The Biswa Sahitya Granthamala (World literature book series) as a reaction to English linguistic domination in Odisha
The Biswa Sahitya Granthamala (World literature book series) as a reaction to English linguistic domination in Odisha

Summary/Abstract: This article seeks to examine the remarkable literary venture of Odia culture that took a crucial step in creating space for world literature. Amid the plurality of conceptualizations of world literature as a commercial entity, a mode of circulation, an intellectual problem, a medium of international literary exchange, a dynamic system, and an emerging discipline, it sees world literature as a tool for liberating the Indian region of Odisha from linguistic and cultural domination. The colonial controversy over the language policy and the constant struggle of the Odia-speaking territories prepared the grounds for the language movement which resulted in the formation of a language-based British province in 1936. The article explores the question whether the establishment of Odisha led to linguistic liberation or a paradigm shift from cultural dominance of Bengali and Hindi during the colonial era to the hegemony of English in the post-independence period. We argue that after India’s independence the Odia language and literature fell victim to neo-colonialism as a result of the adoption of the English language as the medium of internationalization. Additionally, we examine how world literature supported the liberation of the regional language and its literature from neo-colonialism by evaluating the contribution of the world literature book series titled Biswa Sahitya Granthamala, which was released in Odia by the publishing house Granthamandir in 1969–1970.

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