratislava:
VEDA/Slovak Academy of Sciences, 1989.
5.
DevAmiya, "Unity and Diversity in Indiaand Comparative
Literature," in Comparative Literature Now: Theories and Practice,
Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999. 65-74.