Parul Rani1 & Nagendra Kumar2
1 Research Scholar in English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Roorkee-247667, Uttarakhand, India.Email Id: parulnet.e@gmail.com, ORCID Id: 0000-0002-9934-3585
2 Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Roorkee-247667, Uttarakhand, India. Email Id: naguk20@gmail.com
Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.36
Abstract
The present article draws on the ideological “othering” of the colonized subjects in Jim Corbett’s story collection My India. The text assimilates the non-fictional stories of the Indian people at a time when Corbett operates as an influential colonial hunter, and as a fuel inspector in the different parts of the colonized India. By and large, the stories advocate the proximity between a colonial master (Corbett) and the colonized people (Indians). However, this paper argues these narratives fall into the space of colonial discourse where the erection and dismantling of the racial overtones are happening simultaneously. As a mode of representation, the repeated articulations: “the poor of India,” “Indians are fatalists,” and “superstitious” function a differencing category “other.” The development of the discussion leads to the ironic reconstruction of caste through its subversion at the imperial hands. Precisely, this study probes into what Homi K. Bhabha says “mode of representation of otherness” and argues that Corbett’s discourse loses to the ideological otherness against his experiential closeness to the Indians.
Keywords: colonial discourse, difference, Jim Corbett, My India, othering.
