Mamta Kalia

postmodern as incredulity towards
metanarratives. And this incredulity
brings about the plane space of cultural
autonomy. Thus the metanarratives ring
out, ringing in a cultural space that is
populated by ‘little narratives’. And
this cultural space is not hierarchical,
the discursive forms of life are allowed
to flourish alongside each other. Another
postmodern theorist who pleads for a
plane–space is Giles Deluze. Deluze gives
forward the idea of a rhizomatic structure
as opposed to the arborscent hierarchical
image. The arborscent calls “into presence
the image of a root that grounds the
textual and cultural complexes in a
foundational matrix in order to upload
a unified, central and hierarchical
system”. The rhizome, on the other
hand, signified the decentered and
uprooted line that constiutes
multiplicities.
Constituting and containing pluralities
and multiplicities is where the idea of
post nationalism comes in . Nationalism
was one of the most powerful ideologies
pitted against the subjection by
imperialism. The idea of nation gave the
colonised subject /subaltern a sense of
identity. An identity which facilitated
the solidarity. But when the tenets of
identities become rigidified, the idea of
nation becomes what Benedict Anderson
calls “a discursive construction”. Zizek
further qualifies this idea by interrogating
the Nation as “The thing to be enjoyed
by a given community or a race. The
thing is constructed by fantasies about
152 :: April-June 2010
a particular way of life encoded in a
set of cultural practices. This way of
life is perceived to be threatened by
the other..”. And this enjoyment of a
certain state called nationalism is as
relevant to “West”, as it is to the “rest”.
In postcolonial contexts, it informs
the discourses of nativism that
participates in what Edwards Said calls
a ‘politics of blame’. In the process
of constructing a unified national identity
that would challenge colonial domination,
the discourse of nationalism challenges
marginal people and struggles. And the
results are not hard to see. In India
itself we can see the various forms of
of unrest and protest against the
absolutism of the state. This corruption
due to the power and fundamentalism
were the reasons behind Gandhi’s advice
that the congress should be dismantled
once Independence is won.
It is against this politics of
representation that post nationalism
proposes to work. Ideally it strives for
“pomo” world – without centres, without
borders. What has to be seen and
questioned is that whether this
obliteration of boundaries is really
effected ? In what way and to what extent
? Or whether this obliteration is just
another fake encounter? And if it is so
how can translation be. (a) a tool to
let in the voice of “double consciousness”,
a perceiving of the “negotiation between
the elite avant–garde and the subaltern”;
(b) a tool to truly transcend the
boundaries-virtual or otherwise.