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This chapter examines the trajectory of Rao's later fiction in terms of the earlier analysis of Kanthapura. While Kanthapura is contextualized in the history of the period, the ensuing analysis does not intend to pursue a similar exercise in the main, partly because the bulk of his fiction is written long after the achievement of independence, and partly since Rao's concern as an artist becomes more metaphysical and personal. It is possible, however, for the metaphysical to be seen as an extreme dimension of the nationalistic: having moved away from the political circumstances of the 1930s and the 1940s, Rao's metaphysical concerns are an assertion of the persistence of a fundamental Hindu tradition in a period of internal dislocation following independence, as also an anchor for personal dilemma. These are some of the issues that need to be mentioned in any consideration of Rao's later fiction comprising The Serpent and the Rope (1960), The Cat and Shakespeare (1965), Comrade Kirillov (1976), and The Chessmaster and His Moves (1988). The content of this chapter is ideological since it intends to raise questions related to the body of Rao's later fiction and to speculate on the development of his vision and its inherent contradictions through a brief internal study.

This chapter examines Gandhi's veneration of village communities, the significance of his fasts and the Salt March, his treatment of the caste system, and his contradictions and inconsistencies as a person and as a thinker within the overall consciousness of Rao's ritualized adoption of him in Kanthapura. The chapter demonstrates Rao's implicit bias towards brahminism which can be seen as a feature of chauvinist Hinduism employed by revivalist nationalists. The tensions between the brahminic and the Gandhian nationalist-puranic models may be neutralized or highlighted in varying political situations. The chapter also reviews the novel's turn towards socialism, and the author's intervention to ‘correct’ the historical turn of events by retreating into the Gandhian scheme. Posing a series of contradictions between Gandhi's ideals and principles and the way in which they have been written into the novel, the chapter exposes Rao's concern with presenting the historical moment in terms of a timeless past.

This chapter offers a broad literary and structural history of South Asian Anglophone writing published in Britain. Early writers like Mulk Raj Anand and Nirad Chaudhuri need to be seen in terms of modernist traditions, rather than what one might call the current literary apartheid of examining black and white modernist writers separately. For Anand, Raja Rao, and others, English was a weapon, as well as a key to the ideological arsenal in the struggle for independence: their writings in English reflected their emergent nationalism. Drawing on previously unpublished correspondence between Rao and his publisher Allen and Unwin, this chapter documents how Rao was requested to erase his cultural origins in his work so that he could assimilate and be accepted by the centre. Such demands are part of the metropolitan expectation for minority writers to conform to ‘universalist’ criteria. This amounts to a Eurocentrism, masked as the ‘universality’ of the human condition that neglects the local socio-political context of the country of ‘origin’ and conceals the refusal of Western audiences to engage with the unfamiliar.

This introductory chapter sets out the focus of the book: the construction of models of nationalist ideology in the cultural sphere. The study seeks to underscore what lies behind the writing of ‘true’ and ‘authentic’ histories of the nation by treating historical fiction as the literary dimension of nationalist ideology. It traces nationalism from its abstract underpinnings to its concrete manifestation in historical fiction which underwrites the Indian freedom struggle. The construction of identity through mythicized conceptions of India is examined in detail through Raja Rao's first novel, Kanthapura. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

This book traces a genealogy of the literary publication and reception of South Asian Anglophone writing in 20th-century Britain, through a comparison of the changing contexts of literary production and consumption for succeeding generations of selected writers of South Asian origin, who emigrated to, or were born in, Britain. Comparing two or more writers of a similar ‘generation’ in each chapter, this book begins just before World War II, a decade before the independence of the subcontinent. This moment was the prelude to the mass emigration that would configure constructions of South Asian identity in Britain. The writers discussed here include the early nationalist Indian writers, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao, alongside R. K. Narayan whose impact is compared to the contrasting receptions of Sri Lankan poet and publisher M. J. Tambimuttu, and of Bengali author Nirad Chaudhuri. Other writers discussed in the book include Kamala Markandaya and Ambalavener Sivanandan, Salman Rushdie and Farrukh Dhondy, and Hanif Kureishi and Meera Syal.

Raja Rao’s The Serpent and the Rope (1960) is presented as the complete Indian novel. Merchant does not consider Rushdie to be an Indian novelist. Balraj Khanna’s Nation of Fools (1984) hides Partition horror under sexual hilarity. Khushwant Singh’s Delhi (1990) with a eunuch as the hero makes a political comment on Delhi’s Sikh massacres at the end. There is complete lack of sex in R.K. Narayan except in Rosie, that is, Guide (1958). Namita Gokhale’s path-breaking Paro (1984) is an inspiration to Merchant. Raj Rao’s gay novels are also indicators. Shobha De’s is a futile and vapid example. A traditionally honoured place is accorded to sex in old Asian culture as seen in their sex manuals. The example of Lawrence and Miller are an inspiration for India’s gay writers. Rukmini Bhaya Nair discovered sexually polyvalent mind of men and women in India.

Ranga Rao furthers his critique by picking up Narayan’s debut novel, Swami and Friends. The very simplicity of the story signals thrifty talent and daring originality of theme. This novel also establishes the character of Malgudi, a small town located in a corner of south India. Swami and Friends also presents a basic plan common to so many of Narayan’s novels, that is, an uprooting followed by a return, a renewal, and a restoration of normalcy. The protagonist, Swami, establishes the sattvic temper, the truth-searching mind, the conscionability, which are the hallmarks of Narayan’s heroes, especially, of the pre-Independence novels. The slim novel is also epochal in the history of the Indian novel in English: one of the three novels—with Anand’s Untouchable and Raja Rao’s Kanthapura—in the 1930s, launching a new phase in the development of the Indian novel in English.

Narayan’s goals were as serious as those of the novelists who wrote before him in south India. He achieved his results with a delicate touch. To a tradition of thematic gravity, he brought a transparent and deliberately ‘unstudied’ voice and humour. The restraint and the art of poise were cultivated by Narayan himself. His temperament helped and circumstances took a hand; but he had learnt from the south-Indian example performance. Narayan mentioned the sources of his inspiration: elements that would normally stimulate one to write. And for him these are curiosity, interest in people, interest in one’s surroundings, a desire for achievement of any sort, or for a future.