Gandhi Myth in Kanthapura: Co-Mingling of Fact and Fiction

Abstract

Raja Rao, one of the trios of the Indo-Anglican novelists the other twoare Mulk Raj Anand, R K Narayan,had the power to intermingle or associate actual fact with fiction in order to give Indian Literature a new form of writing.This form is also found in 19th century literature in the works of Jules Michelet- “The History de la Revolution” and Balzac’s“Les Chouans”. And this style of the fusion of factual and fictional is clearly evident in Raja Rao’s first novel, Kanthapura (1938) where the reader can have the contemporary political event with the twist of mythical stories. Raja Rao consciously uses ancient mythological motifs as a technique of narration in the manner of modern English writers like T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats and others. Kanthapura is a novel dealing with the impact of the Gandhian freedom struggle movement on a remote south Indian village of that name. What happened in Kanthapura was also happened in India during the freedom struggle movement. The novel can be considereded as a Gandhi myth as Gandhi’s influential personality is felt everywhere in the novel. Indeed, Gandhi does not appear personally but the plot revolves around his ideology. This work ‘Gandhi myth in Kanthapura: Co-Mingling of fact and fiction’ attempts to show how Kanthapura becomes an epitome of Gandhi myth through the association of fact and fiction.