Arun Joshi Analysis

The age in which Arun Joshi lived and worked for the expression of artistic genius was marked by rapid changes in economic, social, cultural, educational and political set up of the country. Arun Joshi began his literary career in the fifties, just after the independence of India. His life covers the two important ages after independence – the age of Jawaharlal Nehru and the age of Indira Gandhi. The period from 1950 to 1984 was dominated largely by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi since Arun Joshi was the product of his age, he has successfully incorporated all the, political, social, cultural, educational and economic events taking place in the country from 1950 to 1990. All his novels from ‘The Foreigner’ to ‘The City and the River’ represent
68% of irrigated areas of wheat and rice as of undivided India went to Pakistan. The divided India experienced an unprecedented situation prevailed in regard to live stock since the better milk yielding cattle was in Sind and West Punjab. The cotton textile industry in India also forced a very unhappy situation as most of the textile mills were situated in India and the raw material was produced in Pakistan.
As far as the general industry was concerned, India’s resources largely unimpaired. Almost all the resources like coal, iron ore, manganese and mica and all the heavy chemical plants, all paper mills, glass factories, cement, paint and matches factories were located in India. The shortage of food stuff was big problem before the government of free India, the extensive imports of food stuff created a serious problem of balance of payments in the trade.
The problems which India faced after independence were not absolutely new. They had grown during the British rule. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in 1946:
“Nearly all our problems today have grown during British rule and as a direct result of British policy, the prices, the minority problems, various vested interests, foreign, and Indian, the lack of industry and the neglect of agriculture, the extreme backwardness in the social services and above all, the tragic poverty of the people.”
Hence Jawaharlal Nehru believed that both the countries with common experience of exploitation at the hands of Colonial powers and common problems of under–development and poverty would join hands to earn a respectable place in the world. Both the countries subscribes to the policy of Non–Alignment and Non–aggression. When Nehru visited China in 1954, he not only recognized China’s sovereignty over Tibet but also signed the Panch Sheel, i.e. five principles of co-existence. But Nehru’s ambition of Asian leadership and world reputation collapsed when in October, 1962 China launched an attack and over ran many Indian posts in