Indira Bai: Foregrounding the Community Saga

Abstract

The first social novel in Kannada, Indira Bai, is an important work not just for literary enthusiasts but also for historians of modernity, communities and communalism. The novel presents the engagements and negotiations of an upper-caste community with modernity. The gaps, presences and absences in the novel have the potential to throw light on the inter-community relations of present-day coastal Karnataka which is constantly bothered by communal disturbances. Corroborating the gaps and absences in the novel with certain historical sources, this article aims to strengthen the perspective that we need to restore literary sources from the regional languages as tools for constructing a more robust historical narrative. Translations help us take those resources to a wider, global audience in this endeavour. © 2024 Jamia Millia Islamia.