Articles on Postcolonial Studies

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Articles on Postcolonial Studies

This blog is part of my educational activities under the M.A. English program. It aims to analyze postcolonial articles, explore the impact of globalization on identity, and promote critical understanding through academic reflection and interpretation. This blog following Pr.Dilip Barad  sir's Researchgate for analysis.


Analysis of articles:

1) Globalization and the Transformation of Postcolonial Identities

Introduction:

Globalization today functions not just as an economic process but as a cultural and ideological force that reshapes how individuals and nations understand themselves. It has transformed postcolonial identity from one shaped by direct imperial rule into one governed by the subtler mechanisms of global capitalism, technology, and consumer culture. The postcolonial subject now lives in a world where power is no longer territorial or political but decentered and digital, extending through markets, media, and multinational corporations. This transformation has redefined identity, belonging, and resistance in profound ways.

 1. Globalization and the New Empire

In the postcolonial world, globalization operates as a new kind of empire—not defined by armies or colonizers, but by systems of trade, communication, and finance. It creates a decentered network of control, managing people and cultures through economic and ideological influence. The global order promotes uniformity in taste, language, and lifestyle while erasing cultural diversity.
For formerly colonized nations, this creates a paradox: political independence exists, yet economic and cultural dependency persists through global institutions and corporate power.

 2. Global Capitalism and Its Cultural Impact

Global capitalism reshapes postcolonial societies in both economic and cultural dimensions. Economically, it widens the gap between the privileged global elite and the marginalized working class. International institutions like the IMF and World Bank often impose policies that prioritize profit over people, creating a form of neo-colonial exploitation.
Culturally, global capitalism turns identity into a commodity. Languages, customs, and art forms are marketed for global consumption, detaching them from their local roots. The traditional, community-based ethos of postcolonial societies gives way to individualistic, market-oriented values, creating internal conflicts between authenticity and modernity.

 3. The Fragmented Postcolonial Self

Postcolonial identity under globalization is hybrid, mobile, and fragmented. Individuals must navigate between the pull of global modernity and the push of cultural memory. This creates a condition of psychological dislocation—being everywhere yet belonging nowhere.
In many ways, globalization replaces colonial rule with economic and cultural hegemony. It promises freedom and prosperity but often leads to alienation, inequality, and loss of selfhood. The postcolonial subject becomes a global consumer, caught in a system that shapes not only what they buy but how they think and dream.

 4. Representation in Literature

Contemporary fiction captures these tensions vividly, revealing how globalization transforms identity, morality, and society:

  • Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008) portrays an India divided by global capitalism. Balram Halwai’s rise from poverty to wealth reflects the illusion of opportunity in a system that rewards corruption and self-interest. Globalization here creates mobility, but at the cost of moral and emotional decay.

  • Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2018) explores how globalization deepens existing inequalities. Through marginalized voices—Dalits, activists, and the displaced—the novel exposes how development projects and neoliberal policies harm those already excluded from power.

  • Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis (2003) depicts the spiritual emptiness of the global elite, while Ian McEwan’s Saturday (2005) connects personal life to global conflict, showing how every individual is implicated in a network of global power and media.

These literary texts show that globalization does not erase postcolonial difference—it transforms it into a terrain of struggle, where identity is negotiated between profit and resistance.

 5. Reflections in Film

Cinema too reflects the reshaping of postcolonial identities in the age of globalization:   

🎬 “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008) 
presents India as both victim and beneficiary of globalization. Jamal’s journey from slum child to millionaire mirrors the global fantasy of success, but the film also exposes the enduring inequalities that sustain this illusion.

🎬 “The Namesake” (2006) 

explores the identity crisis of second-generation immigrants, caught between homeland traditions and global assimilation. It reflects the hybrid condition of postcolonial subjects who belong to multiple cultures yet are at home in none. 

🎬 “The Lunchbox” (2013) offers a subtle critique of urban alienation in a globalized world, suggesting that material connectivity does not always translate into human connection.

Through both literature and film, globalization emerges as a double-edged process—opening spaces for new voices and mobility while simultaneously creating new hierarchies and dependencies.

 6. Rethinking Postcolonialism in the Global Age

The relationship between globalization and postcolonial identity demands a redefinition of postcolonial theory itself. Earlier postcolonial discourse focused on political freedom and cultural reclamation; now it must confront economic imperialism, digital colonization, and environmental exploitation.
Resistance has shifted from armed struggle to cultural activism, ecological movements, and digital protest—new forms of postcolonial defiance against global inequality.

Globalization reshapes postcolonial identities by producing hybrid yet divided selves, situated between empowerment and exploitation. It transforms both culture and economy, intertwining them in a web of global interdependence. While it dismantles old colonial boundaries, it also builds new ones through markets, technology, and ideology.

2)Globalization and Postcolonial Fiction: Resistance, Hybridity, and the Crisis of Identity

 Introduction

In the twenty-first century, globalization has emerged as a defining condition of human existence — transforming economies, cultures, and consciousness across the world. Yet beneath its narrative of progress and connectivity lies a complex web of inequality, displacement, and cultural homogenization. Contemporary fiction has become one of the most powerful spaces where these contradictions are exposed and interrogated.

The article “Globalization and Fiction: Exploring Postcolonial Critique and Literary Representations” situates literature within this global discourse, arguing that fiction not only reflects but also critiques the ideological structures of globalization. Drawing upon postcolonial theory, the discussion reveals how writers from formerly colonized societies explore themes of resistance, hybridity, and identity crisis, thereby transforming fiction into a site of cultural negotiation and ethical inquiry.

 1. Globalization as the New Empire

Globalization operates as a continuation of colonialism in economic and cultural form. It no longer functions through military conquest but through markets, media, and multinational systems of control. Following Hardt and Negri’s concept of “Empire,” globalization is portrayed as a decentered network of power that governs human life through ideology and consumption rather than coercion.

This structure of control reproduces colonial hierarchies under the guise of modernization and development. The once-colonized nations now participate in a system where economic dependency replaces political subjugation, and where identity is continuously reshaped by global forces of commodification and mobility. In this postcolonial condition, the self becomes a product of global circulation—neither fully liberated nor entirely enslaved.

 2. The Postcolonial Self under Global Capitalism

Global capitalism reshapes postcolonial identity by intertwining economic inequality with cultural alienation. The article draws on the critiques of Joseph Stiglitz, Noam Chomsky, and P. Sainath, who expose the exploitative nature of neoliberal globalization. Stiglitz’s notion of market fundamentalism reveals how institutions like the IMF and World Bank enforce policies that sustain Western dominance. Chomsky interprets globalization as a mechanism for the concentration of power and wealth, while Sainath describes it as a new “faith” that transcends religious boundaries, demanding submission to the ideology of profit.

In this global economy, postcolonial societies experience dual realities: technological advancement and urban expansion coexist with mass poverty, ecological destruction, and the erasure of traditional communities. The postcolonial subject becomes fragmented — aspiring to global modernity yet haunted by the memory of colonial exploitation.

 3. Fiction as a Space of Postcolonial Resistance

Contemporary fiction, as discussed in the article, acts as a literary battleground where the promises and perils of globalization are dramatized. Through their narratives, postcolonial authors articulate resistance to the ideological seductions of the global market and recover the silenced voices of the marginalized.

  • Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008) depicts India’s entry into global capitalism through the voice of Balram Halwai, whose rise from servitude to entrepreneurship embodies the moral paradoxes of neoliberal success. His “freedom” is achieved through corruption and violence, revealing that globalization liberates and enslaves simultaneously. 

  • Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2018) expands this critique through a polyphonic narrative that gives voice to India’s forgotten citizens — Dalits, women, queer individuals, and Kashmiri separatists. Roy’s India is a nation torn between global aspiration and internal disintegration, where development projects and nationalism conceal deep injustices. 

  • Robert Newman’s The Fountain at the Center of the World (2003) situates resistance on a transnational scale, connecting the anti-globalization protests in Seattle with the struggles of workers and activists across continents. The novel envisions solidarity as a form of postcolonial defiance against the global empire of capital.

Through these works, fiction becomes a form of counter-discourse — reclaiming narrative agency from global structures that attempt to universalize human experience through the logic of profit and progress.

 4. Hybridity and the Fragmented Identity

Globalization fosters hybridity, but this hybridity is often unstable and conflict-ridden. Postcolonial individuals live in a condition of in-betweenness—negotiating between local heritage and global culture.

In Ian McEwan’s Saturday (2005), the protagonist Henry Perowne epitomizes the global subject: a neurosurgeon connected to the world through technology and information yet alienated from its moral realities. The novel captures how global events — terrorism, war, and media saturation — invade private consciousness, blurring boundaries between personal ethics and global politics.

In postcolonial contexts, hybridity produces both opportunity and crisis. Adiga’s Balram, for instance, adopts the English language and entrepreneurial ethos of globalization but loses ethical stability in the process. Roy’s fragmented narrative mirrors the fragmented subjectivity of those displaced by modernity. Hybridity thus reveals the tension between belonging and estrangement, between self-making and self-erasure.

 5. Globalization and Postcolonial Cinema: The Namesake (2006)

A similar tension is reflected in cinema, particularly in Mira Nair’s film The Namesake, based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel. The film portrays the Ganguli family’s transnational experience between India and the United States, symbolizing the broader postcolonial negotiation between tradition and modernity.

The protagonist, Gogol, embodies the hybrid identity of the global generation—alienated from his Indian roots yet never fully accepted in the Western world. His struggle to reconcile these identities mirrors the experience of countless diasporic individuals in a globalized age. Through intimate storytelling, The Namesake captures the emotional dimension of globalization — the loneliness, dislocation, and search for belonging that accompany material success.

Like the novels discussed in the article, the film questions whether globalization truly creates a cosmopolitan world or merely replaces colonial borders with psychological and cultural boundaries.

 6. Literature as a Moral Imagination of the Global Age

Fiction, in this critical framework, functions as a moral imagination that humanizes globalization’s abstract mechanisms. By foregrounding personal stories, it transforms economic theory into lived experience. Literature does not simply reject globalization but reimagines it — suggesting possibilities for empathy, resistance, and ethical coexistence.

Postcolonial writers use narrative form, language, and character to subvert global power structures. Fragmented storytelling, multiple perspectives, and multilingual expression mirror the fractured condition of global reality. The act of writing itself becomes resistance — a refusal to be homogenized by global capital or silenced by dominant discourses.

Globalization has redefined the postcolonial condition. It promises progress and mobility while perpetuating new hierarchies of class, race, and knowledge. Contemporary fiction, viewed through a postcolonial lens, exposes this contradiction by illuminating the lived realities of those excluded from the narrative of global success.

Through themes of resistance, hybridity, and identity crisis, postcolonial authors challenge the moral emptiness of a world governed by markets and technology. Their works remind us that globalization is not merely an economic system but a cultural and ethical phenomenon that shapes how humanity defines itself.

Films like The Namesake further visualize this struggle, revealing that even in a borderless world, the search for belonging and authenticity remains unfinished.
In this way, contemporary fiction becomes not only a critique of globalization but a call to reimagine globality itself — a vision of connection rooted in justice, empathy, and human dignity.

3)Postcolonial Studies in the Anthropocene: Ecology, Inequality, and Filmic Witness

Introduction

The Anthropocene reframes human history by insisting that human activity has planetary, geological consequences. Seen through a postcolonial lens, however, the crisis is not evenly authored or equally suffered: the historical trajectories of European colonialism and the contemporary logics of global capitalism have produced unequal vulnerabilities. Formerly colonized peoples—indigenous communities, rural peasants, and urban poor of the Global South—are disproportionately exposed to ecological degradation, even though they have contributed least to the processes that precipitated climate destabilization. The uploaded article foregrounds this unequal distribution of risk and argues for a postcolonial environmentalism that links decolonization to ecological justice. 

1. Theoretical convergences: postcolonial critique + Anthropocene

Several theoretical moves enable postcolonial scholars to engage the Anthropocene:

• Spatial amnesia: Rob Nixon’s notion (cited in the article) diagnoses how mainstream environmental narratives often erase histories of colonization and dispossession—treating landscapes as pristine “wilderness” rather than contested, inhabited territories. This erasure facilitates conservation practices and development schemes that displace the very peoples whose land-rights would complicate such projects. 

• Species-thinking / new universalism: Dipesh Chakrabarty’s proposal to think beyond strictly humanist categories (again emphasized in the article) urges postcolonial studies to consider planetary scale problems while retaining attention to historical injustices. The challenge is to combine species-level concern with attention to racialized and historical patterns of inequality. 

• Primitive accumulation & accumulation by dispossession: Marx’s primitive accumulation and David Harvey’s contemporary formulation (accumulation by dispossession) explain how capitalism continues to appropriate commons, land, and labor in the Global South—processes that both drive environmental degradation (forest clearance, mining, monoculture) and dispossess local communities. The article uses these tools to show continuity between colonial plunder and neoliberal ecological extraction. 

Together these frameworks convert ecological questions into political-historical ones: climate change is not merely a physical phenomenon but a product of historical dispossession, ongoing extraction, and structural inequality.

2. How colonized peoples are disproportionately affected

Several mechanisms explain disproportionate vulnerability:

  • Geographical exposure plus economic precarity

Former colonies often host resource frontiers—tropical forests, mineral-rich lands, coastal lowlands—targeted by extractive industries. These regions face deforestation, pollution, and sea-level rise while their economies remain dependent on resource rents. Because people in these areas are more reliant on ecosystem services (fisheries, rain-fed agriculture, common forests), ecological disruption immediately threatens subsistence and livelihoods. The article traces these dynamics through case studies and activist histories (e.g., struggles against dam projects and mining).

  • Political marginalization and internal colonialism

“Internal colonialism” describes how post-independence states replicate colonial patterns by marginalizing indigenous and tribal communities within their own borders—often to clear land for development projects. The article highlights movements (e.g., Narmada, forest and tribal resistance) showing that dispossession is now carried out by a coalition of state and corporate actors, often with international financing.
  • Displacement and cultural erasure
Conservation and development frequently silence indigenous knowledge and stewardship practices, substituting market-driven models. This spatial amnesia masks local histories and renders dispossession politically palatable. Vandana Shiva’s work, cited in the article, documents how colonial/neo-colonial agricultural policies erode biodiversity and displace women-centered ecological practices.
  • Least culpable, most burdened
The Global South emits a smaller share of historical greenhouse gases yet bears the brunt of climate impacts (droughts, floods, cyclones). The article emphasizes the moral and material injustice of this arrangement and calls for postcolonial scholarship to insist on reparative frameworks that link climate justice to historical accountability.

3.Narrative and ethical labor of postcolonial environmental critique

Postcolonial scholarship does several kinds of work for the Anthropocene:

  • Rehistoricizing ecological crises — embedding environmental change within the longue durĂ©e of colonial extraction and modern capitalism rather than depicting it as a recent technocratic problem.

  • Centering subaltern environmental knowledges — amplifying indigenous epistemologies that imagine reciprocal relations with ecosystems and often propose alternatives to extractive development.

  • Exposing dispossession — documenting how conservation, development finance, and “green” investments can become instruments of accumulation by dispossession when implemented without local consent.

These moves not only critique policy but also reconfigure the ethical terms of environmental discourse: care, reparations, and commons-based governance become central demands.

4. Film as witness and critique: The Burning Season (1994) 

To ground the argument, consider the film The Burning Season (1994), which dramatizes the life and activism of Chico Mendes and the Amazonian rubber-tapper movement. (The film is a dramatized account rather than academic reportage, but it performs crucial representational work.)

Why this film?

  • It stages the triangulation of state, corporate, and global market forces that drive Amazon deforestation—logging companies, ranching interests, and the demand structures of the global economy.

  • It depicts the dispossession of traditional livelihoods (rubber tappers and indigenous communities) for export-oriented agri-business and cattle ranching.

  • It humanizes resistance: Mendes’ activism shows how local environmental stewardship is inseparable from struggles for livelihood rights, social justice, and cultural survival.

Filmic interventions read through postcolonial concepts

  1. Accumulation by dispossession: The film visually and narratively links deforestation to capitalist expansion—trees felled to make way for cattle that feed global markets. This mirrors the article’s argument about primitive accumulation’s contemporary forms.

  2. Internal colonialism & state complicity: Scenes that show local elites and state actors colluding with corporate interests illustrate internal colonial patterns: formerly colonized nations’ institutions channel the logic of extraction against their own marginalized citizens—precisely the dynamic the article analyzes.

  3. Spatial amnesia reversed: The film recuperates the Amazon as a lived landscape—home, commons, and source of knowledge—countering the “empty wilderness” trope that often justifies external interventions and displacement. By foregrounding community memory and practice, the narrative resists the erasure the article warns against.

  4. Moral economy and global responsibility: The film invites viewers in the Global North to see how consumer demand and international policy contribute to local devastation—a cinematic enactment of Chakrabarty’s call for species-level thinking that nevertheless preserves historical accountability.

Limitations and ethics of representation

The film, like many dramatizations, risks simplification or the “single-hero” narrative (e.g., centring Mendes) that may obscure collective histories of resistance. Postcolonial criticism urges attentive reading: celebrate mobilization but remain alert to representational politics—who speaks, who is silenced, and how visual media circulates images of suffering for international audiences.


5. Policy and ethical implications (brief)

Translating critique into practice implies several interventions:

  • Climate reparations and loss-and-damage finance must incorporate historical responsibility (not only current emissions).

  • Legal recognition of indigenous land rights to halt dispossession and enable community stewardship that often proves ecologically sustainable.

  • Reframing conservation to avoid fortress-style protection that displaces people; instead, support commons-based, community-led ecological governance.

  • Critical scrutiny of “green” finance to prevent accumulation-by-dispossession under the label of sustainability.

These policy directions align with the article’s call for postcolonial theory to engage pragmatic, justice-oriented possibilities in the Anthropocene.

The Anthropocene makes visible what postcolonial critique has always emphasized: ecological crises are inseparable from historical patterns of domination and dispossession. The uploaded article offers a forceful program: to merge species-level concern with attention to colonial histories, to recover erased geographies (countering spatial amnesia), and to diagnose how primitive accumulation has reconfigured itself as neoliberal dispossession. Films such as The Burning Season demonstrate how cultural texts dramatize these intersections—rendering visible the human faces of ecological destruction and the political economies that produce it.

4)Hollywood’s Soft Power : American Hegemony through Rambo, Bond, and Beyond

Introduction: 

Cinema has never been just entertainment; it is one of the most powerful tools of cultural politics. Hollywood, more than any other film industry, has used its global reach to promote the ideology of American superiority and moral authority. The article “Rambo and Bond in America’s Geopolitical Narrative” explores how film franchises such as Rambo and James Bond act as vehicles of U.S. (and Western) hegemony, shaping global perceptions of power, justice, and heroism.

By glorifying American (and allied Western) military, political, and cultural values, these films create what Antonio Gramsci calls “cultural hegemony”—a condition where domination is achieved not through force but through the consent of the audience, who internalize Western values as universal truths. Through a postcolonial lens, such cinema can be seen as a continuation of the colonial project—now operating through images, narratives, and soft power rather than armies and empires.

✳️ 1. Rambo: The American Soldier as Redeemer

The article begins by analyzing the Rambo franchise, particularly Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Rambo III (1988). These films rewrite global history by turning American failures into victories and moralizing U.S. wars.

In First Blood Part II, Rambo returns to Vietnam—a war the U.S. lost—and “redeems” America by rescuing POWs, symbolically rewriting history to suggest that America’s soldiers never failed, only its politicians did. The Vietnamese are shown as villains, while Rambo’s violence is portrayed as justice.

In Rambo III, he aids the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet Union, aligning perfectly with Reagan-era U.S. foreign policy that supported Afghan rebels during the Cold War. Here, Rambo becomes a global liberator, and America’s intervention is framed as moral and necessary.

The article argues that such films function as cinematic propaganda: they reinforce the myth of America as a heroic savior while erasing the complex political and cultural realities of the nations depicted. In postcolonial terms, this is neocolonial storytelling, where the West continues to “speak for” the rest of the world.

 2. James Bond: The West’s Glamorous Global Guardian

While James Bond is a British creation, the article notes that his missions align closely with U.S. geopolitical interests, especially during and after the Cold War.

  • In The Living Daylights (1987), Bond helps Afghan rebels, echoing Rambo III and reinforcing the Western image of fighting “evil empires” (the Soviets).

  • Licence to Kill (1989) supports the U.S. “War on Drugs,” presenting Western law enforcement as globally righteous.

  • Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) shows Bond fighting media manipulation, symbolizing Western anxiety about controlling global information in the post–Cold War world.

Through Bond’s charm, wealth, and authority, the West presents itself as civilized, moral, and technologically superior. The “villains” are usually Eastern, Arab, African, or Russian—constructed as threats to global order. In postcolonial terms, these films reinforce binary oppositions—West vs. East, civilized vs. barbaric, freedom vs. tyranny—central to colonial discourse.

 3. Hollywood’s Soft Power and Cultural Imperialism

The article identifies Hollywood as America’s most effective soft power tool. According to Joseph Nye, soft power means the ability to shape the preferences of others through attraction rather than coercion.

Hollywood achieves this by:

  1. Projecting Ideology: Presenting American democracy, capitalism, and military action as morally just and globally desirable.

  2. Normalizing Power: By repeatedly showing America as the “world’s savior,” global audiences subconsciously accept U.S. leadership as natural.

  3. Economic Dominance: Hollywood’s global distribution ensures that American culture becomes the default entertainment—and thus the default worldview—for much of the planet.

  4. Creating Desire: The American lifestyle—luxury, freedom, individuality—is glamorized, turning cultural dominance into aspiration.

From a postcolonial view, this is not cultural exchange but cultural imperialism—a continuation of Western domination through media, values, and global storytelling.

4. Postcolonial Critique: Deconstructing the “White Savior” Narrative 

Postcolonial theory helps us uncover the ideological work such films perform. Using Edward Said’s idea of Orientalism, we can see how the non-Western world is often depicted as dangerous, exotic, or inferior—existing mainly as a backdrop for Western heroism.

Both Rambo and Bond transform real-world political conflicts into moral spectacles, where the West rescues the oppressed, but without acknowledging its own historical complicity in creating those conflicts. This reproduces the “white savior complex”, a cinematic tradition where Western characters save the world, while the Global South remains passive or villainized.

The article also refers to journalist Palki Sharma’s critique that while Hollywood uses soft power effectively, other industries like Bollywood should not imitate this model. Instead of reproducing Western-style dominance, non-Western cinemas should aim to challenge hegemonic narratives and tell alternative stories that reflect their own perspectives and histories.

 5. Other Examples of Hollywood Hegemony

Many other films and series continue to project U.S. supremacy under the guise of global entertainment:

  • Top Gun: Maverick (2022): Glorifies the U.S. military as global protectors, without naming the enemy—maintaining moral superiority while hiding political complexity.

  • Transformers (franchise): Positions the U.S. army as saviors of humanity against alien threats, equating American military strength with universal security.

  • Homeland (TV Series): Reinforces stereotypes of the Middle East and terrorism, framing American surveillance and intervention as justified acts of protection.

  • Captain America and The Avengers (Marvel Universe): Present superheroes as metaphors for American values—freedom, courage, and moral clarity—implicitly suggesting that America is the world’s ultimate guardian.

These examples demonstrate that U.S. hegemony survives through spectacle—by creating narratives that entertain while subtly teaching global audiences to view the world through American eyes.

Toward a Decolonial Cinema  

A postcolonial approach does not only criticize but also reimagines possibilities. The article ends by asking whether other film industries should copy Hollywood’s methods or create alternative cinematic voices.
Instead of mirroring Western propaganda, global cinema—especially from the Global South—can use storytelling to:

  • Give voice to marginalized histories,

  • Question Western dominance, and

  • Present the world as multi-centered, not just seen from Washington or London.

Films like “Hotel Rwanda” (2004), “The Constant Gardener” (2005), or Indian political thrillers such as “Madras CafĂ©” (2013) and “Raazi” (2018) offer examples of more complex, morally questioning narratives that challenge Western heroism.

Hollywood, through characters like Rambo and James Bond, has built a “celluloid empire” that extends American power beyond borders. These films transform military dominance into moral leadership, economic control into cultural admiration, and ideology into entertainment.

Postcolonial theory reveals that beneath the glamour of action and heroism lies a persistent imperial narrative—one that defines who can be a hero and who must remain “saved.” Recognizing this helps us resist cultural manipulation and demand more diverse global storytelling.

In the end, as the article suggests, the goal is not to reject Hollywood but to read it critically—to understand that behind every explosion and rescue lies a political message about who gets to lead, and whose story gets told.


5)Reimagining Resistance: Tribal Heroes, Appropriation, and Postcolonial Struggle in RRR

 Introduction 

Cinema often acts as a powerful site where history is remembered, rewritten, or reimagined. The film RRR (2022), directed by S. S. Rajamouli, brings together two historical tribal revolutionaries—Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem—who lived and fought in different parts of India and at different times. The article “Reimagining Resistance: The Appropriation of Tribal Heroes in Rajamouli’s RRR” explores how the film appropriates these figures—transforming them from leaders of local, environmental, and anti-feudal struggles into nationalist heroes fighting the British Empire.

While RRR succeeds in creating a spectacular visual narrative of unity and patriotism, it also erases the specific tribal and ecological contexts of these heroes. From a postcolonial point of view, this transformation both celebrates and dilutes indigenous resistance. The question, then, is whether such reimaginings contribute to the postcolonial struggle—or risk undermining it by turning real resistance into mythic nationalism.

 1. From Tribal Rebellion to National Epic 

Historically, Alluri Sitarama Raju fought against the 1882 Madras Forest Act, which restricted Adivasi communities’ rights to their ancestral forests. Komaram Bheem, from Telangana, resisted the Nizam of Hyderabad under the slogan “Jal, Jangal, Zameen” (Water, Forest, Land)—a cry for self-determination and ecological justice.

In RRR, however, Rajamouli merges these two unrelated figures into a single timeline and narrative, positioning them as allies in a pan-Indian nationalist revolt against British colonialism. This shift creates a powerful image of unity but also abstracts their struggles from the local realities of land, displacement, and environmental exploitation.

Through this transformation, the film replaces eco-political rebellion with patriotic resistance, thereby turning tribal activism into a nationalist fantasy. As the article points out, such narrative choices risk transforming complex historical realities into symbolic propaganda, aligning indigenous heroes with state-centered nationalism instead of grassroots struggle.

 2. The Loss of Context: Displacement and Environmental Justice

The article highlights how both Raju and Bheem’s real battles were against the destruction of indigenous ecosystems—forests, rivers, and lands—and against the displacement of their people. Citing Annie Zaidi’s reflections in Known Turf, it shows that displacement is not just physical movement, but a deep loss of identity, culture, and belonging.

By ignoring these realities, RRR silences the ongoing relevance of Jal, Jangal, Zameen. Industrialization, corporate mining, and deforestation continue to displace tribal communities today, yet the film’s colonial focus hides these urgent modern struggles. In other words, while the film celebrates resistance to empire, it avoids critiquing neo-colonial forces—global capitalism and state-backed displacement—that still threaten India’s indigenous peoples.

This omission turns the film into a spectacle of freedom without substance, where colonial villains are defeated, but systemic oppression remains invisible.

 3. Nationalism vs. Postcolonial Consciousness

One of the most important points in the article is its critique of nationalist appropriation. While nationalism is central to postcolonial identity, it can also become a new form of erasure. When tribal heroes are absorbed into the nationalist imagination, their local, ecological, and subaltern voices risk being lost.

Postcolonial theory reminds us that the struggle against colonialism is not complete unless it also challenges internal hierarchies—caste, class, and corporate power—that replicate colonial exploitation. The article thus warns that RRR’s nationalist framework may unintentionally reinforce the very structures of domination it appears to resist.

In this sense, RRR reimagines resistance but also domesticates it, turning radical tribal revolt into patriotic spectacle—heroic, but politically safe.

 4. How Narratives Shape or Undermine Postcolonial Struggles

Such cinematic reimaginings have double effects:

  • Positive Contribution: They bring forgotten tribal heroes into the mainstream, making audiences aware of their existence. The visual grandeur and emotional power of RRR can inspire pride and curiosity about indigenous resistance.

  • Undermining Potential: By turning specific struggles for land and justice into generalized nationalist myths, these films erase subaltern voices. The tribal leader becomes a national symbol, no longer speaking for his people but for the nation. This process of appropriation—where dominant culture absorbs marginal histories—weakens postcolonial authenticity.

Postcolonial thinkers like Gayatri Spivak would call this a form of epistemic violence—the silencing of the subaltern by retelling their story through elite or national frameworks.

5. Comparative Reflections: Other Films of Resistance and Appropriation

Several films across cultures illustrate similar tensions between authentic resistance and hegemonic rewriting:

  • Lagaan (2001): While framed as anti-colonial resistance, it centers on an idealized village that mirrors upper-caste, nationalist fantasies rather than representing real subaltern suffering.

  • The Legend of Bhagat Singh (2002): Like RRR, it nationalizes a revolutionary figure, focusing on his sacrifice rather than his radical politics.

  • Avatar (2009): James Cameron’s film mirrors indigenous resistance to colonization of land and resources, yet ironically presents a white savior as the leader of rebellion—echoing the same appropriation of subaltern struggle.

  • Black Panther (2018): Offers a counterexample—it imagines a decolonial, Afrocentric resistance that values indigenous knowledge and autonomy rather than Western intervention.

Such comparisons show that cinema worldwide often oscillates between empowerment and appropriation, depending on whose voice frames the story.

6. The Missed Opportunity in RRR

The article concludes that RRR, though spectacular, misses an opportunity to link past tribal resistance to present environmental and social injustices. By emphasizing anti-British nationalism over eco-political realities, the film detaches history from ongoing indigenous movements against deforestation, mining, and displacement.

A more politically conscious reimagining could have portrayed Raju and Bheem not only as freedom fighters but as guardians of land, water, and forests—making RRR a bridge between colonial and contemporary resistance. Instead, it offers patriotic pride but not postcolonial awareness.

The article ultimately challenges viewers to question what kind of resistance RRR celebrates. When tribal heroes are transformed into nationalist icons, their real struggles risk being overshadowed by the spectacle of patriotism.

Such films can either empower postcolonial consciousness—if they remain faithful to local voices—or undermine it—if they glorify the nation at the cost of the subaltern.

In postcolonial cinema, representation is not merely about who appears on screen but who controls the story. As long as indigenous and tribal voices remain narrated by dominant cultures, resistance itself risks becoming another form of appropriation.

Conclusion:

The study of postcolonialism in the age of globalization reveals that colonial power never truly disappears—it transforms. Global capitalism, media, and cultural exchange continue to influence how nations and individuals define their identities. Postcolonial societies struggle to assert autonomy while engaging with the interconnected world economy, where language, technology, and ideology remain shaped by Western dominance. Yet within this complex dynamic lies the potential for resistance through hybridity, adaptation, and creative reinterpretation.

Films and literature become powerful sites of negotiation. From Hollywood’s global narratives of power to regional cinema like RRR, postcolonial storytelling reclaims indigenous histories, voices, and mythologies that were once silenced. These creative works highlight both the continuity of oppression and the emergence of new forms of empowerment. By representing subaltern heroes and ecological concerns, they remind us that cultural production is not merely entertainment—it is a political act of survival and self-definition.

Ultimately, postcolonial studies in the twenty-first century must expand its lens beyond empire and nation to include ecology, gender, and technology. In this global context, resistance is no longer only about rejecting colonial power but also about reimagining coexistence, justice, and sustainability. Whether through literature, academic reflection, or film, the postcolonial voice continues to evolve—asserting that the struggle for identity, equity, and meaning remains both urgent and universal.

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