Modern Indian History Books and Authors

Which are the modern Indian history books?What does Gita Rahasya speak about ?Who wrote the book Anandamath? Read further to know more.

Modern Indian History Books and Authors are an important topic for the UPSC preliminary exam and linked with the growth of colonialism in India.

East Indian businesses had already made a mark on India’s economic landscape by the second part of the nineteenth century. Their control over the commercial and financial sectors slowly crept into India’s social structure, affecting the way of life and means of subsistence of the common people.

Over time, this cultural change and the country’s gradual language advancement also had an impact on Indian literature. The English language was absorbed into the advancement of literature and the development of society. The evolution of contemporary Indian literature was marked by the stories and poems’ references to the prevailing social order of the time.

Growth of modern Indian history books

The East Indian Company brought Western civilization with them when they arrived in India, and this effect may be seen in the creation of modern Indian literature. Since English was utilized for official purposes and was taught formally in several institutions, it assimilated into India’s elite society. This change in the tendency had an impact on those who were active in writing, and they began to write poems and novels.

• Since the Derozian movement influenced the Hindu College in Kolkata, there has been a dramatic change in the trend towards embracing the Western culture and the English language in daily life.
• The tradition of adopting the English language was started by Madhusudhan Bhattacharya and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in their early works.
• But, as the resistance strategy developed, the literature began to veer more and more towards the social revolution.
• Munshi Prem Chand and Sadat Hassan Manto eventually took over the works of Rabindranath Tagore and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay.
• Marxism’s influence on Bengali, Punjabi, and Keralan literature throughout the 1930s was apparent.

Modern Indian History Books and Authors

Important Modern Indian History Books and their authors are discussed below.

Tuhafat-ul-Muwahidin

The earliest tract against idolatry, Tuhafat-ul-Muwahidin, was written by Raja Ram Mohan Roy. He held that the only acceptable forms of worship were meditation, reading the Upanishads, and prayer.

Gita Rahasya

Bal Gangadhar Tilak, an Indian social reformer and crusader for independence, wrote Shrimad Bhagavad Gita Rahasya in the Marathi language in 1915 while he was imprisoned in Mandalay, Burma. It is also commonly referred to as Gita Rahasya or Karmayog Shastra. The Bhagavad Gita, a holy text for Hindus, is the source of the analysis of this book.

Neel Darpan

Dinabandhu Mitra wrote the Bengali play Neel Darpan between 1858 and 1859. When farmers in Bengal refused to sow indigo in their fields as a protest against exploitative farming under the British Raj in February–March 1859, the play was crucial to the success of the Nilbidraha, or Indigo Revolt.

Also Read: Socio-Religious Movements in India

Gitanjali

The most well-known work by Rabindranath Tagore is a collection of poetry called Gitanjali, which was published in India in 1910. Gitanjali: Song Offerings, a collection of English prose poems, was afterward created by Tagore. William Butler Yeats provided an introduction for its 1912 release.

Gitanjali is a collection of poems by Tagore that are based on Middle Ages religious melodies from India. He composed music to accompany these words as well. Although love is the primary subject, several poems also discuss the conflict between spiritual aspirations and material wants. He frequently employs naturalistic imagery, and the tone is typically subdued and calm. This collection helped Tagore win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913,

History of the Arya Samaj

Lala Lajpat Rai joined the Arya Samaj in Lahore after being inspired by Swami Dayananda Saraswati. He thought that the Hindu principles united with nationalism would result in the creation of a secular state. He authored History of the Arya Samaj.

He was one of the three radical leaders that made up the Lal-Bal-Pal group, together with Bipin Chandra Pal and Bal Gangadhar Tilak. He also has ties to the Hindu Mahasabha. He fought against being invincible.

Political Testament of Gokhale

Gopal Krishna Gokhale, at Lord Willingdon’s request, created a reform plan that was to be implemented in India following the First World War. It was written by Gokhale before he died in 1915, but it wasn’t published until 1917.

Satyarth Prakash

Dayanand Saraswati (Swami Dayanand), a religious and social reformer and the founder of the Arya Samaj wrote the 1875 book Satyarth Prakash-The Light of Meaning of the Truth, also known as The Light of Truth, which was first published in Hindi. After Swami Dayanand Saraswati revised it in 1882, the book was translated into more than 20 languages, including English, French, German, Swahili, Arabic, and Chinese.

It was also translated into Sanskrit. The latter four chapters of the book argue for a comparative examination of various religious beliefs, with the majority of the book devoted to laying out Swami Dayanand’s reformist agenda.

Hind Swaraj

In 1909, Mohandas K. Gandhi published the book Hind Swaraj, also known as Indian Home Rule. In it, he discusses a variety of topics, including mechanization, contemporary civilization, and Swaraj. Gandhi rejects European civilization in the book while pledging allegiance to superior imperial principles. As a seditious literature, the book was outlawed by the British government in India in 1910.

Economic History of India

R. C. Dutt was a writer and civil servant from India. He translated the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Romesh Chunder Dutt is the author of “Economic History of India,” a well-known work. He was chosen to serve as the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad’s inaugural president. Other important works:

• Bangabijeta.
• A Brief History of Ancient and Modern Bengal
• Jibanprabhat.
• Jibansandhya.

Poverty and Un-British Rule in India

One of the forerunners of the Indian independence movement, Dadabhai Naoroji, described how poverty was pervasive throughout India while the British were draining the nation of its wealth in his 1901 book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India.

“The British reign brought only India’s impoverishment with their knife of sugar,” he wrote. That is to say, although there is no oppression and everything seems pleasant, the situation is nevertheless precarious.

Also Read: India’s Struggle for Independence: Indian Freedom Movement

Anandamath

A historical novel in Bengali, Anandamath, was authored by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and released in 1882. It is regarded as one of the most significant books in the history of Bengali and Indian literature and is inspired by and set against the backdrop of the Sannyasi Rebellion in the late 18th century.

The first hymn to identify Bengal as the Motherland was Vande Mataram, “Hail to the Bengal Motherland,” which was made public in this book. The book Dharma Tattva is also written by him.

Why I Am an Atheist

Bhagat Singh belonged to the revolutionary Hindustan Socialist Republican Organization during the Indian independence movement. He was an atheist who supported socialism and authored several pieces for Kirti on anarchism and socialism. He wrote the book Why I Am an Atheist.

Gulamgiri

Mahatma Jyotirao Govindrao Phule was a prominent social reformer who was born in Pune. He linked the plight of the black slaves in America with that of the lower castes in India in his novel Gulamgiri, which he dedicated to the American effort to free the slaves. This comparison contains an expression of hope that one day, like the end of slavery in America, there would be an end to all sorts of caste discrimination in Indian society

The Broken Wing: Songs of Love, Death & Destiny

Sarojini Naidu collected her poems into one book. In 1915, it was first read aloud in public. The author was a poet and political activist from India who composed poetry about fate, love, and death. The author provides the reader with a glimpse into the poems’ meanings, dedications, and sources of inspiration through scribbles.

The book is divided into sections under which several poems are arranged. The Broken Wing, The Flowering Year, The Peacock Lute: Songs for Music, and The Temple: A Pilgrimage of Love are the headers for these sections. Songs of India, World of Time, and The Golden Threshold are also a few books written by Sarojini Naidu.

India Wins Freedom

India Wins Freedom is a well-informed description of the partition from the viewpoint of the author, Maulana Azad. It includes his thoughts on liberty and freedom as well as his personal experiences with India’s independence.

The book describes the events of the Indian Independence struggle in the style of an autobiographical story. The book deftly and profoundly traces the happenings that eventually resulted in the split. According to the book, politics, not religion, was more to blame for the divide. Additionally, it claims that after gaining independence, India fell short of realizing its full potential. In addition to discussing political hypocrisy, the book illustrates the mindsets of the author’s colleagues at the time, including Nehru, Gandhi, and Subhash Chandra Bose.

The Discovery of India

When Jawaharlal Nehru was imprisoned at Ahmednagar Fort for his involvement in the Quit India Movement, he published the book “The Discovery of India” (1942 – 1946). The book was written by Nehru during his four years of solitary confinement in prison and serves as a tribute to his beloved nation and its rich culture.

The book began with an extensive discussion of ancient texts including the Vedas, Upanishads, and textbooks, and it ended with the British Raj. The television series and the book both present a broad view of Indian history, culture, and philosophy. The book is regarded as among the best works in Indian history ever written.

An Indian Pilgrim

“An Indian Pilgrim,” which Netaji wrote around the end of 1937 while traveling through Europe after being named the Rashtrapati of Bharatbarsha, recounts Netaji’s life from his infancy until he departs from the Indian Civil Service. In this autobiography, the author gives a truthful and sincere account of his early years, his schooling in Cuttack with a group of cousins and relatives, his intellectual formative years as a promising student at Presidency College in Calcutta, his search for spiritual enlightenment, and his experiences as a student at the prestigious Cambridge University.

The story of how his life’s motivations—a spirit of service, selflessness, and zeal for national liberation—grew may be found in the book.  The autobiography also sheds a great deal of light on Netaji’s unwavering spirit in the Indian freedom movement.

History of the Indian National Congress

The book, written by B Pattabhi Sitaramayya, spans two volumes and chronicles the development of the Indian National Congress from 1885 to 1935. According to the author, the Indian National Congress is more than just an organization; it is an organism and an individual because it was founded in 1885 with a certain goal in mind. For those who want to carefully examine what happened during the formation, growth, and maintenance of the Indian National Congress, this book is essential.

Conclusion

The development of the printing press in Serampore, Bengal, under the sponsorship of an Englishman named William Carey, as well as the emergence of literary prose in all contemporary Indian languages, were the two most major literary events that changed literature (1761-1834). The emergence of newspapers and magazines in Indian languages between 1800 and 1850 was crucial for the growth of prose. Bengali journalism was set on its course by the Serampore missionaries. Modern Indian history books are becoming a potent medium at the same time as modernization brought about a certain kind of transformation.

Article Written By: Atheena Fathima Riyas