Narrating Subaltern Resistance: A Comparative Study of Devi, Roy, and Byapari

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the portrayal of subaltern resistance in Mahasweta Devi’s Draupadi and Chotti Munda and His Arrow, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, and Manoranjan Byapari’s Interrogating My Chandal Life, examining how these texts challenge caste, class, and gender oppressions in postcolonial India through diverse narrative strategies. It seeks to evaluate the role of narrative form in amplifying marginalized voices and to explore the limits of subaltern representation within hegemonic discourses. Four primary texts were analyzed: two fictional works by Devi, one novel by Roy, and one autobiography by Byapari. The study employed close reading to examine narrative techniques (e.g., dialect, nonlinear storytelling, autobiographical voice) and contextual interpretation to situate texts within India’s postcolonial landscape, including Naxalite uprisings, caste discrimination, and Dalit literary movements. The analysis was grounded in postcolonial and subaltern studies frameworks, primarily Spivak’s concept of the subaltern and Gramsci’s notion of hegemony. The analysis of four texts revealed distinct resistance strategies: individual defiance in Draupadi, collective action in Chotti Munda, subtle subversion in The God of Small Things, and autobiographical agency in Interrogating My Chandal Life. Through comparative textual analysis, guided by Spivak and Gramsci, it explores how narrative strategies articulate subaltern voices across tribal, middle-class, and Dalit identities. Narrative techniques effectively disrupted hegemonic conventions in all texts, but tragic outcomes (e.g., character deaths, ongoing exploitation) in the texts highlighted the limits of subaltern agency. Spivak’s framework revealed mediation challenges in texts by Devi and Roy, while Byapari’s Dalit voice offered direct representation. The study underscores literature’s role in amplifying subaltern voices through diverse resistance strategies, though tragic outcomes and authorial mediation limit their impact.