75 Years Ago in These Pages

A Review of The Indian Literatures of Today: A Symposium, by Bharatan Kumarappa (International Book House, 1947)

“This volume contains sixteen addresses which give short résumés of the histories in modern times of the fourteen principal vernacular languages of India, plus a history of Sanskrit literature, and a very slight paper on English by Sidhanta. Except possibly for Kashmiri, no modern literary language is omitted. The speakers are scholars, public officials, poets, and critics [who attended] the All-India Writers’ Conference in Jaipur in 1945. . . .

The recent dispute in India on the question of a national language is somewhat illuminated here by reference to the subjection of Assamese by Bengali with British encouragement, the prejudice in Indian universities against the use of Maithili for literary expression, the lack of a university to support writing in Marathi, and the preference of most Punjab writers for Urdu or English. The most informative surveys are those which contain fuller accounts of more important writers, or those which pay attention to movements, like the large European influence on Bengali writing which seeps through to Assamese, the Sikh and Persian Sufi influence on Punjabi, and the revolt against classicism and romanticism with the rise of social consciousness and realism in most of these literatures.”

—G. L. Anderson, Books Abroad 24, no. 2 (Spring 1950): 191–92