Nayantara Sahgal Research Articles

SOCIOPOLITICAL SYNDROME IN NAYANTARA SAHGAL: A STUDY

The paper seeks to explore the themes surrounding Nayantara Sahgal's personal and political history through her earlier works, which weave together the past of individual lives with the historical past of India. It is always acknowledged that politics is a component of society. Her uncle's insights into global history had an impact on her. Her historical and political consciousness informed her works. Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Graham Greene are among the authors who have influenced her. Nehru's diplomatic foreign policy is the novel's high point. She uses a variety of political life aspects to seamlessly merge the personal and the political. She places emphasis on the humanistic principles she adheres to, and the story turns into an examination of life quality. Her stories possess a warm, intimate quality.

A Recuperation of the Oppressed and Subjugated Women in Arundhati Roy’s the God of Small Things

Postmodern Indian literature in English is a powerful expression of Indian women writers who have made significant contributions to the world of English fiction. The volume, diversity and maturity of the Indian novel have grown considerably. Famous writers like Kamala Markandaya, Nayantara Sahgal, Kamala Das, Arundhati Roy, Anita Desai, Shashi Deshpande and many others have given their creative outlet the enrichment of literature in recent decades by sensitively exposing various issues on the gender bias of women and society. In their creative writings, female characters either rebel against the subjugation of women and the oppressive role of family, society, religion and culture, including long-standing patriarchy, or they reinvent the feminine ethos. The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy's debut novel is a saga about the eternal suffering of women in a patriarchal society, who were oppressed and even deprived of their socio-political, economic identity and basic human rights. Roy excels at how women are victims of violence, exploitation, marginalization, suffering and exile. The novel deals with the suffering, struggle and transformation of three generations of women: Mammachi, Ammu and Rahel. This idea is the basis of this research, which tries to find out how painfully three generations of Women in the novel suffer.

Resounding Resistance: A Critical Assessment of Women’s Contributions in Shaping the Literary Cosmos

Women, the glorious creation of God, have contributed magnificently to the growth of human civilization performing distinctive roles as well as holding influential positions miraculously throughout the history of humanity. India's illustrious past passionately and proudly tells the inspirational stories of strong, independent women who glorified our society and culture with their forceful presence. If we look at the contributions that they have made throughout the history of human civilization, we can see that they have contributed in a variety of ways to the formation of society as a whole. They personify "Shakti," the living manifestation of divine force. Undoubtedly, the universe endows women with innate resilience, as they have demonstrated for decades. They have fought their battles by first recognizing and then publicly embracing their self-worth. Their achievements can be acknowledged as philosophers, global leaders, businesspeople, poets, playwrights, authors, artists, journalists, painters, musicians, and other creative types. Though women have contributed multifariously to society at large, this essay will focus on the contributions made by women to Indian English literature. This study places a significant emphasis on the contributions made by women to Indian English literature throughout the course of its magnificent history, which spans from before the country's independence to the present day. In addition, the paper will analyse a number of different Indian authors in order to get a deeper comprehension of women’s writings and the role they have in the world of literature. This paper will comprehensively study the incredible contribution of writers such as Kamala Das, Shashi Deshpande, Bharti Mukherjee, Kamla Markandaya, Nayantara Sahgal, Arundhati Roy, Shobha De, Anita Desai, Manju Kapur, and Kiran Desai, who have paved the way for future generations of Indian women writers to express themselves. They are the progenitors of resistance, consciousness, and individualism.

Feministic Approach and Transformation of characters in the works of Nayantara Sahgal – A Study

Feministic Approach and Transformation of characters in the works of Nayantara Sahgal – A Study

Images of Women in Time to be Happy by Nayantara Sahgal

Images of Women in Time to be Happy by Nayantara Sahgal

Feministics Sensibility in Nayantara Sahgal’s Novel: Strom in Chandigrah

Feministics Sensibility in Nayantara Sahgal’s Novel: Strom in Chandigrah

Populism and Precarity in Contemporary Indian Dystopian Fiction: Nayantara Sahgal’s When the Moon Shines by Day and Prayaag Akbar’s Leila

Although dystopia has been an enduring trope in literature, it is now, however, that dystopian and apocalyptic fiction has become especially popular all over the world. The main aim of this article is to discuss how contemporary Indian fiction denounces the barbarity of contemporary Indian nationalism, in particular the policies enforced by a repressive Indian state where tradition and purity are valued above multiculturality, dialogue and equality. In order to do this, I focus on two internationally acclaimed novels, namely, NayantaraSahgal’s When the Moon Shines by Day (2017) and Prayaag Akbar’s Leila (2018). In different but complementary ways, both dystopias draw a telling portrait of precarious times in contemporary India. Both novels also warn against the dangers of the fundamentalist version of Hindu nationalism and cultural censorship, at the same time as they bring to our attention the damage that a dominant minority can inflict on those situated at the bottom of the social ladder, who are thus condemned to live in inhuman conditions, as if they were less than nothing.

Building Global Sisterhood in Post-Colonial India in Nayantara Sahgal’s Rich Like Us

This paper examines the representation of global sisterhood between Rose, a working-class British immigrant woman, and Sonali, an upper class Indian female civil servant, in Nayantara Sahgal’s Rich Like Us. The novel centers on the Emergency, India’s period of political upheaval from 1975 to 1977 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency across the county. Rose and Sonali are both searching for their true identity and independence in a rapidly changing India. I argue that this cross-cultural relationship expresses the author’s perspective of the new Indo-British experience in postcolonial India. These two women that Sahgal calls “twin souls” build their bond based on their common marginalization within patriarchal upper-class India by sharing emotional conflicts against unfair treatment. However, this solidarity of privileged women fails to garner any meaningful change in postcolonial India when it excludes subaltern voices from the narrative by repeating the same mistake patriarchical society imposes on them.

Marital Discord in Nayantara Sahgal’s in Rich Like Us

Marital Discord in Nayantara Sahgal’s in Rich Like Us

Fiendishness of Male Characters in Nayantara Sahgal's Rich Like Us

Fiendishness of Male Characters in Nayantara Sahgal's Rich Like Us

National Politics in the Fiction of Rohinton Mistry

Representation of contemporary politics and human problems is a major theme for contemporary litterateurs and social thinkers. A number of prolific and eminent novelists such as Rohinton Mistry, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Khushwant Singh, Nayantara Sahgal, Shashi Tharoor, Amitav Ghosh, Arundhti Roy, Kiran Desai and many more have tried to explore the hidden truth and treacherous activities carried out over Indian citizens by their elected political representative on the name of different government schemes. Rohinton Mistry, an Indian of Parsi in origin presently living in Canada, represented contemporary Indian politics in his novels by subverting the conscious or unconscious cultural categorisations associated with the forms of novels focussing on the human condition located in time and space. He tried to show us how politics is used by politicians of all parties to remain in power for fulfilling their vested interest. Present paper is an effort to describe and discuss how political upheavals have an impact on the psyche of common man. It would discuss the theme of politics in the fiction of Rohinton Mistry.

Space and Identity of Women in Indian English Writings

The women’s studies have been receiving increasing academic and disciplinary recognition throughout the globe. The writers are determined to narrate, respond and react to the place of women in society. The purpose of the present paper is to redefine the image of women in post colonial Indian English literature. The post colonial Indian English writers focus on major issues relating to woman such as her awakening to the realization of her individuality, her breaking away with the traditional image. The transformation of the idealized women into an assertive self willed woman, searching and discovering her true self is described by various Indian Writers like Anita Desai, Sashi Deshpande, Nayantara Sahgal, Bharati Mukherjee, Kamla Markandaya, Manju Kapoor and many others have depicted females who are not silent sufferers but have learnt to fight against injustice and humiliation.

Rudiments of Syncretism in Nayantara Sahgal’s Mistaken Identity

Rudiments of Syncretism in Nayantara Sahgal’s Mistaken Identity

The Turmoil Of India In The Twilight Years Of British Empire – In Nayantara Sahgal’s Novel “Mistaken Identity”

Nayantara Sahgal is the author of nine Novels, ten works of non-fiction and wide-ranging literary and political commentary. She has received the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Sinclair Prize and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize.
 The Novel “Mistaken Identity” is an elegant, adroitly constructed, mordantly written story of the playboy Bhushan singh, son of the Raja of Vijaygarh. He is arrested and thrown into jail and charged with treason.
 The Novelist successfully depicts the British officers’ partial Judgements, tortures of Indian National Activists and the prison rules.
 As news of violent world events penetrates the prison walls – civil war in Turkey, the rise of Mussolini, Gandhi’s Dandi March, mass arrests, the death of hunger-strikers in Lahore – Bhushan discovers that fate has played a cruel trick on him.
 The present paper is an attempt to bring out the story of a love and obsession that brilliantly summons up the turmoil of India in the twilight years of empire.

Socio-Political Dynamics And The Clash Of Values In Nayantara Sahgal’s This Time Of Morning

This present paper deals with the Socio-Political changes and the clash of values encountered after independent India represented in Nayantara Sahgal’s novel, This Time of Mornig. On the one hand, the study explores the conflicting attitude of idealism and pragmatism, humanism and non-humanism, and Gandhian Philosophy and Ganghian syndrome. The novel deals with the idealism of Kailas Virund, Prakash Sukla and Abdual Rahman is juxtaposed to the corrupt political system of Somnath, Hari Mohan and Kalyan. On the other hand, it deals with the problem of communication among the secluded elite of Delhi in term of artistic construct. The core theme of the novel is stated from the point of Rakesh who is himself uncertain vacillating anxious and hesitant at the beginning. Nita is another character who becomes susceptible to Kalyan’s influence. In her we find a young woman whose desires …both spiritual and sexual life have not been understood by her parents. Freedom is seen to be an indispensable prerequisite for human development. Every characters in this novel endeavour towards realization of freedom as basic human value. Sahgal’s prime interest in this novel is perfect and proper relationship between in public life as well as personal life and she ardently shows the problems caused by a changing order.

Post-Modern Feminist Ideology in Nayantara Sahgul Select Novels-A Critical Study

Literature is the mirror of life as a statement which reflects of the society and the characters are the images of writers. The novels of Kiran Desai and Anita Desai deals with the men and women, specifically women struggling against oppression and injustice heaped upon them in the name of tradition and culture. This paper has been discussing about Nayantara Saghul novels here it portrays the inalienable right of the characters in her novels. As a writer with feminist concerns, Nayantara Sahgal is a progeny of the tradition where in power it is defined as goddess ‘Saki’ a female symbols. Her fictional world is busy by political leaders, business tycoons, foreign advisors, upper class people, journalists and highly qualified persons like ambassadors and ministers. A political theme is often combined to the theme of man-woman relationship their marital problems, their temperamental incompatility and the problems arising out of their submissiveness and finally the place of a woman in Indian society when she opts to dissolve a seventeen years old marriage. A divorced women is stigmatized forever and she is curiously watched by others as if divorce where “a disease that left pock marks”. Nayantara’s main concern is with self expression within marriage. She describes marriage as a “life-long damage” if the other partner is not sensitive enough to communicate. Marriage is the unwritten law of most societies and very few do not subscribe to in the post modern world. Sahgal presents couples from three generations and details their antithetical relationships in postmodern feminism.

Women as Subaltern in Nayantara Sahgal's This Time of Morning

Women as Subaltern in Nayantara Sahgal's This Time of Morning

Social Realism and Psychological Transformation of Women Protagonist in Nayantara Sahgal’s Storm in Chandigarh and a Situation in New Delhi - A Study

Social Realism and Psychological Transformation of Women Protagonist in Nayantara Sahgal’s Storm in Chandigarh and a Situation in New Delhi - A Study

SOCIAL REALISM AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION OF WOMEN PROTAGONIST IN NAYANTARA SAHGAL’S STORM IN CHANDIGARH AND A SITUATION IN NEW DELHI-A STUDY

The Research paper aims to focus on Nayantara Sahgal’s position in it as a novelist. It also discusses in detail a critical study of the social realism and Psychological Transformation with survival strategies of the woman protagonist in Nayantara Sahgal’s Storm in Chandigarh and A Situation in New Delhi. How Nayanara Sahgal’s writing was different from other Indian writers. During almost six decades of post-colonial history of Indian English fiction, a wide variety of novelists have emerged focusing attention on a multitude of social, economic, political, religious and spiritual issues faced by three conceding periods of human experience. With the turn of the century the Indian English novelists have surpassed their male counterparts outnumbering hem quantitatively as well as maintaining a high standard of literary writing, equally applauded in India and abroad, experimenting boldly with not only technique but also incorporating tabooed subject matters in their novels and short stories.

Rich like us: The political picture of India

Rich like us (1985) is Nayantara Sahgal’s best novel. This novel won the Sinclair Prize and Sahitya Akademi Award. It presents the political picture of India between 1975-76 the time her cousin Indira Gandhi declared a state of National Emergency and assumed absolute power for about twenty months. Sahgal shows the emergency was not something that happened overnight, it was the consequence of the slow erosion of moral values, which had set in, among the civil servants and the people at large, after independence.