Recent Trends in Indian English Novels: A Journey from Darkness to Enlightenment

India is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. It has the world's twelfth largest economy at market exchange rates and the fourth largest in purchasing power. Economic reforms since 1991 have transformed it into one of the fastest growing economies; however, it still suffers from high levels of caste system, untouchability, poverty, illiteracy, disease, and malnutrition. India, from time immemorial, has remained a fragmented society owing to the caste system. Almost one-sixth of India's population, some 160 million people, constitutes what B.R. Ambedkar called the "depressed classes". They live a precarious existence, shunned by much of society because of their rank as "untouchables" or Dalits, literally meaning "broken" people at the bottom of India's caste system. Despite the fact that untouchability was abolished under India's constitution in 1949, the practice of untouchability, the imposition of social disabilities on persons by reason of their birth in certain castes, remains very much a part of India. Most Dalits continue to live in extreme poverty, without land or opportunities for better employment or education. With the exception of a minority who have benefited from India's policy of quotas in education and government jobs, Dalits are relegated to the most menial of tasks, as manual scavengers, removers of human waste and dead animals, leather workers, street sweepers, and cobblers. Illiteracy, unemployment, poverty and social backwardness of Dalits are the root causes for their backwardness. In the absence of a well-established tradition of historiography literature has been the only reliable source of Indian social history for ages. As Indian literature is witnessing major changes, caste, class, and gender issues and similar social concerns have emerged as dominant themes in the literature being produced in Hindi, English and various regional languages across India. It is generally agreed that the novel is the most suitable literary form for the exploration of experiences and ideas in the context of the present time, and Indian English novel occupies its proper place in the field of literature. It is now readily accepted abroad. In fact Indian English novelists have elevated themselves by overtaking novelists whose mother-tongue is English in the race to win major literary awards. Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss and Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger won Booker Prize respectively in 1997, 2006 and 2008. The God of Small Things and The White Tiger reveal the story of untouchables, their condition and problems. India's untouchables are mounting a rebellion against upper-caste privilege. They are breaking their thousands years' silence and trying to sensitize the society. Education and exposure to literature have helped the untouchables to move forward from the ideas of contamination and pollution forced upon them by the upper castes. Identifying their situation with the blacks in America could have been possible only through exposure to education and literature. Dalit literature, being the most powerful form of literary expression today, has acquired a prestigious position in Indian English literature. It focuses on writing that includes Dalit characters, or descriptions of Dalit life and experiences. Influenced by post-modern literary

movements, it questions mainstream literary theories and upper caste ideologies and explores the invisible twilight zones of neglected issues. The literature is essentially against exploitation, and made use of writing as a method of propaganda for the movement. In fact, the first systematic exploration of anti-caste ideas is included in Buddhist works. Later the Bhakti poetry of the fourteenth century attempted an amalgamation of the castes and the outcastes. In the modern era, Dalit literature received its first impetus with the advent of leaders like Mahatma Phule and Ambedkar, who brought forth the issues of Dalits through their works and writings; this started a new trend in Dalit writing and inspired many Dalits and non-Dalits to come forth with writings in Marathi, Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi and English. By the 1960s, Dalit literature saw a fresh crop of new writers Mahasweta Devi, Namdeo Dhasal, Daya Pawar, Arjun Dangle, Sachi Rautray, Rabi Singh, Basudev Sunani, Bama, Abhimani, Poomani, Imayam, Marku, Mangal Rathod, Neerave Patel, Perumal Murugan, Palamalai, Sudhakar, D. Gopi and others. In the postcolonial era Mulk Raj Anand's novel Untouchable and The Road, Raja Rao's Kanthapura, Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, Narendra Jadhav's Outcast: a Memoir Life and Triumphs of an Untouchable Family in India , Vikas Swarup's Q & A and Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger have faithfully documented the social history of the untouchables. Together they constitute a powerful critique of the moral corruption and hypocrisy of the Indian society which allows untouchability to continue. The work offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of modern India. Mulk Raj Anand has established a new type of novel with Untouchable (1935) that articulates the abuses of an exploited class through sheer sympathy in the traditionalist manner of the realist novel. He is, indeed, the "fiery voice" of those people who form the Untouchable caste. Raja Rao's Kanthapura (1938) is perhaps the finest representation of the Gandhian whirlwind in Indian English fiction. It presents the Gandhian ideology of non-violence and abolition of untouchability. The God of Small Things, debut novel of Arundhati Roy, is a story of forbidden, cross-caste love and what a community will do to protect the old ways. Roy, a great champion of the cause of the Dalit and the deserted, points out those unnoticed shades of a social problem which generally escape the eyes of social scientist in the novel. Roy's portrayal of the plight of the untouchable is very near to Mulk Raj Anand. Velutha, the protagonist of the novel, is very close to Bakha in both his vision and vesture. He, too like Bakha, has to fight for his existence in society. Veluth can never co-exist peaceful with the "touchable" communities for as long as there is the stigma of untouchability attached to him and countless others like him. Dr. Narendra Jadhav is a well known economist, public speaker and a social worker. His novel 'Outcast - Life and Triumphs of an Untouchable Family in India' has been published in 2003 by Penguin, India. Compelling and deeply compassionate, the novel is an illuminating chronicle of one of the most important moments in Indian history. It is an eye-opening work that gives readers access and insight into the lives of India's 165 million Dalits, whose struggle for equality continues even today. Jadhav recounts his family's remarkable journey from penury to privilege. In the novel, Jadhav tells the awe-inspiring story of his family's struggle for equality and justice in India. He vividly brings his parents' world to light and unflinchingly documents the life of untouchables -- the hunger, the cruel humiliations, the perpetual fear and brutal abuse. While

most Dalits had accepted their lowly position as fate, Jadhav's father, Damu, rebelled against the oppressive caste system and fought against all odds to forge for his children a destiny that was never ordained. It is a story of survival, of oppression as grievous as slavery or apartheid, and of victory, as the author gets an education and learns to embrace his identity and become a spokesman for his community. Q & A is one of the most famous novels of the twenty-first century. Vikas Swarup's debut novel is already translated into 37 languages and garnering awards around the world. The novel is a tale of a young boy's rise from the Indian slums to national fame. This is the story of an orphaned eighteen-year-old boy, Ram Mohammed Thomas, who is currently a waiter at a bar in Mumbai, and has just won a Billion rupees in a game show. Mainly the book narrates the life of Ram Mohammad Thomas from his birth to the present; each chapter deals with a different phase of his life. The people behind the show think he has cheated, and Ram Mohammad Thomas finds himself in the jail. The whole book is about him proving his innocence. He recounts episodes from his life in Mumbai, Delhi and Agra, and how each incident helped him find the correct answer to the question being posed to him. Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger is a winner of Man Booker Prize 2008. A brutal view of India's class struggles is cunningly presented in Adiga's debut about a racist, homicidal chauffer. Balram Halwai is from the Darkness, born where India's downtrodden and unlucky are destined to rot. Balram manages to escape his village and move to Delhi after being hired as a driver for a rich landlord. Telling his story in retrospect, the novel is a piecemeal correspondence from Balram to the premier of China, who is expected to visit India and whom Balram believes could learn a lesson or two about India's entrepreneurial underbelly. Adiga's existential and crude prose animates the battle between India's wealthy and poor as Balram suffers degrading treatment at the hands of his employers (or, more appropriately, masters). His personal fortunes and luck improve dramatically after he kills his boss and decamps for Bangalore. Balram is a clever and resourceful narrator with a witty and sarcastic edge that endears him to readers, even as he rails about corruption, allows himself to be defiled by his bosses, and spews coarse invective and eventually profits from moral ambiguity and outright criminality. It's the perfect antidote to lyrical India. In this way, these novels encapsulate the pain, humiliation, and poverty of this community, which has lived at the bottom of India's social pyramid for millenia. These are truly inspiring book, that reveals untouchables 's quest for dignity and the recognition of their human worth, rather than to India's own success in eradicating the evils of the caste system, for its inequalities and iniquities persist. There is much here both for the foreigner, ignorant of much that is hidden in India, and for Indians who are all too familiar with caste. These novels are a sign that change is possible in India and that indeed it is, if slowly, underway. The clock will go forward, for too many now in India see what the Buddha saw two thousand years ago.

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