Comparative Studies

 Hello Everyone,

I am Hinaba Sarvaiya, a student of the English department at MKBU. In this blog assigned by our pro. Dr. Dilip Barad sir. This blog is based on Comparative Indian literature to comparative literature. In this blog discuss the three articles by Sisir Kumar Das, Amiya Dev and Subha Chakraborty Dusgupta. 

1). Why Comparative Indian Literature? By Sisir Kumar Das.

Abstract:

Indian Literature is a mosaic construction of different languages and cultures. Comparative Indian Literature as a discipline underwent a long struggle to break away from the clutches of orientalist ideology that it derived from its origin in the colonial context. The Western of Comparative Literature is thoroughly inadequate for our purpose as it fails to address many of the complex factors which are a vital part of Indian culture. Comparative Indian Literature as a discipline and denies its possibility of being genuinely interdisciplinary.

Key Argument:-

-Can an area inequity clearly demarcated by linguistic and political boundaries serve the basic demands of comparative literature?

-Does not the area identified as Indian literature impose certain restrictions on the investigator and procondition him?

-Why should a scholar of literature prefer Indian literature to comparative literature, which promises a greater scope and a wider perspective?

The term comparative Indian literature is not self explanatory and it is necessary not only to define the term but also to defend the necessity of the qualifier. Indian literature means the sum total of literatures written in Indian languages, then it can hardly serve as a significant literary category.

Comparative literature emerged as a new discipline to counteract the notion of the autonomy of national literature. Its ultimate goal, though it is doubtful whether that can ever be achieved, is to visualise the total literary activities of man as a single universe. Investigation not only beyond one language and literature, but to as many as possible. 

Goethe wanted the common reader to come out of the narrow confines of his language and geography and to enjoy the finest achievement of man. The comparatist also wants to come out of the confines of language and geography, but not so much to identify the best in all literature as to understand the relationship between literatures in totality. They are focused on world literature. His goal too is world literature, not in one or own tradition but the sense of all literary traditions. 

Sisir Kumar Das arguithat comparative western literature is the study of different national literature, while comparative Indian literature is study of literature of one nation or according to some, of one national literature written in many languages. Today, when we have a nation state like India with many languages or a country like the Soviet Union consisting of several nationalities speaking different languages, the principle of relationship between national literature needs revision. Neither language nor political boundaries nor culture can be the sole criterion. Taking all this into consideration, comparative literature has to be both intralinguistic and Interlinguistic. 

Indian literature exposed the various current thought and literary traditions coming from various parts of the world. Comparative Indian literature not justifies the need for literary study, but it provides the comparative study of literature with a new range and vision. 

Conclusion:-

Sisir Kumar Das explains how the Eastern literatures created certain critical problems for the Western readers particularly those believing the infallibility of Western critical canons. They either dismissed oriental literatures as necessarily inferior or pleaded for a different set of canons for their evaluation. Our journey is not from comparative literature to comparative Indian literature,but from comparative Indian literature to comparative literature.

In this full article explanation see in this YouTube video. This Article is explained by Amena Rangwala and Divya Setha, students of the English department MKBU.

2) Comparative Literature and Culture by Amiya Dev

Abstract:

In his article, "Comparative Literature in Indian", Amiya Dev bases his discussion on the fact that India has many languages and literature representing a prior situation and conditions of diversity. He therefore argues that to speak of Indian literature in the singular is problematic. Nonetheless, Dev also observes that to speak of Indian literature in the plural is equally problematic. Such a characterization, he argues either overlooks or obscures manifest interrelations and affiliates.

Key Argument:-

-His surveys the current scholarly and intellectual positions on unity and diversity and looks into the post structuralist doubt of homogenisation of differences in the name of unity.

-Search for common denominators and possible patterns of togetherness.

-Underlines location and located inter-indian reception as an aspect of inter-literariness.

-Indian language and literature ever in the remaking.

In this article, Amiya Dev discusses an apriori location of comparative literature with regard to aspects of diversity and unity in India. He argues that in the case of India the study of literature should involve the notion of the inter literary process and a dialectical view of literary interaction. He give to example of previous censuses in 1961 & 1971 recorded a total of 1,652 languages in the last census of 1981 some 221 spoken languages and 22 major languages spoken in the area of particular educational institutions. 

India is a country of immense linguistic diversity and thus a country of many literatures. To Speaking of Indian literature in singular is problematic. The very term ‘Indian Literature’ shows the homogenization of differences in the name of unity. This fails to address the diversity and distinctness of literature in India. This pseudo commonality/ oneness is an Ideological and political tool. It is an inevitable part of both the colonial and the postcolonial perspective. The former is characterised by a reductive, homogenizing approach and the latter found in the motto of Sahitya Akademi: “Indian literature is one though written in many languages”. These image formations (India/ Indian literatures as one) result in stereotyping.

According to Amiya Dev, Indian literature is neither a simple unity as the hegemonists of the nation – state persuasion would like to be, nor a simple diversity as the relativists or post structuralists would like it to be. To him Indian literature is neither “one” nor “many'' but rather a systematic whole where many subsystems interact towards one. That is, Indian literature is neither a unity nor is it a total differential.

Amiya Dev refutes the Eurocentric notion of one world literature. To him, the European idea of Comparative Literature is governed by its imperialist ideologies. India on the other hand tried to resist this European reductive, stereotypic and homogenizing approach.

Gurbhagat Singh who has discussed the notion of "differential Multilocus". He doesn't accept the idea of Indian literature as such, he rejects the notion of Indian literature because the notion as such includes and promotes a national identity. Comparative literature is the study of world literature.  

Jaidev criticising the fad of existentialist aestheticism in the same contemporary Indian fiction, develops an argument for this cultural differential approach. He questioned situs and theory and Commonality and the oneness. Amiya Dev suggests as a primary situs of the Indian theorists and theory that the cultural commonality Jaidev structure is applicable instead is our contemporary literature in India because it is here that the danger of a oneness construction the process of nation state construction looms.

Umashankar Joshi's "The idea of Indian Literature" he recognised the possibility of the idea being hijacked by right wing hindu ideology. He refused to recognise the multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-culture. Nature of the country and its literature that lends itself to a plurality of reading.

Aijaz Ahmad's in theory: Classes, Nation, Literatures. He suggests an aggregate and unsatisfied categories of Indian literature. Also he argued that the notion of "European literature" is at best an umbrella designation and at worst a pedagogical imposition while Indian literature is classified and categorizable. 

Ahmad's concern is with the hegemony of English, although he does not suggest its abolition in a way which would be close to Ngugi's argument. He argued that "On the abolition of the English department". Why the English department? He looked at the narrow mind. India is a growth of philanthropy, history, spirituality, psychology, political science ect. India did not become narrow minded. 

Swapan Majumdar takes this systemic approach in his 1985 book, Comparative Literature: Indian Dimensions, where Indian literature is neither a simple unity as hegemonists of the nation state persuasion would like it to be, not a simple diversity as relativists or post structuralist would like it to be. That is, Majumdar suggests that Indian literature is neither One nor Many but rather a systemic whole where many subsystems interact toward one in a continuous and never ending dialectic. 

The approach Das has taken is methodologically pragmatic. Das's work on the literature of the nineteenth century in India does not designate this Indian literature a category by itself. Rather the work suggests a rationale for the proposed research, the objective being to establish whether a pattern can be found through the ages. One age's pattern may not be the same as another age's and this obviously preempts any given unity of Indian literature. Thus Das's method and results to date show that Indian literature is neither a unity nor is it a total differential. 

U.R. Anantha Murthy is the current president of the Comparative Literature association of India in addition to being the president of Sahiya Akademi. His discipline of comparative literature reflects the binary approach to the question of Indian. His approach concerns a subtle move away from the routine unity approach and towards aspects of inter Indian reading and in the context of unity and diversity in a dialectical inter literary process and situation.

Conclusion:-

Comparative literature has taught us not to take comparison literally and it also taught us that theory formation in literary history is not universally tenable. Amiya Dev suggests that we should first look at ourselves and try to understand our own situations as thoroughly as possible. Let us first give full shape to our own comparative Literatures and then we will formulate a comparative literature of diversity in general.

In this full article explanation see in this YouTube video. This Article is explained by Divya Parmar and Mayuri Pandya, students of the English department MKBU.

Here click to read a third article by Subha Chakraborty Dusgupta.