Evaluating Modernity and Modernism in Modern Indian Short Stories

(referencing “Shikar” and “Chaprasi”)

- Mrittika Saha
Department of Comparative Literature
Jadavpur University

Art has been one of the major aspects of Indian culture, be it through music, paintings, textiles
or literature. What astonishes further about it is the way colonialism impacted its modernity and
modernism, for that matter. India, a land of cultures and mythologies, literary and artistic
heritage, starts to progress in science and technology to such an extent that at times, their
credits were sabotaged for the Western people. However, the progress was never a new thing
for India, it just got delayed due to a lot of misleading. Thus, when the progressive and modern
literary movements should have arrived, India was busy questioning her abilities.

The introduction to the above question can be started with the fact that India has been adapting
to ‘modernity’ since time immemorial when she got invaded by several races and cultures,
adapting to the lifestyle and making it her own and giving birth to a modified version of
‘modernity’, only to face a setback after a while when a new invasion occurred. Thus, every time
Indian art tried to inculcate ‘modernity’ into their lives, ‘modernity’ changed its definitions and
turned into something new to understand and adapt to.

Talking about the Indian literary works and their progression throughout the times, the trait gets
repeated, it thought way ahead of its western counterparts in terms of plotting and adapting to
such characteristics. The mention of physical and sexual innuendos in early Sanskrit dramas
and poetry, the ideas that reflected didacticism, the relationships of masculine and feminine and
philosophies regarding that, different medical and scientific discoveries and advancements etc.
are all a part of the fact that Indian literature has always been ‘modern’. Due to the unfortunate
turn of events, the art got affected and so did the ideology and thought processes.

Modernity in Indian literature is visible in every literary work of different time periods in the sense
that when the world was busy creating and discovering their different literary traditions, India
created a few works in each of those categories somehow, way ahead of their times, got
criticised in the times of their release and then acclaimed their place when the ‘trend’ settled in
after a long while. When the term ‘progressive’ came during the colonial era, there was a huge
hype around it and it was used for those literary works and writers (mainly English educated)
whose works were themed around, grotesque, ‘forbidden’ and complex topics, things that were
not commonly talked or discussed and were considered as uncouth and also highly
controversial and critical. They got banned, they faced agitations, and still did not change the
straightforward honesty and relatability of the plots and the events described in them, thus, they
survived all of it.
However, modernity made writers write about the topics that people should have been aware of
like the social-political-economic scenarios along with the prevalent casteism, classism and new
advent of the communal disruptions in the latter part of the colonial period in India. These were
the major aspects of modernity in India and Indian literature at that time. Other aspects included
the writeups being mainly in English due to the colonial education system and most of them
were published mainly in nationalist magazines. The modernist approaches were not only
nationalist but also it upheld the internal nuances that the society had developed by then about
the caste and class, about the new ‘babu’ cultures and the connotations that certain words and
languages held. The literary works in this period not only showed the inside workings of the
colonial rule but also the fresh, post-colonial perspectives as well.

Modernism in Indian literature was, of course, prevalent along with modernity; the advent of
genres like short stories boosted it further during the 19th and 20th centuries. Short stories were
short in length, unlike novels which were published periodically in the magazines, they also had
open-to-interpret endings to them which made the readers think almost instantly because it did
not take much time to read. The genre became popular because of its format and it became a
mode of writing complex emotions and matters in a matter of a few pages and in a very simple
plot and stories, which seemed like anecdotes. The stories were not always casual or
merry-toned, but anecdotes regarding the socio-political scenario across the country and its
communities. They reflected what the people were unable to see and hear due to all the media
cover-ups by the colonial people and their deep-rooted beliefs and traditions.

Writers from various regions wrote about the exploitations, atrocities and socio-political issues
from their respective regions and even though the colonial period was about to end or did end,
the issues stayed back. ‘Shikar’ by Bhagabati Charan Panigrahi talked about how the British
turned their backs on the ideologies of justice and injustice, human and inhuman, as a result of
which the marginalized classes faced the punishments, trials and injustices. Ghinua belonged to
the poacher community in Odisha and he beheaded Govind Sardar, who was the landlord of
that region. Govind tried to rape Ghinua’s wife and thus an agitated Ghinua killed him. To him,
he killed a criminal who committed a lot of crimes and one such crime would have been raping
Ghinua’s wife. Ghinua also thought that killing such a criminal would fetch him hefty rewards,
but instead, he was punished by beheading.

What Ghinua missed was that killing rebels like Jhapat Singh fetched rewards because they
were obstacles for the British to fulfil their colonial propaganda of mining the regions and
snatching away their lands for business. What he also missed was killing people like Govind
Sardar was seen as a crime and Ghinua was considered as a criminal who was detrimental to
the society due to his ‘uncivilised’ culture. The bow-arrow-scythe might symbolise power and
strength for Ghinua’s clan but it symbolised ‘uncultured and dangerous’ for the ‘civilised’ people.
The British exploited marginalised people and peasants for the lands which were used for
mining, building admin properties and entertainment arenas and also for farming and cultivation-
everything for their business because India was seen as a land of cheap labourers (the
economic aspect). They also tried to remove them before they could revolt against the injustice.
Thus people like Ghinua started to hate upon the native upper-class people for turning their
backs. The early rebellions were from the marginalised sections and their credits have been
sabotaged till date, and they continue to get exploited till date due to the business, politics and
socio-religious ideologies; also, because they are still known to be ‘untouchables and
uncivilised’.

The effect of the colonial rule was so deep-rooted that even the rising middle-class Indians
started to exploit people based on class differences, after independence. ‘Chaprasi’ by Achha
Rai is one such story where a government clerk was exploited by a higher class Bengali person
who was also a Government servant but was in a higher designation than a clerk. People
belonging to hilly regions were looked down upon as servants and the character of chaprasi was
no exception in this case. Apart from the clerk-work, he had to do the household chores of the
upper-class ‘babu’ just because ‘babu’ ordered him to do. The payment was minimal but it got
added to his government salary and not only did he guard the house but also cooked for the
family, washed their clothes and every work that a household has along with the humiliations
and curses from the ‘memsahib’ and her daughter, who was much younger than him. The ‘babu’
scolded him for coming late to work even after knowing that he was busy with the household
chores. Words like ‘paria’ which indicates ‘paharia’ or ‘from the hills’, was used as a derogatory
term in this story to show the position of these people in the mainlands.

During the colonial period, people from villages and suburban areas came to the mainlands for
education and job opportunities. The chaprasi was not an exception to that. Nobody respected
him at home even though he treated everyone as his own. In the end, the chaprasi thought to
himself that he was better off in the British ruled period because at least they had their jobs
divided among a lot of labourers and there was no overworking, everyone did their assigned
work. Somewhere, he probably indicated that even though he was a servant, his ‘babu’ would
also have been one under them and he would not have gotten the audacity to misbehave with
the chaprasi and overwork him. The story not only described the internalised class division and
exploitation but also that colonial hangover was real and it was affecting the people. The
educated ‘babu’ class took over (with pride) the positions previously owned by the British and
started to prove that they were no less than them, however, ignoring the fact that they were not
being better in any way.

Other themes included the post-partition, independence and the formation of both the countries
India and Pakistan, how people reacted to it, what chaos people went through and how the
atrocities were more pronounced in form of communal riots and killings and refugees getting
killed, raped and exploited. Themes like military rule and killings based on mere suspicions and
raping women, like in that of Nagaland got written about but not talked about much and are still
existing today. These themes made up the modernity in the Indian literature and the progression
from writing fictions and imaginations for entertainment and leisure to writing fictions and
non-fictions to show the real image of the communities in India, how they are treated and
making people ponder upon them - is what Modernism in Indian Literature is all about. These
themes upheld the fact that these are kept hidden because these are the fallacies of the society
and its political rule. The pre-existing forms of literature never focused on these areas and made
it seem like normal and obvious but it is not. The tradition-bound mindset got shattered through
the introduction of these themes and thus it caused an upheaval in the society, people had a
hard time accepting that the pre-existing notions had loopholes and were wrong and framed in
many cases.

Modern Indian short stories not only introduced a new genre in Indian Literature but also
unfolded a lot of inner-workings of the society, presented them interestingly and attractively so
that the readers could get an entire picture and decide for themselves what was going on in
modern India; the open-endings of the short stories were intriguing and made readers ponder
about the conclusions. All in all, although being a gift of colonial education partly, it is undeniable
that the remarkable usage of the regional languages and the courageous upholding of the
complete truth made it popular in the Modern period. These short stories got translated into
English and various other languages so that the lingual diversity could not be an obstacle in
knowing the country’s scenario. This genre challenged all the pre-existing genres and their
content and rightfully had all the elements of modernity and the essence of Modernism.