Authors:

Soumitra Gayen

Abstract:

Like other epics, the Mahabharata is not exceptional in presenting the dominant discourses like patriarchy and the Aryan supremacy, and often dismisses the marginal characters from the centre with derogatory denominations. This epical ideology inspires the literary artists and critics to challenge the monolithic and homogeneous myth of Indian culture by recuperating and recovering the minor narrative of the epic. Thus, they examine how these characters have been excluded from the mainstream narrative which suppressed their responses as the marginalized ‘Other’ and how they were coerced into silence with a distorted demonic identity to justify their exclusion. In this paper I would explore how Manohar Mouli Biswas’s subaltern characters – especially Ghatotkach – in his poetic play Ghatotkach and Hidimba: A Dialogue (2010) translated by Ipshita Chanda not only can but also have been made to speak for their rights, honour and identity. The alternative historiography here brings forth a space for the subaltern characters by fracturing the silence in this cultural and mythological text – an instance of how writing gradually converts power from the controller to the controlled. 

Keywords:

subaltern, epic, discourse, exclusion, silence

Vol & Issue:

VOL.14, ISSUE No.1, March 2022