Reasons for Violence: a Study of “Another Community” by R. K. Narayan

Abstract

Notwithstanding its fictional character and its year of publication, 1956, “Another Community” is a modern critique of communal violence. This short story shows Narayan’s concern with the immediate consequences of a divided Indian society on religious grounds. His communal subjects are shaped according to the ideological purpose of the group. Based on exclusion and rivalry, this reflected identity stimulates communal antagonisms that revolve around ideas of nationhood and otherness. The protagonist’s savage murder becomes the excuse for violence in the hands of local politicians. The author’s intentionality avoids taking side with his protagonist who does not escape the communal duality of the Self and the Other; the rational and the irrational sides of a fake hero.

Keywords

• postcolonialism
• indian literature