Narratives of Hegemony and Marginalization: Deconstructing the History Legends of India
Narratives of Hegemony and Marginalization; Deconstructing the History Legends of India

Summary/Abstract: Myths and legends as local sources of history reveal their implicit assumptions and demonstrate the way in which events are filtered through the interpretations of their authors. By examining a variety of these interpretations, we might piece together a refracted image of the past which will ultimately present a history of “what actually happened”. There is also an attempt to create a single narrative supported by various sources that claim to reveal the truth in political and social terms about what may have happened there. I have substantiated my arguments by drawing examples from the compilation of legends, Aithihyamala (Garland of Legends), a pioneering and exhaustive collection of 126 legends of Kerala (India), compiled and published between 1909 and 1934 by the Sanskrit-Malayalam scholar Kottarathil Sankunni. My contention in this paper is that there is a politics behind the subversion of “other histories” (local or subaltern) to establish a hegemonic history. One finds a "politics" behind the legend-making, a deliberate attempt at compiling an elitist record of legends and through it the homogenizing of the cultural past of a region.

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