Representation of the Indians in Bharati Mukherjee’s Miss New India
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Central Department of English Kirtipur, Kathmandu
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.