On Krishna Mohan Banerjea, 1813-1885, Indian Missionery, scholar, and patriot.

A unique study of how a deeply religious country like India acquired the laws and policies of a secular state, highlighting the contradictory effects of British imperial policies, the complex role played by Indian Christians, and how this highly divided community shaped its own identity and debated that of their new nation.

The Making of Indian English Literature brings together seventeen well-researched essays of Subhendu Mund with a long introduction by the author historicising the development of the Indian writing in English while exploring its identity among the many appellations tagged to it. The volume demonstrates, contrary to popular perceptions, that before the official introduction of English education in India, Indians had already tried their hands in nearly all forms of literature: poetry, fiction, drama, essay, bio­graphy, autobiography, book review, literary criticism and travel writing. Besides translation activities, Indians had also started editing and publish­ing periodicals in English before 1835. Through archival research the author brings to discussion a number of unknown and less discussed texts which contributed to the development of the genre. The work includes exclusive essays on such early poets and writers as Kylas Chunder Dutt, Shoshee Chunder Dutt, Toru Dutt, Mirza Moorad Alee Beg, Krupabai Satthianadhan, Swami Vivekananda, H. Dutt, and Sita Chatterjee; and historiographical studies on the various aspects of the genre. The author also examines the strategies used by the early writers to indianise the western language and the form of the novel. The present volume also demonstrates how from the very beginning Indian writing in English had a subtle nationalist agenda and created a space for protest literature. The Making of Indian English Literature will prove an invaluable addition to the studies in Indian writing in English as a source of reference and motivation for further research. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The three plays collected in the volume are ‘The Persecuted’ by Krishna Mohan Banerjee, ‘Rizia’ by Michael Madhusudan Dutt, and ‘Kaminee’ (anon.) From the beginning, Indian dramatists who chose to write in English made sociopolitical statements that resonate even today. The unavailability of their plays has resulted in little or no analysis other than secondary references, often inaccurate. For the first time, three of these texts have been unearthed and reprinted in this volume, enhanced by a general introduction, separate introductions to each play, and explanatory notes. Krishna Mohana Banerjea based ‘The Persecuted, or Dramatic Scenes Illustrative of the Present State of Hindoo Society in Calcutta’ (1831), the first Indian drama in English, on his own experience of ostracism after his “Young Bengal” friends flouted the conservative codes at his home. Michael Madhusudan Dutt composed in Madras his first play, ‘Rizia: Empress of Inde’ (1855), a tragedy about the 13th-century Sultana of Delhi who loved her Abyssinian slave. It has been reconstructed with the aid of a recently-discovered manuscript in Dutt’s hand. The anonymously-published ‘Kaminee: The Virgin Widow’ (1874) relates the fate of an accomplished teenage widow in Calcutta when the Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act has become law yet most people pay no heed to it.

A detailed assessment of how Western thinking about India developed in the nineteenth century, focusing on the exceptionally full lives of the scholar-administrator Muir brothers. Structured around the lives and careers of two Scottish scholar-administrator brothers, Sir William and Dr John Muir, who served in the East India Company and the Raj in North-West India from 1827-1876, this book examines cultural, especially religious and educational attitudes and interactions during the period. The core of the study centres on a detailed examination of the brothers' seminal works on Vedic and Islamic history and society which, researched from Sanskrit and Arabic sources, became standard reference works on India's religions during the Raj. The publication of these works coincided with the outbreak of the Indian Uprising of 1857, on the nature of which William's correspondence with his brother and others allows some reconsideration, especially in respect of Muslim participation. Powell also examines the response of Indian Muslim scholars, particularly of Sir Saiyid Ahmad Khan, to William's critiques of Islam and the brothers' patronage of Oriental scholarship, comparative religion and education during their long retirement back in their native Scotland. The study contributes to current debates about the Scottish contribution to Empire with particular reference to India and to cultural issues. AVRIL A. POWELL is Reader Emerita in the History Department at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

The study of modern Indian responses to the challenge of pluralism reveals the outcome of 2500 years of experience in this "living laboratory" of religious encounter, and offers wisdom to the modern West in its relatively recent encounter with this challenge. A remarkable team of scholars joins forces in this book to examine how religious pluralism actually functions in India. It focuses on both the responses from within Hinduism and of other religions in India, with chapters on Parsis, Indian Islam, Indian Christianity, Sikhism, and Tibetan Buddhism.

On the life and work of Krishna Mohan Banerjea, 1813-1885, Indian Missionary, scholar, and patriot; with special reference to Bengal renaissance and Hindu converts.