The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : `Postcolonial studies help us understand our place'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 11, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

`Postcolonial studies help us understand our place'

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, FEB. 10 . "Our knowledge of English wins respect for Indians internationally and attracts foreign universities to collaborate with educational institutions in India. Postcolonial studies help us understand our place in a global context," S.P.Thyagarajan, Vice-Chancellor, University of Madras, said today.

He was inaugurating a national conference on "Teaching Postcolonial Texts: Theory and Strategy" here. The event was organised by the Departments of English at Ethiraj College for Women and the university in association with the Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (IACLALS).

Launched in 1964 by the late C.D. Narasimhaiah, IACLALS' Indian chapter, the largest among 10 international centres, always promoted interactions among teachers and influenced new orientations in teaching all over the country, said C. Vijayasree, secretary, IACLALS. "This is the first time a college is associated with hosting our conference."

Harish Trivedi, vice-chairman, IACLALS, introduced the theme of the conference. While postcolonial theories emerged from the West, the three-day session (February 10-12) would probe whether they were merely repeated in the classrooms or whether Indian teachers were evolving their own perspectives based on the subcontinent's literary traditions.

T. Vijayakumar, treasurer, IACLALS, said the organisation's annual conferences allotted one session for a country in focus. "But this time Caribbean literature attracted an unprecedented number of abstracts, leading to sessions spread over two days."

`Narrative of recollection'

Introduced by the literary scholar, Meenakshi Mukherjee, chairperson, IACLALS, as a writer who achieved excellence in fiction, U. R. Anantha Murthy, who delivered the keynote address, wove a narrative out of recollection and analysis. His father and grandfather had accepted the British colonisers as authorities who maintained law and order, but had not allowed them to tamper with their emotional, cultural and spiritual space. They learnt English, but retained their svada (taste) intact. They knew that India's bhakti cult had inspired movements for social justice, while self-critical modern writers waged a battle with smugness. But succeeding generations paid a great price for `progress' and `development'. Would Indian culture have survived without the languages of the `illiterate' masses?

Dr. Anantha Murthy believed that by teaching texts translated from India's regional tongues and re-interpreting them critically, English teachers could foster ways of learning to negotiate with the past. Plural significations would emerge and co-exist and the new `tastes' would enrich, not exterminate the old.

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