Introduction to Postcolonial Literature 2019

Introduction to Postcolonial Literature 

                     The term 'colonye' derived from the Latin 'colon-us' that means a farmer, cultivator, planter or seller in a new country. It was used to describe the Roman settlement in the fourteen century. It gave the sense of 'farm' and 'landed estate'. Roman 'colonia' indicated meaning to the settlement of Roman citizens in a hostile or newly conquered country. These citizens retained their Roman citizenship, received land in the new place and served roman interest by working as garrison. Later on colonial began to mean, according to (OED). The oxfoed English Dictionary belonging to specially British colonies. Colonies were simply new settlements by communities seeking a better life. Colonization was taken invariably as the violence perpetrated upon the natives by the European settlers. It was the attack and intervention on culture of non European people and ruling over them. 

         Colonialism is now defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as an alleged policy of exploitation of backward or weak peoples by a large power and rulers of European countries. It is concerned with the study of oppression, inequality, racism and exploitation over people by the European Countries. It can be taken as only political domination and control on Asian, African or South American countries which became 'colonies' of European powers during the eighteen and nineteenth centuries but it is the context in which non European cultures, values, tradition, language, identity, religion, originally and knowledge were destroyed and modified by colonial rulers and imposed European values over non European Society. Colonialism is not seen merely as a political and economic attack but it is the cultural, lingual and religious domination also. The history shows that Europeans acquired knowledge over native cultures through translation, commentaries and academic study before destroying native system of thinking. We see that colonialism is guided by mainly three features. 

a. The government of these non- European places by European administrators and rulers, the study of non-European cultures by European academics, scholars, and scientists. 

b. The slow transformation of native societies through missionary work. 

c. English education nd system as well as European modes of bureaucracy. 

            Likewise, neocolonialism is the continuning economic explotation of Asian and African nation-states by European and American powers. In most cases, neocolonialism is achieved not merely through stste control by Euro-American powers but a nexus between the politician, the banker, general and the Chief Executive Officers. Neocolonialism, therefore may be the more insidious and dangerous form of colonialism. 

             Here the term 'Post colonialism' refers to the historical, material and actual living conditions of newly-independent Asia,African And South American states within the global system. It refers to the economic and political power to the native population after independence from European rulers. 'Post colonialism' emphasizes the impact of global geopolitics, globalization and economic shift upon material condition in Asia nd African nation states. Thus 'Post colonialism' accounts for the following the change in reception accorded to Asia and African migrants workers. 'Post colonialism' also captures the strategies of resistance, negotiation and cultural assertion that countries adopt. Postcolonial writing or literature can now be defined as the textual or literary processes through which formerly colonized people assert their differences from, resistance to, and negotiation with, European colonial masters and cultures while attempting to develop similar strategies to tackle contemporary globalizing and neocolonial processes of domination by Euro-American powers. 

                  'common wealth literature' as a term began used during the 1950s to describe writings from Africa, Asia and South America. The term included alongside writers from formerly colonized nations such as Chinua Achebe from Nigeria and R.K. Narayan from india. Common wealth was used as a term to signify the equality among nations which indicated a power relation between European and African or Asian countries. After independence from Europe, writers, artist, and intellectuals returned to their nations in Africa and Asia. The 1950s-1960s in most postcolonial literatyre were marked by themes of nationalism and the euphoria of decolonization. The preferred mode was realism as R.K. Narayan's fiction demonstrates. Postcolonial writing and literature is marked and guided by themes such as bi-culturalism, nationalism, local and tribal identities. These themes are found in the literature of Raja Rao, Narayan, George Lamming, Patrick White, Derek Walcott and others. Cultural assertion, cultural nationalism, began to become visible as a major themes during this time. During 1970s there were endless debates on the impact of colonialism on native cultures and about the nature of postcolonial development in the works of Bhabani Bhatt acharya and Kamala Markandaya in india and Chinua Achebe in Africa. In the 1980s greater reflection on the postcolonial condition was seen. 

               'Post colonialism" is the theoretical wing of postcoloniality. It refers to a mode of reading, political analysis and cultural resistance that deals with the history of colonialism and present neocolonialism structures. It involves the ideas such as social justice, emancipation, and democracy in order to oppose oppressive structures of racism, discrimination and exploitation. It seeks to understand how oppression, resistance and adaptation occurred during the colonial period. 

                      Thus, postcolonial literature seeks to address the ways in which non-European literatures and cultures have been marginalized as an effect of colonial rule. This literature seeks to understand, negotiate and critique a colonial rule or a specific historical event. It is a literature of resistance, anger, protest, and hope. It is a literature of emancipation, critique and transformation. After independence from European domination and colonialism, Asian, African and South American writers developed their own writing and literature through which they expressed anger and dissatisfaction over European rulers and talked about their culture, nationalism and identity. "In 1996 Commencement Speech" written by an Indian writer Sulman Rusdie criticizes the dominative behavior of the Cambridge university administration.

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