Hello Readers!
Welcome to my blog! In our syllabus we had a very Interesting and Complex novel 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness'' written by Arundhati Roy. Dilip Barad Very interestingly taught this novel. Click here to learn more about characters of the novel and summary of the novel. Thinking Activity Task on the Novel ''The Ministry of Utmost Happiness'' givan by Dr Dilip Barad.
👉Q : 1 Political Issues in the Novel
The novel 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness'engages in many political and social incidents that have occurred in India and other parts of the world at the backdrop of its story. It is full of allusions to many political figures, political issues, events, and incidents that have occurred in the past fewdecades in India and around the world. The present paper attempts to examine the political overtones implicit inthe novel by decoding and explaining a few significant allusions used in the novel.
👉Political Issues
1. Anti- Corruption Movement of 2011 ( Anna Hazare Movement)
2. Bhopal Gas Tragedy
3. 2002 Gujarat Riots
4. 2004 State elections in Gujrat and General Elections of India
5. Una Violence
6. The Emergency of 1975
👉Characters with real life political figures
1. Lisping Poet Prime Minister - Atal Bihari Vajpayee
2. Gujarat's Beloved (Lalla)- Narendra Modi
3. Tubby Old Gandhian - Anna Hazare
4. Mr. Aggarwal - Arvind Kejriwal
5. Trapped Rabbit - Manmohan Singh
The novel is a political novel which questions the socio-political situation in India. Anjum at the centre of various narratives in the novel, Roy has empathized with the sufferers of numerous incidents that happened in India, be it National Emergency, Godhra Kand, Cow Lynching or Bhopal Gas tragedy. Through this novel, Roy has also implicitly criticized the political atmosphere of India. The Narendra Modi Government is central to her criticism but the Manmohan Government is also not spared. An author always takes liberty in delineating the socio-political condition of a place about which s/he intends to write and in doing so s/he may either demean or overstate any issue. Arundhati Roy has done this at many places in her novel, where the harmony of India has been shown under threat under the rule of Modi government. In the capacity of a novelist, Arundhati Roy has the freedom to use allusion in her work and she has made wonderful allusions to political incidents and people in the present novel to serve her purpose. The allusions discussed and explained in this article will help a reader in understanding Roy’s novel in a better way.
👉Q : 2 Gender Concerns in the novel.
The naturalized binary gender classification is critiqued in the novel through the life story of Anjum born as Aftab. Aftab Suffered from hermaphrodite Identity. Aftab was born as the son of Jahanara Begum and Mulaqat Ali in Khwabgah. The sexual identity of the child terrifies the mother and she does not unravel it even to her husband for some time. Both expected a baby boy but quite contrary to their conventional expectations it was neither a boy nor a girl. Jahanara Begum thought, "In Urdu, the only language she knew, all things-carpets, clothes, books, pens, and musical instruments had a gender.
Is it possible for a mother to be terrified of her own baby? Jahanara Begum was.
Her first reaction was to feel her heart constrict and her bones turn to ash. Her second reaction was to take another look to make sure she was not mistaken. Her third reaction was to recoil from what she had created while her bowels convulsed and a thin stream of shit ran down her legs. Her fourth reaction was to contemplate killing herself and her child. Her fifth reaction was to pick her baby up and hold him close while she fell through a crack between the world she knew and worlds she did not know existed.
Everything was either masculine or feminine, man or woman. Everything except her baby" [5]. She considered this as quite contradictory to live separate with language or conventional notions of life. Fausto Sterling expresses a similar idea when she states "European and American culture is deeply devoted to the idea that there are only two sexes.
Q : 3 Environmental Concerns in the novel/ Ecofeminist Studies.
Environmental issues raised by Roy in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Issues ranging from Indian vulture crises, deforestation, dismal condition of migrants and quarry workers, predicament of captivated zoo animals, deficient health facilities. scum-laden rivers, mushrooming slums, mounting poverty, speedily increasing dumping grounds,unplanned urbanization, unrestricted consumer indulgence, enslavement of Adivasi (tribal) girls and genetic modification have been comprehensively studied. She writes to inspire action and encourage her readers to participate in the process of nation-building and for creating a more sustainable planet.
At magic hour, when the sun has gone but the light has not, armies of flying foxes unhinge themselves from the Banyan trees in the old graveyard and drift across the city like smoke. When the bats leave, the crows come home. Not all the din of their homecoming fills the silence left by the sparrows that have gone missing, and the old white-backed vultures, custodians of the dead for more than a hundred million years, that have been wiped out. The vultures died of diclofenac poisoning. Diclofenac, cow-aspirin, given to cattle as a muscle relaxant, to ease pain and increase the production of milk, works – worked – like nerve gas on white-backed vultures. Each chemically relaxed, milk-producing cow or buffalo that died became poisoned vulture-bait. As cattle turned into better dairy machines, as the city ate more ice cream, butterscotch-crunch, nutty-buddy and chocolate-chip, as it drank more mango milkshake, vultures’ necks began to droop as though they were tired and simply couldn’t stay awake. Silver beards of saliva dripped from their beaks, and one by one they tumbled off their branches, dead. Not many noticed the passing of the friendly old birds. There was so much else to look forward to.
In the very beginning of the novel Roy write about the Vultures who has died from dangerous diseases of Diclofenac. Roy also said that Vultures is a our old friend here she connected with mythical story Ramayana.
Q : 4 Narrative Pattern in the novel.
''The Ministry of Utmost Happiness'' was a very complex novel. The narration of the novel divided into the for part. First parts was 'Jannat Graveyard'' Graveyard name given ''Jannat'' Jannat means paradise perpetual happiness. The Ministry of Graveyard. Book cover pages seems like Graveyard.
Second part was Khwabgah. Khwabgah means place of dream. In this novel 'Duniya' word used. Third part was a 'Jantar Mantar'. Many political movement happened in India was a mention in this part. Fourth part was a 'Kashmir'. The Narrative style in this part is first person narrative. The narration done by Biplab Das Gupta. Final part of the novel is a 'Guih Kyon'.
In the concluding part of the novel Tilo had written the poem.
How
to
tell
a
Shattered
Story?
By
Slowly
becoming
everyday
No.
By slowly becoming everything.
IMAGES CITATION
GAUTAM, ROHIT. “Anti-Corruption Movement .” Be, www.behance.net/gallery/35981153/Anti-Corruption-Movement-in-India.
GOYAL, SHIKHA. “Bhopal Gas Tragedy: All You Need to Know .” Jagran Josh, 3 Dec. 2019, m.jagranjosh.com/general-knowledge/amp/bhopal-gas-tragedy-1575289409-1. Accessed 3 Dec. 2019.
JOURNAL CITATION
Maurya, Prashant. Political Overtones and Allusions in Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, vol. 10, no. 03, Sept. 2019, pp. 829–839., doi:10.5958/2321-5828.2019.00137.2.
Suleman, Danish. "Political and Gender Issues in Arundhati Roy’s "TheMinistry of Utmost Happiness"Masalah Politik dan Gender dalam Arundhati Roy "The Ministryof Utmost Happiness"." ReserchGate (2020): 8.
Book Citation:
Roy, Arundhati. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. 2017.
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