"Under the Bhasha gaze: Modernity and Indian literature is a study of literatures in India in the context of recent discussions on modernity and its theoretical extensions such as the everyday and the social imaginary. It is a critique of the aesthetics and politics of modernity as they are embodied in Indian Bhasha literatures of the past two centuries. Exploring the trajectory of modernity after Indian literature came into contact with colonialism in the early 19th century is the primary object of the book, though the intricate ways in which the Indian Bhasha imagination negotiated questions clustering around such concepts as colonialism, aesthetics, the literary, the historical and the social receive focused attention in the analysis. Though the study acknowledges the European provenance of modernity as a historical idea, it also recognizes the inherent complexity of the concept and its equivocal connotations when used with reference to the multilingual and polyphonic Bhasha communities in India. Theoretical issues debated in relation to modernity such as its conceptual affinities with the western enlightenment project, its ideological investment in European aesthetics, and its implication for the evolution of what might be called the hermetic aesthetic are important for the study. The work also examines the local and regional strengths of the social imaginary that renders a non-indigenous conception of modernity inadequate in explaining the uniquely modern strengths of the Indian Bhasha imagination. Although the book is concerned with issues pertaining to Indian literature in general, the theoretical postulates undergirding it are illustrated with the help primarily of Malayalam literature, with supplementary inputs from other Indian Bhasha literatures and Indian English literature"-- Provided by publisher.