My first encounter with contemporary Indian literature was The Vintage Book of Indian Writing 1947 – 1997, edited by Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West, a celebration of the first fifty years of India’s independence through its literature that has spawned my interest in Indian culture in general and consequential in literature, arts and culture of the world outside of the Western sphere. (InterNova is one fruit of these interests and its host project, the World Culture Hub, is an ongoing and admittedly still embryonic attempt to share some of my findings). Salman Rushdie has been much criticized for his thesis, elaborated in the introduction, that Indian writing in English is superior to most of the contemporary literature in the vernacular languages of India. Many readers have perceived Amit Chaudhuri’s – in my opinion richer and more rewarding – anthology The Vintage of Book of Modern Indian Literature (2001), although it was not intended this way, as an attempt to prove the opposite.
It can’t be denied that through the work of pioneering Indian authors writing in English such as Mulk Raj Anand and R.K. Narayan and contemporary practitioners, many of them expatriates living and writing between the cultures, such as Amitav Ghosh (in discussion for the Nobel Prize in Literature this year), Vikram Seth, Rohinton Mistry, Arundathi Roy and of course Salman Rushdie himself, the literature of the subcontinent has gained international recognition. I have read enough translations from Indian languages, however, to confirm that Rushdie’s thesis is at least doubtful. There are many vernacular writers that stand comparison with Saadat Hasan Manto, one of the world’s greatest short story writers and the only vernacular writer present in Rushdie’s/West’s anthology. Some of my personal favorites include Sunil Gangopadhyay, Nirmal Verma and Qurratulain Hyder (the latter the author of River of Fire, one of the monuments of post-independence Indian literature that easily matches any of the best books by the better-known Anglo-Indian writers). If controversies and differing views like this prove one thing then it’s that Indian literature and culture is too rich, too many-voiced, too contradictory to narrow it down to simple formulas.
In the brilliant BBC documentary India: The Empire of the Spirit (1991) author and presenter Michael Wood quotes at the outset a remark by Mark Twain from the end of the 19th century: “The Indian may seem poor to we rich Westerners but in matters of the spirit it is we who are the paupers and they who are millionaires.” Admirers of the thousands-of-years old history of India’s religions and spirituality that the country is still most spontaneously associated with have added: “History is full of empires of the sword, but India alone created an empire of the spirit.” The traditions of its beliefs, manners, customs, and folklore are still vivid in India today – including their downsides such as the caste system, religious conflicts and the position of women – and have a bearing even on the lifes of contemporary secular Indians. Viewing India only in this light, however, can easily be misleading as the country has not only been one of the cradles of civilization but also one of the cradles of science. The decimal number system and its numerals are still called Arab numbers in the West, but are actually of Indian origin and the Arabs, equally deft as inventors and intermediaries in the golden age of their civilization, were just clever enough to realize the advantages of this system and spread it trough the Muslim ruled world as far as to the doorsteps of Europe. The averagely educated Westerner is still little aware of the accomplishments of ancient Indian science which include, among others, one of the greatest intellectual achievements of mankind, the ingenious Sanskrit grammar of Pāṇini (520-460 BC), which might well be regarded as the earliest precursor of algorithmic computing and was, in comparison to similar developments in Europe, a baffling two and a half thousand years ahead of its time.
As India is on the verge of becoming one of the world’s economic, political and cultural superpowers, along with China likely destined to be one of the domineering nations in the world in the second half of the 21st century and maybe among the ground breakers for several centuries of a global Asian dominance to come, the awareness of such achievements and traditions is beginning to merge in the most surprising ways with a swift industrial, technological, and scientific development. Several contributions to this InterNova issue try, each in their own way, to reconcile the spiritual with the scientific approach to the world, which are both present in Indian culture. It would thus be premature to view the concept of science fiction, as presented in our little snapshot of Indian sf, as somewhat outdated. The Indian science fiction community has clearly tied in with the American science fiction of the 1940ies and 1950ies by assigning it not only an artistic and literary but also a social purpose: to promote science and to encourage reflection about the consequences of technological and scientific change. Science fiction in India is in service of a transition era that might be even more profound and critical than the transition from an agricultural to an industrial state that at times has almost torn China apart. India, the empire of the spirit, is turning into a high-tech country still deeply rooted in its multifaceted cultural heritage and it is discovering science fiction as a means to explore what it could mean to be an Indian in the future.
Being a science fiction enthusiast it was only natural that my general interest in Indian literature lead to a growing curiosity about the state of science fiction writing in India in particular. My contacts to India date back to 2005 when me and my co-editors of InterNova’s German sister magazine Nova made our first attempt with establishing an international science fiction magazine and I was immediately convinced of the potential of Indian science fiction by the excellent works of Vandana Singh, Anil Menon and others. When I restarted InterNova in 2022 it was among my first activities to re-contact the Indian science fiction community and collected material for a theme issue on Indian science fiction. It was a long way and lots of hard work to finally present you the result of our efforts now. I owe special thanks to Dr. Srinarahari of the Indian Association for Science Fiction Studies and Dr. Arvind Mishra of the Indian Science Fiction Writers’ Association and of course all the contributors to this issue. Speaking of which: one special feature of InterNova #7 was not planed but I’m happy that it came about. The fiction part has almost completely been provided by female writers and I’m sure that the only young man present will not mind the good company he is in.
It would be an additional benefit if this issue would inspire readers to further delve into science fiction from India and Indian literature and culture in general. Maybe they will gain a similar insight that I had during work on this and similar projects: The first step to understand another culture is not to become an expert but to learn enough that you get an idea of the amount of your ignorance.
Michael K. Iwoleit
October 2025