Write in detail about the genesis of Indian English poetry.

Today, in the second decade of the 21st century, English seems to have a very stable, even natural, place in India’s social and cultural life. But even today, when we step out of our cities and go deep into the interiors of the hinterland, the foreignness of English at once becomes clear. Hardly anyone can really understand the language and if a few do, their command over it is questionable. That is why the English, Americans and other native speakers of English continue to speak loudly, haltingly, or through interpreters when they are in India. But about 200 years ago, when the British were far from established in India, when the sight of Englishmen was a great novelty in the streets of Indian cities, the English language was very much a foreign tongue. Yet, the fact remains that nearly a quarter of a century before English education was institutionalized or the first Indian universities were founded, there was already a growing crop of Indians who chose English to write  their poetry in.

Indian English poetry was the product of a large cultural or civilizational encounter between Britain and India. Let us try to understand this encounter in some depth before we focus more directly on Indian English poetry.

British imperialism started by concentrating on trade. It had a policy of non- interference with the religious and cultural traditions of the people it conquered. Conquest itself was not the aim to begin with but was almost thrust upon the East India Company in its fight to protect its trade interests. The volatile political situation after the fall of the Mughal empire gave John Company (as the East India Company was popularly known) a unique opportunity to meddle in the affairs of the warring Indian princes. The Company used its leverage as a seemingly neutral outsider to its advantage. After its trading settlements in Surat and Hoogly were attacked, it began to fortify them and to arm itself. It raised an army mostly by recruiting local mercenaries and training them in  modern, European  methods of  warfare. In the Battle of Plassey in 1757 a small but well trained army of Indians, led by a small bank of British officers under Robert Clive, defeated the huge but divided army of Siraj-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Bengal. The model of this battle can be seen in that uniquely Indian tribute to the Raj, the Victoria Memorial, in Calcutta. The Battle of Plassey inaugurated a series of military victories for the British, culminating in an almost unprecedented paramountcy over the whole of the Indian sub-continent.

It was through this conquest that India bore the full brunt of Western or, more properly, modern culture. This impact was extensive and thorough going so as to entirely transform Indian society. Such an upheaval, perhaps, had no parallel in Indian history. Even the impact of Muslim rule in India  had arguably been less far-reaching. It is not for us to  analyse or describe this impact in great detail. That would not only be outside the scope of such  a course, but also somewhat tangential to our central concern, which is with Indian English poetry. It is only important to bear in mind  that the British rule in India was not only oppressive, but also highly exploitative. It was a system in which India’s wealth was systematically extracted and expropriated by Britain.

But on the flip side the British also built the railways and developed the post and telegraph system. They built canals and developed Indian infrastructure in some areas. Indians began to access the rich trove of knowledge, both in the humanities and social sciences and in science and technology, which the West had through their access to English education. English had been  introduced by the British as an aid to establishing the empire by the famous Minute of Macaulay in 1835.

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