The poetics of justice: the discourse of resistance in selected Indian fiction

Abstract

This research project aims to study the discourse of resistance in selected Indian fiction. The focus is specifically on resistance articulated in terms of caste, class, gender and postcoloniality. The fiction selected for the purpose includes Laxman Gaikwad s The Branded (Marathi), Arundhati Roy s The God of Small Things, Amitav Ghosh s The Hungry Tide, P. Sachidanandan s Govardhan s Travels (Malayalam), M.G. Vassanji s The Assassin s Song and Indra Sinha s Animal s People. The study chooses the path-breaking theoretical contributions made by Albert Camus, Michel de Certeau and Jacques Rancière as the framework for critical analysis of the selected literary texts. The three have theorized on the nature of resistance. They have also examined the role of the writer as a figure of resistance. Camus considers a moderate and non-violent ethical resistance to be the logic of creation which enables the common person to fight oppression and to restructure the oppressive order. He distinguishes the literature of consent from the literature of rebellion and considers every significant creative work to be an aesthetic resistance. According to him, an artist fabricates universes and intervenes in the perceived order to bring unity in a disorderly world. He asserts that resistance is a pre-condition for both civilization and art. Certeau glorifies the powerless/ordinary for their strength which he perceives in their spatial practices and modes of consumption. He asserts that the everyday practices of the ordinary people, like speaking, writing, travelling and reading, are tactics that enable them to challenge the strategies of the dominant order. The spatial practices, for him, manifest the resistance of the ordinary. Certeau also reposes great trust in the power of the printed word and of the writer. He claims that a writer creates an ensemble of possibilities in the socio-cultural conditions of a society through his/her writings by opening spaces for the oppressed and thus restructures a given order.