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A terrifying sound disturbs the peace of Hansuli Turn, a forest village in Bengal, and the community splits as to its meaning. Does it herald the apocalyptic departure of the gods or is there a more rational explanation? The Kahars, inhabitants of Hansuli Turn, belong to an untouchable \"criminal tribe\" soon to be epically transformed by the effects of World War II and India's independence movement. Their headman, Bonwari, upholds the ethics of an older time, but his fragile philosophy proves no match for the overpowering machines of war. As Bonwari and the village elders come to believe the gods have abandoned them, younger villagers led by the rebel Karali look for other meanings and a different way of life. As the two factions fight, codes of authority, religion, sex, and society begin to break down, and amid deadly conflict and natural disaster, Karali seizes his chance to change his people's future. Sympathetic to the desires of both older and younger generations, Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay depicts a difficult transition in which a marginal caste fragments and mutates under the pressure of local and global forces. The novel's handling of the language of this rural society sets it apart from other works of its time, while the village's struggles anticipate the dilemmas of rural development, ecological and economic exploitation, and dalit militancy that would occupy the center of India's post-Independence politics. Negotiating the colonial depredations of the 1939--45 war and the oppressions of an agrarian caste system, the Kahars both fear and desire the consequences of a revolutionized society and the loss of their culture within it. Lyrically rendered by one of India's great novelists, this story of one people's plight dramatizes the anxieties of a nation and the resistance of some to further marginalization.

It is widely believed that nationalism in India stemmed from European domination. Imperialism, for the first time, generated the sentiment of ‘nationhood’ that brought together people of diverse religions, languages, and lifestyles to demand home rule. The process involved cultural revivalism, yet retained strong ties with the inheritance of two centuries of foreign domination. The spur to the writing of cultural tracts was sharp and the attempt to rewrite the ‘true’ history of their country became the leading preoccupation of intellectuals. Consequently, indigenous histories of different kinds emerged over a period of years preceding independence and in the years after 1947. Different generic models were used in an attempt to replace the ‘inauthentic’ historical accounts compiled by Europeans, featuring instead themes or motifs of writing that emphasized an assertion of a culture which was comparable, if not superior, to that of their European peers. Correspondingly, historiography and fiction-writing depicted national heroes, full of deeds of valour and bravery, engaged in wresting their ‘nation’ from the aggressor by an emphasis on indigenous themes. Models of writing structured around the earlier epics, the use of local dialects, the emphasis on ancient rituals and practices, all went into the making of a ‘pure’ tradition.

The beginning of R. K. Narayan’s essay, “After the Raj,” spells out his view of the English Empire, of the colonial period, of the language that one might use in reference to it. Although to my knowledge Narayan, the creator of Malgudi, did not use the expression, this essay comes close to defining his “postcolonial” position. He addresses here the craze for the Raj that was exemplified through a number of films, includingPassage to India.¹ All pictures of India, Narayan explains, are by essence fragmented, piecemeal; and whoever attempts to encapsulate India, or generalize about India, is doomed to

In the first chapter ofA Passage to India(1924), the most famous English novel to contemplate the Indian subcontinent, E.M. Forster presents a meticulous depiction of urban social space. He divides his fictitious city of Chandrapore into three geographically and socially distinct zones: a riverside area inhabited by colonized Indians and characterized by rubbish, rot, and visual monotony; high ground near the railway station where the racially in-between Eurasians live; and the more distant heights of the nondescript British civil station, which unlike the city below ‘provokes no emotion’ and ‘has nothing hideous in it.’ The station is quite