• Amrit K. Samra

This paper undertakes a critical analysis of Nayantara Sahgal’s novel When the Moon Shines by the Day (2017) and Arundhati Roy’s work The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017) from the point of view of their depiction of minorities in independent India. Both the works are dystopian satires on the perceived discriminatory and exclusionary policies adopted and pursued by the present day political dispensation allegedly aimed at otherising, marginalizing and dispossessing the minority dalit and the Muslim communities. Through the fictional portrayal of the brutal mob lynchings and violent killings of the members of the dalit and the Muslim communities by the dominant Hindutva elements, both the texts appear to rupture the underbelly of the nationalistic, unitary and emancipatory narratives of democracy, equality and freedom for all in the country. The paper also focuses on how both the texts appear to underscore the need for tolerance, socio-cultural syncretism and peaceful co-existence for the establishment of an all-inclusionary, liberal and a progressive multicultural nation ensuring unity in plurality.

Otherization, oppression, violence, postcolonial, liberal, tolerance, intolerance, marginalization, dispossession, discrimination, monolithic, multiculturalism.

"OTHERIZATION AND VIOLENCE AGAINST DALITS AND THE MUSLIMS IN POSTCOLONIAL INDIA: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF NAYANTARA SAHGAL’S WHEN THE MOON SHINES BY THE DAY AND ARUNDHATI ROY’S THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.7, Issue 6, page no.g444-g449, June-2020, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2106878.pdf

"OTHERIZATION AND VIOLENCE AGAINST DALITS AND THE MUSLIMS IN POSTCOLONIAL INDIA: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF NAYANTARA SAHGAL’S WHEN THE MOON SHINES BY THE DAY AND ARUNDHATI ROY’S THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.7, Issue 6, page no. ppg444-g449, June-2020, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2106878.pdf