000			nam a22 7a 4500
999			_c29448 _d29448
008			190511b xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9781138541726 _c(hbk)
082			_a891.109355 _bCHA
100			_aChandra, Sudhir
245			_aOppressive present : literature and social consciousness in colonial India
260			_aNew Delhi : _bRoutledge, _c2014
300			_axxv, 212 p. ; _c22.2 cm.
365			_aINR _b850.00 _d00
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
520			_aMarking a departure from studies on history and literature in colonial India, The Oppressive Present explores the emergence of social consciousness as a result of and in response to the colonial mediation in the late nineteenth century. In focusing on contemporary literature in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, and Marathi, it charts an epochal change in the gradual loss of the old pre-colonial self and the configuration of a new, colonized self. It reveals that the ‘oppressive present’ of generations of subjugated Indians remains so for their freed descendants: the consciousness of those colonized generations continues to characterize the ‘modern educated Indian’. The book proposes ambivalence rather than binary categories — such as communalism and nationalism, communalism and secularism, modernity and tradition — as key to understanding the making of this consciousness.
650			_aIndian literature
650			_aIntellectual life
650			_aSocial conditions
650			_aHistory and criticism
650			_aHindi
650			_aBengali
650			_aMarathi
650			_aGujarati
650			_aNationalism
942			_2ddc _cBK