Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons^™

Colonial Modernity And The Image Of The Gorkhaland Movement In Kiran Desai's The Inheritance Of Loss, Ubaraj Katawal

Critical Humanities

This article examines some dynamics surrounding the Indian nation-state's treatment of its minority populations, and how Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss seems to abet the postcolonial nation-state's attempt to policing its own people. The article is interested in exploring the impact of colonial modernity in postcolonial human relations. As such, the novel successfully locates postcolonial literary violence in the character of the judge, whose replication of racist treatments on his victims highlights the destructive cycle of violence. At the same time, the novel reinforces ethnic stereotypes against certain ethnicities--at least it leaves much to be desired in countering racist …