http://www.digital.lib.esn.ac.lk//handle/123456789/14389 2026-04-21T13:01:51Z 2026-04-21T13:01:51Z SHRIKARUNAAKARAN, K http://www.digital.lib.esn.ac.lk//handle/1234/14418 2025-09-06T22:04:52Z 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z

OTHERING AS SELF-IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION: A RELIGIOUS CONTEXT FROM INDIA SHRIKARUNAAKARAN, K This paper explores the construction of the Hindu identity even as the Muslims are represented as the other. Focus of the time period is confined to the 1990s. The period constitutes a truly ruptural moment in contemporary Indian history. The paper draws on Anand Patwardhan’s documentary, Abdul Bismillah’s short story, Shahid Amin’s essay, and Arvind Narrain’s report. Patwardhan’s documentary “In the Name of God” (“Ram ke Nam”) speaks volumes of the religious tension unleashed. Abdul Bismillah’s story “Guest is God” uses sarcasm and irony to depict the prevalent prejudices. Shahid Amin’s essay contests the contemporary representation of the Muslims; Arvind Narrain’s report reveals the intentions and the disastrous consequences of the religious riots. The paper points up the violent ideological character built into the movement of the Hindu nationalism, and finally makes a case for an impartial representation of the Muslims in correspondence with reality.

2019-01-01T00:00:00Z Shrikarunaakaran, K http://www.digital.lib.esn.ac.lk//handle/1234/14417 2025-09-06T22:04:49Z 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z

THE PLACE OF CONRAD’S HEART OF DARKNESS IN POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE Shrikarunaakaran, K Abstract: his paper deals with the reception of Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. The novella gains in importance in two respects: one, it introduces a path-breaking modern narrative trend; two, it creates a stir in the postcolonial literary domain. It succeeds in attracting notice both in terms of form and content; the former, by experimenting a novel mode of metanarrative in modern stylistics; and the latter, by prompting a controversy in the postcolonial literary arena. This paper zeroes in on the latter - the postcolonial dispute the novella has spawned. It highlights the controversy triggered off by Chinua Achebe’s seminal rebuke of Conrad as a ‘thoroughgoing racist’ in the wake of the wide acclaim the novella has supposedly received from the Euro-centric world. Achebe comes up with the critique upfront to question and denigrate the supposedly famous work in the eyes of the West. Cedric Watts has his own reasons to put checks on Achebe, and attempts to make the pungent comment blunt by showing the remarkable side of the novella. This paper limits its area of focus to Conrad, Achebe and Cedric Watts given the fact of the enormity of criticisms the work has so far attracted from a gamut of critics of various range around the world. The single intent that governs the article is to assess the increasingly significant reception of the novella in the backdrop of the criticisms the two aforementioned major critics of Conrad have come up with. The chief objective, in that sense, is to see whose argument outweighs the other in the evaluation of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in furthering the reception. Achebe famously points up the schema supposedly laid out in the novella which makes use of tricky language that potentially generates pitfalls in the process of meaning-making to ultimately signify the reversal of what Conrad purports to build on. Cedric Watts comes to explain what Conrad is in fact doing. Thus, this paper succinctly provides a balance sheet based on the arguments each of them carry forward and what each has really contributed to the domain of Postcolonial knowledge production It will also endeavor to elucidate the significance of the novel over the course of the argument.

2019-01-01T00:00:00Z Shrikarunaakaran, K http://www.digital.lib.esn.ac.lk//handle/1234/14416 2025-09-06T22:04:23Z 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z

“IMMODERATE DESIRE”: ROBINSON CRUSOE AS AN ALLEGORY OF CIVILIZATION OF MAN Shrikarunaakaran, K This paper aims to show that Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe as a representational work of human civilization. It discusses the preoccupation of the work in its historical backdrop and evaluates as to what extent the work allegorizes the human civilization. Ideological baggage of the period is touched on to lay out an understanding in this view. Moreover, the origins of a capitalist era and the modernist emphasis of individualism are underlined. The paper ends with the note that the work could be positively seen as an allegorical work of human civilization despite the fact that it is predominantly focused on a single individual, and runs short of the collective subjectivity of Mankind.

2019-01-01T00:00:00Z Shrikarunaakaran, K http://www.digital.lib.esn.ac.lk//handle/1234/14415 2025-09-06T22:03:41Z 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z

Identity Politics and the Empowerment of the Marginalised in the Post-independent Indian Context. Shrikarunaakaran, K The objective of this paper is to survey the scenario of the identity politics pertaining to the marginalized community in India. Initially, it delineates the rationale of the politics in terms of identity and points up the necessity given the forlorn condition of the marginalized. For, the politics as understood in this context attempts to assure a degree of empowerment in the midst of the scramble from all sides of the society making the caste hierarchy a means to reinforce the entrenched prejudicial notions. Finally, the paper makes the case for identity politics in the Indian context which has an aggrieving past. It draws insights from Charles Taylor in support of its stand.

2019-01-01T00:00:00Z