The Treatment of History in Gita Mehta's Raj

Abstract

Gita Mehta in her historical fiction Raj critiques colonialist as well as nationalist historiography because of their use of elitist approach to the early twentieth century Indian history. In this novel she points out the blind spots of both of these historiographies. She opines that colonialist historiography unnecessarily valorizes colonization as a civilizational mission and ignores the suffering of the colonized. Likewise, Indian nationalist historiography is also guided by the politics of inclusion and exclusion, i.e. Hindus are treated as 'us' and non-Hindus as 'them'. So, the voices of the people from other religion are deliberately ousted. Besides, it is Indian National Congress's version of historiography which is written from the perspective of the elites like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and so on. Therefore, in order to rewrite the histories of the marginalized people such as females, peasants, factory workers, Gita Mehta advocates for postcolonial subaltern historiography in Raj. For Mehta, the subaltern people in terms gender, class, caste, ethnicity can raise their voice in the historical fiction like Raj because it is written from the perspective of the subaltern people.