Cultural Crisis in Indian Society in Ruth Prawer Jhabvalas Heat and Dust

During the post-war period, literature in general, and the novel in specific have widened much in geographical and cultural spaces horizontally. During the British Raj, the British presence in India was a political reality and many of the authors were either directly or indirectly working from a kind of politically conditioned position in terms of the attitudes they reflected toward the British colonialism and India. Literature in general and novel in particular during the post war era have widened much in geographical and cultural spaces. It may not always be reasonable to put the Anglo Indians who have written about India during the British Raj, and the expatriate British or European authors who wrote about India during the post-independence era in the same category. Heat and Dust explores the Indian culture, myth, religion, life style through the perspectives of an European. The novel represents India as exotic land, barbaric, uncivilized and underdeveloped land. Through the presentation of the Indian characters in different manners, Jhabvala misrepresents Indian people and the culture. Jhabvala visibly portrays the Indians as illiterate and ignorant and hence suffering from poverty, hunger, evils of superstitions, devoid of human feelings and cleanliness. The picture presented by the writer in the novel is one of insensitivity and loss of values.

Keywords: Cultural Crisis, Acculturation, Colonialism, Cultural Space, Disgrace.