The Indian Novel: The Indigenization of the English Novel in India

1 Over three centuries after the arrival of the first printing press on the Indian subcontinent, in 1865 Indian authors such as Bankim Chandra Chatterjee began shaping the concept of the Indian novel. For these first three centuries the printing press and book culture had been under the control of European colonizers. In the late nineteenth century as the Indian nationalist movement began, the press and its products, for this paper specifically novels, gained new importance. In a tribute to Chatterjee, India’s first novelist, Aurobindo Ghosh wrote, “No nation can grow without finding a fit and satisfying medium of expression for the new self into which it is developing. ” Ghosh’s comment, made in 1940 at the heart of India’s anti-colonial movement, gives Chatterjee credit for providing the Indian people a way of expressing their unique colonial identity.1 The history and nature of the novel in India lent itself to indigenization. In the second half of the nineteenth century, readership of the British novel exploded. However, the identity of the Indian people challenged British intentions for the novel. Through their choice of authors and books, purchased and borrowed, and the continuation of traditional public, oral reading practices, the British novel was indigenized. As Alexis Tadie argues, “The novel exists throug