Writing in Inglish

On India's 60th birthday Maria Misra posts an excellent piece on the Guardian blog looking at the phenomenal success of Indian literature in written in the English language.

It was assumed sixty years ago that:

... once the Raj was sent packing its language would quickly follow. ... In 1964, the year that English was supposed to have been phased out, Buddhadeva Bose, a renowned Bengali poet, declared that Indian literature in English was now dead.

But the language clung on tenaciously, and thanks to Salman Rushdie and his successors: ...

Indian English, once declared dead, was reborn as masala-ized, chutnified Inglish, and midnight's literary grandchildren scented fame and fortune.

Misra hopes (as should we all) that some of the best of Indian vernacular literature gets translated into English so that we can enjoy that too.