60. Sandeep TG

Abstract 60

SANDEEP.T.G   

Abstract

Voices of dissent transcending the politics of hegemony:
analysing the signs of ethnic resistance in ‘Cries in the Wilderness’ by Narayan

 

In the subcontinental milieu, it is evident that the concept of cultural elitism in the theories of aesthetics, philosophical doctrines and ideological perspectives were fashioned to delete or distort the cultural selfhood of women, Dalits and Adivasis from the chronicles of human history. Adivasis in India need particular attention as their life is inextricably linked with the spatial limits of specific eco-zones in forest topography.  They live a more deplorable life than the Dalits and they are engulfed by a persistent dilemma whether to leave the essential ethnic tradition or to embrace the possibilities of modern life. Today their traditional domains of existence face incessant intrusion and exploitation. Uprooted from their original cultural latitudes they are compelled to live among modern equations of domination propelled by the politics of globalisation.

 

The attempts in contemporary art, literature and popular culture to delineate the anguish of Adivasi community fail to distinguish it from the predicament of the Dalits. Moreover presentation of Adivasi in the works of art as a specimen of an alien being was meant exclusively to generate curiosity and sympathy and such representation was employed at large as a marketing stratagem. It is in this context that a writer like Narayan, who belonged to Adivasi ethnicity, emerged with unfeigned and poignant depiction of the true Adivasi conscience. Being the first writer from the Adivasi community, Narayan came out with a blazing work of fiction ‘Kocharethi’ in which he asserted the identity and proclaimed the distinctiveness of a community that became the victim of social segregation, political exclusion and economic deprivation and it won him the Kerala Sahithya Academi Award for best fiction in 1999.

 

The proposed paper aims at analysing Narayan’s work ‘Cries in the Wilderness’, a vivid collection of ten moving short stories that ventriloquize an unvoiced universe of rebellion. It also endeavours to explore the manifold socio-political practices of dominance and to survey the endemic symbols of ethnic assertion among the Adivasi community. Focus would be given on how the work sincerely represents the methods of hegemony, contrived to erase the existence and persona of a community depriving them their fundamental rights and how the community vehemently reciprocates to such universal canons of eradication. Through a closer analysis of the work, it is also proposed to highlight that such a resistance of hegemonic ideology through the projection of culture-based identity of the Adivasi community is significant since it establishes a firm conceptual ground for voicing the intensity of dissent.