The Pedagogy of Dissent in The God of Small Things and The Low Land

Abstract

The paper tries to read the voices of caste and social stratification(class)pedagogy in the two contemporary Indian English novels namely The Low Land(Jumpha Lahiri) and The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy), respectively. Itlooks at as to how the two novelists project the dissent subjects and their voicesnot just as assertion of their identity but a viable ideological imperative to decentrethe structures of power which manifest itself in the form of social normssuch as caste in the God of Small Things and class in The Lowland.Lahiri is one of the most promising contemporary Indian immigrantwomen writers based in the USA; her mode of narrating story, her thickdescription of the routine ordinary life in an extra ordinary manner, distinguishesher from the other writers. Roy is a renowned novelist and activist. She is wellknown for her novelties in her novels. So far, Roy has written two novels, the Godof Small Things and The Mistry of Utmost Happiness. In terms of technique, useof language, philosophy of anti-establishment, issues of gender and casteviolence, The God of Small Things still captures a great attention among ordinaryreaders and critics alike. In the first part there is a brief introduction of thepedagogy and a cursory glance of Indian Writing in English, and in the second,the discussion of caste and class-conflicts is dealt in the stated novels.