The Emergence of the Modern Subject in Oriya and Assamese Literatures: Fakir Mohan Senapati and Hemchandra Barua

Abstract

The complex nature of the colonial encounter and the varied responses to it in the regional literatures of the period have been the focus of recent studies of nineteenth-century Indian literature. The “modernity” that has been defined in terms of the emergence of a sharp critical self, which seeks to expose the weaknesses in traditional social structures, has often been seen as the manifestation of the western Enlightenment. The emergence of the modern subject, according to this view, is marked by the capacity to adopt a generalized vision of human suffering and document it from the position of a disembodied observer.¹ In contrast, Indian traditional thought before the coming of colonialism was considered incapable of rising above the purely personal or familial perspective to gain some distance and provide a social account of it. However, this view has been sufficiently modified by other opinions, which reject the tendency to polarize the difference between “modernity” and “tradition” by attributing “progressive” attitudes to one and retrogressive ones to the other.² The dualistic attitude that has often been observed in the attitudes of some of the well-known personalities of the nineteenth century points to the presence of an undercurrent of tension in their relationship with western culture, which was perceived as “modern” and “progressive” by most western-educated members of the newly emerging middle class, but which also threatened the continuity of the rich and complex literary traditions that dated back to the precolonial past.