The Great Indian Wasteland: Intersections between Eliot’s The Waste Land and India through the First World War

Abstract

Renewed significance has been given to the First World War (henceforth WWI) in Indian history and the meaning of this war for India’s role globally. Along with 1.4 million Indian soldiers, India Munition Board also supplied food, raw materials, and textiles for the WWI. Hence, resources were drained from across the country, and taxes and revenues kept increasing. The Indian combatants and non-combatants were effaced from the entire grand narrative despite incurring the loss of thousands of youth resulting in fragmented families, widespread famine, and an atmosphere of terror and uncertainty. T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land naturally establishes a connection with the historical context of the post-war era that perfectly illustrates the lived reality and condition of colonial India that suffered disillusionment, despair, and exposition to spiritual and socio-economic bankruptcy. My paper will analyse The Waste Land from a postcolonial perspective and demonstrate the eccentricities and intersections between Eliot’s fragmented poem about a barren land and India during and after the WWI. In this context, I would like to analyse literature in English and bhasha languages to understand the plight of Indians and the lack of representation in the Great War and its influence on Indian Writing. The entire gamut of WWI writing has been conducted by Europeans with the key motive to glorify their own nation, martyrs, and political representatives. However, the hegemonic discourse was soon challenged by experiences of the Commonwealth which started writing back. Voices from the periphery started consolidating their presence and profound maltreatment meted out to the people of the colonised nations during the event of the WWI. The allegory and thematics of “The Waste Land” will provide new insights to the subaltern voices in the fictional works including The Eyes of Asia, Across the Blackwaters, Bandhan Hara, and “Usne Kaha Tha”, and highlight the aporia associated with the WWI narrative.