Representation of the Indians in Bharati Mukherjee’s Miss New India

Abstract

This thesis explores into the problematic depiction of the Indians and Indian culture in Mukherjee's Miss New India. Though India has achieved quantum leap in almost all the spheres of lives, Mukehrjee has not bothered to bring these realities in her novel Miss New India. This position of the author enables the researcher to argue that the psyche of the Indians as portrayed in her novel is no less than the psyche of the Indians described in the discourse of orientalists. As a metropolitan author who tries to cater to the taste and likings of western readers, Mukehrjee views Indians as though they are still confined in the layer of tradition, spirituality and abstract metaphysical fantasy. Far from managing the daily troubles of life, almost all the Indian characters in Miss New India take life and its challenges in a happy go lucky way. Carefree, impulsive and schizophrenic, the leading female protagonist Anjali Bose faces the dilemma of either to return to Gauripru or be the concubine of Mr. G.G. The setting of this novel serves as an evidence that India appears as the free- floating and inscrutable land not germane to fruit of modernity, technology transfer, booming economy and the benefits of globalization. To Mukherjee, Indians and India are no less than what the orientalists say in their respective discourse of orientalism. In this sense, Mukherjee's position as a 'metropolitan intellectual' is apparent in her depiction of the Indians in Miss New India.