Representing Postcolonial India: Identity, Hybridity, and Cultural Displacement in The God of Small Things, The Inheritance of Loss and The White Tiger

Abstract

The emergence of Indian English fiction in the post-independence period has significantly contributed to the articulation of postcolonial identities and the interrogation of colonial legacies. Indian novelists writing in English have transformed the language of the former coloniser into a medium for representing indigenous experiences, cultural complexities, and socio-political realities. This article examines three influential Indian English novels—Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (1997), Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss (2006), and Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008)—through the theoretical framework of postcolonial studies. Drawing upon the concepts of Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Frantz Fanon, the study investigates how these novels negotiate issues of identity, hybridity, marginalisation, displacement, and resistance. The article argues that these texts collectively reveal the persistence of colonial structures within contemporary India while simultaneously exposing the contradictions of globalisation, capitalism, caste hierarchy, and cultural alienation. Roy explores the intersections of caste and colonial memory, Desai examines the fractured identities produced by migration and globalisation, and Adiga foregrounds class oppression within neoliberal India. Through different narrative strategies, the three novels challenge dominant representations of India and expose the continuing effects of colonial discourse in shaping postcolonial realities. Ultimately, the study demonstrates that Indian English fiction functions as a critical site where the complexities of postcolonial existence are negotiated and reimagined.