Textual Paradigm: Reading, Analyzing, and Positioning the Indian Banknotes Issued Post-Independence as Texts

Cibi T R^1*  & P. Nagaraj^2
1 Research Scholar, Department of English and Foreign Languages, Bharathiar University, Tamilnadu. *Corresponding author.
² Professor and Head, Department of English and Foreign Languages, Bharathiar University, Tamilnadu.

^{Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 16, Issue 3, 2024. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v16n3.08g
Full-Text PDF Issue Access}

Abstract

Postmodern liberty has been a luxury to the creators to some extent. With regards to text and its functions, the viewpoint of considering everything as a text bloomed out of Derrida’s mind in his Of Grammatology (1967). Just as postmodern literature challenges linear narratives and fixed meanings, through the analysis of Indian banknotes as textual artifacts, the interrogation of the semiotic dimensions of banknotes, and how they function as sites of ideological contestation, memory-making, and cultural representation being a text is possible. The textual analysis is performed by applying the picture theory of W.J.T. Mitchell to deconstruct the elements embedded, which in turn access the knowledge of the text’s world and how it could be part of the same. The idea of considering Indian banknotes as texts is a result of the advancements that have been happening in the printing industry. Due to such kind of never-ending upgradation, the conventional ideas of authorship, textuality, and interpretation are challenged and given a new dimension by considering Indian banknotes as subject matter. Further, the present study delineates the culture and history of the Nation as represented in the select texts.

Keywords: Postmodernism, Text, Indian banknotes, Culture, History.