CHAPTER II Postcolonialism: A Glocalized

Perspective
You taught me language; and my profit ont
Is, I know how to curse.

(Shakespeare. The Tempest. 1889:17)

32

Colonialism and postcolonial struggles have been central to world

history over the last two centuries. They have produced and reduced nations,
massacred populations, dispossessed people of their land, culture, language
and history shifted vast number of people from one place to another
(Pennycook,1998: 19). Africa, South America, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, India, most of Indo-China, parts of the Middle East and the Islands of
the Indian and the Pacific oceans as well as those of the Caribbeans, all
remained imperial possessions. Continuance of the European rule, exploitation
of natural resources, and spread of the European culture and the continued
subordination of natives were the contributing forces behind the imperial rule.
Colonialism can be seen as a product of imperialism and it has
engendered diverse effects around the world. Colonialism and imperialism are
different systems. Colonialism is only one form of practice, which results
from the ideology of imperialism. It is one historically specific experience of
how imperialism can work through the act of settlement. Elleke Boehmer has
defined colonialism as the settlement of territory, the exploitation or
development of resources, and attempts to govern the indigenous inhabitants
of occupied lands (Boehmer as qtd. in McLeod 2000: 8). Ashcroft et al.
observe colonialism as a radically diasporic movement, involving the

33

temporary or permanent dispersion and settlement of millions of Europeans

over the entire world (Ashcroft et al., 2001: 69).
Imperialism does not demand settlement of different places in order to
work. Childs and Williams define imperialism as the extension and expansion
of trade and commerce under the protection of political, legal and military
controls (Williams as qtd. in McLeod 2000: 8). The spirit and manifestations
continue in the present by safeguarding the interests of masters over its
subjugated people in diversified forms such as trade, commerce, literature and
knowledge.
Daniel Defoes The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe and
William Shakespeares The Tempest were the early literary works to spread
English language and to acquaint the colonised with the superior English
culture. Pennycook argues that the novel, The Life and Adventures of
Robinson Crusoe projects Crusoe as the model for the rational and dedicated
way in which the British created their empire (Pennycook, 1998: 12). During
his long stay on the Island, Crusoe saves the life of a native from the hands of
savages and names him Friday to commemorate the day of their meeting.
Phillipson (1992) argues:

34

Crusoes lesson to Friday, in which he made it his business to

teach him everything that was proper to make him useful, handy
and helpful, is perhaps the locus classicus of the start of English
linguistic imperialism . Crusoes relationship with Friday
reflects the racial structure of Western society at the heyday of
slavery. Crusoes assumption of mastery over Friday and his
immediate start on the project of teaching Friday English are
iconic moments in the long history of the global spread of
English. (Phillipson as qtd. in Pennycook 1998: 11).
A.G Eyres (1971) An Outline History of England gives the
background information about British colonisers in India and Africa like this:
The traders were welcomed by coastal peoples, they set up
trading stations. And they made friendly agreement with local
rulers. But sooner or later, they and their hosts were attacked by
jealous inland peoples. To protect themselves they employed
armed forces of local men under British officers (Pennycook
1998; 9).
There had been a gradual extension of the British control over the
whole of India, which had been left in confusion by the breakdown of Moghul

35

Empire.

English language was introduced as the official language of

education, which opened to Indians the literature and the universities of

Europe. The British colonial discourses prioritised the history of the coloniser
and their civilizing mission and kept quiet about the country which he
plundered. Fanon asserts:
The total result looked for by colonial domination was

to

convince the natives that colonialism came to lighten their

darkness.The effect consciously sought by colonialism was to
drive into the natives head the idea that if the settlers were to
leave, they would at once fall back into barbarism, degradation
and bestiality (Fanon 1967:169).
The emergence of Commonwealth literature and the development of
theories of colonial discourses were two important intellectual contexts of
postcolonialism. Commonwealth literature was a term the critics began to
use from the 1950s to describe literatures in English emerging from countries
with a history of colonialism. At first the British monarch was recognised as
the head of the Commonwealth. After the Second World War, the term was
redefined in more equitable terms as an association of sovereign nations
without deference to a single authority. Commonwealth literature was created

36

as an attempt to bring together the writings of the former colonies scattered all
over the world on an equal platform. Yet the assumption remained that these
texts were primarily addressed to the Western English speaking audience.
Literary critics began to distinguish a fast growing body of literature written in
English which included works by such figures as R.K Narayan (India), George
Lamming (Barbados), Katherine Mansfield (New Zealand) and Chinua
Achebe (Nigeria). (Mcleod, 2000: 11).
The idea of the Commonwealth of Nations suggests a diverse
community with literature produced in India, Australia and the Caribbeans,
and was assumed to reach national borders and deal with universal concerns.
As the texts studied as Commonwealth literature were written in English, they
were to be evaluated in relation to English literature with the same criteria
used to account for the literary value of age-old English classics.
Commonwealth literature thus becomes a subset of colonial English literature,
evaluated in terms derived from the conventional study of English that stresses
the value of timelessness and universality. Like the liberal humaninists,
Commonwealth writers believed that good literature is of timeless
significance, and transcends the limitations and peculiarities of the age.

37

In the late 1970s and 1980s many critics endeavoured to discard liberal
humanist bias perceived in critics of Commonwealth literature and to read
literature in new ways. A careful analysis of the colonial discourses, which
developed during this period, would help to understand how and why this
happened. The theories of the colonial discourses have played a significant
role in the development of postcolonialism. They explore the ways that
representations and modes of perceptions are used as fundamental weapons of
colonial power to keep the colonised peoples subservient to colonial rule.
Internalising of certain expectations about human relationships that the
white man was not to be oppressed or subjugated, but should be honoured and
respected as the master by the colonised natives remained in the subconscious
mind of both the colonised and the coloniser. The colonised people were seen
as lacking history, culture, religion, intelligence and craft of administration
and thus it became clear that it was the Europeans duty to fill the void.
Postcolonial writers differ from their Commonwealth predecessors in
their insistence on the historical, geographical and cultural specifics, which are
vital to both the writing and reading of text. Their writings are more radical
and oppositional and they focus on challenging the Western criteria of
excellence.John McLeod asserts:

38

If the study of Commonwealth literature was pursued in the

philanthropic spirit, the critical activity of postcolonialism was to
concentrate more on the other, darker side of exploitation and
dependence (McLeod, 2000:16).
Peter Brooker defines postcolonialism as the study of the ideological
and cultural impact of Western colonialism and in particular of its aftermath
whether as a continuing influence (neocolonialism) or in the emergence of
newly articulated independent national and individual identities (Brooker,
1999:193).
John McLeod visualises postcolonialism as historically situated forms
of representation, reading practices and values which range across past and
present. (McLeod, 2000: 5). A common thread that runs through the
postcolonial writings is the absolute rejection of master narratives which can
be viewed as the artistic representation of western imperialism. In that
tradition the colonial other is not only subordinated and marginalised but the
very existence of the other as a cultural agency has been wiped out. Thus in
the newly emerging counter narratives the colonised who were swept to the
periphery and trifled by the colonising West as uncivilised and barbaric began
to fight their way back to the centre. T.N.Dhar observes:

39

In nations like Australia and India which have well-developed

metaphysical systems, the writers used their indigenous
resources to challenge European perspectives; invariably it is
reflected in their conscious deployment of myth. In countries
where no such systems are available, the challenge operates
through the counter culture of imagination in which the writers
resort to dismantling of the narratives through polyphony,
interrogation of history and textuality, and by proposing
varieties of re-readings. The preoccupation of these writings is
not just to contest the validity of colonial versions of history but
also to create space for providing alternative ways of
understanding their past (Dhar, 1998: 27).
McLeod argues that postcolonialism is not the same as aftercolonialism as if colonial values are no longer to be reckoned with. It does not
define a radically new historical era; nor does it herald a brave new world
where all the ills of the colonial past will have been cured.
Postcolonialism recognises both historical continuity and
change. It acknowledges that the material realities and modes of
representation common to colonialism

are still with us today

40

even if the political map of the world has changed through

decolonization (McLeod, 2000: 33).
In the present study, the term postcolonialism is used as a single
word to refer to disparate forms of representations, reading practices and
values instead of the hyphenated
expresses the view

that

appropriate

the hyphenated

than

the

term post-colonialism. John McLeod

single

word

term

hyphenated term denotes only a particular

postolonialism

post-colonialism

is
since

more
the

historical period or epoch,

such as after colonialism after independence or after the end of the

Empire. Leela Gandhi also shares the same view on the grounds that
postcolonial condition is inaugurated with the onset rather than the end of
colonial occupations. She expresses her preference for the unbroken term
postcolonialism as it is more sensitive to the long history of colonial
consequences (Gandhi, 1998: 3). Postcolonialism is not contained by tidy
categories of historical periods or dates, although it remains firmly bound up
with historical experiences.
The ancestry of postcolonial criticism can be traced to Frantz Fanons
The Wretched of the Earth, published in French in 1961, and voicing what

41

might be called cultural resistance to Frances African empire (Barry, 2002:

193). In The Wretched of the Earth Fanon observes:
Colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its
grip and emptying the natives brain of all forms and content. By
making use of a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the
oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures and destroys it (Fanon
1967: 169).
For Fanon, the end of colonialism means not just political and economical
change but psychological change too. Fanon argues;
The first step for the colonised people in finding a voice and
identity is to reclaim their own past which had been devalued by
the European colonising power. If the first step towards a
postcolonial perspective is to reclaim ones own past, then the
second is to begin to erode the colonialist ideology by which
past had been devalued (Barry, 2002: 193).
In Decolonising the Mind Ngugi observes:
The real aim of colonialism was to control peoples wealth and
this was imposed through military conquest and subsequent

42

political dictatorship. But its most important area of domination

was the mental universe of the colonised, the control through
culture, of how people perceived themselves and their
relationship to the world. Economic and political control can
never be complete or effective without mental control. To
control peoples culture is to control their tools of self definition
in relation to others (Ngugi 1981: 16).
Ngugi notices two aspects in the process of colonialism:
The destruction or deliberate undervaluing of a peoples culture,
their art, dances, religions, history, geography, education,
orature and literature and the conscious elevation of the
language of the coloniser. The domination of a peoples
language by the languages of the colonising nations was crucial
to the domination of the mental universe of the colonised (Ngugi
1981: 16).
The postcolonial writers attempt to give resistance to colonialism and
its exploitative ideology through various strategies. The shackles of cultural
imperialism are to be overthrown. The dominant ways of thinking, speaking

43

and writing are to be challenged. Salman Rushdie emphasises the need to

decolonise language:
The language, like so much else in the colonies needs to be
decolonised, to be remade in other images, if those who use it
from positions outside the Anglo- Saxon culture are to be more
than artistic Uncle Toms (Rushdie as qtd.in McLeod 22).
Ngugi Wa Thiongo decides to write in Gikuyu or Ki- Swahili rather
than English to address an audience other than foreigners and the foreign
educated new elite (Ashcroft, 1989:130). He argues for decolonisation of the
mind in order to evolve a purely a national culture during the transitional
period from colonisation to independence.
Terry Eagleton argues that postcolonial theory is directly rooted in
historical developments. In his book Literary Theory: An Introduction
Eagleton observes:
The collapse of the great European empires was replaced by the world
economic hegemony of the United States. The steady erosion of the
nation state and traditional geopolitical frontiers was accompanied by
mass global migrations and the creation of multicultural societies. The

44

intensified exploitation of the ethnic groups within the West and

peripheral societies elsewhere and the formidable power of new
transaction corporations have developed apace since the 1960s and
with it a veritable revolution has taken place in our notions of space,
power, language and identity (Eagleton, 1996:204).
The dominance of mass media forces us to rethink of classical frontiers
by situating them within the framework of

the cultural studies and

postcolonialism takes a decisive step beyond the questions of theoretical

method which held sway over an earlier phase of literary theory.
The publication of Edward Saids Orientalism (1979) played a
significant role in triggering postcolonial studies. Like Fanon, Said explored
the extent to which colonialism created a way of seeing the world, an order of
things that was to be learned as true and proper but Said paid more attention to
the colonisers than the colonised. Orientalism draws upon development in the
Marxist theories of power, especially the political philosophy of Italian
intellectual Antonio Gramci and Frances Michel Foucault. Said examined
how the knowledge that the Western imperial powers formed about their
colonies helped continually to justify their subjugation.

The Western

travellers recorded their observations about the oriental countries based upon

45

commonly held assumptions about the orient as a mythic place of exoticism,

moral laxity, sexual degeneracy and so forth. These observations, presented as
scientific truths functioned to justify the very propriety of colonial
domination. Through Orientalism Said exposes the fact that Eurocentric
universalism takes for granted both the superiority of what is European or
Western, and the inferiority of what is not. The essence of Orientalism is the
ineradicable distinction between Western superiority and Oriental inferiority
(Said, 1979: 42) Said identifies a European cultural tradition of Orientalism,
which is a particular and long-standing way of identifying the East as Other
and inferior to the West. The Orient, he says, features in the Western mind as
a sort of surrogate and even under-ground self (Barry, 2002:193). Said
emphasises construction of binary division between the Orient and the
Occident. West is considered to be the seat of knowledge and learning, while
East is represented as a place of ignorance, superstition and illiteracy. The
Orient exists as a timeless place, changeless and static, cut off from the
progress of Western history. The Orient is strange, fantastic, unusual and
bizarre. The Orients eccentricity often functions as a source of mirth, marvel
and curiosity for Western writers and artists. The Oriental male is considered
as effeminate and insufficiently manly. The exoticised Oriental female is
presented as an immodest, active creature of sexual pleasure who holds the

46

key to a myriad mysterious erotic delights. The Orient is deemed as feminine,

passive, submissive, exotic and luxurious while the West becomes masculine,
self-controlled and ascetic. The Orient is penetrated by the traveller whose
passion it rouses; it is possessed, ravished, embraced and ultimately
domesticated by the muscular coloniser. Through Orientalism, Said tries to
project the degenerate image given to the Orient by the West.
The publication of Orientalism opened up a wide variety of textual
analyses which became notable for their eclecticism and interdisciplinarity,
combining

insights

of

feminism,

philosophy,

psychology,

politics,

anthropology and literary theory. Orientalism has been criticised as ahistorical

for making totalising assumptions about a vast varied expanse of
representations over a very long period of history.
Said explores the culture of resistance in terms of the capacity of the
colonised to write back to the Empire, a process that reconstructs the
relationship between the Self and the Other and which he sees operating
through a rewriting or writing back to canonical texts such as Conrads Heart
of Darkness and Shakespeares The Tempest.
Inspired by Rushdies argument concerning the need to decolonise
English language, The Empire Writes Back epitomised the increasingly

47

popular view that literature from the once colonised countries was
fundamentally concerned with challenging the language of colonial power,
unlearning its worldview and producing new modes of representation. The
writers of the once colonised countries expressed their own sense of identity
by refashioning English to enable it to accommodate their experiences by
creating new englishes through various strategies. For example, the
technique of selective lexical fidelity which leaves some words untranslated in
the text has been widely used for conveying cultural distinctiveness (Ashcroft
et al., 1989: 63).
The strategies of appropriation by transforming English enables
postcolonial writers to gain a world audience, and yet produce a culturally
appropriate idiom that announces itself as different even though it is English.
Ashcroft et al. assert that in this way postcolonial writers have contributed to
the transformation of English literature and to the dismantling of the
ideological assumption that have buttressed the canon of that literature as an
elite Western discourse (Ashcroftet al., 1989: 76) .
Glossing untranslatable words and giving parenthetical translation is
yet another method used to foreground the continual reality of cultural
distance. Juxtaposing words in this way suggests the view that the meaning of

48

a word is its referent, but it is difficult to find a referent for more abstract
terms. The glossed word reveals the local cultural distinctiveness. The
requisite sense of difference between the word and its referent is implicitly
recorded in the gap between the two. This gap is not negative but positive in
its effect. It presents the difference through which an identity can be
expressed (Ashcrof et al., 1989: 61). But they notice a problem with glossing.
It may lead to a considerably stilted movement of plot as the story is forced to
drag explanatory machinery behind it. Postcolonial writers refuse to follow
Standard English syntax and use structures derived from other languages. The
new english of the colonised place was ultimately irredeemably different
from the language of the colonial centre separated by an unbridgeable gap.
The publication of The Empire Writes Back greatly influenced
postcolonial literary criticism in English.

The authors of the book have

challenged universal and timeless value of texts and analysed them primarily
within historical and geographical contexts. The Empire Writes Back was
criticised for neglecting gender difference between writers and national
difference between writings from divergent nations. Critics do not agree with
the view that all writings from the once colonised countries are writing back
to the centre and they argue that cultural productions are created in response
to ones own needs. People learned from Fanon and Said that Empires

49

colonise imaginations. Fanon shows how this works at a psychological level

for the oppressed, while Said demonstrates the legitimation of Empire for the
oppressor.

If colonialism involves colonising the mind, then resistance to it

requires, in Ngugis phrase decolonising the mind.

Sensitised by Said and others to the operations of colonial discourses, a
new generation of critics turned to more theoretical materials in their works.
John McLeod finds it as the beginning of postcolonialism, which marked a
major departure from the humanitarian approaches which characterised
criticism of Commonwealth literature.
During the 1980s, two of the leading and most controversial
postcolonial theorists, Homi K. Bhabha and Gayatri Chakrvorty Spivak
emerged in the postcolonial scenario of India. In addition, Subaltern studies
scholars also pursued the issue of the suppressed and the secluded people
including women.
Homi K. Bhabha has become one of the leading voices in post
colonialism since the 1980s. The major influences on Bhabha were the
psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, the post structuaralist Jaques Lacan and the
psychiatrist - turned literary critic, Frantz Fanon. In The Location of Culture,
Bhabha argues that colonialism is informed by a series of assumptions, which

50

aims to legitimate its view of other lands and peoples. The objective of
colonial discourse, writes Bhabha, is to construe the colonised as a
population of degenerate types on the basis of racial origin in order to justify
conquest and to establish systems of administration and instruction (Bhabha,
1994:70). In Bhabhas terms, colonial discourse produces the colonised as a
social reality which is at once an other and yet entirely knowable and
visible (Bhabha, 1994:7071). The discourse of colonialism attempts to
domesticate the

colonised subjects and abolish their radical otherness

bringing them inside Western understanding through the orientalist project of

constructing knowledge about them. The construction of otherness is thus
split by the contradictory positioning of the colonised simultaneously inside
and outside the Western knowledge (McLeod, 2000: 52-53). In trying to do
two things at once - construing the colonised as both similar to and the
other of the coloniser- it ends up doing neither properly (McLeod, 2000:
54).
Homi K. Bhabha explores the possibility of reading colonialist
discourse as endlessly ambivalent, split and unstable; never able to install
securely the colonial values they seemed to support. He also describes
mimicry as the desire for a reformed, recognisable other, as a subject of a
difference that is almost the same, but not quite (Bhabha, 1994: 89). Bhabha

51

argues that they are invested with the power to menace the coloniser because
they threaten to disclose the ambivalence of the discourse of colonialism,
which the use of stereotypes anxiously wishes to conceal. Hearing their
language returning

through the mouths of the colonised, the colonisers are

faced with the worrying threat of resemblance between the coloniser and the
colonised. McLeod observes:
The ambivalent position of the colonised mimic men is in
Bhabhas thinking, a source of anti-colonial resistance as it
presents a challenge to the entire discourse of colonialism. By
speaking English, they challenge the representations, which
attempt to fix and define them. Thus Bhabha offers a positive,
active and insurgent mode of mimicry (McLeod, 2000:55).
Indian born philosopher Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has contributed
profusely to postcolonial literary theories. She has made a critical exploration
of the status of the non-Western culture and the cultural experience of the
recently decolonised people. She is an immigrant Indian intellectual, currently
settled in the USA. In The Postcolonial Crtic (1990) she identifies herself as a
postcolonial intellectual caught between socialist ideals of national
independence movement in India and the legacy of colonial education system

52

( Morton, 2003: 2). Spivaks reputation was first made for her translation and
preface to Derridas Of Grammatology (1976). She has applied deconstructive
strategies to various theoretical engagements and textual analyses and her
critical interventions encompass a range of theoretical interest including
Marxism, Feminism, Deconstruction, postcolonial theory and globalisation.
Stephen Morton observes:
Along with other leading intellectuals such as Edward Said and
Homi K. Bhabha, Spivak has challenged the disciplinary
convention of literary criticism and academic philosophy by
focusing on the cultural text of those people who are often
marginalised by dominant Western culture: the new immigrant,
the women and the postcolonial subject

(Morton, 2003: 1).

Spivak has questioned the notion that the Western world is more
civilized, democratic and developed than the non-Western world and argued
that the colonised nations had a progressive and advanced culture in the early
historical period than that of the European coloniser.
Spivak draws our

attention towards

the emergence of the United

States of America as a global economic super power to protect the interest of

multinational corporate finance. She has relentlessly questioned the ability of

53

Western theoretical models of political resistance and social change to

adequately represent the histories and lives of the disenfranchised in India.
Spivak has argued that the everyday lives of many Third world women are
so complex and unsystematic that they cannot be known or represented in any
straight forward way by the vocabularies of Western critical theory. (Morton,
2003: 50)

In her influential essay Can the Subaltern Speak? Spivak

addresses the problem concerning the subaltern and comes to the conclusion
that the subaltern cannot speak and she highlights the silent position of the
subaltern (Cahoone, 2003).
More recently, the dimensions of postcolonial theory have expanded to
address even more complex relationships particularly in the field of feminism
and cultural studies. Postcolonial feminists argue for more inclusive critiques
where the position of women within the colonial framework is scrutinised to
illuminate the double bind of colonial and gender oppression. Chris Murray
notes:
Scholars in the field of cultural studies such as Masao Miyoshi
and Arif Dirlik question the premature appellation of the prefix
postcolonial when the globalisation of culture and capital may

54

be leading humanity towards a neo-colonial condition (Murray,

1999: 870).
Another growing concern of postcolonialism is related to the ecological
and the environmental problems encountered by the present day world due to
ecological imperialism, damaging effects of scientific and technological
advancement and Western industrialisation. Intellectuals all over the world
and ecofeminists in particular are currently engaged in charting out solutions
to this worsening threat that upset the very existence of living beings on earth.
Human settlement in the place meant for plants and animals, reclamation of
coastal areas for the construction of buildings, destruction of mangroves
which are habitat for seabirds, amphibians and aquatic animals are traced out
as the root cause for the ecological and environmental problems and the
source for hungry tides and earthquakes. The role played by Western
industrialisation and their modernisig programmes in enticing the developing
countries into the destruction of their environment is of great significance in
this context. The authors of The Empire Writes Back note that postcolonial
societies have taken up the civilizing benefits of modernity, only to find
themselves the barbaric instigators of environmental damage. In such ways
the dynamic of imperial power is maintained globally (Ashcroft et al., 1989:
213).

55

While deep ecologists place the blame for ecological deterioration on

the domination of nature by human beings (anthropocentrism), the
ecofeminists see the domination of both nature and women by men
(androcentrism) as the root cause of modern crisis, observes Carolyn
Merchant in her seminal work Key Concepts in Critical Theory: Ecology
(Merchant, 1996: 9). Ecofeminism attempted a synthesis between the two
struggles previously thought to be separated--feminism and ecology. The
French feminist Francoise d Eaubonnes launching of ecofeminism was
meant to remake the planet around a totally new model, for it was in danger
of dying and we along with it (Merchant, 1996: 10). Writing as a militant
radical French feminist Eaubonne placed the problem of the death of the
planet squarely on the shoulders of men:
The slogan of the Ecology feminism centre was to tear the planet
away from the male today in order to restore it for humanity
tomorrow. A society in the feminine would not mean power in
the hands of women but no power at all. The human being
would be treated as a human being, not as a male or female.
Womens personal interests join those of the entire human
community, while male interests are separate from general
interests of the community (Merchant, 1996: 10).

56

Postcolonial writers respond to these global phenomena in various

ways. Amitav Ghosh addresses this postcolonial crisis through his novel The
Hungry Tide. This work can be read against the background of the social
activities taking place in the subcontinent, which are meant for saving the
earth and thereby saving humanity. The social activist, Medha Patkars
Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada Movement) has been spearheading
the movement against the Sardar Sarovar Dam being built across the Narmada
River in Gujarat, insisting on the proper rehabilitation of the displaced people.
The Booker Prize winner, Arundhathi Roys scathimg attack on the
construction of the dam on the Narmada River, Vandana Sivas polemics on
the modern developmental projects, which she argues as maldevelopment are
all meant to retrieve the world from ecological deterioration and
environmental crisis. In her essay Development, Ecology and Women, the
Indian physicist and philosopher Vandana Siva assesses development as a
postcolonial project, a choice for accepting a model of progress in which the
entire world is remade itself on the model of the colonising modern West,
without having to undergo the subjugation and exploitation that colonialism
entailed. Development was thus reduced to a continuation of the process of
colonisation; it became an extension of the project of wealth creation in
modern Western patriarchys economic vision, which is based on the

57

exploitation and exclusion of women (of the West and the non West) on the
exploitation and degradation of nature and on the exploitation and erosion of
other cultures (Merchant, 1996: 273). Throughout the world Third World
women, especially peasants and tribals are struggling for liberation from
development, just as they earlier struggled for liberation from colonialism.
As the contemporary cultural critics Aijaz Ahmad, Arif Dirlik and Rey
Chow have emphasized, the rise of postcolonial studies in the US academy is
co-extensive with US foreign policy and economic investment in the Third
world. Morton observes:
This historical parallel might suggest that postcolonial studies
indirectly serve the interests of US foreign policy and global
economic expansion by producing knowledge about the Third
world. To counter this difficulty, Spivak persistently emphasises
how in her own critical thought she resists the temptation to
appear as a spokesperson or native informant for the Third
World in the First World academy, even though she
acknowledges that the position of a famous postcolonial
intellectual who lives and works in the Western metropolitan
academy and champions the cause of minority groups is a

58

position that is beset with contradiction and paradox (Morton,

2003: 8).
Complaints raised against the practitioners and ideas of postcolonial
theory are also prevalent in the contemporary literary scenario. Meenakshi
Mukherjee observes:
The concepts and nomenclature of postcolonialism have been
fashioned in the Western, especially, American universities and
not adequate to meet the contemporary needs of nations with a
history of colonialism such as India. The imperatives of
postcolonialism are being set elsewhere particularly by migrant
Indian intellectuals who helped to make postcolonialism the
fashion in Western academia by drawing upon the latest
advances in literary theory. She points out Bhabhas penchant
for

Freud

and

Lacan

and

Spivaks

indebtedness

to

deconstruction as examples. Mukherjee argues that countries

with a history of colonialism are being colonised again by
Western theoretical imperatives.
McLeod, 2000: 247).

(Mukherjee as qtd. in.

59

Arun P. Mukherjee finds the framing grid provided by postcolonial

theory as insufficient to decode the subtle ironies and parodies directed against
the departed coloniser. For Aijaz Ahmed, postcolonial theory is entirely
complicit with the globalising transnational tendencies of capitalism. Arif
Dirlik goes even farther, claiming that postcolonial intellectuals are trying to
hide their complicity with global capitalism. Dirlik asserts:
Postcolonialism is practised by a select few Third World
intellectuals; and empowered by their command of cosmopolitan
language of transnational academic theory, this select few
construct the world in their own hybridised self image by
projecting globally what are but local experiences (Dirlik as
qtd.in. McLeod. 2000: 252).
Debate goes on in the current academic arena on the issue of how neocolonialism and global capitalism have taken up the control of ex-colonies or
Third World countries. Critics argue that the new elite brought to power by
independence and often educated and trained by colonial powers were nonrepresentative of the mass and even acted as unwitting or willing agents
(compradors) for the formal colonial rulers. In a wider sense, neo-colonialism
has come to signify the inability of so-called Third World economies to

60

develop an independent economic and political identity under the pressures of

globalization (Ashcroft et al., 1998: 163). Apart from political and economic
exploitation, the colonised were culturally subjugated by the colonising west.
The value of traditional cultural forms was generally undermined by
colonisers, categorising them as mythic, nave, superstitious or aesthetically
crude. Thus the colonised were forced to situate outside modern Eurocentric
sphere. It was to these biased representations that the postcolonial literatures
respond, not only to reverse the fictionality of the coloniser- narratives but
also to show how colonial representations do have an impact on the totality of
life for the colonised from the formation of colonial public policy and
education to construction of identity.
Many postcolonial writers have used the literary forms, techniques and
language varieties of the colonisers to express alternative views of the colonial
situation. The genre of the novel itself is modelled on the West. The Indian
English writers asserted themselves on the global literary scene with their
transnational writings engendered by experiences of migrancy, multicultarism
and multilingualism. There was an unprecedented increase in innovative
techniques and experimentation in novels. It was in this transitional phase of
postcolonialism that the vibrant and energetic voice of Amitav Ghosh
reverberated through the Indian literary scene. Ghoshs fiction strives to bring

61

the trials and tribulations of the marginalised people from the peripheries to
the centre. He has profusely made use of the theoretical concepts of Mikhail
Bakhtin like dialogism, polyphony and heteroglossia in his novels.
Dialogism is central to Bakhtins theoretical construct. In Problems of
Dostoevsky`s Poetics Bakhtin speaks of works as being either comparatively
monologic or dialogic. The Bedford Glossary analyses these theoretical
concepts of Bakhtin as follows:
A monologic work is one that is clearly dominated by a single
controlling voice or discourse even though it may contain
characters representing a multitude of viewpoints. Contrary
voices are subordinated to the authorial voice, which is usually,
though not always, representative of the dominant or official
ideology of the authors culture. A dialogic work, by contrast is
one that permits numerous voices or discourses to emerge and to
engage in dialogue with one another. Bakhtin argued that no
work can be completely monologic, because the narrator, no
matter how authorial and representative of the official culture
cannot avoid representing differing and even contrary view
points in the process of relating the thoughts and remarks of the

62

diverse group of literary characters that inevitably populate the

incredible fictional world. These other voices, which make any
work polyphonic to some degree, inevitably disrupt the
authoritative voice, even though it may remain dominant. Thus,
for Bakhtin the monologic/dialogic opposition was not an
absolute: some works are more monologic, others more dialogic
(Murfin, 1998: 86).
Michael J. McDowell, in his essay The Bakhtinian Road to Ecological
Insight notes:
The ideal form to represent reality, to Bakhtin is a dialogic
form, one in which multiple voices or point of view interact.
Monological forms, in contrast, encourage the singular speaking
subject

to

suppress

whatever

doesnt

fit

his

or

her

ideology.An application of dialogics to landscape literature

can open up a text to enable

an analysis of ecological

relationships among all landscape components including

humans.

Dialogics helps first by placing an emphasis on

contradictory voices, rather than focusing mainly upon the

authoritative voice of the narrator (Glotfelty et al., 1996: 373).

63

A literary work is a cite for dialogic interaction of multiple voices

which helps the writer to represent a variety of socio-ideological positions.
The character of a person emerges in the course of a dialogue and is composed
of languages from different social contexts.
Each utterance whether in actual life or as represented in
literature owes its precise inflection and meaning to a number of
attendant factors the specific social situation in which it is
spoken, the relation of its speaker to an actual or anticipated
listener and the relation of the utterance to the prior utterance to
which it is (explicitly or implicitly), a response (Abrams,
2001:63).
Bakhtin defines novel as a diversity of social speech types, sometimes
even diversity of languages and a diversity of individual voices artistically
organized (Bakhtin, 1981: 262). Novel orchestrates all its themes, the totality
of the world of objects and ideas depicted and expressed in it, by means of the
social diversity of speech types and by differing individual voices.
(Bakhtin, 1981:263).
David Lodge in his essay After Bakhtin, while analysing Bakhtins
literary theory observes:

64

The genres canonised by traditional poetics -- tragedy, epic and

lyric -- are monlogic: they employ a single style and express a
single world view. The discourse of the novel in contrast is an
orchestration of diverse discourses culled from heterogeneous
sources, oral and written conveying different ideological
positions which are put in play without ever being subjected to
totalising judgment or interpretation.Originally Bakhtin
attributed the discovery of this discursive polyphony to
Dostoevsky. Later he came to think that it was inherent in novel
as a literary form, and he traced it back historically to the comic
and satiric writing of the classical period and to the carnival
tradition in popular culture that sustained an unofficial resistance
to the monologic discourses of medieval Christendom (Fabb et
al., 1987: 92).
Etymologically; the word polyphony refers to many voices. Bakhtin
asserts:
In a polyphonic novel a characters word about himself and his
world is just as fully weighted as the authors word usually is; it
is not subordinated to the characters objectified image as

65

merely one of its characteristics, nor does it serve as a

mouthpiece for the authors voice. It possesses extraordinary
independence in the structure of the work: it sounds as it were,
alongside the authors word and in a special way combines both
with it and with the full and equally valid voices of other
characters. (Bakhtin, 1984: 7).
The narrators and characters achieve independence in the novel through
heteroglossia.
Diglossia is a language situation in which two markedly divergent
varieties, each with its own set of social functions, co-exist as standard
throughout a community (Crystal, 1997: 43). Heteroglossia which means
differentiated speech to Bakhtin is the key term for describing the complex
stratification of language into genre, register, sociolect and dialect and the
mutual interanimation of these forms. It doesnot simply mean the variety of
different languages which occur in everyday life, but also their entry into
literary texts (Vice, 1997:18). Internal stratification of language, social
heteroglossia and the variety of individual voices in it are the essential
prerequisites for the authentic novelistic prose. Bakhtin observes:

66

Heteroglossia enters the novel through authorial speech,

speeches of narrators, inserted genres and speeches of
characters. Each of them permits a wide variety of links and
interrelationships. Each generation at each social level has its
own language; moreover every age group has its own
vocabulary, its own particular accentual system that, in their turn
vary depending on social level, academic institution and other
stratifying factors. It is even possible to have a family jargon
with its special vocabulary and unique accentual system
(Bakhtin, 1981: 290-91).
At any given moment languages of various epochs and periods of socio
-ideological life cohabit with one another. Language is heteroglot from top to
bottom. Language of heteroglossia manifests itself through polyphony and
carnivalisation.
Another linguistic device which became conspicuous within the
postcolonial discourse is polyglossia. The substitution of the individualised
language of the novelist for the style of the novel distorts the very essence of
stylistics of the novel. Bakhtin argues:

67

Such substitution inevitably leads to the selection from the novel

of only those elements that can be fitted within the frame of a
single language system and that express, directly and without
mediation, an authorial individuality in language.The whole of
the novel and the specific tasks involved in constructing this
whole out of the heteroglot, muti-voiced, multi-styled and often
multi- languaged elements remain outside the boundaries of
such a study (Bakhtin, 1981: 264-265).
In the Glossary of The Dialogic imaginations, Polyglossia is defined as
the simultaneous presence of two or more national languages interacting
within a single cultural system. (Bakhtin, 1981:431). The role of novel in the
process of developing and renewing literature through polyglossia is
underscored in Bakhtins statement:
The new cultural and creative consciousness lives in an actively
polyglot world. The period of national languages co-existing but
closed and deaf to each other comes to an end. Languages throw
light on each other; one language can see itself only in the light
of another language. There is no more peaceful co-existence
between territorial dialects, social and professional dialects and

68

jargons, literary language and so forth. All this set into motion a
process of active, mutual cause and effect and interillumination.
The novel emerged and matured precisely when polyglossia was
at the peak of its activity. The novel could therefore assume
leadership in the process of developing and renewing literature
in its linguistic and stylistic dimension (Bakhtin, 1981: 12).
Diglossia, polyglossia and heteroglossia are some of the conspicuous
linguistic innovations employed by Amitav Ghosh in his novels. Ashcroft et
al. observe:
The world language called English is a continuum of
intersections in which the speaking habits in various
communities has intervened to reconstruct the language. This
reconstruction occurs in two ways: on the one hand regional
English varieties may introduce words which become familiar to
all English speakers, and on the other, the varieties themselves
produce national and regional peculiarities which distinguish
them from other forms of English (Ashcroft et al., 1989: 39).

69

The postcolonial writers, as a part of inscribing alterity and installing

cultural distinctiveness resort to the technique of switching between two or
more codes which is termed as code- switching. David Crystal argues:
Switching between languages is extremely common and takes
many forms. A long narrative may switch from one language to
the other. Sentence may alternate. A sentence may begin in one
language and finish in another. Or phrases from both languages
may succeed each other in apparently random order.

When

the speakers cannot express themselves adequately in one

language, they switch on to the other to make good the
deficiency. The switch between languages can signal the
speakers attitude towards the listener - friendly irritated, distant,
ironical, jocular and so on (Crystal, 1997: 365).
Words and phrases from the local and regional dialects of different
languages like Hindi, Bengali and Arabic, which appear frequently in Ghoshs
fiction makes his novelistic prose polyglossic. Instead of having one focal
point and one plot with a beginning middle and end, a multiplicity of plots
with multiple voices of multiple narrators characterise his novels. Brinda Bose
observes:

Amitav Ghosh must today be considered at the forefront of those writers

who chronologically followed Rushdie in the history of Indian novel in
English but emerged with such distinctive voice that today it may arguably
be said that it is a voice that may well sustain itself beyond its predecessors.
(Bose, 2003: 25).
An attempt is made in this study to read the novels of Amitav Ghosh in the light of
postcolonial theory and the literary theory formulated by Bakhtin.