Raja Rao’s novel Kanthapura

    Raja Rao’s novel Kanthapura

Raja Rao’s novel Kanthapura (1938) is the first major Indian novel in English. It is a fantasy but realistic account of how a great majority of people in India lived their lives under the British rule and how they responded to the ideas and ideals of Indian nationalism. Kanthapura depicts the story of an Indian village during the British Raj, especially how Gandhi’s struggle for freedom came to a typical village, Kanthapura which is an imaginary village like Hardy’s Wessex. The novel is narrated in form of a sthal purana by an old lady in the village, Achakka.  Author follows the traditional Indian narrative technique here.

                   'Kanthapura' portrays the participation of a small village of South India in the national struggle called for by Mahatma Gandhi. Imbued with nationalism, the villagers sacrifice all their material possessions in a triumph of the spirit, showing how in the Gandhian movement people shed their narrow prejudices and united in the common cause of the non-violent civil resistance to the British Raj.