NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Unearthing Subaltern Agency: The Representation of Marginalized Populations in Contemporary Indian Literature A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Field of English By Tanushree Vachharajani EVANSTON, ILLINOIS September 2017 2 © Copyright by Tanushree Vachharajani 2017 All Rights Reserved 3 Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful for the members of my dissertation committee who have been extraordinarily supportive during my writing process: to Dr. Evan Mwangi, my advisor, whose insight into how gaps in my argument could be filled has made my dissertation richer, and who comforted me during moments of panic during my dissertation writing; to Dr. Dilip Gaonkar, whose classes and work introduced me to the field of diaspora studies and with whom I got the chance to meet many new thinkers; to Dr. Andrew Leong who taught me to deconstruct, restructure and sharpen my argument and to respond to academic audiences; and to Dr. Laura Brueck, who taught me the importance of the fields of translation and Dalit studies, and whose work closely informs my own. I would also like to thank Mr. Dalpat Chauhan, a prolific Gujarati Dalit writer and the editor of Vanboti Vartao. He has been particularly helpful with the niceties of the translation process and with putting me in touch with the authors of the stories. Finally, I would like to thank my family – my husband, Tanay, my sister Vidisha and my parents Narendra and Yamini. They have been a source of great strength and support through many trying moments during my PhD. 4 Abstract This dissertation studies fictionalized diasporic subalternity, how it is represented by the authors (of the same social status or a cosmopolitan writer), and how different types of agency layered onto the characters influence each other. The choice of texts includes Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke (2011), Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss (2006) and four Gujarati short stories – “Jāt, “Safe Distance”, “Bāp nū Bārmū” and “Swapna Samudra” – from the anthology Vanboti Vartao (2001). The dissertation addresses the importance of assigning agency to subaltern characters, treating them as subjects of their own history instead of mere victims. Some of these techniques designed to ascribe agency include Ghosh’s use of hybrid languages like pidgin and creole, use of dialect, flashback and interior monologues by Gujarati Dalit writers, as well as the depiction of itinerant migration and personal choice in Kiran Desai’s novel. Keywords: Subaltern, diaspora, migrant, agency, pidgin, creole, Indian, Gujarati, Dalit 5 Table of Contents Chapter 1: Representations of Agency: Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke..…………....…....30 Definitions: Pidgin and Creole …………………………………………………………33 Migration vs. Enforced Displacement ………………………………………………….34 Linguistic Agency ……………………………………………………………………...41 The Creolization Process: Deeti’s Journey from Nayanpur to Mauritius ……………...43 Pidginization ……………………………………………………………………………55 Conclusion: Language and Migratory Agency ………………………………………...68 Chapter 2: In Pursuit of the Displaced Dalit Chétna: Movement, Language and Choice....70 Context……………………………………………………………………………….....75 Choice of Texts………………………………………………………………………....80 “Jāt” (“Caste”) and Memory………………………………………................................89 Double Speak in “Safe Distance”....................………………………………………...101 Social Activism in “Bāp Nū Bārmū” (“Father’s Twelfth Day of Mourning”) and “Swapna Samudra” (“Sea of Dreams).…............……………………………………...109 Conclusions: Narrative Bridges.......................………………………………………...120 6 Chapter 3: Fractured Subalternities and the Performance of Labour in Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss……......................…………………………………... 122 At the Juncture of Subaltern and Diaspora…………….………………..................…...123 Diaspora and Class.....………………............………......................................................127 Biju’s Attempts at Empowerment.....…….........……......................................................140 Conclusion: Making Choices.....……………....……......................................................145 Conclusion.....…....…………………………..................................................................146 Appendix A: Translations...........…………………………......................................................151 “Jāt” (“Caste”).....……………………….....……….......................................................151 “Safe Distance”......……………....………….................................................................162 “Bāp Nū Bārmū” (“Father’s Twelfth Day of Mourning”).....………......……………....170 “Swapna Samudra” (“Sea of Dreams) …………………...............................................181 Works Cited......…………….........………………....................................................................187 7 Introduction Historically, we are living in a time of mass global migration that is impossible to ignore,1 as is apparent in the fiction our age is producing (and, as I imagine, will continue to produce as more migrants land on the shores of Europe in the coming years). I am mostly interested in the question of agency: immigration to a new country is a search for opportunity, a new life, for increased agency than what the home country offers. I examine modern subaltern migration through a varied set of works across English and Gujarati to examine how authors depict subaltern agency in light of migration. How does a cosmopolitan writer like Amitav Ghosh represent linguistic agency amongst nineteenth century indentured workers? Does a Dalit author’s literary agenda translate into agency for fictional Dalit characters who view the cityscape as a liberated space free from caste prejudice? What about destitute illegal aliens in New York, like Kiran Desai’s Biju: do they experience economic agency through movement unauthorized by international laws? These questions have answers that are incomplete until seen in the light of other texts. My argument in this dissertation is that contemporary authors such as Ghosh, Desai, and the selected Dalit authors - Maheshwari, Parmar, Pateliya and Parmar - layer their characters with agency that makes them the subjects rather than objects in the narrative of the texts. They lace their narratives with particular attributes that allow their characters more control over their own fates. While these techniques are successful in some ways, my research also looks at dissonance in how agency is represented, and whether it results in lacunae in the narrative. The final purpose of 1 According to the European Union, around seven hundred thousand migrants made their way onto the shores of Europe in 2015. The estimated numbers projected are going to swell to three million by the end of 2016. This wave is the single largest world migratory movement since the Second World War. This dissertation has been written at a time when various crises (American invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Arab Spring, the Syrian war, the threat of ISIS spreading in the Middle East, migrants flooding in from African nations into Greece and Europe) have sparked off a global migration from the south to the north. 8 the dissertation is to study fictionalized diasporic subalternity, how it is represented by the authors (of the same social status or a cosmopolitan writer), and how different types of agency layered onto the characters influence each other. All the texts offer a rich spectrum of diaspora and migration within which one can study the play of agency. Ghosh uses hybrid languages such as creole and pidgin to enable his indentured characters through their travels across Mauritius and China. Acknowledging and respecting the legitimacy of these languages allows them a special edge over other characters in accessing information systems across these countries. The question of Dalit authors assigning agency to their characters is less clear. Some of the texts hinge on the moment of realization by protagonists that their lifelong struggle to liberate themselves does not result in a corresponding social agency. For other texts, the cityscape does deliver its promise of being progressive and allowing space for development, inspire of its own pitfalls. Biju, on the other hand, in Desai’s Inheritance of Loss discovers that economic agency was perhaps not the right goal to look for in the first place, and he devises his own means of enabling himself in severely straitened circumstances as an illegal alien in North America. This dissertation looks to complicate the incessantly expanding idea of diaspora with an analysis of internal urban migration, using Safran’s six points of differentiation and definition that might partially apply to Dalit migration: Dalit populations disperse from rural to urban centers in order to escape persecution or to pursue education and they do retain a collective memory of their “original homeland”, which can comprise a complex mix of nostalgia and fear. Definition of Operative Terms: Agency, Subaltern, and Diaspora Central to the arguments in the dissertation are the terms “agency”, “diaspora” and “subaltern” for which I offer preliminary definitions here. The idea of agency is a challenging 9 concept to pin down, so I only attempt here to clarify my own terminology. In this dissertation, I have attempted to connect three different types of agency: linguistic, economic and social. By agency I refer to empowerment or advancement gained by a character in one of these categories. In the context of this