The Politics of Representation of Intellectual Disability In Select Indian Fiction

This paper includes four main stream writers of Indian origin, Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, Jaisree Misra and Anita Desai who have effectively projected an Intellectually Disabled character into mainstream writing. Though many a reading has been done on these writers, one aspect of scrutiny that has been constantly overlooked is the politics of representation of the Intellectually Disabled in their works. Over the years, aided by the changing governmental policies, there has been a paradigm shift in the understanding of Intellectual Disability. This paper attempts to reread literature with Cultural Studies and Disability Studies and critique the writer’s representation of the Intellectually Disabled.