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Question
How were vernacular novels a valuable source of information on native life and customs for colonial administration? Explain with examples.
Solution
i) Colonial administrators found ‘vernacular’ novels a valuable source of information on native life and customs. Such information was useful for them in governing Indian society, with its large variety of communities and castes.
ii) Indians used the novel as a powerful medium to criticise what they considered defects in their society and to suggest remedies. Writers like Viresalingam used the novel mainly to propagate their ideas about society among a wider readership.
iii) Novels also helped in establishing a relationship with the past.
iv) At the same time, people from all walks of life could read novels so long as they shared a common language.
v) Thus novels made their readers familiar with the ways in which people in other parts of their land spoke their language.
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