...Emancipation Of Women and their role in nationalist movement in Raja Rao’s Kanthapura Raja Rao’s first published work in English, the Kanthapura had a rather controversial and revolutionary plot in accordance with women being participants of nationalist movements. The third world countries, at that time, were opposed to the idea of women in the socio-political realms. Kanthapura drove through barriers of male dominance and female regression that prevailed in India at that time and Raja Rao was much criticized for the idea of female liberation. In kanthapura, the fact that the narrator is an old woman, acchaka, who comments on the actions of characters with a sharp eyed wisdom makes evident the fact that the author was of view of freedom of speech for women. The novel, which is predominantly based on Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of satyagraha women, as satyagrahis, demonstrated fearlessness in their struggle for independence. Inspite of the lathi blows, they persevere their nonviolent march exhibiting a conscious knowledge of their strength and power , and endure pain in the face of brutality, inhumanity and cruelty of the police. Raja rao, in kanthapura portrays the role of women in the nationalist movement inspired by gandhian ideals. It is an extreme shift from the position of women in the patriarchal Indian society to that in a strong movement against colonialism. This without doubt also reflects the Gandhian ideal to encourage emancipation of women and support women encouragement...
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...Raja Rao (1908-2006) was born in Hassan (Karnataka) and had his education in Madras, and later in France. He has divided his time among India, Europe (mainly France) and the USA. He is considered one of the trio (along with Mulk Raj Anand and R. K. Narayan) that forms the precursor to Indian Writing in English as we know it today. Raja Rao’s works are steeped in Indian spiritualism, and often the theme is metaphysical. Based on his experiences in Europe, his novels are also about the interplay between Indian and Western culture. The influence of the Indian nationalist movement and Gandhi on Raja Rao is evident in his early books. He received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1988 and the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1963. He passed away in Texas, Austin. Works * Kanthapura * The Cow of the Barricades, and Other Stories * The Serpent and the Rope * The Cat and Shakespeare * Comrade Kirilov * The Policeman and the Rose * The Chessmaster and His Moves * On the Ganga Ghat * The Meaning of India * Great Indian Way: A Life of Mahatma Gandhi * Kanthapura Kanthapura – The South Indian Village The story of the Nobel belongs to knthapura, a small, obscure village in remote corner of south India. The people here were mostly poor, illiterate and backward. The village was caste-ridden, with different quarters in it housing people of different castes—the highest caste being Brahmins, the lowest, the Pariahs. People...
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...Kanthapuara as Gandhian Epic Name: Joshi Deepti M Roll no: 05 Paper: Indian Writing in English Topic: Kanthapura as Gandhian Epic Submitted to: Heenaba Zala Department of English M.K.University, Bhavnagar Kanthapura as Gandhian Epic Introduction: “Gandhi was like a powerful current of fresh air……Like a beam of light that pierced the darkness and removed the scales from our eyes; like a whirlwind that upset many things, but most of all the working of people’s minds” Mahatma Gandhi during freedom struggle time wielded a great influence on the Indian masses. And his struggle for freedom introduced some new trends in Anglo-Indian fiction, and some great writers of all the Indian language produced some masterpiece in novel, poetry, drama and other forms of creative writing. Raja Rao was most celebrated novelist of India in 1930s and 1940s. He had depicted his novels through the usage of Gandhian theme. Kanthapura is best example of how Gandhian ideologies influenced in Indian writing in English. An Epic is a long narrative poem telling of heroic acts, the birth and death of a hero or of nation’s etc.Kanthapura is also an epic. Kanthapura is a tell of the impact that Gandhi had on the nation. He converted the whole nation into an army of freedom fighters. Gandhi was no less than the hero of an epic. The freedom struggle of India was an epic struggle. Thousands of people sacrificed their lives...
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...*About the Novel Raja Rae’s novel Kanthapura (1938) is the first major Indian novel in English. It is text of the Civil Disobedience movement of the 1930s that takes for its central concern the participation of a small village of South India in the national struggle called for by Mahatma Gandhi. Imbued with nationalism, the villagers sacrifice all their material possessions in a triumph of the spirit, showing how in the Gandhian movement people shed their narrow prejudices and united in the common cause of the non-violent civil resistance to the British Raj. Paradoxically, given its concerns, Kanthapura was first published in London in 1938 and was written when Rao was in France: “I wrote Kanthapura in a thirteenth century castle in the French Alps belonging to the Dauphins of France and I slept and worked on the novel in the room of the Queen”. Narrated by Achakka., an old village woman, the plot centres on Kanthapura, a village in South India. This village is a microcosm of the traditional Indian society with its entrenched caste hierarchy. In Kanthapura there are Brahmin quarters, Sudra quarters and Pariah quarters. Despite stratification into castes, however, the villagers are mutually bound in various economic and social functions which maintain social harmony. The enduring quality of the Indian village is represented as ensuring an internal tenacity that resists external crises, its relationship to past contributing a sense of unity and continuity between the present...
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