Raja Rao (8 November 1908 – 8 July 2006) was an

Indian-American Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred t ...

writer of English-language novels and short stories, whose works are deeply rooted in

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

. '' The Serpent and the Rope'' (1960), a semi-autobiographical novel recounting a search for spiritual truth in Europe and India, established him as one of the finest Indian prose stylists and won him the

Sahitya Akademi Award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...

in 1964. For the entire body of his work, Rao was awarded the

Neustadt International Prize for Literature The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is a biennial award for literature sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and its international literary publication, ''World Literature Today''. It is considered one of the more prestigious int ...

in 1988. Rao's wide-ranging body of work, spanning a number of genres, is seen as a varied and significant contribution to Indian English literature, as well as World literature as a whole.

Biography

Early life

Raja Rao was born on 8 November 1908 in Hassan, in the

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, subject to ...

Mysore Mysore (), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. Mysore city is geographically located between 12° 18′ 26″ north latitude and 76° 38′ 59″ east longitude. It is located at an altitude o ...

(now in

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO 15919, ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reor ...

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union terr ...

) into a

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

-speaking

Brahmin Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests ( purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers ( ...

family and was the eldest of 9 siblings, with seven sisters and a brother named Yogeshwara Ananda. His father, H.V. Krishnaswamy, taught

, the native language of Karnataka, at

Nizam College The Nizam College is a constituent college of Osmania University established in 1887 during the reign of Mir Mahbub Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VI, in Basheerbagh, Hyderabad, Telangana. History The Nizampur University College was originally the "Mirsa ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern Indi ...

. His mother, Gauramma, was a homemaker who died when Raja Rao was 4 years old. The death of his mother when he was four left a lasting impression on the novelist – the absence of a mother and orphanhood are recurring themes in his work. Another influence from early life was his grandfather, with whom he lived in Hassan and Harihalli or Harohalli). Rao was educated at a

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

school, the Madarsa-e-Aliya in Hyderabad. After

matriculation Matriculation is the formal process of entering a university, or of becoming eligible to enter by fulfilling certain academic requirements such as a matriculation examination. Australia In Australia, the term "matriculation" is seldom used now ...

in 1927, he studied for his degree at Nizam's College.

Osmania University Osmania University is a collegiate public state university located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Mir Osman Ali Khan, the 7th Nizam of Hyderabad in 1918 , He released a farman to establish OSMANIA UNIVERSITY on the day of 28 August 1918. ...

, where he became friend with

Ahmad Ali Ahmed Ali (1 July 1910 in Delhi – 14 January 1994 in Karachi) ( ur, احمد علی ) was a Pakistani novelist, poet, critic, translator, diplomat and scholar. A pioneer of the modern Urdu short story, his works include the short story c ...

. He began learning French. After graduating from the

University of Madras The University of Madras (informally known as Madras University) is a public state university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and among the most prestigious universities in India, incorporated by an a ...

, having majored in English and history, he won the Asiatic Scholarship of the Government of Hydrabad in 1929, for studying abroad. Rao moved to the

University of Montpellier The University of Montpellier (french: Université de Montpellier) is a public research university located in Montpellier, in south-east of France. Established in 1220, the University of Montpellier is one of the oldest universities in the wor ...

in France. He studied French language and literature, and later at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

in Paris, he explored the Indian influence on Irish literature. He married Camille Mouly, who taught French at Montpellier, in 1931. The marriage lasted until 1939. Later he depicted the breakdown of their marriage in '' The Serpent and the Rope''. Rao published his first stories in French and English. 1931–32 he contributed four articles written in

for ''Jaya Karnataka'', an influential journal.

Nationalist novelist

Returning to India in 1939, he edited ''Changing India'' with Iqbal Singh, an anthology of modern Indian thought from

Ram Mohan Roy Raja Ram Mohan Roy ( bn, রামমোহন রায়; 22 May 1772 – 27 September 1833) was an Indian reformer who was one of the founders of the Brahmo Sabha in 1828, the precursor of the Brahmo Samaj, a social-religious reform ...

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian Anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India du ...

. He participated in the

Quit India Movement The Quit India Movement, also known as the August Kranti Movement, was a movement launched at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee by Mahatma Gandhi on 8th August 1942, during World War II, demanding an end to British rule in ...

of 1942. In 1943–1944 he co-edited a journal from

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

called ''Tomorrow'' with Ahmad Ali. He was a prime mover in the formation of cultural organisation ''Sri Vidya Samiti'', devoted to reviving the values of ancient Indian civilisation. Rao's involvement in the nationalist movement is reflected in his first two books. The novel ''Kanthapura'' (1938) was an account of the impact of

Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

's teaching on

nonviolent Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...

resistance against the British. Rao borrows the style and structure from Indian vernacular tales and folk-epics. He returned to the theme of Gandhism in the short story collection ''The Cow of the Barricades'' (1947). ''The Serpent and the Rope'' (1960) was written after a long silence, and dramatised the relationships between Indian and Western culture. The serpent in the title refers to illusion and the rope to reality. ''Cat and Shakespeare'' (1965) was a

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

comedy that answered philosophical questions posed in the earlier novels. He had great respect for women, and once said, "Women is the Earth, air, ether, sound, women is the microcosm of the mind".

Later years

Rao relocated to the United States and was Professor of Philosophy at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

from 1966 to 1986, when he retired as Emeritus Professor. Courses he taught included ''Marxism to Gandhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Indian philosophy: The Upanishads, Indian philosophy: The Metaphysical Basis of the Male and Female Principle, and Razor.s Edge''. In 1965, he married Katherine Jones, an American stage actress. They had one son, Christopher Rama. In 1986, after his divorce from Katherine, Rao married his third wife, Susan Vaught, whom he met when she was a student at the University of Texas in the 1970s. In 1988 he received the prestigious International Neustadt Prize for Literature. In 1998 he published Gandhi's biography ''Great Indian Way: A Life of Mahatma Gandhi.'' Rao died of heart failure on 8 July 2006, at his home in Austin, Texas, at the age of 97.

Raja Rao Award for Literature

The '

Raja Rao Award for Literature The Raja Rao Award, in some sources the Raja Rao Award for Literature,L. Macedo, "Dabydeen, David", ''The Encyclopedia of Twentieth‐Century Fiction'', Brian Shaffer, editor, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, p. 1035.Eric Martone, ''Encyclopedia of Blacks i ...

' was created in Rao's honor, and with his permission, in the year 2000. It was established "to recognize writers and scholars who have made an out standing contribution to the Literature and Culture of the South Asian Diaspora." The award was administered by the Samvad India Foundation, a nonprofit charitable trust named for the Sanskrit word for dialogue, which was established by

Makarand Paranjape Makarand R. Paranjape (born 31 August 1960) is an Indian novelist, poet, the Director at Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla and, since 1999, a Professor of English in the Centre for English Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru Univer ...

Jawaharlal Nehru University Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is a public major research university located in New Delhi, India. It was established in 1969 and named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The university is known for leading faculties an ...

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Hous ...

to bestow the award and to promote education and cultural contributions to India and the South Asian diaspora. No cash prize was attached to the award during its existence. The Award was bestowed seven times between 2000 and 2009. The inaugural recipient of the Award was K. S. Maniam of

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

, who was bestowed the award in 2000. Other recipients were Yasmine Gooneratne of

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

Edwin Thumboo Edwin Nadason Thumboo B.B.M. (born 22 November 1933) is a Singaporean poet and academic who is regarded as one of the pioneers of English literature in Singapore. Thumboo graduated in English from the University of Malaya in 1956. Although he ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

, Harsha V. Dehejia of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

,"Preserving a culture under attack," '' The Ottawa Citizen'',

Ottawa, Canada Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

, 4 Oct. 2003, P. C3. David Dabydeen of

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

, Varadaraja V. Raman of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, ''Science and Spirituality in Modern India'', Samvad India Foundation, in association with Centre for Indic Studies, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, 2006, page xiii. and

Vijay Mishra Vijay Chandra Mishra (born 4 May 1945) is an academic, author and cultural theorist from Fiji. He is currently a professor at Murdoch University, Australia. Academic and professional career Born in Suva, Fiji on 4 May 1945 to Hari Mishra a ...

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consis ...

. Meenakshi Mukherjee, chair of the last awarding jury, died in 2009, and the award was discontinued that same year, and has not since been bestowed. Those who served as jurors for selection of the recipient included Meenakshi Mukherjee (Chair),

Braj Kachru Braj Bihari Kachru (15 May 1932 – 29 July 2016) was an Indian-American linguist. He was Jubilee Professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He published studies on the Kashmiri language. Personal life Braj ...

, Victor Ramraj, and

''Kanthapura''

Raja Rao's first and best-known novel, ''Kanthapura'' (1938), is the story of a south Indian village named Kanthapura. The novel is narrated in the form of a

Sthala Purana Purana (; sa, , '; literally meaning "ancient, old"Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature (1995 Edition), Article on Puranas, , page 915) is a vast genre of Indian literature about a wide range of topics, particularly about legends an ...

by an old woman of the village, Achakka. Dominant castes like

Brahmins Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests ( purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (guru ...

are privileged to get the best region of the village, while lower castes such as Pariahs are marginalized. Despite this

classist Class discrimination, also known as classism, is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes, behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper class at the expense of ...

system, the village retains its long-cherished traditions of festivals in which all castes interact and the villagers are united. The village is believed to be protected by a local deity named Kenchamma. The main character of the novel, Moorthy, is a young Brahmin who leaves for the city to study, where he becomes familiar with

Gandhian The followers of Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest figure of the Indian independence movement, are called Gandhians. Gandhi's legacy includes a wide range of ideas ranging from his dream of ideal India (or ''Rama Rajya)'', economics, environmentalis ...

philosophy. He begins living a Gandhian lifestyle, wearing home-spun

khaddar Khadi (, ), derived from khaddar, is a hand-spun and woven natural fibre cloth promoted by Mahatma Gandhi as ''swadeshi'' (self-sufficiency) for the freedom struggle of the Indian subcontinent, and the term is used throughout India, Pakistan ...

and discarded foreign clothes and speaking out against the caste system. This causes the village priest to turn against Moorthy and excommunicate him. Heartbroken to hear this, Moorthy's mother Narasamma dies. After this, Moorthy starts living with an educated widow, Rangamma, who is active in India’s independence movement. Moorthy is then invited by Brahmin clerks at the Skeffington coffee estate to create an awareness of Gandhian teachings among the pariah

coolies A coolie (also spelled koelie, kuli, khuli, khulie, cooli, cooly, or quli) is a term for a low-wage labourer, typically of South Asian or East Asian descent. The word ''coolie'' was first popularized in the 16th century by European traders acros ...

. When Moorthy arrives, he is beaten by the policeman Bade Khan, but the coolies stand up for Moorthy and beat Bade Khan - an action for which they are thrown out of the estate. Moorthy continues his fight against injustice and social inequality and becomes a staunch ally of Gandhi. Although he is depressed over violence at the estate, he takes responsibility and goes on a three-day fast and emerges morally elated. A unit of the independence committee is formed in Kanthapura, with office bearers vowing to follow Gandhi’s teachings under Moorthy's leadership. The British government accuses Moorthy of provoking the townspeople to inflict violence and arrests him. Though the committee is willing to pay his bail, Moorthy refuses their money. While Moorthy spends the next three months in prison, the women of Kanthapura take charge, forming a volunteer corps under Rangamma's leadership. Rangamma instills a sense of patriotism among the women by telling them stories of notable women from Indian history. They face police brutality, including assault and rape, when the village is attacked and burned. Upon Moorthy's release from prison, he has lost his faith in Gandhian principles as he sees most of the land of his village has been sold to city dwellers of Bombay and the village has changed beyond repair.

Bibliography

Fiction: Novels *''Kanthapura'' (1938),

Orient Paperbacks The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the c ...

*'' The Serpent and the Rope'' (1960),

Penguin India Penguins (order Sphenisciformes , family Spheniscidae ) are a group of aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator. Highly adapt ...

* ''The Cat and Shakespeare: A Tale of India'' (1965)

* ''Comrade Kirillov'' (1976),

* ''The Chessmaster and His Moves'' (1988),

Fiction: Short story collections *''The Cow of the Barricades'' (1947) *''The Policeman and the Rose'' (1978) *''On the Ganga Ghat'' (1989), Orient Paperbacks (Vision Books) Non-fiction * ''Changing India: An Anthology'' (1939) * ''Tomorrow'' (1943–44) * ''Whither India?'' (1948) * ''The Meaning of India'', essays (1996),

* ''The Great Indian Way: A Life of Mahatma Gandhi'', biography (1998), Orient Paperbacks Anthologies * ''The Best of Raja Rao'' (1998) * ''5 Indian Masters'' (Raja Rao,

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

Premchand Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (31 July 1880 – 8 October 1936), better known by his pen name Premchand (), was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani literature. Premchand was a pioneer of Hindi and Urdu social fiction. He was one of ...

, Dr.

Mulk Raj Anand Mulk Raj Anand (12 December 1905 – 28 September 2004) was an Indian writer in English, recognised for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, togethe ...

Khushwant Singh Khushwant Singh (born Khushal Singh, 2 February 1915 – 20 March 2014) was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India inspired him to write ''Train to Pakistan'' in 1956 (made ...

) (2003).

Awards

* 1964:

* 1969:

Padma Bhushan The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service ...

, India's third highest civilian award * 1988:

* 2007:

Padma Vibhushan The Padma Vibhushan ("Lotus Decoration") is the second-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "exceptional and distinguished service". All persons without ...

, India's second highest civilian award

References

*Stefano Mercanti, 2009.
The Lotus and the Rose. Partnership Studies in the Works of Raja Rao
'

External links

Raja Rao Website
sponsored by th

at the University of Texas. *
The Literary Encyclopedia's article on Raja Rao

"Breathing India In America: A Tribute to Raja Rao"
by Francis C. Assisi. (2006)

a 1969 English poem by Czeslaw Milosz. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rao, Raja Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in literature & education Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in literature & education 1908 births 2006 deaths 20th-century Indian short story writers Indian male novelists Aligarh Muslim University alumni Kannada people People from Hassan English-language writers from India Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in English 20th-century Indian novelists Novelists from Karnataka Indian male short story writers 20th-century Indian male writers Indian emigrants to the United States American male novelists 20th-century American novelists University of Texas at Austin faculty American male short story writers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American short story writers