Postmodernism and politics in Meena Kandasamy’sThe Gypsy Goddess

Abstract

Meena Kandasamy’s debut novel The Gypsy Goddess tackles the plight of a community of Dalit agricultural labourers who live and work in inhuman conditions, coping with the unrelenting oppression and heartbreaking atrocities inflicted upon them by their ruthless upper-caste landlords in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. In particular, this novel revolves around the historical massacre that took place in the village of Kilvenmani on Christmas Day, 1968. The aim of this article will be to analyse the different ways in which Kandasamy, so far known as a critically acclaimed poet, uses the novel as a literary genre, together with some well-known postmodern theories and strategies, in order to disclose the shortcomings of traditional linear plot-driven novels, criticize the exoticism so often displayed in contemporary Indian fiction, unearth the “other” side of official Indian history, dig up the traumatic story of an entire Dalit community’s fight for freedom, and give voice to those who were for so long relegated to silence, invisibility, and oblivion. As this analysis will make clear, the experimental nature of this novel allows Kandasamy to confront readers with an unpalatable reality beyond the capacity of the conventional realist novel.