Children’s Literature in India Essay Sample
A nation’s literature is traditionally seen as a contemplation of the values. tensenesss. myths and psychological science that identify a national character. Bendict Anderson defines state as ‘an imagined community’ . He maintains that the members of a state ne’er know each other. meet or hear each other. yet they still hold in common an image of who they are as a community of persons.
How is a ‘common image’ passed on to kids ( and to people in general ) in India? One of the ways in which an image is transmitted to a state is through literature. Sarah Lorse ( 1997 ) writes that national literature are ‘consciously constructed pieces of the national culture’ and that literature is ‘an built-in portion of the procedure by which nation-states create themselves and distinguish themselves from other nations’ . For immature readers. national literatures play a important function in developing a sense of individuality. a sense of belonging. of cognizing who they are. In 1950. Australian writer Miles Franklin argued that ‘without an indegenious literature people can stay foreign in their ain soil’ .
Identity is non merely a positive ego construct. It is larning your topographic point in the universe with both humbleness and strength. It is. in the words of Vine Deloria. “accepting the duty to be a conducive member of a society” . Children besides need to develop a strong individuality to defy the onslaughts of a negative hedonistic and mercenary universe. frights engendered by terrorist act. gender favoritism. and the permeant civilization of poorness that envelops many metropoliss.
Many of us have grown up on books written by Enid Blyton. Every page in the book bangs and delectations. Today Rowling’s Harry Potter has the same consequence. puting kids on the way to reading. Bookshops today are filled with rubrics by foreign writers. However. it is the elect kids in large tubes who can associate culturally to the characters and scenes in these books and can afford to purchase them. What about the remainder of the huge bulk? Along with the spread of literacy. the wont of reading excessively. demands to be promoted to guarantee a broader and wider instruction instead than functional literacy. Unfortunately kids of little town and rural India neither have entree. nor can they be expected to appreciate the unusual strangeness of a Blyton or a Rowling. To lure them to read. attractive books in English every bit good as in their female parent lingua. with narratives drawn from local and modern-day scene. necessitate to be made available. Fortunately. a assortment of rubrics suited for the Indian kid is available today. But booksellers prefer to expose foreign books as they provide better returns. Distributors. excessively. neglect to make the smaller towns. So. though adequate reading stuff is produced today. it does non ever make its mark. kids of little town and rural India.
Publishers are good cognizant of the demand for attractive children’s books set in the child’s ain societal and cultural surroundings. in English every bit good as in other linguistic communications. Because of its nature. children’s literature in India can non be put into a orderly compact subdivision. nicely labeled. sealed. and stamped. The topic remains as vast and varied as the subcontinent itself and as old. It becomes hard to corral it under one header. Using any individual codification or standard of judgement is every bit impossible. The lone manner such an elastic and straggling literature can be dealt with is to split it into degrees. taking each degree separately and on its ain virtue. On one degree we have the traditional children’s literature. which. for the most portion. is unwritten narrative. It is a living literature that spills into assorted signifiers of the spoken and written word.
On the other manus is the “modern. ” printed children’s literature covering with contemporary manners and topics. It is a more didactic signifier. less originative and still decelerate in development. irrespective of linguistic communication. On another degree there is the linguistic communication. Literature for kids in English signifiers a separate subdivision and remains rather different both in signifier and content from its opposite numbers. Hindi and the regional linguistic communications. English. which is the medium of direction in about every major metropolis in India. caters to the more flush subdivision of society. Children’s literature in English shows marked “Western” features in manner. topic. and intervention. Hindi and other regional linguistic communications are more insular. more “relevant” in content. The regional linguistic communications have entree even to remote corners of the state and. although different from each other in intervention. however draw their subjects from traditional folklore.
