THE STRUCTURE OF INDIAN LITERATURE AND POSTCOLONIALISM

Abstract

Post-colonial literature has come a long way from re-visiting colonial period of histories and narratives. It has widened its mesh to study the quandary of the subaltern and the marginalized belonging not only to the previously colonized but also to other societies. There are therefore calls for signifying these items as the post-post-colonial phase. The subaltern studies volumes went on to include more existing literary accounts. These indistinct and questioned notions of nationalism and colonialism in a post-colonial, independent Indian context. In the process of so doing, Critics of the volumes questioned the ‘native’ status of the ‘subaltern’? Was not this ‘subaltern ‘as much a western product? Did not the poor, illeterarate, exploited peasant of rural India, depend on the crutches of a handful of Indian intellectuals under the influence of contemporary western fashions? If the subalterns charged the existing historiography of India as ‘elitist’ and adopted western models of understanding like ‘nationalism’, couldnot the same indictmentbe charged against them as well? Questions such as these have been taken up in this interesting article.Postcolonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the decolonization of a country, especially questions relating to the political and cultural independence of formerly subjugated people, and themes such as racialism and colonialism. A range of literary theory has evolved around the subject.