The Antonym spoke to Dr. Suparno Banerjee, the author of Indian Science Fiction: Patterns, History and Hybridity that was published in October 2020 last week. Dr. Banerjee grew up in Santiniketan, India with a keen interest in science fiction since his boyhood days. So, when he decided to pursue literary studies later on he knew exactly what he would focus on. He is a professor of English at Texas State University and a scholar of science fiction and post-colonial literature. He presently resides in San Marcos, USA.

Indian Science Fiction is a detailed academic book and the first of its kind to examine the historical development of the science fiction genre across multiple languages in the Indian subcontinent. The enormity of the task of sifting through and chronicling a diverse body of work is daunting in itself but also unique given how Science Fiction (SF) in India has thrived on the confluence of many cultural interactions. Not only does the author shoulder that successfully, but he also nudges his readers to introspect on the exclusive nature of Indian Science Fiction by organizing the literature under thematic categories aided by the post-colonial theoretical lens he dons.

What that allows the author to do is to look at SF as a tool to react to authority, as a device to challenge British colonialism before Indian independence. He interprets early literature like Kylas Chunder Dutt’s ‘A Journal of Forty-Eight Hours of the Year 1945’ (published in 1835) followed by Shoshee Chunder Dutt’s ‘The Republic of Orissa: A Page from the Annals of the 20th Century’ (published in 1845) as utopian ‘future histories’ that create a promising futuristic discourse about nationalism. He also discusses how Begum Rokeya Shakhawat Hossain’s ‘Sultana’s Dream’ as early as 1905 reverses gender roles through the creation of a feminist utopia. He also traces the rise of vernacular magazines through which SF finds expression through indigenous languages—mostly Marathi, Tamil, Hindi, Assamese, and Bengali (the languages the author focuses on).

In the post-colonial period, we see the genre mutate into new forms, in multiple directions. At times it counters European hegemony, and at other times it imitates the western tradition highlighting the complex hybridity (of Indian and western values) of the postcolonial nation, reflecting “a postcolonial society’s struggle to establish a foothold in the new world order.” The author discusses another significant shift post-1990s when English-language SF literature reflecting a more global ambition became prominent. Amitava Ghosh’s 1995 novel ‘The Calcutta Chromosome’ brings a turning point that “not only rejuvenated English-language SF in India but also placed Indian SF on the global stage for the first time.”

The book discusses in detail the influence of mythology on Indian SF. Instead of remaining confined to celebrating the Indian tradition of mythology, the author offers a nuanced observation.  “Indian SF does not use mythology only to cater to religious nationalism. Myths are often used to subvert hegemonic religious and patriarchal practices, especially challenging the status quo of caste and gender roles in the stratified Indian society.” (Chapter 2)
University of Wales Press
272 pages

In the book discussion Dr. Banerjee walks us through several sections of the book covering questions like how he defines Indian SF, how nationalism and post-colonialism has influenced Indian SF. He elaborates what role mythology played in shaping the literature, and stresses how translations from different Indian languages to English can make the genre more accessible or popular in India and outside.

Here is the full conversation with Dr Suparno Banerjee – Indian Science Fiction – Past, Present and the Path Ahead