The GNLF Dilemma with Special Reference to Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss

Abstract

To start this paper by stating that India is a land of diversity will almost sound cliché. Nonetheless, it is one, and seeking unity in this diversity has always been the top priority of the nationalists. However, national integration cannot be accomplished easily in a country as diverse and divided like ours as various factions of people pledge their allegiance to a host of factors like religion, caste, ethnicity and the like rather than the concept of a unified nation. Ever since independence, most of the ethnic groups have been feeling that their ethnicity will be jeopardized at the cost of a homogeneous nation and, therefore, have been relentlessly launching movements to preserve their ethnicity. India has witnessed by a number of insurgent movements like the Khalistan rebellion in Punjab, the Naxalite- Maoist insurgency in Bengal, Orissa and Chattisgarh, the insurgencies in Kashmir and the North East, to name a few. In a country with so many dissenting groups who find it extremely difficult to find common grounds with others, national integration seems to be a Utopian notion. In order to consolidate the nation, time and again the Centre keeps adopting various strategies to rope in these various factions to the mainstream but the situation continues to remain complex and perplexing.