'Like a Modern Indian Canterbury Tales': Continuities in Imperialist Tradition in Selected Works of William Dalrymple

Modernity has undertones of a colonial attitude similar to the Enlightenment period. Both are ambiguous and replete with templates and standards that are different in former colonies of the Empire. Dalrymple, an occidental scholar who writes about India, its colonial history and modernity —orientalises, stereotypes, and criticises the post-colonial modern India— by comparing it with that of Britain. The paradox of William Dalrymple's identity is the most strategic aspect of his own 'worldliness'. The current research accentuates how Dalrymple works to navigate and mediate memory at individual and collective levels with a focus on The Age of Kali (1998), Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India (2009), and The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, And the Pillage of An Empire (2019). Drawing on Edward Said's ‘Orientalism' and using Hayden White's argument that every historical narrative is a result of selection, emphasis, and interpretation, the formal construction of the text is critically examined. From a postcolonial perspective, the research aims to know how Dalrymple's writings function in light of continuities in imperialistic tradition.