THE EARTH IS NOT FLAT

Abstract

The earth is not flat, as claimed in a recent bestseller in the context of globalization (Friedman). It is not even necessarily round. It is uneven—there are highs and lows, valleys, craters, rocks and cliffs. It is not an even playing field for the six billion‐odd human beings who inhabit this planet. Some of us occupy the high ground by virtue of belonging to dominant religions, races, castes, languages and gender. Others less fortunate must contend with the essentialisms and hegemonies created by such dominant groups. Such essentialisms are also called fundamentalisms—orders that privilege the in‐group beliefs and selves and marginalize the other. A fundamentalist social orientation jeopardizes not just the quality of life and liberty enjoyed by those who do not fall into the dominant pattern, but sometimes their very existence itself. Literature, as a social construct that creatively re‐images society, is a valuable tool in the comprehension and hence alleviation of the fundamentalisms that plague the world today. This paper attempts to analyse and interpret the resistance offered to essentialisms within the dominant social order by a minority discourse, focusing on that of the Parsi Zoroastrian community in postcolonial India. Although considered an elite during the colonial period, the Parsis have become “downgraded” since decolonization and subject to various kinds of discrimination. Now an extremely tiny minority on the verge of demographic extinction, in the last two decades this community has found a strong voice in the writings of such Parsis as Rohinton Mistry, Bapsi Sidhwa, Dina Mehta, Boman Desai and Meher Pestonji. However, it is not external essentialisms alone that their discourse challenges, for in the manner of the endangered, the community sometimes turns upon itself. The kind of self‐destructive, hegemonic behaviour which isolates rather than assimilates, rejects rather than accepts, is also a threat to the survival of the community. Parsi writing, especially in the form of the novel, offers resistance to internal dissension as well as to external threat.

Keywords:

• Parsi Zoroastrians
• colonial elite
• identification
• alienation
• diaspora

Notes

1 Under the Indian Constitution, religious and even linguistic minorities are allowed to run their own educational institutions and are even given a certain quota for students from their own groups in these institutions. At times, some concessions are given to minorities even in the area of government jobs.

2 By the 17th century CE (Common Era) the Parsis in India, along the lines of the Indian self‐governing bodies called Panchayats, had also formed themselves into Panchayats in various cities and large towns. These Panchayats governed the community’s social and financial affairs.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nilufer E. Bharucha

Nilufer E. Bharucha is Professor and Head, Department of English, University of Mumbai. She studied at the universities of Bombay and Manchester, UK. Her areas of specialization are postcolonial literatures and theory, the literature of the Indian diaspora, the writings of the Parsis and Indian cinema. She has published widely in these areas. She is a Visiting Professor in Postcolonial Indian Literature in English and Indian Cinema at universities in Europe and Canada, and is also on the Global Faculty of Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA. Professor Bharucha served on the jury for the Commonwealth Literature Prize in 2001.