VOICES OF IDENTITY AND RESISTANCE: A STUDY OF POSTCOLONIAL THEMES IN CONTEMPORARY INDIAN ENGLISH LITERATURE

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Abstract

Indian English literature has become a major site for examining the cultural, political and psychological consequences of colonialism and the complexities of life after political independence. This paper studies the representation of identity, resistance, hybridity, language, memory, migration, gender, caste and national belonging in selected works by Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh and Kiran Desai. Using a qualitative and interpretative method, the discussion draws on central ideas in postcolonial theory associated with Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. The paper argues that Indian writing in English does not merely imitate an inherited European literary form. Instead, writers reshape English through Indian histories, speech rhythms, cultural references, fractured memories and plural perspectives. Their fiction also demonstrates that decolonization cannot be understood only as the transfer of political power: colonial hierarchies may survive in education, language, cultural prestige and social consciousness, while postcolonial societies also contain internal inequalities based on caste, gender and class. By reading Midnight's Children, The God of Small Things, The Shadow Lines and The Inheritance of Loss together, the study shows how contemporary Indian English fiction transforms the novel into a space where official histories are questioned and marginalized experiences become visible.

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