in what ways were novels in colonial india useful for both yhe colonizers as wll as the nationalists?wite point wise.
- Indian novelists wrote novels to develop a modern literature of the country that could produce a sense of national belonging and cultural equality with their colonial masters. Indians used the novel as a powerful medium to criticise what they considered defects in their society and to suggest remedies. Writers like Viresalingam used the novel mainly to propagate their ideas about society among a wider readership.
- Colonial rulers regarded the contemporary culture of India as inferior. They found ‘vernacular’ novels a valuable source of information on native life and customs. Such information was useful for them in governing Indian society, with its large variety of communities and castes. As outsiders, the British knew little about life inside Indian households. The new novels in Indian languages often had descriptions of domestic life. They showed how people dressed, their forms of religious worship, their beliefs and practices, and so on. Some of these books were translated into English, often by British administrators or Christian missionaries.