Migrancy and identity: a study of V. S. Naipaul’s nonfictional works

Abstract

The question of identity is a much debated and relevant issue in today s postcolonial and globalized2 world. This world has witnessed an unprecedented flow of people, capital and technology. But, the flow of people, goods and resources began with European colonialism which not only conquered other people s lands but also controlled the people, wealth and resources of the conquered lands which became the colonies. Consequently, there was movement of people in both directions from the colonizing centre to the colonial periphery and vice versa. For example, the colonizers came and settled in the colonized lands on the one hand, and on the other, they transported the politically powerless and economically impoverished colonial subjects to other parts of the world, mostly the European colonies as slaves and indentured labourers who were made to work and produce goods for metropolitan consumptions in the imperial center. However, with decolonization, the movements of people either through forced migration or voluntary exiles of intellectuals from the once colonized lands got accelerated. The past century saw large scale displacement or dispersal of people through forced or voluntary migration to various parts of the world. Thus, once dislocated from the country or place of their origin, the migrant or displaced peoples undergo a traumatic experience of non-belonging and alienation in the places where they struggle to (re)locate and feel at home. But, sadly, these people can hardly ever (re)locate themselves in that strange/alien place and feel belonged. The migrants, thus, become hybrid individuals due to linguistic and cultural transformations they undergo. Their identity is challenged by the ambivalent nature of their existence that they start wandering with the questions such as who am I? Where do I belong? These are the vital questions that need to be answered.