%0 Journal Article
%T The translation of an imagined community in Raja Rao¡¯s Kanthapura
%A Amelie Daigle
%J The Journal of Commonwealth Literature
%@ 1741-6442
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/0021989416683542
%X In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson describes how sacred script languages (Arabic, Chinese, Latin) were usurped in political primacy by languages based on the spoken vernacular (French, English, German). In this article I examine one instance of these complications through Raja Rao¡¯s classic novel of Indian independence, Kanthapura, a novel written in Indian English that works both with and against Anderson¡¯s concept of nationalism¡¯s linguistic underpinnings. Kanthapura not only proposes a model for Indian English speakers and writers, but performs a rhetorical argument about the necessity for Indian English if India is to cohere as a nation. I argue that the residents of Kanthapura are ¡°translated¡± into citizens of the nation of India. This movement of translation is echoed by the language of the novel: the largely spoken language of Kannada is translated into the largely written (in India) language of English. English in Kanthapura performs a double function, unifying the nation as a script language while also reflecting the idiosyncrasies of local regional vernaculars. Kanthapura demonstrates that a nativized form of Indian English can serve as an invaluable tool for the development of a national consciousness, and that novels written in Indian English will play a role in determining the shape and identity of the nation
%K Benedict Anderson
%K India
%K Indian English
%K Kanthapura
%K nationalism
%K Raja Rao
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0021989416683542