Sectarian and Domestic Violence, Political and Cultural Issues in Shashi Tharoor’s Riot: A Novel

Abstract

A Novel is written by Shashi Tharoor. He writes this novel as he is writing history of this nation. His way of writing is journalistic. Tharoor uses postmodern narrative technique in this novel. He uses diary writing and interviews to reveal reality that is concerns of his novel. The story of the novel is told from multiple viewpoints. There are no linear chapters of the story. We come to know the story of the novel through news reports, interviews, scrapbooks, letters, diaries, notebooks and poems. The story moves back and forth after the incident of Priscilla Hart’s death. This novel is about history, love, hate, religions, clash between two communities on the basis of religion, cultural clash between India and America, status of woman in India. Language, caste, class, region, and religion are five major factors of division in India. Religion is the most sensitive source of division in India. The present paper attempts to study these issues of modern India.