THE IMPACT OF WEST OF INDIAN CULTURE ( Western influence in education, The impact of the west on the vernacular literature.)

THE IMPACT OF WEST OF INDIAN CULTURE

The Christian sea-powers in India brought with them western civilization and culture in the country. It not only introduced many new elements into the Indian cauldron but also disturbed the existing disposition of various forces in Indian society like the last stone which starts an avalanche; a process of change began but it has not yet ended and its future no one could yet foresee.

In the closing years of the eighteenth century channels of Indian culture were getting dry. The culture of the country had become moribund, decadent and effete. The creative spirit had disappeared in fine arts, literature, science, philosophy and religion. India needed a violent shock and a rude challenge to remedy the state of affairs. This was provided by the people of the Western countries and their culture.

It was in the closing years of the eighteenth century that western civilization and culture challenged all old values and beliefs of India Consequently old rites and rituals, customs and tradition, crumbled. India was literally in the melting pot. When the edifice of Indian culture was collapsing the western culture attempted to super – impose its structure on Indian soil. It changed the vision and revolutionized those who came into contact with it. Its immediate result was the indiscriminate imitation and adoption of western mode of life and habits. Fortunately this process was quickly arrested by the forces of the Indian socio- religious reform movement of the 19^th century which has been already discussed in the chapter on Modern India.

(I)            Western influence in education

The first influence of the west ws felt in the realm of education, the western system of education introduced in India the study of western philosophy, science, literature, history, economics, sociology etc. It created literate classes which derived their ideas not from the age long traditions of the land but from the west. They looked to the west for e very aspect on their life and imitated a good deal of the western culture. This had the effect of developing the wide gulf between the educated and the uneducated classes in India.

(II)          The impact of the west on the vernacular literature.

The impact of the West and the English Education was keenly felt in the Vernacular literatures of India. The best of the writers of the Indian vernacular literatures have been western in spirit, in outlook, in literary devices, in the choice and treatment of the subjects, though they retained a close connection with the west in the literature and life of ancient India. The Indian drama was considerably influenced by the western drama. The details about the stage and the distinct analysis of the individual and social problems in modem Indian drama are the outcome of the study of the western drama. Indian story and novel also were profoundly influenced by the western literature. They were absent in the realm of Indian literature till the first half of the nineteenth century.

 Like prose, poetry was also considerably influenced. English sonnet, ode and blank verse were imitated. Madhusudan Datt in Bengali and Ajodhya Sigh Upadhyay in Hindi achieved marvelous success in blank verse.

Under  the influence of the west many Indian vernacular printing presses were set up and numerous newspapers in Indian languages were started in 1780 Hickey commenced the publication of the “Bengal Gazette” In English. It was followed by the publication of first Indian vernacular newspaper ‘Bengal Smasher’ in 1816 and the ‘Bombay samachar’ in Gujarati in 1822. The first Hindi newspaper the ‘Benaras akhabar’ was started in 1845. Our ancient language Sanskrit was restored to us through English. The first Englishman to learn Sanskrit was Charles Wilkins and person who clearly realized the learn Sanskrit was Charles walking and the person who clearly realized the significance of Sanskrit was William Jones who came to India in 1783 as the chief Justice of the Supreme court at Calcutta. He founded the Bengal Asiatic Society for the study of the Oriental literature. The years 1828  - 70 witnessed the flowering of oriental scholarship and the period between 1870 and 1900 was the publication and circulation of manysanskrit works like the Sacred Books of the East in fifty volumes, the Harvard Oriental series, Tuber’s Oriental Series, etc. Wilkins, William Jones, William Hamilton, Colebrook, Wilson, Williams, James Prince, Max Muller and other scholars began to study Sanskrit, Edited, translated and published famous works of Sanskrit and thus focused the attention of the Indians towards the rich heritage of their Sanskrit literature.