Indian literature’s unity is an effect of geography and the nation-state

Evidence

In the routine manifestations of this latter version, the unity of the object called ‘Indian Literature’ appears to be an effect of geography and the nation-state. At its best, though, this second version does make a great deal of sense, in so far as only by assembling the documents and literary histories of the different languages and literatures of India would it be possible actually to examine and historicize their overlaps, if we are to see at all whether or not they do add up to a unified history, however diverse in its constituent units. In other words, it is only by passing through the comparatist method that a knowledge of the unity can be obtained. The empirical value of such work, therefore, is enormous. What is often lacking, however, is the sense that a shift from Marathi or Bengali or Urdu to ‘Indian’ is both aggregative and qualitative, and that the shift from quantity to quality, from mass to composition, requires altogether different kinds of conceptual apparatuses and theoretical principles of narrativization. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 512

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: European-style national-literature categories distort India’s actual interlingual literary relations — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 1095; Pre-modern Indian literary culture was polyglot, not unilingual; The unified ‘Indian Literature’ was assembled alongside a canonical syndicated Hinduism. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 1142 (+4 more)

Related

• Pre-modern Indian literary culture was polyglot, not unilingual (similarity 0.93)
• Enumerative national literature categories derive their unity from geography, not composition (similarity 0.92)
• European-style national-literature categories distort India’s actual interlingual literary relations (similarity 0.90)
• Aggregating discrete literatures into ‘Indian’ is a qualitative, not additive shift (similarity 0.90)
• The unified ‘Indian Literature’ was assembled alongside a canonical syndicated Hinduism. (similarity 0.87)
• India’s only unified literary intelligentsia works in English, not Indian languages (similarity 0.86)
• A national literature exceeds the sum of its regional literatures (similarity 0.85)
• A grounded Indian literary history must trace material dialectics of unity and difference (similarity 0.85)
• English, not any Indian language, forms India’s only unified national literary intelligentsia. (similarity 0.85)
• Literature and culture are not coterminous with language and state boundaries (similarity 0.85)
• Indian literary historiography fails through idealist and Brahminical premises (similarity 0.84)
• English literature has shaped the very categories of modern Indian thought (similarity 0.83)
• India lacks institutions to systematize its multilingual literary knowledges (similarity 0.83)
• A materialist dialectical history of Indian literature has barely begun (similarity 0.82)
• World literature is a category impossible for imperialized nations like India (similarity 0.82)