Between two worlds: The narration of postcolonial nation in Rushdie and post-Rushdie Indo-English fiction (Salman Rushdie)

The subject of my thesis is the narration of nation in the work of Rushdie and in post-Rushdie Indo-English fiction. It is an attempt to evaluate the articulation of national identity in these narratives as part of their endeavour to forge a postcolonial rupture with colonial history. The thesis will demonstrate how this politics of narration is fraught with contradictions, as postcolonial fiction continues to predicate itself on the colonial cultural legacies. While the tradition of postcolonial fiction tries to retrieve its right to narrate its own story, the deep contradiction at the heart of these narratives is expressed in their conventions by which the "native" makes his/her reappearance in the postcolonial context and versions of nation often emerge as the underbelly of their colonial counterparts. While such projection of national identity may be a part of the still continuing colonial cultural legacy, the literary and academic success of such "exotic" ventures play a no less significant role in the production and proliferation of these narratives, mostly published in the West.; This thesis attempts to analyse the complex articulation of nation in these narratives as well as bring to light a strong reaction that has been building up in recent writing in the tradition against the exoticising techniques evidenced in the acclaimed narratives. Its purpose is to prove that post-Rushdie fiction is an embattled terrain where postcolonial voices continue to grapple with the two-tiered significance of 'postcolonial' as a historical aftermath and discursive legacy on the one hand, and a resistant and oppositional consciousness on the other. As an integral part of this embattled terrain, this thesis aims to bring to light cultural specificities of subcontinental societies, thus enhancing the readers' understanding of texts produced in 'different' cultures.