Most Indian English fictions written in the post-independence period are different from the earlier English writings that dealt mostly with social reform issues, in contrast to the present ones that deal with issues of relatively peripheral nature. The difference is clearly visible through the issues they take up based on the present discourses.
The three famous writers – R K Narayanan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao, belonged to the post-independence period who were known to have dealt with issues that prevailed during their age, like the issues of freedom, struggle, and the social and political problems of the then India. Novels published during this timeframe (1935 to 1960) delineate the experience of the colonial age and dilemmas of post-independent reality. When these issues were well known to readers, the harshness of colonial activities and postcolonial India were also predominant in writing fiction. Mulk Raj Anand has focused on the untouchable mentality of the colonisers that prevailed them in his works like Untouchable and Coolie.
Next comes the modern generation writers like Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Shashi Tharoor, Vikram Seth, etc, transcending the then existing writing to create new patterns and traditions. They show case the past in the present era thereby emphasising on the affected lives of people and about the sensitive issues that have been ignored for various reasons. R.K.Narayanan has focused on the South Indian middle class in his fictions, by being aloof from his contemporary socio-political issues. Though he did not deal with socio political issues, his novels written after independence were much notable. His fictions resemble more of caricature rather than characters.
Raja Rao was considered as a new star shining bright, though he was the youngest of the trio. His Kandhapura represents the Gandhian principles and ideologies of non-violence and abolition of untouchability. He has also written a metaphysical comedy named, The Cat and the Shakespeare. The Bengali writer of that time Bhabani Bhattacharya dealt with cultural and political themes in his works. His major work So Many Hungers! deals with various types of hungers that dwell in people’s life – hunger for food, money, sex, and power. His other works like Music of Mohini also deals with socio political issues with a harsh reality.
Many writers of the present trend have also involved in writing about migration and displacement, which is named the Diasporic studies. Jhumpa Lahiri, Anita Desai, Bharathi Mukherjee, Amitav Ghosh and so on deal with this type of themes and issues by exhibiting the sufferings faced by the displaced people who belong to nowhere. Though it is generally called diasporic studies, it has several variations in it like temporal and special aspects, hybridity and so on.
They talk about the people who immigrate into a country carrying only the memories of their motherland which M.G.Vasanji ironically calls as “Gunny sack”. Moreover, the recent writers also talk of various other themes like postcolonialism, postmodernity and also about reinventing history, which has neglected and erased the sacrifices made by the common and the ordinary people; bringing them back by dwelling into the minds of these imaginary characters with real pain. They deal with the protagonists opposite the great figures of history.
They question the certainties of the past by looking into the private lives of ordinary people. The postcolonial literature focuses on historical issues what Rushdie calls as ‘weightlessness’. They also exhibit the experience of cultural transplantation thereby developing various new perspectives and possibilities. Several of these writers are settled in the West. Their motive is to recreate the contemporary social milieu and cultural crisis in their native land and attempt to redefine it in the emerging postcolonial context. They intend to mix the past with the present and future. And, about the cultural diversities that prevailed or prevail in Indian fiction. Their themes and motifs are hence to explore various areas like political domination by the foreign forces, the invasion of West upon the East, cultural fragmentation and slavery over the natives by following the footsteps of their colonisers.