Echoes of Subaltern Voice in D.B. Gurung's Echoes of the Himalayas

Abstract

This research focuses on D. B. Gurung's Echoes of the Himalayas as the representative text to raise the voice of marginalized, ethnic people of Nepal subverting the established myths and discourses about them. In the novel, the protagonist, Gagan Ghondey returns Nepal to establish himself as a true son of his ancestral land leaving his father in Bhutan as he is living in Bhutan after retirement from the Gurkha Army of India. However, his yearnings to achieve legal status as a Nepalese are brutally crushed by the intensive, rotten-to-the-core bureaucrats of the country. Gagan's effort to acquire the citizenship certificate can be understood in its profundity only when we realize that the certificate ensures Gagan's attempts to establish his identity as a Nepalese. Therefore, at the higher panel, Gagan's effort to earn the citizenship certificate is the most tangible fact of his search for identity. However, protagonist of the novel has not yet been able to materialize his most longed-for dream for a Nepalese citizenship certificate, the novel rounds up with a note of hope: the subaltern voice is inevitable and a new order based on justice and dignity for all would be ensured on the land of Nepal.