Resisting the British Raj: An Overview of The Unchosen

Abstract

Varied were the ways through which the British Raj tried to maintain its rule in the subcontinent, yet it was not smooth sailing. The more the Raj made exploitative inroads into the resources of the subcontinent, the more it encountered resistance as anti-colonial consciousness gained momentum. One comes across critics like Eva Geulen who suggest that the term 'resistance' is no longer tenable and should be replaced by interests generated in cultural and cross-cultural studies. Through a focused reading of The Unchosen, a historic novel by Riaz Hassan, the present paper attempts to dispel the impression that the term is out of fashion. While asserting the continued relevance of resistance, the study also argues that displacing the term from its cultural habitat and renaming it euphemistically would amount to re-colonizing it in the postcolonial arena. It also endeavors to indicate how through ‘unchosen’
ways, the narrative accounts for resistance to the colonizers.