Recreating History as the Counter against Colonial Discourses in Mukherjee’s The Tree Bride

Abstract

This research work aims to depict the reversal of constructed truth of colonial history in Bharati Mukherjee’sThe Tree Bride.It deals with the discourse fabricated by post-colonial authors in their writing about native Indians and their lands as counter discourse against colonial history made by the colonial authority. Mukherjee blends the ancient history of Mishtigunj taking the references of its establishment by John Mist and the events and incidents from Indian Independence Movement together with the fictional writing as a task of rewriting history. Mukherjee brings the historical facts of Independence Movement and historicalfigures like Tree Bride (Tara Lata) and John Mist who were excluded in official history as the counter against official British history. Official history only includes the events and incidents that are in the favor of the rulers in order to serve the colonial mentality but Mukherjee by revealing the forgotten and untold history during colonialism tries to subvert the colonial history through in the form of fictional writing.