The Literary Bazaar: Postmodern Narrative, Spectacular Dissent, and Authoritarian Capital in the Contemporary India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrijm.2026.v11.n01.001Keywords:
Literary Bazaar, Postmodern Indian Novelists, Crony Capitalism, Fascism, Power Nexus, Spectacle of DissentAbstract
This research paper interrogates the ideological positioning of postmodern Indian novelists writing in English, arguing that a significant, globally visible cohort operates within and benefits from a synergistic nexus between neoliberal crony capitalism and rising majoritarian authoritarianism. Moving beyond the simplistic binary of resistance versus co-optation, the analysis posits that postmodern aesthetics—with its core tenets of fragmentation, pastiche, historiographic scepticism, and the rejection of grand narratives—can be structurally and ideologically complicit with contemporary power formations. This complicity is demonstrated not through overt political allegiance but through thematic preoccupations, narrative strategies, authorial personae, and, crucially, the political economy of literary production. The paper provides concrete examples from prominent authors, examines the role of literary prizes, festivals, and publishing conglomerates, and utilizes theoretical frameworks from Pierre Bourdieu, Guy Debord, and contemporary critics of fascism. It concludes that this literary field often produces a spectacle of dissent, a commodified and depoliticized form of critique that ultimately reinforces the very structures it appears to question.
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