National Politics in the Fiction of Rohinton Mistry

Abstract

Representation of contemporary politics and human problems is a major theme for contemporary litterateurs and social thinkers. A number of prolific and eminent novelists such as Rohinton Mistry, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Khushwant Singh, Nayantara Sahgal, Shashi Tharoor, Amitav Ghosh, Arundhti Roy, Kiran Desai and many more have tried to explore the hidden truth and treacherous activities carried out over Indian citizens by their elected political representative on the name of different government schemes. Rohinton Mistry, an Indian of Parsi in origin presently living in Canada, represented contemporary Indian politics in his novels by subverting the conscious or unconscious cultural categorisations associated with the forms of novels focussing on the human condition located in time and space. He tried to show us how politics is used by politicians of all parties to remain in power for fulfilling their vested interest. Present paper is an effort to describe and discuss how political upheavals have an impact on the psyche of common man. It would discuss the theme of politics in the fiction of Rohinton Mistry.