Volume VI Special Issue VI September 2026

Name of Author : Aswathy Sabu

Title of the paper : Voices from the Margins: A Subaltern Reading of Anand Neelakantans Asura: Tale of the Vanquished

Abstract: This paper deals with Anand Neelakantans Asura Tale of the Vanquished 2012 as a retelling of the Ramayana that challenges the traditional one sided version of the epic by presenting the story from the perspective of the defeated. While classical epics rely heavily on belief that everything is decided by God to divide the world into moral binaries of good versus evil, Neelakantan presents this great battle as a realistic and deeply human struggle against an unfair social and political system based on birth and caste. By using the narratives of Ravana, the monarch, and Bhadra, a common soldier, the text gives voice to the vanquished. Using the ideas of Subaltern Studies and postcolonial counter-history, especially the theories of Antonio Gramsci and Gayatri Spivak, this study examines how the novel challenges the dominant cultural beliefs and idea. Ultimately, this paper describes that while Ravana represents the complex struggles of a sovereign subaltern leader, Bhadra become the absolute, enduring voicelessness of the working class people, transforming an ancient epic into a powerful and timeless criticism of systemic oppression.

Keywords : Subaltern Studies, Revisionist Mythmaking, Counter Historiography, Cultural Hegemony, Indigenous Literature.

DOI :

Page Number : 273-278