Nativism: Essays in Criticism

Emanating from the bahujan samaj- the majority of ordinary people who make up the plurality of Indian civilization-Nativism is a form of indigenous literary criticism whose agenda can be summed up as a cry for cultural self-respect and autonomy. In the welter of derived and derivative critical theories which confound contemporary Indian cultural studies, nativism is, perhaps, the only home-grown school of criticism to have emerged in post-independence India.

In recent years, it has received greater attention because of the efforts of two bilingual critics, Bhalchandra Nemade and G. N. Devy. Based on a seminar on "The Concept of Desivad-(Nativism) in Indian Literature," this book is the first collection of critical essays on the concept and its applications.

The fifteen essays included here introduce and define the concept, analyse its classical, medieval, and colonial backgrounds, trace its evolution into the contemporary critical field, debate its strengths and weaknesses, and, finally, attempt to put it into practice by applying it to contemporary literary works. In addition, Bhalchandra Nemade's original Marathi essay on nativism, published in 1983, which introduced the concept, is included here in its first, complete English translation.

All told, this book is a pioneering and timely intervention in the critical scene today. It poses a challenge to the dominant, market-driven, globalising, and totalising intellectual and cultural trends of our times which threaten to marginalize and subdue our native ways of life. What is more, it does so without uncritically yielding to imported technologies of subversion, whether Marxist, feminist, postmodernist, or otherwise. This book is an attempt to show that there are alternative possibilities of facing up to our present cultural crises.

About the Author:

Makarand Paranjape, an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT-Delhi, is an Indian English poet, novelist, and critic.

Preface		ix
Part I: Introduction
Seminar on Nativism: Welcome Speech
	Indra Nath Choudhuri	1
Desivad: Keynote Address G. N. Devy		5
Defining the Premises: Nativism and its
	Ambivalences K. Satchidanandan	14
Part II: Backgrounds
Nativism: The Intellectual Background
	R. B. Patankar	28
Denial and Affirmation: A Proposal for the
	Language of Marga-Desi Discourse Wagish Shukla	49
Cultural Discourse: Desi and Marga
	M. Srimannarayana Murti	58
Part III: Debates
The Betrayal of Polyphony: Blocked Possibilities
	of Criticism in IndiaGurbhagat Singh	84
A Critique of Nativism in Contemporary Indian
	Theatre Prasanna	95
Nativism: An Area of Introspection Rajee Seth		102
Nation versus Nativism Sudhir Kumar		113
G. N. Devy: The Nativist as Postcolonial Critic
	Debjani Ganguly	129
Beyond Nativism: Towards a Contemporary Indian
	Tradition in Criticism Makarand Paranjape	153
Part IV: Practice
A Comparative Study of Nativistic Intertextuality
	in Indian Fiction Anand Patil	177
Parishkruti (Nativism) in the Post-modern Gujarati
	Short Story Ajit Thakor	211
The World of Vaid's Fiction
	Jaidev	222
Appendix
Nativism in Literature Bhalchandra Nemade		233
Contributors		255