Mapping An Elusive Terrain by Minakshi Mukherjee

                  At the very beginning of the essay, Mukherjee declares that it is not an easy job to map the literary landscape of India. She states obvious reasons that there are limitless languages in India that are far more in number than mentioned in the 8th schedule of the constitution. Mukherjee also comments on the Sahitya Akademi's motto that states all Indian literature is one but as Mukherjee points out there is no homogeneity (similarity) among the different languages in India.

                 Meenakshi Mukherjee through her essay classifies 5 major debates that consolidate the different issues in the literary scene of India. These debates include the following ;

1. Progressivism 
2. Modernism 
3. Feminism
4. Dalit Literature
5. Translation

                Then Mukherjee talks about the changing nature and elusivity of the modern society where India is going through a rapid change. Even the definition of literature is changing with its due course. What was considered marginal a few decades earlier is now part of mainstream literature.

                She also talks about the impact of globalisation, wherein Indian writers who write in English are getting global recognition and acclaim. She also comments upon the commercialization of books wherein the commerce and the financial feasibility are taken into consideration before the publication of the book and books too have now been commodified.

Modernism :

                           b  At the beginning of her discussion on modernism, Meenakshi quotes an instance when she attended a literary forum in Pune where the topic of literary modernism in India was being discussed and after analyzing works from various Indian languages, it was observed that one common factor was resembling in all their modern works across languages. and it was, "the central character in each novel was inevitably alienated from his immediate social context"

                           The theme of alienation was trending in that decade and many acclaimed works like in Marathi; Bhalchandra Nemade's "Kosla", and Kiran Nagarkar's "Saat Sakkam Tre Chalis" were great examples of this recurring theme which was at the center of each of these novels.

                           Mukherjee then quotes a line from Senior Marathi writer, Vinda Karandikar's speech at the forum, where he sarcastically says that how alienation had become an indivisible part of modern writing and in order to be modern, one has to be alienated and he (Karandikar) was happy that Marathi literature was not lagging behind in this aspect, he had said jokingly.

                            Then Mukherjee poses the central question in the debate on modernism in India. The debate was regarding the question, of whether modernism had appeared in India only as a response to the West, or it occurred naturally, due to its own respective reasons.

                           Finally, Mukherjee concludes that like in Europe, India too had gone through a social and cultural transformation in the early 20th century that brought modernity to India. Some of the reasons for this rapid change were the breakdown of joint families, the devastating results of world war 2, the man-made famines of the early 1940s that led to the mass migration of people to the urban areas, followed by large-scale displacement and trauma caused by the partition of the country.

                           Mukherjee also acknowledges the fact that Indian writers were undoubtedly influenced by European modernism, but the sense of alienation that prevailed in our texts was not merely copied from Kafka or Camus, there were circumstances in the society that led to the fragmentation of Indian literary discourse.

Progressivism :

                         Mukherjee begins her discussion on the debate of progressivism with a brief history of the development of the All India Progressive Writer's Association (AIPWA) which was an organized front of writers in India who advocated a change in the literary landscape of India. AIPWA  was drafted in London in the early 1930s by a group of Indian students including Sajjad Zaheer and Mulkraj Anand and its manifesto was published in "Left Review" and later it was translated into Hindi by Premchand in his journal "Hans" in October 1935.

                        Mukherjee also highlights Premchand's famous opening speech at the first conference of AIWPA, in which he famously pleaded that literature that would generate "Gati, Sangharsh and Bechaini" i.e. dynamism, struggle, and unease. Premchand's presidential address is still remembered for its sincerity, clarity, and timeliness.

                        The AIPWA's manifesto largely stated the writer's social responsibility but did not constrain or limit the writer's imagination and creative process, they (writers) wrote and explored the topic they wanted. But the opposition between "Progressivism" and "Modernism" kept on.

                        The conflict between 'progressivism' and 'modernism' was largely based on the two sets of approaches, wherein advocates of 'progressivism' used literature to highlight injustice and oppression, and the advocates of 'modernism' focused on the predicament of the individual in a fragmented society, which consisted of the theme of alienation.

                     

                        But in today's time as Mukherjee explains the divide is not so polarised because the literary scene in the contemporary time is so complicated. 

Feminism :