Gandhi in Kannada Literature

U.R. Anantamurthy, in his brief analysis of the impact of Gandhi on Kannada literature, concluded that there is little evidence of any major Gandhian impact, though both poetry and fiction in Kannada make references to Gandhi himself and the changes he had brought about on communities in Karnataka.¹ It is hard to define the impact of a social and national phenomenon on a literary tradition. The impact, not directly visible, can be seen instead in the subtle ways in which different social worlds respond to it. In the Navodaya (Kannada renaissance, from 1890 to 1950) period, Gandhi was the subject of a fair number of eulogistic poetic tributes, some of which attribute godhood to Gandhi. Some are written in the Bhakti tradition, recording reverence to Gandhi as a modern-day avatar of divinity. Interestingly, many of them also employ the figure of Gandhi as a touchstone to mourn the decline or absence of the Gandhian values of truth and non-violence. Pu.Ti.Na. (P.T. Narasimhachar), in a poem, first provides an elaborate description of the shadow of an eagle flying above and in the last stanza wonders whether Gandhi is the shadow following God Hari himself:

    “Looking at it, today I…