Human Rights and Literature: A Complementary Study in Indian Fiction in English

The concept of Human Rights is as old as Art. Being about life, Art takes its sustenance from life and, as such, it is not only an artistic manifestation revealing a profound aesthetic construct but also a bearer of social and human significance. At one level, this artistic concern manifests itself through the exploration and postulation of Human Rights. And perhaps the art that deals and depicts life in its spectrum manifestations is literature. Literature in this process not only engages itself with human-right concepts, their vicarious possibilities, but also paves way for interdisciplinary readings of these two interrelated disciplines. These seemingly distinct subjects inform each other at the level of theory, praxis and pedagogy. Literary works can, therefore, be seen as potent and rich resources to correlate and study the Human Rights concepts, as both literature and Human Rights become complementary to each other. This paper understands Indian Fiction in English through Human Rights perspectives which involve a critical dissection of the chosen literary texts that highlight and problematize certain Human Rights concepts embedded in them. The study proposes to evolve as a sociological and deconstructive reading of the literary texts chosen for the purpose. In its problematization of Human Rights issues, the study would specifically focus on some literary representation of Dalits or the marginal/tribal people in Indian Fiction in English and English translation.