INTRODUCTION

M.H. Abram in his A Glossary of Literary Terms defines allusion as “a passing reference, without explicit identification, to a literary or historical person, place or event, or to another literary work or passage” (12). Allusions can be textual or non-textual. Textual allusions in a literary work are those which hint at passages of some other literary/non-literary texts while non-textual allusions in a literary work are those that refer to people, places, events, incidents or facts. Allusions have always been a very popular trope in writing, as they are “economical means of calling upon the history or the literary tradition that author and reader are assumed to share” (Baldick 7).

Authors use different types of allusions like historical, biblical, political, or popular allusions in their literary works and as an allusion is always an indirect reference, to any person, event or fact, it creates a safe corner for authors; allowing them not to fall into any type of controversy and to successfully deliver their ideas and responses. The allusions are always made to significant, important and popular things, issues or persons about which the common public has varied opinions and by using them in their works, authors have an opportunity to praise/mock somebody/something, through their compliance or resentment to the persons, things or issues being alluded to thus creating a space for their readers for (re) thinking, contention and debate.

Arundhati Roy is a prolific novelist who understands the spirit of the time. Her present novel deals with varied contemporary issues of ‘Modern India’ like “the matter of the hijra communities (male-to-female trans-genders), the rise of Hindu nationalism, the struggle for Kashmiri independence, the plight of caste discrimination, the impact of rapid industrialization on the environment and the effects of globalization on society” (Monaco 58). India has seen major social and political ups and down in recent years, especially after the year 2000. After winning extraordinarily the general elections in 2014, Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India and since then, in many people’s opinion, the RSS¹ backed Modi-government is trying to saffronise², the ‘secular India’. So, a flock of Hindu nationalist, Cow protectors or Saffron Parakeets³, to use Roy’s term, have shot up to execute the process of saffronization (though it has been time and again refused by the Modi Government). Many incidents of atrocities against minorities (especially Muslims) and Dalits in the name of cow protection, love-jihad⁴have been reported since Narendra Modi became the prime minister. 2014 is also the year when the Supreme Court of India in its historic judgement declared transgenders as “third gender” giving them equal fundamental rights like any other sex in India. This is also very central to Roy’s novel because her protagonist is a hermaphrodite, struggling to gain recognition in ‘duniya’ (the mainstream world). Arundhati Roy has overtly criticized the current Modi- Government of India as well as its policies in Kashmir in many of her public interviews. The same resentment can be seen in her novel where she is hinting at the political issue of Kashmir and propagation of Hindu nationalism under cover of Anjum’s story. All such happenings and events in India in the past few years inspires Roy’s novel, where she, through her Muslim, hermaphrodite protagonist Anjum is (re) creating the situations and is making her witness these situations, directly or indirectly.

The present novel is a mixture of literary and political things and it “encapsulates the rapidly transforming face of Indian democracy with the rise of Right-wing political ideology, the degenerating condition of the marginalized groups of people, the atrocities that are rampant in Kashmir valley” (Mohasin and Taskeen, 256). As in any literary work “the nature and relevance of allusions are not explained by the writer but relies on the reader's familiarity with what is thus mentioned” (Baldick 7), it becomes difficult for the readers to appreciate or criticize the literary piece, if the allusions are not clear to them. A reader who is not aware of the past and current political atmosphere of India may find the present novel difficult to understand or to understand it properly, as the present novel is full of numerous allusions to contemporary people, political situations, events, incidents and news limelights from India. It also covers a few major incidents that happened around the world. Thus in this paper, we are aiming to highlight the political overtones implicit in the novel by explaining a few major allusions used in the novel. For convenience, we have arranged the allusions chronologically (though they are scattered in the novel).

The Emergency of 1975:

The first allusion that we find in the novel is about the Emergency⁵ that was imposed upon the country by Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India (see pic.1 and 2). According to Ghosh, “The emergency period from 25th June 1975 to 21st March 1977 is referred to as the “darkest period” of independent India as all civil rights were suspended and the freedom of speech and expression muzzled” (2). The Emergency which lasted for twenty-one months led to political and civil unrest in the country. “During these 21 months of authoritarian rule, the Congress government led by Indira Gandhi postponed elections, censored the press, and imprisoned 100,000 people without charge or trial” (Clibbens 51). Public gatherings and meetings were restricted; the police had the right to search homes without a warrant and could arrest people without charges. The situation during the Emergency has been outlined in the novel as,

Civil Rights had been suspended, newspapers were censored and, in the name of population control, thousands of men (mostly Muslim) were herded into camps and forcibly sterilized. A new law – the Maintenance of Internal Security Act – allowed the government to arrest anybody on a whim. The prisons were full, a small coterie of Sanjay Gandhi’s acolytes had been unleashed on the general population to carry out his fiat. (TMUH 34)

The Emergency was followed by a 20-point program by Indira Gandhi in which ‘sterilization’ to control the increasing population of India was a prominent agenda (see pic.3). According to Mara Hvistendahl, the author of much-acclaimed book Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the consequences of a World Full of Men, “an astonishing 6.2 million Indian men were sterilized in just a year, which was 15 times the number of people sterilized by the Nazis” (quoted in Biswas, 1). Anjum in the novel is a participant and witness of the Emergency. Anjum and her colleague, who were at a wedding party in their professional capacity for offering blessings and merry-making (which they considered as their traditional occupation), were beaten by the police and were instructed to leave the place immediately as the police arrested and driven away the host of the party and his three guests from the site. Roy by situating her protagonist in the time period of Emergency seems to be subtly criticizing the whimsical decision of Indira Gandhi, for the imposition of Emergency, that ensued problems and created disturbances to the common public who suffered a lot in their day to day life.

Bhopal Gas Tragedy:

In one of his articles published in 2004, S. Sriramachari writes about Bhopal Gas tragedy that “[b]y all accounts the Bhopal gas leak on the night of 2–3 December 1984, is the worst chemical disaster in history” (905). Roy in her novel mentions about the sufferers of one of the biggest tragedies that have occurred in India. On the night of 2^nd December 1984, a gas leak incident occurred in Union Carbide India Limited (a pesticide plant) situated in Bhopal, the capital city of Madhya Pradesh in India. The gas leaked was methyl isocyanate (MIC), a highly toxic and hazardous gas which killed thousands of people in a few days (see pic. 4 and 5). According to Sriramchari, the tragedy “[t]ook a heavy toll of human lives. People started dying within hours and more than 2000 lives were lost in the first few days” (905). The aftermath of the tragedy was not only heavy human loss but also increase in disability and biological deformation of the future generation. Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide Corporation (see pic. 6) was accused of this mishappening, but he, later on, fled from India by the support of few Indian politicians to avoid legal prosecutions. Though it is still a debatable issue that who had helped him to flee. Roy in this novel has given a voice to those who have been wounded, died and those who are still suffering due to the aftermath of Bhopal Gas tragedy. Anjum meets the group of fifty representatives protesting at Jantar Mantar demanding for justice, in the case. They are on the protest, with banners which say “Warren Anderson has killed more than Osama bin Laden” (TMUH 111). Roy here is comparing the accused Warren Anderson with the mastermind of September 11 attacks of New York, and in doing so, she is probably mapping the intensity of the tragedy which was much more tremendous and horrible than 9/11 attacks. By comparing the two accused, she is also highlighting the ‘little justice’ done to the victims of the Bhopal tragedy who are still suffering from its aftermath. In this connection, Sriram Panchu in his article notes that “Over the years, the death and disability total attributable to the gas leak is far higher than what was then officially recorded, with succeeding generations inheriting the health and environmental disabilities” (11). Not enough has been done by the government to compensate the victims of the tragedy as they can still be seen protesting and demanding justice. While U.S.A has at least “quenched Americans’ thirst for revenge for 9/11” (Gollwitzer et al. 613) by killing Osama bin Laden, India even failed in alleviating extradition of Anderson from America.

September 11 Attacks:

The whole world was surprised, shocked and appalled at the sudden attack on the World Trade Center buildings in New York City of U.S.A. on September 11, 2001 (see pic.7). An Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda (see pic. 8) had hijacked two American domestic flights “American Airlines Flight 11” and “United Airlines Flight 175” and had dashed them into the World Trade Center buildings. That dreadful, abominable and condemnable act of human massacre and terrorism had led the whole world in mourning and profound grief. People across the world were bewailing the action and were one in sentiments with the families of the bereaved. The residents of “Khwabgah” in the novel, who are a thousand kilometres far from New York can be seen sharing the grief and sentiments of the people of the USA. “The usually garrulous residents of the Khwabgah watched (on TV) in dead silence as the tall buildings buckled like pillars of sand” (TMUH 40). The tall buildings here are a reference to World Trade Center buildings. Everyone in the Khwabgah was watching the live broadcast of the burning down of the towers silently, with their mouth shut in great shock. In that prolonged silence the utterance of Bismillah, “Do they speak Urdu?” shows his disposition to associate himself with those trapped and losing their lives in the ablaze buildings. This incident in the USA had not only perturbed the United States but India also. The fictional characters of the novel are also no different to it.

The Poet-Prime Minister of India in the novel is an allusion to late Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee (see pic.9) who has been the Prime Minister of India for three terms. Vajpayee was an articulate orator and a noted poet of Hindi Language. Just after three months of the terrorist attack in New York, India encountered a terrorist attack on its Parliament (one of the important place in a democratic nation). Taking lessons from the recent attacks, the Vajpayee government passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) in March 2002. “A new law was passed which allowed suspects to be detained without trial for months” (TMUH 42), the law which Roy here is referring to in the novel is POTA. After the terrorist attacks of New York and India, and its responsibility being taken by Islamic terrorist groups, events of hostility towards the Muslims in India grew, as it has been often observed that there is always a Muslim hand behind terrorist attacks carried out in India. The patriotism of young Muslims (more prone to brain-wash) of India was in question. After the implementation of POTA, a considerable number of Muslims doubted to be engaged in terrorist activities were interrogated and imprisoned but it cannot also be denied fully that many innocent Muslim youngsters might have had also been detained unintentionally in that interrogation. While the Muslim boys were under suspicion, transgenders and women were spared from police interrogation. “The female was not so much at risk as the male was. As for the transgender, tortured and harassed as they are, they had a better chance to survive in the insane world as they were not counted in the world of ‘normal’ people” (Manoj 116). Being a transgender Anjum is safe and is thankful to the almighty that her adopted child Zainab is a girl and not a boy, therefore there is no risk of her succumbing to such cases. Roy, through Anjum, is being sympathetic and critical at the same time. She is sympathetic to those mothers whose innocent children were imprisoned or killed in police encounters just because of doubts and is critical of the government, who is responsible for such atrocity towards the Muslim males.

2002 Gujrat Riots:

The flames of recent terrorist attacks were not yet cooled, a fresh incident happened at Godhra Railway Station in Panchmahal district of Gujrat, where a train coach full of Hindu pilgrims, was set alight by few vandals (see pic.15). The official investigations done later, figured out that there were few Muslim masterminds behind that incendiarism. The Hindu Pilgrims burnt alive in the fire were returning from Ayodhya⁶ after participating in a religious ceremony. It is to be noted here that Ayodhya is also the site of the disputed “Babri Mosque” of Babur which was demolished in 1992, as it is believed by many Hindus that it was built by demolishing the Rama Temple which had existed earlier at the site. The barbaric incident of burning down of train coach and the site of the dispute has also been referred to in the novel. Arundhati writes in the novel that “A senior cabinet minister (who was in opposition then and had watched the screaming mob tore down the mosque) said the burning of the train definitely looked like the work of Pakistani terrorists” (TMUH 44). The senior cabinet Minister referred here is Lal Krishna Advani (see pic. 10) who has been also the ex-Deputy Prime Minister of India. The aftermath of the Godhra incident was a three-day inter-communal riot in Gujrat between Hindus and Muslims. Roy has efficiently situated Anjum and Zakir Mia in the riots. Both characters get trapped in the riots in Ahmedabad, which was burning in the fire of communal riot at that time. Roy delineating the situation during the riot in Ahmedabad writes that Muslims in Ahmedabad were attacked by a mob who were “armed with swords and tridents and wore saffron headbands” (TMUH 45). The atrocities in Ahmedabad was not only limited to the Muslims but also to their religious places. The Wali-Dakhani shrine in Ahmedabad was “razed to the ground and a tarred road was built over it, erasing every sign that it had ever existed” (TMUH 46) during the riot. The shrine was a place for people who had faith in it and who come there to pay respect to Wali- Dakhani. Roy emphasizes in the novel that even when the shrine was demolished, the devotees went there to put a flower over the place where the shrine once existed. Roy who probably believes that the chief minister and his controlled police were responsible for the riot writes:

Neither the police nor the mobs nor the chief minister could do anything about the people who continued to leave flowers in the middle of the new tarred road where the shrine used to be. When the flowers were crushed to paste under the wheels of fast cars, new flowers would appear. (TMUH 46)

Zakir Mian probably died in the riot as no records of him were found even after many searches. After a few months of the riot, Anjum was found safe, living in a refugee camp. When she was found, she was manly dressed and had a haircut like a man. She had also learnt to chant Gayatri Mantra⁷. According to her, the attacking mob during the riot used to verify whether anyone is a Hindu or is of other faith by asking him/her to chant Gayatri Mantra. Those who knew Gayatri Mantra and chanted it were spared, others harmed or killed. The asking of the vandals to chant Gayatri Mantra reminds one, of the news, reported now and then by world media about the insistent way of the “Islamic terrorists”, who ask their captives to recite kalma⁸before killing them. Anjum was so terrified by the incident that when she returned back safely to Khwabgah after few months, she taught Zainab, Gayatri Mantra, as a safety measure so that she may recite it if she gets trapped in such situation. The experiences of people who had got trapped in the riots and met atrocities are numerous whether s/he was a Hindu or a Muslim. Many Hindus also lost their lives in the riots but are unspoken of. It seems Roy has deliberately chosen and situated these two Muslim characters in the riots as she has a purpose of showing the riots from only one perspective.

2004 State elections in Gujrat and General Elections of India:

“Gujrat ka Lalla” was the Chief Minister of Gujrat when the riots happened in Ahmedabad. “Gujrat ka Lalla” is an allusion to the current Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi who was blamed for condoning the riots. But he has been found fair and is given clean chit by the Special Investigation Team and Gujrat High Court. Roy has always been critical of Narendra Modi and has slammed him, and his government in many of her public interviews. Her discontent with him is clearly visible in the novel when she writes that “Some people believed he ought to be held responsible for mass murder, but his voters called him “Gujrat ka Lalla” Gujarat’s Beloved” (TMUH 62). Despite denigration regarding responsibility for the riot, Narendra Modi was successful in winning the state elections of Gujrat in 2004 because of his charismatic public image and his repeated agenda of development in his election campaigns.

In 2004, the Indian National Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government came into power under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, when the Bhartiya Janta Party led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government conceded defeat in the general elections. Anjum is very happy and rejoiced on the defeat of BJP government because, for her, the RSS backed BJP government in the state (Gujrat) as well as in Centre, was responsible for the Gujrat riots, of which she had a very horrible and dreadful experience. Her happiness and state of mind can be reckoned in the following lines from the novel:

When the lisping Poet-Prime Minister (Atal Bihari Vajpayee) and his party of bigots were voted out of office, Anjum had rejoiced and lavished something close to adoration on the timid, blue turbaned Sikh economist who replaced him. (TMUH 81)

The blue turbaned Sikh economist who succeeded the Poet- Prime Minister is an allusion to Dr Manmohan Singh, an Economist turned politician and former Prime Minister of India (see pic.12). Instead of taking oath as Prime Minister herself, (which was expected, being the president of Congress Party as well as the UPA) Sonia Gandhi (see pic.11), relinquished the name of Manmohan Singh to the post of the premiership in a shocking manner. Manmohan Singh who is not an articulate orator has a low voice and is often mocked in the public of India as “Maun Mohan Singh” meaning “Silent-Mohan Singh” because of his reticent nature. He has been referred as “trapped rabbit” in the novel, with whom Anjum has been disillusioned, as she has known that he is just a puppet (of the Indian National Congress Party) and “someone else was pulling the strings” (TMUH 81). Here “someone else” is an allusion to Indian National Congress President, Sonia Gandhi. Sanjaya Baru who was Media Advisor to Manmohan Singh from 2004 to 2008, in his memoir The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh has also mentioned similar things about the subservience of Manmohan Singh towards Sonia Gandhi. He remembers a conversation with Manmohan Singh and writes it in his memoir when latter told him that “There cannot be two centres of power. That creates confusion. I have to accept that the party president (Sonia Gandhi) is the center of power” (Baru, chpt. 13). The Indian media has often communicated, the gossip over Manmohan Singh in the general public of India as “Maun Mohan Singh” and a puppet in the hand of Mrs Sonia Gandhi. Through Anjum’s disillusionment about the Sikh, blue-turbaned, Economist Prime Minister in the novel, Roy is presenting the views of many Indians who have seen the tenure of Manmohan Singh as the “silent” and “puppet” Prime Minister of India. Though Baru in his memoir has tried to bring back the earlier “Singh is King” image of Manmohan Singh by presenting another narrative about his term as a Prime Minister. In an interview with The Indian Express, Baru also revealed his purpose of writing the memoir and said that Manmohan Singh “has become an object of ridicule, not admiration. I am showing him as a human being, I want there to be empathy for him."

Anti-corruption Movement of 2011:

“In 2011, the angry cadences of India Against Corruption movement dominated media headlines in India” (Roy, 362). Kisan Baburao Hazare, popularly known as Anna Hazare started an anti-corruption movement at Jantar Mantar with a hunger strike. The movement gets nationwide publicity. “Replayed and amplified by television and social media, a host of public demonstrations primarily in urban centres brought thousands of angry citizens to the streets to demand an immediate end to political corruption” (Roy, 362). This movement later came to be known as India Against Corruption Movement which started against the sequence of corruption and scams like high profile 2G spectrum scam, Commonwealth Games Scam, Coal Scam, Adarsh housing Scam, etc. during the premiership of Manmohan Singh. The “tubby old Gandhian, former soldier turned village social worker” (TMUH 101) in the novel is an allusion to Anna Hazare, the curator of India Against Corruption Movement. The picture of Anna Hazare’s fast has been outlined in the novel as:

In his interviews, he smiled his gummy Farex-baby smile and described the joys of his simple, celibate life in his room that was attached to the village temple, and explained how the Gandhian practice of rati sadhana – semen retention-had helped him to keep up his strength during his fast. To demonstrate this, on the third day of his fast, he got off his bed, jogged around the stage in his white kurta and dhoti and flexed his flappy biceps. (TMUH 103)

Hazare was not alone when he had started the movement. “Retired bureaucrats, policemen and army officers joined in” (TMUH 102) the movement. Here, the “retired bureaucrats” is a reference to Kiran Bedi (former Indian Police Services Officer) and Arvind Kejriwal (former Indian Revenue Services officer) who had shared the stage and the strike with Anna Hazare against corruption (see pic.13). “Mr Agarwal” in the novel who met Anjum at Jantar Mantar is also an allusion to Arvind Kejriwal. Later on, the two bureaucrats joined politics. Kiran Bedi joined BJP and was later on appointed as the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry while more ambitious Arvind Kejriwal started his own “Aam Admi Party” (AAP) or “the common man’s party”, contested, won elections and became the Chief Minister of Delhi. The “army officer” who shared the stage with Anna Hazare is an allusion to General V.K. Singh (retired Chief of the Army staff of India) (see pic.14) who also joined the BJP and is now Minister of State in Narendra Modi’s cabinet of ministers. Visit of a Muslim film star at Jantar Mantar in the novel refers to the visit of Bollywood Film Star Amir Khan who went to sit with Anna Hazare and pledged his support to the noble cause of Anna during India Against Corruption movement. Amir, according to an article published in Times of India said that “I am not the biggest hero, Anna (Hazare) is the real hero” after Hazare key aide Kumar Viswas described the actor “as the biggest hero of the country who has lent his support to the movement”.

Una Violence:

After coming into power in 2014 in the Center, the Narendra Modi’s BJP government has often been accused of asserting and spreading “Hindu Nationalism” and “right-wing ideology” in the country, especially in the BJP ruled states. Incidents of cow vigilante violence in India has increased after 2014. Referring to such incidents Roy writes in the novel that

The Holy Cow became the national emblem. The government-backed campaigns to promote cow urine (as a drink as well as a detergent), News filtered in from Lalla strongholds about people accused of eating beef or killing cows being publicly flogged and often lynched. (TMUH 402)

In Hinduism, the cow is the most sacred of all animals. Agoramoorthy and Hsu in their article note that “The cow remains a revered and protected animal in Hinduism today and people of the Hindu faith refrain from eating beef. Most rural families across India have at least one dairy cow” (8). So the killing of cows for beef in India is believed to be an action that hurts the sentiments of millions of Hindus. And to recall here, it was the issue of ‘cow fat’ being used in greasing cartridges that had initiated the historic revolution of 1857 in India to throw out the ruling British and East India Company. Many incidents of mob lynching in the name of cow protection has been reported after the Modi government came into power. Few big cases are Dadri Mob lynching in 2015, 2016 Latehar Mob lynching case, 2016 Ahmedabad lynching case etc. where the mob has lynched the accused to death. But it has also been found that “the perpetrators are self-proclaimed gaurakshaks or “cow protectors” who believe that defending cows is their ordained religious duty. Thus, “public mob lynching and targeting minorities become rational actions for them” (Ahuja & Prakash, web.). Even Prime Minister Modi in many of his public speeches has condemned such acts, directed the state governments to take strict action in such cases and has alerted the public to be aware of such self-proclaimed cow protectors. One famous incident which has been alluded to in the novel is “Una Lynching Case”, where the members of a Dalit family were attacked by few upper caste men on the name of cow protection. A family of skinners who has the traditional job of removing the carcass of dead animals were skinning a dead cow, anyhow the rumour of cow slaughtering spread and the family was attacked. This incident received nationwide attention. Roy has alluded to this incident through the story of Saddam (Dayachand) in the novel who has changed his name and left his traditional job of skinning dead animals after the horrific incident of mob lynching of his father and his friends on the pretext of cow slaughtering.

News in the limelight:

The phrase “56-inch chest” in the novel is an allusion to a political jibe which became popular in the media and politics of India. During an election campaign for the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) Polls in India in 2014, Mulayam Singh Yadav of Samajwadi Party attacked Narendra Modi by saying that “he had the blood of innocents (referring to Gujrat riots) on his hand” (Dikshit and Srivastava, web.). Narendra Modi, later retorted to the comment and said that “Netaji (Mulayam) would need a ‘56-inch chest’ to make a Gujrat out of Uttar Pradesh” (Dikshit and Srivastava, web.) as Mulayam Singh has been the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for three times and was up again in the elections. His jibe at Mulayam Singh had become one of the most used punch lines of the political seasons in India during the election campaigns in 2014. From that elections, Narendra Modi had paved his path to Delhi from Gujrat which is also referred to in the novel as his “March to Delhi” (TMUH 81).

News that attracted nation’s and media’s attention in 2015 was about the suit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi which he had worn in his meeting with Barrack Obama (former President of the USA) during latter’s visit to India (see pic.16). There was a rumour about the suit that its price was INR 10 lakh. The speciality of the costly suit was that it embroidered Narendra Modi’s name in gold. Later on, it was reported that the suit was gifted to Modi by a Non-Resident Indian, Mr Ramesh Kumar Bhikabhai Virani, during the Vibrant Gujrat Summit. After being approached by media on this issue, Mr. Ramesh said that

I presented this suit to him (Prime Minister Modi) when I attended the recent Vibrant Gujarat Summit. I gave it while extending an invitation to him to attend my son's wedding on January 26…I gave this gift to my elder brother (Prime Minister Modi) on behalf of my son. My son had this idea of making this monogrammed suit. He said he wanted to give a surprise to Modi Ji. (Singh, web.)

Roy mentions about this suit in the novel when she writes, “A devotee gifted him a pinstriped suit with Lalla Lalla Lalla woven into the fabric. He wore it to greet visiting Heads of State” (TMUH 395).

Narendra Modi’s winning of the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 brought a ray of hope in the majority of the public of India who had paralyzed the government of Manmohan Singh by setting him out of power. The media of India reported during the campaigns the name of Modi being chanted everywhere, Modi! Modi! Modi! much like what Arundhati Roy has written in the novel. She is recreating the scene before the election in the novel when the followers of Modi were extending their support to him in different ways. Describing the fan following of Modi, Roy writes, “His people, wearing paper masks of his likeness, would carry him on their shoulders chanting his name- Lalla! Lalla! Lalla!- and place him on throne” (TMUH 105). After coming into power, the Narendra Modi government has taken many initiatives among which two initiatives which are very central to his government are, “Cleanliness drive” and “Man-ki Baat”. The cleanliness drive initiated by Modi attracted the world media, when the Prime Minister himself was seen sweeping the roads, cleaning the sands from the Ghats of Varanasi (his constituency) (see pic.17) inspiring, motivating the common public of India and sensitizing them about the importance of cleanliness in ones’ life and the surrounding where one lives. In this regard, John Harriss in his article writes that

In his first Independence Day speech on 15 August 2014, Modi declared ‘Clean India!’ to be a top priority of his new government, and he followed this on 2 October, the national holiday for the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, with a call for every Indian to play a part in creating a cleaner country and making India free of open defecation by 2019, Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary. (716)

The second initiative, “Man-ki Baat” which roughly translates as “My heart’s voice” in English, is an initiative hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself where he addresses the people of India on All India Radio (see pic.18). Regarding the purpose of this initiative, the official website of Indian Government says that “Mann Ki Baat is a unique initiative of the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to reach the masses across the country through the Radio. The Prime Minister through his address on the radio aims to connect with the common man on a regular basis and inform them about the initiatives of the Government and also seeks the support of the common man in nation-building and governance” (mygov.in, web.). Both these initiatives of the Modi government have been referred to in the novel. Apprising the reader about the initiatives of Narendra Modi Arundhati Roy writes that “Every week he addressed the people of the country directly in an emotional radio broadcast. He disseminated his message of cleanliness, purity and sacrifice for the nation… He popularized the practice of mass yoga in community parks. At least once a month he visited a poor colony and swept the streets himself” (TMUH 401).

CONCLUSION:

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy came after almost twenty years her first novel The God of Small Things. In this novel, Arundhati Roy has tried to encompass the recent, major incidents taking place in India that received wider publicity. The above-discussed allusions have shown that Arundhati Roy’s novel has political overtones in it. The novel is a political novel which questions the socio-political situation in India. Keeping 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.

Notes:

1. RSS is the abbreviation of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. “This is a quasi-military brotherhood founded in 1925, organized by pracharaks—full-time party activists and propagandists, of whom Narendra Modi was one at an earlier stage in his career—around local shakhas (units or cells). ‘Expressed in the simplest terms’, the RSS declares, ‘the ideal of the Sangh is to carry the nation to the pinnacle of glory, through organizing the entire society and ensuring the protection of Hindu Dharma” (Harris 713).

2. The politics of right-wing Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) that seek to make the Indian state adopt social policies that recall and glorify the ancient Hindu cultural history and heritage of India while de-emphasizing the more recent Islamic or Christian heritage. (The definition has been taken from “your dictionary”, available on https://www.yourdictionary.com/saffronization )

3. The Saffron Parakeets in the novel is an allusion to the volunteers of Hindu Nationalist groups like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad(VHP), Bajrang Dal etc.

4. "Love Jihad" or "Romeo Jihad" organization, supposed to have been launched by Muslim fundamentalists and youthful Muslim men to convert Hindu and Christian women to Islam through trickery and expressions of false love” (Gupta 13).

5. For more, see India since Independence, the Indira Gandhi Years (1969-1973) Penguin Books, 1999 by Bipan Chandra, Aditya Mukherjee and Mridula Mukherjee.

6. A district in Uttar Pradesh, India which has a site that believed to be the birthplace of Hindu Lord Rama. It is a popular pilgrim place of Hindus.

7. A popular, highly revered ancient Sanskrit mantra from Rig Veda.

8. “Laa ilaaha illal Lahoo Mohammadur Rasool Ullah” meaning “There is none worthy of worship except Allah. Muhammad is Messenger of Allah” (source:http://www.islamicnet.com/kalma.htm )

Note on the Images

Eighteen pictures related to the allusions have been added after the references as appendixes. The pictures are taken from the internet and their sources are given.

REFERENCES:

1. Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. 1941. New Delhi: Harcourt India, 2001.

2. Agoramoorthy, Govindasamy and Minna J. Hsu. “The significance of cows in Indian society between sacredness and economy”, Anthropological Notebooks. 2012; 18(3): 5-12.

3. Ahuja, Juhi and Praveen Prakash. “Cow Vigilantism in India: Modi’s Dilemma or Legacy?” RSIS Commentary. 2017; 131: 1-04.

4. “Anna Hazare real hero I am not: Amir Khan.” The Times of India, 27 Aug. 2011, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Anna-Hazare-real-hero-I-am-not-Aamir-Khan/articleshow/9758544.cms Accessed on 5th Dec, 2018

5. Baldick, Chris. The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. OUP Oxford, 2015.

6. Baru, Sanjaya. The Accidental Prime Minister: The making and unmaking of Manmohan Singh. Penguin UK, 2015.

7. Biswas, Soutik. “India’s dark history of sterilization”. BBC News, 14 Nov. 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india 30040790

8. Clibbens, Patrick. "‘The destiny of this city is to be the spiritual workshop of the nation’: clearing cities and making citizens during the Indian Emergency, 1975–1977." Contemporary South Asia. 2014; 22(1): 51-66.

9. Dixit, Rajiv and Rajiv Srivastava. “Narendra Modi vs Mulayam Singh: It’s about “haisiyat” and chest size in UP”. The Times of India, 24 Jan. 2014, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Narendra-Modi-vs-Mulayam-Singh-Its-about-haisiyat-and-chest-size-in-UP/articleshow/29275712.cms

10. Ghosh, Jhumur. “Indira Gandhi’s call of Emergency and Press

Censorship in India: The ethical parameters revisited”Global Media Journal. 2016; 7(2): 1-15.

11. Gollwitzer, Mario, et al. "Vicarious revenge and the death of Osama bin Laden." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 2014; 40(5): 604-616.

12. Gupta, Charu. “Hindu Women, Muslim Men: Love Jihad and Conversions.” Economic and Political Weekly. 2009; 44(51): 13–15.

13. Harriss, John. “Hindu Nationalism in Action: The Bharatiya Janata Party and Indian Politics”, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. 2015; 38(4): 712-718.

14. Hvistendahl, Mara. Unnatural selection: Choosing boys over girls, and the consequences of a world full of men. Public Affairs, 2011.

15. Kristeva, Julia. Word, Dialogue, and Novel. Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Ed. Leon S. Roudiez. Trans. Thomas Gora et al. New York: Columbia U. P. 1980: 64-91.

16. “Man-kiBaat”, My Gov, https://secure.mygov.in/group/mann-ki-baat/ Accessed on 5th Dec, 2018

17. Mohsin, Sayad Wahaj and Shaista Taskeen. “Where Margins Intersect: A study of Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”. IJELLH. 2017; 5(10): 256-270.

18. Monaco, Angelo. “Fantasy and history in postcolonial India: the case of Arundhati Roy’s anti-global novel”. The European South. 2018;3:57-70.

19. Panchu, Sriram. “Bhopal Gas Leak Case: Lost before the Trial”. Economic and Political Weekly. 2010; 45(25): 10-11.

20. S, Manoj. “Historicizing Fiction: Critiquing Contemporary India in Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”, Journal of Literature and Aesthetics, 2017: 111-120.

21. Sarin, Ritu. Sanjaya Baru interview: ‘I have written only 50% of what I know’. Indian Express, 12 Apr. 2014, https://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/i-have-written-only-50-of-what-i-know/99/

22. Singh, Prakash. “Meet the man who gifted Narendra Modi that infamous 'Rs 10 lakh' suit”. 18 Feb. 2015,https://scroll.in/article/707606/meet-the-man-who-gifted-narendra-modi-that-infamous-rs-10-lakh-suit

23. Sriramachari, S. “The Bhopal gas tragedy: An environmental disaster”, Current Science. 2004; 86(7): 905-920.

24. Roy, Arundhati. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Gurgaon, Penguin Random House, 2017.

25. Roy, Srirupa. "Angry citizens: Civic anger and the politics of curative democracy in India." Identities.2016;23(3): 362 377.