ERASING THE INDIAN LITERATURE

The auspicious day of 7th May marks the Birth Anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranth Tagore every year.

This time, it is going to be the 160th one. 

This first Asian and Indian to win Nobel Prize for Literature who wrote all his masterpieces in his mother tongue, Bengali, and himself translated them into English.

 

 We all remember this great artist as a symbol of national pride and a representative of the Indian culture but we tend to forget the unfortunate current scenario intentionally or unintentionally.

 Considering the present situation is the need of the hour.

On focussing our attention towards the hard reality, we find the condition of literature in Indian languages abysmal if not pathetic. 

We lack the different genres in our literature which is exactly the topsy-turvy of what is evident in the Western literature. 

Not only Western, but different languages are producing significant amount of International standard novels in the orients also. 

But, unfavoured by fortune, we haven't been able to win a single International booker prize till date.

Searching the best contemporary authors of our country on any search engine would only end up making us read the names of English authors of the Indian origin. 

While 3 Indians of pure race have won the English Manbooker Prize, there are only 3 authors from our country who have been just nominated for the International Booker Prize, only 2 of them from Indian languages.

The factors causing this continuous fiascos of our authors and languages are manifold. 

But the major of them being the lack of promotion of art in our still orthodox society and the lack of training that Indian authors do suffer from. 

Western authors like Dan Brown have been trained formally in creative writing and are earning good wealth through their writings but in our country no such facility is provided to the budding authors, not is authorship considered a sustainable profession. 

Moreover, the most sophisticated authors as well as readers are inclined towards the English language.

 The dominance of the English language can be seen if we check the names of the most successful authors of our country and the languages in which they write.

 

 English has the cream of our author-crowd and is another factor for the degradation of our languages.

Such situation can only be altered if the government makes significant expiations in our education system, focussing more on the study of Indian languages and instilling a sense of pride in our culture. 

Financial assistance should be given to the upcoming writers and poets so that they can practice their art without any monetary burden.

 But these are merely policy changes. The real onus is on the society itself to leave this mental slavery of colonial mindset and move forward towards embracing our own culture and languages.

Rightly quoted by Rabindranth Tagore," Jodi tore dak shune keu na aashe, tobe ekla cholo re"( if nobody listens to your plight and come, then you walk alone). 

Language is the base of any culture and we must protect our roots to eventually protect the tree under which we live.

*VATSAL DIXIT*