Fakir Mohan Senapati: His Search for Authentic Oriya

There was dawn of literary realism earlier in Oriya than in Hindi : The days of Munshi Premchand in Hindi came long after Fakir Mohan Senapati had introduced realism in Oriya literature.

Fakir Mohan Senapati (1843 - 1918) lived at a time when Oriya cultural identity was under question and under attack by more influential cultural elements of that time. These politically and socially powerful cultural elements were motivated to declare Oriya cultural elements as inferior counterpart of them and were making attempts to influence British government of that time capable to take decisions to see Oriya from their lens to gain more prestige and power. Oriyas were scattered in 3 adjoining states. It was the period of cultural war and Oriya was at receiving end.

Fakir Mohan Senapati was driven by the need to protect and save the language and the culture of people around him from this onslaught. His writings reflect maturity of the Oriya nationalism. He wanted to write in authentic Oriya language: he tried his best to avoid borrowing words from Persian, Bengali and using Sanskrit words in his works.

Gourishankar Ray (editor of Utkal Dipika) influenced him by the severe criticism of word and style choice in his (Fakir's) 'History of India: Volume I' published in 1869. Thereafter, He looked for where he could find samples of most uncorrupted Oriya language. He found it in the language of rural peasants of his time who were least exposed to external forces and culture in those days. This was the Oriya which had been shaped from time immemorial by all cultural forces that were interacting with one another to define Oriya identity. He strove to preserve this Oriya full of Tadbhav and Desaj words resulting from legacy of this interaction.


Source
1. P. Mohapatra , Article in Orissa Government E-Magazine , April 2005
2. Gaganendra Nath Dash, "Fakir Mohan Senapati's Discovery from Below: Decolonisation and Search for Linguistic Authenticity", Economic and Political Weekly, November 18, 2006.
3. S. P. Mohanty, A classic novel and the literary view from below, Feb 2006
4. A Book Review: Chha Mana Atha Guntha in English