INDEPENDENCE WITHOUT LIBERATION: NEO-COLONIAL CAPITALISM, CASTE, AND STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY IN NGŨGĨ WA THIONG’O’S PETALS OF BLOOD AND ROY’S THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS

Abstract

Post-colonial societies retain legacies of social, economic, and political domination. This research examines Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (1977) and Petals of Blood (1997) by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, respectively, in order to explore the impacts of neo-colonial capitalism, the caste system, and patriarchy upon social structures and systemic inequality in both post-colonial Kenya and India. This study employs comparative qualitative textual analysis in order to synthesize postcolonial materialism, neo-colonialism, subaltern studies, and intersectionality. The study finds that Roy’s portrayal of the destruction of local businesses and the creation of New Ilmorog’s roads, banks, and new industries and a new commercial system, creates a new dependence on both local and foreign capital while dispossessing local farmers. Furthermore, in Roy’s work, the caste and patriarchal systems stratify the social world, and then in turn, regulate Velutha and Ammu’s labor, property, and bodily autonomy, their sexuality and sexual relations, and their legal standing and choice of whom to associate with. Across both works, the systems of social stratification establish access to the highly valued resources of land, labor, dignity, love, agency, voice, and social recognition. While Kenya suffers from neo-colonial capitalism and dispossession, and India suffers from the caste and patriarchal systems, this study reimagines the post-colonial social liberation order by concentrating on the failure of economic liberation and social order of postcolonial societies, rather than the exclusive focus on cultural hybridity.