Sapatgram College organizes webinar on founding fathers of Indian writing

KOKRAJHAR: A national webinar was organized by the Department of English under the IQAC, Sapatgram College, Sapatgram in collaboration with Writers & Writings, a literary forum, on Friday on the theme of 'The Founding Fathers of Indian Writing in English: Literary and Linguistic Perspectives'.

The webinar was chaired by Dr RP Singh, Principal of Sapatgram College. The chairman opened the session with a welcome note and then introduced two resource persons-Prof Gauri Shankar Jha, a retired professor in English, Government College of Arunachal Pradesh, and Dr. Raj Kumar Sharma, associate professor in English, Ranchi University, Ranchi, Jharkhand.

Dr. Ronchai Basumatary, coordinator of the programme and Head of the Department of English, Sapatgram College, explained the relevance of such deliberation on Indian writing in English. The first keynote speaker, Dr GS Jha, preferred to dwell over the literary perspective of the three founding fathers of Indian writing in English. He dealt with the role and contribution of the trio - Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and RK Narayan. To make his argument more substantial, he tracked the genesis of Indian writing in English, its initial phase of imitation and the subsequent growth and development. The stage of 'imitation' is but natural as a beginner and the later attainment of maturity establishes the abundance of effort by the following generation of writers, he said. "Not only that, we have evidence of swing towards the West. But when we come to the trio we find a different exercise altogether," he said, adding that Mulk Raj Anand preferred to dig deep in the lower strata, talking of the underprivileged and downtrodden. Raja Rao opted for the nationalistic temperament and philosophical spirituality and while RK Narayan was all Indian. Obviously, they wanted to transform the society and reconstruct the whole system, both social and political. As a consequence, their themes are that of the East-West encounter, widespread scenario of evils of all sorts and the call of Gandhi for freedom, said Dr Jha.

The second keynote speaker, Dr RK Sharma dealt with the linguistic aspect of Indian writing in English, particularly the trio. "The language of these writers is simple, lucid and accessible. We have a clear evidence of our sincere effort and honest advances,and so we have a writer like Tagore who could win the Nobel Prize in 1913. Our writers discovered their own vocabulary, grammar and style. That is why we have numerous writers like Salman Rushdie, Anita Desai, Arundhati Roy, Arvind Adiga and Shashi Tharoor. So our journey in establishing a unique equation in the field of language cannot be denied," Dr. Sharma said.

After that, there was a lively session of selected questions of participants to the panelists to allay their confusion which were responded by the panelists. Dr. Singh, the chairman, also raised certain questions regarding the possibility of creation of another Malgudi and trace of feminism in the writings of the trio.