• Dr. Prakash Balikai

Postcolonial study discusses the bias in Enlightenment humanism. ‘Enlightenment’ itself used as a tool by the colonizer (upper class and patriarchal society) in order to impose their ideas over the colonized (women and subordinate class). The paper makes an inquiry of the contemporary rewritings of the Indian epics using as its theoretical framework caste and gender in Indian English plays. The classical epics epitomize the hegemony of the patriarchy and norms of the elite class. But, as Ambedker asks for the revisiting of the norms in every context, the present paper is an evaluation of the epics and presentation of caste and gender in them, which are reworked in the modern plays. The paper makes an observation of the subversion of women characters and the existence of caste hierarchy being presented in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The select modern plays interrogate these epics. The paper brings out how the gender and caste hierarchy made the women and the subordinate classes to suffer in the pre-independence and in the post-independence era. The selection of the plays holds mirror to the discrimination of caste and gender of that particular society, through postcolonial lenses.

Metanarratives, Little narratives, Postcolonialism, Enlightment humanism, Civilizing mission, political pessimism

"Reworking of Metanarratives: A Postcolonial Study of Select Plays ", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.5, Issue 2, page no.957-959, February-2018, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1802168.pdf

"Reworking of Metanarratives: A Postcolonial Study of Select Plays ", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.5, Issue 2, page no. pp957-959, February-2018, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1802168.pdf