Post Colonialism And Post-Colonial Literature

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Post-colonial literature deals with the effects of colonization on cultures and societies through literature. This term has been started using after the Second world War in terms such as the post-colonial state and has carried a chronological meaning, designating the post-independence period. However, from the late 1970s the term has been used by literary critics to discuss the various cultural effects of colonization. It was Gayatri Spivak who first used the term Post-colonial in the collection of interviews and recollections published in 1990 called The Post-Colonial Critic. This was part of an attempt to politicize and focus the concerns of fields such as Commonwealth literature and the study of the so-called New Literatures in English which …show more content…
Many writers in their writings try to show and analyse critically the kind of relation between the colonisers and the colonised that were before as well as the impact of that relationship on the colonised minds so many years after Independence. They reiterate their themes on the political, linguistic and cultural experiences of the colonised people. In India too, many regions which were not then part of Indian subcontinent were former European colonies especially the British. However, after the British left, these regions came directly under the supervision of Indian Government. Some of these regions were independent princely kingdoms ruled by Kings and Queens. Paradoxically, they were colonised twice in their early dawn both by the British and the Indian subcontinent. These regions lie on the extreme north eastern periphery of the Indian mainland and now they are known to the mainlanders as the North-East. “North-East is, of course, a blanket term that has been used to imply a homogeneous province, a single political domain, inhabited by kindred peoples with a common history”. It consists of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. Because of its tenuous historical and geographical association with the rest of India, this region is often …show more content…
He cannot remain mute to the happenings and to be solipsistic. He cannot remain by feigning madness about the brutalisation of human lives. Yet there is a tinge of hope in his writing and is not altogether pessimistic. Though there is disillusion in every twist and turn, he believes that “Poetry cannot help anyone to get on in life, or make a successful human being out of anyone. But poetry should move us; it should change us in such a manner that we remain no longer the same after we’ve read a meaningful poem”. Throughout his poems, he tries to highlight the benign, simple and beautiful aspects of his place and people. He is worried of the lurking fears in the face of every youth. He mourns of the past glory, his rich cultural heritage, and his good behaved people. Yet in the next moment, he is reminded of the harsh realities that are killing his people’s conscience. Ngangom subtly juxtaposes his concept of home- an image both as illusion and disillusion and vice-versa. Therefore, he always felt that “Poetry should not merely amuse us or make us think: it should comfort us, and it must heal the heart of

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