An Analysis of Kanthapura by Raja Rao: A Postcolonial Study

Bisma Butt Et Al

doi:10.17762/pae.v58i1.1629

Abstract

This study focuses the ‘Kanthapura’ to analyze the construction of historical consciousness in narratives and this fiction is used as literary aspect of nationalist ideology. Particularly, this work examines the political representation of women in Indian national movement in 1930 by using the theory of nationalism by Bhabha (1990). The study demystifies this novel to find out challenges of stereotypical Indian women and how they become solidified in the building process of Indian national identity. Kanthapura (Delhi Orient) is very much concerned to focus on the construction of Vedic Hindu ideal for women and the reason of writing true and authentic history to investigate the women’s issues they face during the colonial period of India. The study sheds light on imagined and true nature of nationalist discourse and its effect on women in postcolonial India. It is not concerned with those doctrines of nationalist sentiments which are generalized through religious stereotypes rather it is paradoxical in nature that begins to assume identification with European accounts of India so it explores the idea of political desirability that shapes and constructs the ideology and as well as it allows for the presentation of unified identity of India.

Highlights

This sort of literature is very important for historians for two reasons: First, to understand the nationalist historiography in form of obstinate essentialist representation, second, to undermine the postcolonial Indian intellectuals’ development
Nationalism and its exposition in historical novel that helps to generate the struggle for freedom and women’s actual role in it are diverged. The study demystifies this novel to find out challenges of stereotypical Indian women and how they become solidified in the building process of Indian national identity
This study explores the modified conception of nationalist ideology by exploring the women’s issue in last years of colonial rule in India

Summary

Introduction

This sort of literature is very important for historians for two reasons: First, to understand the nationalist historiography in form of obstinate essentialist representation, second, to undermine the postcolonial Indian intellectuals’ development. To understand the model of cultural identity by Rao, it is essential to locate the women of the novel in movement of freedom.

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Results

Conclusion