KANTHAPURA, THE first major Indian novel in English was written in the colonial India in 1930. It deals with the Civil Disobedience Movement of the 1930s. Mahatma Gandhi on the participation of a small village of South India in the national struggle calls for the story’s central concern. But this novel of colonal India is post-colonial in spirit for various reasons. To deify Gandhi is a part of the process of decolonizing  the Indian mind. As in Jayanta Mahapatra’s post colonial poem ‘Requiem’, Gandhi is deified also in Kanthapura. Jayanta Mahapatra wrote: “ It is a world in itself/this ahimsa/With its mysterious shadows /Lurking  under ancient places /That assumes the classes /Self sustaining  light of suns /a redefinition of  beauty”. This is also very much true of Gandhism in Kanthapura embodied through the character of Moorthy, one of the tools of the narrative.

Moorthy fights orthodoxy at the social level and the British at the political level. The transformation here occurs through a complex dynamism negotiated through tradition and  change. The role of woman is not marginalized as in the other post colonial novels such as Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter Day Psalms and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children.

There is the same identity crisis and the post colonial attempt to go back to the roots. The first thing that Moorthy did was to explore the potential of religion for moving  the people beyond dormancy. The society ridden with caste hierarchy is involved in Sankara Purnima, Kartik Purnima, Ganesh Jayanti and Dussera. But Moorthy did not encourage casteism. He went to the pariah quarters in spite of the threat from the Swami the priest, speaking of ex-communication.

The subtle subversion of the harikatha to allegory  of Idndia’s freedom is quite interesting. All these are microcosmic presentation of the macrocosmic reality but fictionalized for presenting the traditional Indian  society which is in quest of its roots. The crisis of identity is another factor of post colonial literature. But in Kanthapura, the colonial novel of 1938, the post colonial trends are quite apparent, particularly visible in the efforts of the people for creating national myths to decolonize the mind of the people of Kanthapura, which is a smaller counterpart of India itself. The simple happenings including the fight against the British colonialism at the Skeffington Coffee Estate, give us a clear picture of decolonization process.

It is true that Kanthapura represents modernism while Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children and Nissim Ezekiel‘s Latter Day Psalms  represent post-modernism. In the hub of theories  and schools of thought post modernism or Derridean approach or Lacan’s psychoanalytical theory has proved to be a hot cake for the evaluation of the latest works of art. In fact, post modernism is an axis of all the contemporary approach and angle. It is quite eclectic, radical  and democratic in its tone and interpretation. We can examine Raja Rao’s Kanthapura  also in the light of the theory of post-modernism. Raja Rao’s Kanthapura is a meaningful and inspiring critique on Indian National Movement. Raja Rao is a factionalist of supreme importance who provided a philosophical depth and ideological height to Indian English fiction.

Priyanka Kumari in her article Kanthapura : A Study in Gandhian Perspective discusses the overwhelming impact of Gandhi on freedom movement and here we find the post modern elements of the novel explored: alienation leading to fear psychosis, desperation, frustration and rootlessness of the villagers of Kanthapura until the arrival of Moorthy showing them a direction. The mind of the people is visualized as in the collective form. The focus is on the exhaustion and embarrassment facing people in their daily life. Women are not marginalized.

On the other hand it records the feministic inclination of the novelist with female characters like Ratan, Rangamma and Venkamma playing lead roles in the novel. Thus, the novel is a  link to the post-colonial thinking, although it belongs to the colonial period. In fact, this is where the novel appeals most to us. Its modern approach links it to the post modern counterparts. The narrative is a beautiful mingling  of the fiction and reality. The smouldering boredom and horror shaking the people of Kanthapura are depicted for giving us a visual picture of the surrounding which is followed by worthwhile activity through the encounters of men and women. Gandhism which is a process of decolonization is presented through the ironic, confessional and objective mode. The delightful dimension is added through the idealistic character of Moorthy. Never before the colonial transformation has been depicted so faithfully as in Kanthapura linking the colonial with the post-colonial.