Post Colonial Fiction and the Evolving Idea of the Nation

The article endeavours to interrogate the category of post-colonial literature which is usually defined as that which deals with issues of diaspora, hybridity, resistance to colonial oppression, marginalization through Othering, migration, and integration of cultures. However, literature written by those who have not traveled/immigrated to other places is not given the name of post-colonial fiction. Literature emerging from within previously colonized countries which deals with issues of civil strife, identarian politics, class, caste, gender and a host of other problems that are crucial to constructing pluralistic national identities is thus not given primacy. In order to discuss the construction of national identity in post-colonial fiction it is crucial to interrogate the historical narrative created to legitimize the dominant identity of the nation which this fiction challenges, or re-imagines. What are the consequences of selectively remembering the past; of highlighting some events in the nation's memory of its history while consciously attempting to suppress others? John Berger writes that a people or a class which is cut off from its own past is far less free to choose and to act as a people or a class than one that has been able to situate itself in history, and Walter Benjamin, writing in 1940 under the direct threat of a Fascist regime, points to the importance of the historical materialism in the task of brushing history against the grain which does not simply involve an interrogation of the past but more importantly involves asking questions of the present. Writers of post-colonial fiction in India such as Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, and Mukul Kesavan attempt to address issues concerning the writing, and the role, of historiography in relation to the ways in which national identities are constructed. They try to uncover the silences and omissions of the dominant historiography and the influence of these suppressed memories on the commonly received notions about the nation and its past. The elusive idea of the homogenous nation which was supposed to free the people from servitude has become the battleground for conflicting narratives between seats of power and the communities they marginalize and attempt to silence. The construction of national identity has become far more complex than it was at the time of decolonization. Therefore, there is an urgent need to redefine the category of post-colonial literature to account for the changing idea of the nation.