Fiction as History: The Novel and the City in Modern North India

Description

Explains the Hindi novel’s role in anticipating and creating the story of middle-class modernity and modernization in North India. Vasudha Dalmia offers a panoramic view of the intellectual and cultural life of North India over a century, from the aftermath of the 1857 uprising to the end of the Nehruvian era. The North’s historical cities, rooted in an Indo-Persianate culture, began changing more slowly than the Presidency towns founded by the British. Dalmia takes up eight canonical Hindi novels set in six of these cities—Agra, Allahabad, Banaras, Delhi, Lahore, and Lucknow—to trace a literary history of domestic and political cataclysms. Her exploration of the emerging Hindu middle classes, changing personal and professional ambitions, and new notions of married life provides a vivid sense of urban modernity. She argues that the radical social transformations associated with post-1857 urban restructuring, and the political flux resulting from social reform, Gandhian nationalism, communalism, Partition, and the Cold War shaped the realm of the intimate as much as the public sphere. Love and friendship, notions of privacy, attitudes to women’s work, and relationships within households are among the book’s major themes. Contents Preface Introduction: North Indian Cities and the Hindi Novel The novel as a genre and the novel in hindi North indian city spaces after 1857 The north indian middle classes Modernity, modernism, nation, and the self Love, marriage, and the family Hindi publishing in north india references I. Towards Modernity 1 Merchant Lives in Mughal Agra and British Delhi The Speech Of Delhi And Agra Agra, Delhi, And Nineteenth-century Shifts Seventeenth-century Agra: Love, Learning, and the Upright Merchant Language and Genre Merchant Ethos and Excess The Erotic and the Domestic The Way of the Righteous Nineteenth-century Delhi: ‘true’ Merchanthood And The Welfare Of The Nation Reshaping a Tradition Urban Modernity and the New Merchant Ethos Moral Authority: Bazaar, Akhbar, and Adalat The Erotic and the Domestic References 2 Wife and Courtesan in Banaras The Courtesans Of The City and the New Novel In Hindi Wife And Courtesan in the Modernizing City Dal Mandi, Social Reform, and the Communalization of the Municipality ‘unfortunate Suman’ References 3 The Holy City as the Field of Action Custom, Education, and the Nationalist Call Merchant Son as Political Agitator Street Action and a Woman at the Forefront Poverty, Taxation, and a Man of the People Bonding in Bondage Conclusion References 4 Lahore, Delhi, and the Bitter Truth of Independence The Topography of the Novel The Social and Religious Division Communal and Personal Disasters A Woman Alone The Train Ride Countries of Religion The Violence in the Aftermath of Partition The Second General Elections and the Righting of all Wrongs Conclusion References II. Modernist Conundrums 5 City, Civilization, and Nature Islands and Bridges A Middle-class Working Woman and the Upside-down Tree Civilization and City Skies Domestic Interiors and Public Places Nature, Pain, and Strength ‘Be Still and Wait without Hope’ ‘My Inner Life is Absolutely Mine’ Civilization and Science Cross-communication, and Conclusion References 6 Culture Wars and a Cult Novel The Individual in Society Love Without Marriage Defiance: Sex Without Love or Marriage The Mirror Scene: Spirituality as Possible Resolution Conclusions and Open Ends References 7 On the Rooftops of Agra Schisms in the City: Bazaar Talk and College Life The Culture of the City and the Hindi Literati Marriage, Individual Ambitions, and Life in the Haveli Intimacy, Self-exclusion, and Individual Endeavour Hindu Dharma, Civilization, and the Undivided Hindu Family Together Yet Alone: the Dilemma of the Individual References 8 Culture, Claustrophobia, and the New Capital of the Nation First Vantage Point on the City Seeking New Spaces: Lives in the Arts and the First Triangle Second Vantage Point: the Loft in West Delhi A Modernist Culture in the Making: The Coffee House Performance and Authentication From Without The Second Authentication: The Role Of The Political Secretary and the Second Triangle Culture as a Buffer Zone: The Dissolution Of The Second Triangle References Epilogue References Index