Paper Title
Nation as Narrative: Myth, Memory, and Postcolonial Historiography in Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel
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Registration ID: IJNRD_329204
Published ID: IJNRD2610201
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Keywords
Keywords: Shashi Tharoor, The Great Indian Novel, myth, cultural memory, postcolonial historiography, nationalism, political satire, Indian English fiction.
Abstract
Abstract How does a nation tell the story of its past, and what happens when that story is retold through myth? These questions lie at the heart of Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel (1989), which reimagines modern Indian history through the characters, conflicts, and narrative patterns of the Mahabharata. By bringing the ancient epic into conversation with colonial rule, the Indian freedom struggle, and post-independence politics, Tharoor challenges the distinction between historical fact and cultural memory. This article examines how the novel uses myth, satire, and narrative reconstruction to question established accounts of Indian nationhood. Drawing on Benedict Anderson’s understanding of the nation as an imagined community, Linda Hutcheon’s concept of historiographic metafiction, and Maurice Halbwachs’s theory of collective memory, the study explores the ways in which history becomes meaningful through storytelling. It argues that Tharoor’s use of the Mahabharata offers a powerful means of interpreting the contradictions of Indian nationalism while exposing the ambitions, rivalries, and political failures that continue after independence. At the same time, the novel raises questions about the limits of using a single epic tradition to represent a nation as culturally and historically diverse as India. By examining the relationship between myth, memory, political satire, and narrative authority, this article argues that The Great Indian Novel presents national identity as an ongoing process of interpretation rather than a settled account of the past.
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How To Cite (APA)
Dr Geetha George K (October-2026). Nation as Narrative: Myth, Memory, and Postcolonial Historiography in Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NOVEL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, 11(10), c1-c7. https://ijnrd.org/papers/IJNRD2610201.pdf
Issue
Volume 11 Issue 10, October-2026
Pages : c1-c7
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Paper Reg. ID: IJNRD_329204
Published Paper Id: IJNRD2610201
Research Area: Languages
Author Type: Indian Author
Country: Sulthan Bathery, Kerala, India
Published Paper PDF: https://ijnrd.org/papers/IJNRD2610201.pdf
Published Paper URL: https://ijnrd.org/viewpaperforall?paper=IJNRD2610201
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