A Comparative study of Postcolonial concerns in Chinua Achebe’s Novel Things Fall Apart and Akhtar Mohi – u – dins Novel Zath Butrath (The Earth and its Origin) in the context of Global South and South Asian Perspective

Abstract

In the sixteenth century, European colonization of Africa contributed significantly to European economic development. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart Known as the magnum opus of African Literature, attempts to present the pre – colonial state of the Igbo Culture. The transition in the book from pre – colonial Africa to an Africa that felt the European presence is in terms of style, remarkable. He narrates the story of an Igbo individual who witnesses the emergence of European institutions among the neighboring villages as well as his own while fabricating the personal account of Okonkwo, and while explaining the influence of the cross cultural encounter on him, which ultimately leads to his tragic death.

 Similarly, passing over the period of centuries Kashmir has the authentically recorded events of long successions of struggles, between, rulers and usurping uncles, cousins, brothers, ministers, nobles and soldiers. In the meanwhile the Moghuls finally established themselves in Kashmir. Akbar finally in 1856 merged Kashmir as his dominion which remained as a dependency of the Mughal emperor for nearly two centuries till British colonists came and took over the reins in their hands. British in turn did a very heinous and shameful act of selling the Kashmiris to the Dogra’s as this again was a purely commercial act of profiteering. Akhtar Mohi – ud – din , a Kashmiri novelist in his novel Zaat – Butraat (The Earth and its Origin) writes about all these agonies faced by the people of Kashmir under Dogra rule. He writes about the nature of sufferings and heinous exploitation that was so rampant during Dogra rule in Kashmir. Common people were suffering 

and were overloaded with the imposition of taxes. Life had become very difficult to live, peasants and artisans had to pay the taxes on their production and wages. 

Comparative Literature, put in simple terms: means the study of text, belonging to the writers of different regions, written in different languages. In Comparative literature one studies the literatures across the world. The work done in the Comparative Literature helps readers to understand the relation between the thought and philosophy of different writers belonging to different countries. Achebe and Akhtar being writers of different languages share certain common traits. Both Achebe and Akhtar have a revolutionary temperament and, both believe that Imperialism is a curse, it had devastated great cultures and civilizations. 

The concept of Global South Literatures registers a new set of relationships between nations of the once colonized world and their connections with the Colonizer. The colonial encounter is the foremost determinant for emerging literatures in India or the subcontinent. The process through which the new nation comes into being, the trauma of Imperialism, the formation of national identities in a situation of political instability all contribute to the vast body of literature, not in English, but in the regional languages as well. The paper attempts to show how literature refracts outside its domain and cannot therefore be studied in isolation from them. Both Achebe and Akhtar try to explore the aftermaths of Imperialism in their countries. Achebe, an African novelist and Akhtar a Kashmiri fiction writer share common experience of colonization as a process of dehumanization.