Page 1 of 7
European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 02
February 2019
Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 776
New Literatures of
Commonwealth and Post-Colonial Backdrops
DR AJIT SINGH
MA,M.PHIL,PH.D, JRF
ABSTRACT: This paper at first, examines the relationship between empire and English
literature, in other words, the ideological uses to which English literature was put. Next, it
examines the concept of commonwealth literature and the controversies surrounding it, and
lastly, it discusses selected aspects of the concept of postcolonial studies, the differences between
commonwealth and postcolonial literature, and the concerns or characteristics of postcolonial
literature. It begins by establishing the link between Empire and English-language literature.
Drawing on various thinkers, it discusses the ideological uses of literature and argues that the
textual forms that emerged as “resistance” to imperial domination were referred to by a
multiplicity of terms: Commonwealth Literature, New English Literature, Literature in English,
Third World Literature, World Fiction, Minority Literature, Multicultural Literature, or
Postcolonial Literature. It examines the merits and handicaps of each designation and explains
why the term “postcolonial” is the more appropriate notion and designation.
INTRODUCTION
Britain used, if it is true, military might to subdue a good part of the world especially in
the last part of the nineteenth century, military victory constituted not the winning of the war, but
of a battle and it were cultural texts to complete what military might had started. Thus, literary
texts which were produced during this period and which can be described as colonial or
colonialist texts, reflected the colonial ethos, and contributed to the complex of attitudes that
made imperialism seem part of the order of things. In other words, it was clear that to assume
control over a territory or a nation was not only to exert political or economic power, it was also
to have imaginative command. It is in the self-representations of the British and the
representations of the Other, that the ideological uses of English literature can be seen most
clearly. The best illustration is in the introduction of English literature into the Indian educational
system. After the battle of Plassy in 1755, the British East India Company began to administer
the various native Indian states as colonies. A high proportion of those who came over from
Britain to serve as administrators were Scots who found it easier to succeed without English
patronage abroad than at home. The Scots had the responsibility of training a civil service from
among the Hindu and Muslim populations and one of the principal subjects taught the newly
Europeanised natives was English literature. It was expected to convey the values and standards
of the conquerors. The British had conquered India with ships and cannon; they were, however,
to rule it with Shakespeare. And talking about the Scots, it would be a major oversight not to
note that Adam Smith -- better known as the author of The Wealth of Nations -- was actually the
founder of English as an academic discipline.
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European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 02
February 2019
Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 777
At the time that Adam Smith introduced lectures on English literature in Scotland, this
discipline was regarded in Oxbridge as an un-academic discipline and not worthy of serious
inquiry. Rather, what held sway in lecture halls were classical studies: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and
Sanskrit. If classical studies constituted the academic menu of the upper classes, religious studies
were the main menu of the lower classes. However, by mid-century, religious studies which were
used to control the lower classes, was fast losing its grip as a result of scientific discoveries and
social change. It was therefore imperative for another social institution to be put in its place to
replace religion and the church as disseminators of value, tradition, and authority. As Terry
Eagleton notes, George Gordon in an Oxford inaugural lecture said: “England is sick, and
English literature must save it. The churches, having failed, and social remedies being slow,
English literature has now a triple function” (23). Of particular significance, however, is the fact
that English as an academic discipline “was first institutionalised not in the universities, but in
Mechanics' Institutes, working men's colleges, and extension lecturing circuits” (Eagleton 52).
The reason for this was because it was expected that the “softening” and “humanizing” effect of
literature could be used to cement the relations between the social classes. English literature was
therefore to serve as a kind of opium whose role was to ward off what Mathew Arnold saw as the
anarchy that would engulf and disrupt social relations in England (Eagleton 65).
If English literature was institutionalised in Mechanics' Institutes and in other vocational
colleges as an instrument for the transmission of “moral” values to the lower classes, it becomes
clear that it could become an even more effective weapon in the “softening” of conquered
peoples.
It is precisely with this in mind that courses in English literature were introduced in
Indian schools as far back as the 1820s and formalised with the passing of the English Education
Act of 1835. Yet, what is now known as the subject of English literature, the British educational
system had no firm place for it until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Thus,
Shakespeare, Addison, Bacon, Locke, and others became part of the literary curriculum of Indian
schools, curriculum functioning here as discourse. Again, it is reminded that a vital if subtle
connection exists between a discourse which those who are to be educated are represented as
morally deficient and the attribution of moral and intellectual values to the literary works they
are assigned to read. Clearly then, English literature, or better still, colonialist literature played
the role of the “surrogate Englishman.” As Eagleton so well puts it, English literature presenting
“the Englishman in his highest and most perfect state, becomes a mask for economic
exploitation, so successfully camouflaging the material activities of the colonizer.
This use of literature as a “mask of conquest” was only part of a larger scheme. In his
widely anthologised “Minute on Indian Education,” Thomas Macaulay indicated clearly the role
of education in India when he declared thus, “we must at present do our best to form a class who
may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons, Indian in
blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect” (430). This
category, “Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste” is what Frantz Fanon calls “black
skin, white masks” and V.S. Naipaul calls “mimic men.” In the Native American context, this is
Page 3 of 7
European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 02
February 2019
Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 778
what Black Elk calls being an apple, “red outside and white inside.” This leads us to the overall
issue of representation in the making of empire. Boehmer states in her Colonial and Postcolonial
Literature that “in writings as various as romances, memoirs, adventure tales or the later poetry
of Tennyson, the view of the world as directed from the colonial metropolis was consolidated
and confirmed. So, it also followed almost automatically that resistance to imperial domination --
especially on the part of those who lacked guns or money -- frequently assumed textual form”
(Boehmer 14). Some of the textual forms that emerged as “resistance” to imperial domination are
what are called variously Commonwealth literature, New English literatures, Literatures in
English, Third World Literature or Postcolonial Literature, with other cognate terms also used,
such as World Fiction, World Literature written in English, multicultural literature, minority
literature, resistance literature, etc.
For some, the idea of Commonwealth Literature is quite straightforward because it is the
literature produced by countries which are former colonies of Britain or had the status of
dominions. For others, it can be extended to cover countries which, although not former British
colonies, are now members of the Commonwealth of Nations. For yet others, matters are not that
simple. There are those who argue that the very notion of Commonwealth Literature is in itself
condescending, narrow and misleading. And for some the designation is dépassé, something of
an anachronism. In a study commissioned by the Commonwealth Secretariat entitled “Learning
from Each Other: Commonwealth Studies in the 21st Century,” the authors are not concerned
with whether Commonwealth Literature exists or not. Rather, for them, the issue is how to
broaden the concept to embrace literatures in indigenous languages. In the section entitled
“Intellectual trends in Commonwealth Studies,” the authors ask, “How can the study of
Commonwealth literature more fully embrace literatures in languages other than English, and
reflect the increasingly complex varieties of English used?” (19).The question would make sense
in terms of examining the varieties of English used, the attempt at nativization etc. It would be
inappropriate, however, to think of calling the literature in the indigenous languages
Commonwealth Literature especially as some of these literatures pre-date the historical situations
that brought about what is today known as the Commonwealth. It appears that it would be more
appropriate to call Sanskrit, Igbo, Yoruba, Hindi, Khosa, Kikuyu, Hausa, Maori, and Zulu
literatures by their names rather than by the designation of Commonwealth Literature. Perhaps if
these works are translated into English, then they could fit into this category as in the case with
Ngugi wa Thiongo's works rendered from Gikuyu into English. Nor can, say, Wolof literature be
considered francophone literature. The authors were, of course, aware of the fact that many
scholars were not comfortable with the designation. They note that this is “particularly in the
field of literature” where some scholars shy away from the term 'commonwealth' and prefer to
use such terms as postcolonial. They note that the very concept of “commonwealth” derives from
“egalitarian principles of popular sovereignty, rights and freedoms. Commonwealth studies
potentially offer democratic and all inclusive forms of social analysis, pointing to reconstructed
societies and to communities beyond colonialism. They add, rather problematically, that the term
post-colonial is far more constrained than ‘commonwealth’ even though the former may in
theory (but frequently does not in practice) encompass a wider field geographically.
