Fabrication of a desired truth: the oblivion of a Naxalite woman in Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland

Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland (2013) explores effects of the 1967 Communist Naxalbari uprising in West Bengal India. Irrespective of the glowing reviews the author earned for her truthful representations, the novel presents the pro-Communist uprising in a particular discursive regime that establi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAsian ethnicity Vol. 19; no. 3; pp. 383 - 401
Main Author Pourya Asl, Moussa
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 03.07.2018
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Capitalism
Communism
Communists
female subjectivity
Females
Genealogy
Heteronormativity
Lahiri, Jhumpa
Naxalbari
Oversight
Rebellions
Subjectivity
subjugated knowledges
Truth
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Summary:Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland (2013) explores effects of the 1967 Communist Naxalbari uprising in West Bengal India. Irrespective of the glowing reviews the author earned for her truthful representations, the novel presents the pro-Communist uprising in a particular discursive regime that establishes a particular way of remembering and forgetting. Drawing on Foucault's notion of 'subjugated knowledges,' this essay seeks to examine the epistemic hegemonies and mainstream perspectives of the novel that have confined particular experiences and memories of the movement to the margins and rendered them unworthy of epistemic respect in the battle among power/knowledge frameworks. The novel reconstitutes a gendered history of the movement in which women's story of engagement is spatiotemporally erased and reformulated. I argue that the genealogy of this particular oversight is rooted in the heteronormative capitalist ideology of the States that exercises discursive power over individuals to fabricate a desired truth.
ISSN:1463-1369
1469-2953
DOI:10.1080/14631369.2018.1429892