As a simultaneous question and example, Kipling is often given as an example of a British Empire writer with condescending attitudes to the very people he wrote about.
The names of Indian authors never reached me because my parents thought the Empire was unadulterated good, and they thought that because my grandparents were born near the peak of the Empire — one of my grandmothers was, for a period in her infancy, living in a military base in the British Raj.
They whose names I do not know could very plausibly be Kipling’s equal or better. I know from various examples that various cliques will have hidden the names of good authors from me.
That leads me to the question: can anyone here recommend a good Indian author from the same era as Kipling? (Yes I know Kipling was born in India).
> That leads me to the question: can anyone here recommend a good Indian author from the same era as Kipling? (Yes I know Kipling was born in India).
While not a direct answer to your question, I think The Location of Culture by Homi Bhabha is relevant in the sense that it addresses why your question is difficult (perhaps impossible) to answer.
I suppose rather than asking for a “good” author (subjective, for example I’ve met an Oxbridge English Literature graduate who thought Shakespeare was overrated), I should have asked for a “famous” author from the same era.
The sort of author whose works a current-day Indian politician would have on their shelves, or perhaps quote from, to signal how cultured they are — in the same sort of way UK PM Johnson tried to show how cultured he was by quoting Kipling.
Reading old books is worth it. New ones are hard to filter and many will turn out to be completely unnecessary.
Leaves you on the sides of contemporary culture but at least you're reading efficiently.