The Indigenous Modernity of Gurajada Apparao and Fakir Mohan Senapati

Abstract

There is a broad consensus that India only became “modern” on account of its conquest by the British in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It is generally agreed that Apparao and Senapati are the first creators of modernity in their respective languages, Telugu and Oriya. Apparao is celebrated as the father of modern literature in Telugu, as Senapati is for Oriya. While the consensus I refer to defines modernity as a specifically colonial modernity, one that was produced by the impact of English on Indian literature and society, I suggest in this chapter that in the two late nineteenth-century works under review, Kanyasulkam (Girls for Sale) and Chha Mana Atha Guntha (Six Acres and a Third), Apparao and Senapati present an indigenous modernity, distinct from the colonial variety.