Volume VI Special Issue V June 2026

Name of Author : Azmathunnisa Begum

Title of the paper : Analysing the Postcolonial Paradigm: Intersecting Caste, Colonialism, and Gender in Arundhati Roys The God of Small Things

Abstract: Suzanna Arundhati Roy is a prolific novelist, a social activist, and a winner of coveted The Man Booker Prize in 1997, Sahitya Academi Award 2006, and many more for her exemplary work. The present paper explores Arundhati Roys seminal novel, The God of Small Things, dismantling the Eurocentric feminist paradigm by exposing the inseparable ties between gender oppression, colonial legacies, and the South Asian caste system. Traditional Western feminist frameworks often isolate gender as a universal category of analysis, frequently ignoring how imperial histories and localized hierarchies intersect. Through a close reading of Roys characters particularly Ammu and Velutha this study demonstrates that subaltern subjects inhabit a unique crossroad of vulnerability where colonialism and indigenous patriarchy reinforce one another in a traditional set up. By analysing the transgression of Ayemenems ancient Love Laws which dictate who should be loved, and how, and how much the paper argues that resistance in the text manifests not as abstract theory, but as a dangerous, embodied praxis. Resistance becomes a physical, lived practice that directly exposes the subject to real world. Here, Ammu’s rebellion against her Syrian Christian family, paired with Veluthas defiance as an untouchable Paravan, serves as a radical rejection of the postcolonial social order which were prominent yet needed change, which is yet to come. Ultimately, this paper posits that Roys narrative offers a vital decolonial methodology for gender studies. It shifts the academic paradigm away from feminist liberation in a postcolonial context requiring the simultaneous uprooting of both imperial remnants, who refuse to surrender to change and localized caste supremacy, the caretakers of society.

Keywords : Eurocentric feminist, Decolonial Feminism, Caste Gender Nexus, Postcolonial Paradigm, Subaltern Praxis, Imperial Remnants.

DOI :

Page Number : 314-317