On the last day of
the commencing month of the year. I once again got an opportunity to participate
in the fourth DPC (Doctoral Progress Committee) meeting of a Ph.D. candidate
Devani Dipali under the supervision of Dr. Yatharth Vaidya sir at the GTU. The
meeting was held today via Google Meet where I was accompanied by my friend Dr.
Nishant Pandya as another DPC member. The candidate shared about the progress
of her research so far and the remarkable role of C. D. Narsimhaiah as a
seminal Indian literary critic.
It is evident that the
IWE (Indian Writing in English) has its own complex origin and sensibility
while growing under the British paramountcy. As per that cliché and jaundiced
British perspective according to which India was a nation of snake-charmers and
magicians, the English literature produced in India cannot gain due recognition.
Indian use of English, as per John Wain and others, lacked the finesse and
delicacy and could be considered just a lingua franca. In such a
smothering scenario, critics like Narsimhaiah endeavoured to defend the IWE and
reclaim its voice.
He underlined the need to
focus on the unique Indianness in the works under the canon of IWE. The lens
of western literary criticism cannot do justice to study the texts that are deeply
rooted in the Indian culture and aesthetics. She mentioned that Narsimihaiah
embodies a larger story of Indian academia’s negotiation with global modernity and
postcolonial identity.
The researcher came up
with some interesting references from the works of I. A. Richards, F. R. Lewis,
T.S. Eliot, Matthew Arnold etc. References in her research ranged from Bankim
Chandra to Banu Mushtaq and from M.K. Naik to Meenakshi Mukherjee, making it
even more significant in the age of NEP 2020 and IKS. Nishant and I made few
suggestions to further enrich the ongoing research project. It was a pleasure
interacting with my teacher Yatharth Vaidya sir and my friend Nishant.
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