Systemless authoritarianism, counter-archives, and literary witnessing: a New Historicist and cultural-political reading of Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness offers a significant literary response to the evolving forms of authoritarianism in postcolonial India. This article uses a New Historicist and cultural-political framework to analyse the idea of ‘systemless authoritarianism.’ Instead of using overt state force, the idea refers to a diffused and socially acceptable type of authority that functions through common institutions, cultural norms, and unofficial practices. Roy’s multi-voiced narrative focuses on marginalised characters such as Anjum, Tilo, and Musa, whose interwoven stories show how repression is intertwined with caste, gender, bureaucracy, and territorial warfare. Using theoretical concepts from Antonio Gramsci, Marlies Glasius, Michel Foucault, and Stephen Greenblatt, the study looks at Roy’s creation of a counter-archive that challenges official narratives and offers a voice to those who have been silenced. By examining spaces such as the militarised Kashmir Valley and the Jannat Guest House, the study demonstrates how authoritarian authority operates through internalised discipline and cultural consensus inside democratic communities. Ultimately, the novel’s fractured narrative structure, documentary style, and intertextual elements function as literary witnessing acts that resist authoritarian erasure and recreate various forms of belonging.