Marking a departure from studies on history and literature in colonial India The Oppressive Present explores the emergence of social consciousness as a result of and in response to the colonial mediation in the late nineteenth century. In focusing on contemporary literature in Hindi Bengali Gujarati and Marathi it charts an epochal change in the gradual loss of the old pre-colonial self and the configuration of a new colonized self. It reveals that the âoppressive presentâ of generations of subjugated Indians remains so for their freed descendants: the consciousness of those colonized generations continues to characterize the âmodern educated Indianâ. The book proposes ambivalence rather than binary categories â such as communalism and nationalism communalism and secularism modernity and tradition â as key to understanding the making of this consciousness. This cross-disciplinary volume will prove essential to scholars and students of modern and contemporary Indian history and society comparative literature and post-colonial studies. . Language: English