A brief History of THE INDIAN ASSOCIATION FOR ENGLISH STUDIES

(Now known as The Association for English Studies of India) By: Prof. Amlendu Bose

Registration No. F25372N

It was early in the nineteen-thirties that Indian educationists in general and University teachers of English in particular began to feel the necessity of carefully scrutinising the schemes and methods of teaching English in the country. On the occasion of the golden jubilee festivity in the University of Allahabad held in 1937, the English Association of U.P. brought out a decennial report. The Association had its centre in the University of Allahabad, with the late Professors Amarnath jha, Satish Chandra Deb, Phiroze Dastoor and K.K Mehrotra as the Key-figures who, however, received active cooperation from Dr. U.C Nag of Banaras Hindu University, Professor C.V Mahajan of Agra University and most valuably, from Professor N.K Sidhanta of Lucknow University. Among scholars from other States who were closely associated with the U.P. Association were Professor D.C. Sharma of Lahore, Professor Mahmud Hasan and Professor P.K. Guha of Dacca, Professor M.M Bhattacharjee of Calcutta. Presently, the English Association of U.P. was wound up and the English Association of India was formed. The first conference was held in 1940 at Lucknow. With Professor Amarnath Jha as the President while Professor Sidhanta combined within himself the functions of the Hony. General Secretary and the Hony. Treasurer. The next two Conferences- not annual but held at times that the early organisers found convenient- were held at Lahore (1941) and Allahabad (1947). Those were the war years; there was no firm list of the members of the Association; membership was confined to only university teachers.

Membership of the AESI has been opened to all persons who are or have been engaged in the teaching of English language, literature, linguistics in recognized institutions, colleges, teaching departments in the Universities in India, and who subscribe to the ideals of the AESI and abide by the regulations and bye-laws of the AESI in force. Such person can be made a Regular Member of AESI.

Membership of the AESI has also been opened to all persons who are interested in English language; literature and linguistics, such as Research Scholars, Scholars of Eminence, Creative Writers, Journalists, Editors and Translators. The spouses of the Regular Members of the AESI, who attended the conferences, can  be eligible to become Members of the AESI. All such persons can be made the Associate Members of the AESI.

A brief History of The INDIAN Journal of English Studies

(By: Prof. Naresh Chandra)

Since the Indian Journal of English Studies is the official organ of the Indian Association for English Studies (Now known as The Association For English Studies Of India), it is logical to suppose that the Journal should date from a time later than the founding of the Association, but in actual fact the Journal is older than the Association though not under that name. The All India English Teachers' Conference was, to quote the words of its first President, Late Prof. Amarnath Jha, "a happy idea of Professor N.K. Shindhanta's". It held its session in Lucknow in December , 1941, with only eighteen delegates ,prominent among whom were Prof. Amarnath Jha(President), Professor N.K. Sidhanta (Secretary) , Mr. R.R. Shreshta (Local Secretary and Editor), Dr. Mahmood Hassan and Mr. P. K . Guha of Dacca, Prof. M.M. Bhattacharjee (Culcutta,now Kolkata) and Prof. S Pandey, the famous Shakespeare scholar of Allahabad. The proceedings of that Conference, compiled and edited by the late Mr. R.R. Shrestha of Lucknow, printed all the papers in their entirety. It also carried an Editorial and so it may be hailed as the first number of the Indian Journal of English Studies. Nor was the publication undeserving of notice. Prof. Jha in his Presidential address took a definite stand on the issue of Indian English maintaining that any literary work in English by an Indian author must have a distinctive flavour to set it apart from English English. As a side issue to his thesis, Prof. Jha criticised Nehru for writing English like an Englishman. This became a thorny issue and the leading articles in the newspapers remained involved for sometime in its brambles. Among other papers of note were one by Guha (then a lecturer at Dacca) on "Courtesy in Hamlet ", showing how 'Courtesy' literature of the Renaissance had influenced Shakespeare in moulding the character of the great tragic heroes; another by Mr. Ahmad Ali (then a lecturer at Lucknow, later a well known man of letters and diplomat of Pakistan) on the unrealistic examination papers in English in our Universities, which do not seek to test the candidate's knowledge of prescribed authors but want to find out what he knows of comments of a critic on the criticism of the prescribed author by another critic. He also raised the question of the prossibility of fully realising the values of a literature which comes from a country the geography, the natural phenomena , social concepts and cultural tradition of which are so different from ours. I also recall Prof. Mahmood Hassan's sharp reaction to this stand, and his vitriolic remark, "Do we have to have incestuous mothers in order to appreciate Hamlet?" All this and much else went into the proceedings, which attracted more attention to the doings of the Conference than any subsequent formal issue of the Journal has done. I hail the Proceedings of the first English Conference as the first number of Indian Journal of English Studies. The formal resolution for founding the Journal was moved at the Ajmer Conference. The Sponsors were Prof. V.V. John and late Prof. S. C Deb. Among those who lauded and encouraged the project was Mr. Bruton, the then Education Officer of the British Council, New Delhi. Everyone felt the need of a permanent record of the papers presented at the conference.

 

A  BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INDIAN JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDEIS.

By: NARESH CHANDRA
R.K. DHAWAN
S K YADAV

Since the Indian Journal of English Studies is the official organ of the Indian Association for English Studies, it is logical to suppose that the Journal should date from a time later than the founding of the Association; but in actual fact the Journal is older than the Association, though not under that name. The All India English Teachers' Conference was, to quote the words of its first President, Late Prof. Amarnath Jha, “a happy idea of Professor N.K. Shindhanta's”. It held its session in Lucknow in December , 1941, with only eighteen delegates ,prominent among whom were Prof. Amarnath Jha(President), Professor N.K. Sidhanta (Secretary) , Mr. R.R. Shreshta (Local Secretary and Editor), Dr. Mahmood Hassan and Mr. P.K. Guha of Dacca, Prof. M. M. Bhattacharjee (Calcutta) and Prof. S. Pandey, the famous Shakespeare scholar of Allahabad. The proceedings of that Conference, compiled and edited by the late Mr. R.R. Shrestha of Lucknow, printed all the papers in their entirety. It also carried an Editorial, and so it may be hailed as the first number of the Indian Journal of English Studies.
Nor was the publication undeserving of notice. Prof. Jha in his Presidential address took a definite stand on the issue of Indian English, maintaining that any literary work in English by an Indian author must have a distinctive flavour to set it apart from English English. As a side issue to his thesis, Prof. Jha criticised Nehru for writing English like an Englishman. This became a thorny issue and the leading articles in the newspapers remained involved for some time in its brambles.   Among other papers of note were one by Guha (then a lecturer at Dacca) on “Courtesy in Hamlet “, showing how 'Courtesy' literature of the Renaissance had influenced Shakespeare in moulding the character of the great tragic heroes; another by Mr. Ahmad Ali (then a lecturer at Lucknow, later a well known man of letters and diplomat of Pakistan) on the unrealistic examination papers in English in our Universities, which do not seek to test the candidate's knowledge of prescribed authors but want to find out what he knows of comments of a critic on the criticism of the prescribed author by another critic. He also raised the question of the possibility of fully realising the values of a literature which comes from a country the geography, the natural phenomena , social concepts and cultural tradition of which are so different from ours. I also recall Prof. Mahmood Hassan's sharp reaction to this stand, and his vitriolic remark, “Do we have to have incestuous mothers in order to appreciate Hamlet?”
All this and much else went into the proceedings, which attracted more attention to the doings of the Conference than any subsequent formal issue of the Journal has done. I hail the Proceedings of the first English Conference as the first number of Indian Journal of English Studies.
The formal resolution for founding the Journal was moved at the Ajmer Conference. The Sponsors were Prof. V.V. John and late Prof. S. C. Deb. Among those who lauded and encouraged the project was Mr. Bruton, the then Education Officer of the British Council, New Delhi. Everyone felt the need of a permanent record of the papers presented at the conference, But the means for giving a material shape to the project were lacking. The resolution was accepted in principle and a move was set afoot to explore the possibility of involving some publisher who only who would be willing to take up the publication of the Journal.
The resolution was reiterated at subsequent conferences, particularly at Aligarh and Dharwar, but it was not till 1960 that tireless efforts by Prof. Amalendu Bose made Orient Longmans agreeable to undertake publication and distribution. An Editorial board was formed with Prof. A. Bose as Chairman, and such eminent scholars as Prof V. K. Gokak, Prof K. R Srinivasa Iyengar, Prof (Miss) A. G. Stock, Prof. G.C. Banerjee, Prof. B. Das and Dr. Shiv K. Kumar as its members One interesting aspect of this Editorial Board to be noted is that 5 out of 7 names are of Oxford men. This probably is responsible for its literary characteristics and style of presentation, both of which follow the pattern of the prestigious Journal of Oxford Another distinctive feature of the articles in it is that all of them are based on research theses of books already published, or announce the nucleus of the forthcoming books of the authors One may draw whatever conclusions one wants from these facts.
Prof. Bose continued at the helm of affairs for eight years (1960-1967), and his original Board also was not disturbed for six years From 1965 minor changes began to be made in the composition of the Board, but that also because of the non-availability of certain members New names such as those of Prof. Ramaswamy, Prof Raj Kumar, Prof V. Y. Kantak and Prof. D.S. Maini appeared for brief periods. For the first eight years it was Prof. Bose whose name was identical with that of the Journal.
Apart from maintaining high standard, Prof. Bose had frequency of publication of the Journal in his mind from the very beginning. The first five volumes have No.1 appearingwith the number of the volume. That indicates that the intention was to publish the Journal more than once in the year. At the end of Vol. V.  No. I there is an Editorial note which reads:
“The Indian Journal of English Studies is for the present being issued once a year but the Indian Association for English Studies, of which this Journal is the official organ, hopes in course of time, to increase the frequency of its publication”.
That hope seems to have been abandoned with Vol. V, because from Vol. VI onwards ‘No I’ does not make its appearance with the number of the volume. The reason is quite obvious. If the Association had brought out more than one issue in the year, the members would have expected a free copy of each issue, and this could not have been possible with the membership fee realised by the Association. If the second and subsequent numbers had been brought out on the expectation of voluntary subscription, it was feared there would not be sufficient number of subscribers.
Another distinctive achievement of Prof. Bose’s Editorship was a special Shakespeare number (Vol. V, No. 1). Something new about this volume is that it does not carry the names of members of the Editorial Board. There is only the editorial note at the end under the name of Prof Bose from which the above quotation has been reproduced. This may be a matter of chance or an error of the printers. But there is a strong temptation to presume that it was the work of Prof. Bose alone. However, Vol. VI again announces the names on the Editorial Board, and they are the same as in previous volumes. Changes in the Editorial Board appear for the first time with Vol. VII.
Special numbers devoted to particular authors or subjects have been suggested from time to time, but there are apparently insurmountable difficulties in the way. The Journal is the official organ of the Association, the Association holds an annual Conference, and the delegates present their papers in the hope that these may be published in the Journal. If the annual issue (which is the only one we have had from the very beginning) is devoted to a particular author or subject, delegates to the Conference, who are also members of the Association, will be dissatisfied. If a midyear issue is brought out as a special number the difficulty alluded to in the last paragraph will come in the way. The feeling persists that some solution has to be found and special numbers have to be brought out.
When Prof. Bose relinquished the Editorship, Prof. B Das took it over and remained the Chief Editor for the next seven years (1968-1974) Prof. Bose had provided not only a good foundation but also a considerable superstructure, and it was credit enough for anybody to maintain them. Prof. Das not only did that but considerably widened the scope of the Journal by including in it articles on American Literature, Indian Writing in English, Black Literature and Literature of the Commonwealth. It is true that the first article on American literature had appeared in Vol. VII (1966), but it had been written by Prof Das who was then a member of the Editorial Board. Volume IX, the first to be edited by Das had as many as four articles on American Literature out of a total of eight articles, the first article on an Indian author in English (Shri Aurobindo) and the first review of Indian poetry in English (Sitakant Mahapatra). The first article on Commonwealth Literature (Australian) appeared in Vol. XII. (1971), and the first article on Black Literature in Vol. XIII (1972).
Prof. Kantak who took over from Das in 1976, introduced a new feature, Literature Forum, seeking to provoke and evoke opinions and views on important academic and literary questions, but it failed to mobilise any interest as is evidenced by the absence of any response or reference to it in the subsequent issue. Kantak stayed in the Editorial Chair for one year only and was succeeded by Prof. P.S. Sundaram who did likewise. Prof. Naresh Chandra Editor-in Chief took over from him at the Jaipur Conference in 1978.

The Jaipur Conference took an important policy decision. Previously the Chief Editor as well as the other Editors was elected in the plenary session of the Conference. This, it seems, did not work satisfactorily, because there being no limit to the number, names continued to be proposed till the elected list became unwieldy. The Jaipur Conference decided to elect only the Chief Editor and to empower him to nominate other members subject to a maximum of six. That arrangement is working at present.
On the publication side an important decision had to be taken in 1979. The Publisher's demand showed an ever-rising trend, and so the Association had to take up the publication on its own, subject to the condition that the Association shall not be made to shoulder any liability beyond the subsidy amount that it would in the normal course have been giving to the publisher. The worked and the first issue of the Journal ever to be published by the Association (Vol. XIX) were released at the Madras Conference in 1979.
After Prof. Naresh Chandra's demise, Prof. K.L. Sharma of Rajasthan University, Jaipur, edited the journal for a full term. Prof. K. Ayyappa Paniker of Kerala University, Trivandrum, who took over the editorship from Prof. Sharma, brought a change in the editorial committee. As a step towards democratization, he inducted the entire IAES executive committee into the Advisory Editorial Board. Also, he introduced a new section in the Journal entitled UJES Bibliography Mr. L.S. Ramaiah, Chief Librarian, CIEFL, Hyderabad, rendered an invaluable help in the preparation of this annual bibliography, which included details of publication of articles and books on English studies in India. To mark the golden jubilee of the IAES, he brought out a special volume in book form entitled Indian English Literature since Independence. In 1993, beginning with volume XXXII. Prof. C.R. Viswerwara Rao of SK University, Anantapur, took over the editorship of the Journal. He meticulously edited the contents and infused a new life into the Journal. He brought out a special volume of articles in book form entitled Indian Writing Today
In 1996, Dr. R.K. Dhawan of the University of Delhi took over as editor. One of the most notable features of the Journal is that, unlike sometimes in the past, it is now being published quite regularly, in time with the holding of the annual conference. Further, special issues, in book form, are being brought out, as suggested and desired by the former editors. These issues are desirable as it is increasingly becoming difficult to contain all the selected articles in one annual issue of the Journal. In terms of theme and subject matter for these volumes, special attention is given to Indian writing and criticism.
Like Canada, Australia and America, we must respect and promote our national literature. While English literature remains as the cannon, Indian writing needs our special attention. It is with this view that 50 Years of Indian Writing was released at S.K. University, Anantapur, last year, and again, Indian Writing in the New Millennium is being released at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. It is hoped that the Journal and the special volumes will continue to appeal the reader and be considered as most authentic sources of criticism and creative writing

After Dr. R K Dhawan who piloted the growth of the IJES from 1996 to 2006,Prof B K Das took over the charge and discharged his duties and responsibilities with due care from 2007 to 2010 and did his best to improve the quality of the journal. Thereafter Dr Suman Bala shouldered the responsibility of Editor from 2010 to 2012 and gave her charge to Dr Binod Mishra in 2013 who served two terms from 2013 to 2018 and found out the fact that this journal had its place in the UGC approved list of journal since the early sixties of 20th century. It was placed in UGC record at the Serial no. 228 having journal no. 46467 entitled therein as The Indian Journal of English Studies bearing ISSN 05371988 and showing Oriental Longmans as publisher. As it is mentioned earlier in this brief that in 1960 Prof Bose got success to convince Orient Longmans to undertake its publication and distribution. Now the Editor selects the publishers on the basis of his or her discretion. During this period ,in the year 2012 , apart from regular publication of the journal another most significant publication, conceived , entirely financed personally and published , was done by the then Chairman of AESI ,Dr Parmanand Jha: anthology- Peregrinations - a collection of almost lost Presidential Addresses delivered by the Conference Presidents during the past two decades . Here, a wish can be expressed that in coming time. May the AESI have such a generous, committed and visionary chairman in the coming time too! In the year 2019 Prof C L Khatri, a noted poet, critic and translator elected Editor but , after the publication of vol.56 and 57,he left this world forever suddenly in 2020 . Then the EC of AESI requested Prof M R Verma to get vol 58 of this journal published in his editorship.
This brief history of the Journal has been presented with a purpose. The steady progress of the Journal over four decades should set the members thinking about the ways and means to increase frequency of publication, and to bring out a special number every year. These objectives can be achieved only with the active co-operation of all the members of the Association.