Postcolonial Theatre and the Rewriting of History
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In India, postcolonial theatre is a vibrant cultural arena where power, identity, and history are rewritten, reclaimed, and contested. Playwrights challenge colonial narratives, elevate marginalized voices, and reinterpret national memory from subaltern viewpoints through dramatic performance. By revisiting painful pasts, challenging colonial epistemologies, and re-establishing indigenous cultural agency, postcolonial Indian drama contributes to the rewriting of history. The study examines how dramatic devices like myth revision, counter-memory, allegory, and political satire challenge hegemonic historiography, drawing on plays by Girish Karnad, Mahasweta Devi, Utpal Dutt, Vijay Tendulkar, and Manjula Padmanabhan, among others.
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