Sayan Chattopadhyay
Biographic Data
| ID | 3823599 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sayan Chattopadhyay |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sayan |
| FAMILY NAME | Chattopadhyay |
| SIGNATURE | CHATTOPADHYAY S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8530-3574 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Migration, modernity, and caste in colonial India
This paper examines Narendra Jadhav’s memoir Untouchables as a narrative of dalit social mobility pivoted on a dalit family’s migration from rural Maharashtra to the colonial city of Bombay. It locates the memoir within the discourse of casteless emergence and studies the narrativization of the family’s pursuit of modernity. This paper studies the correlation between colonial middle-class emergence, the role of colonial cities in shaping Indian m…
Ubiquitous Labour and Differential Dispossession
Dystopian fiction routinely employs the trope of surveillance, the various mechanisms for which, while often exemplifying the level of technological advancement the given society has achieved, also demonstrate how scientific innovations invariably become instruments of oppression for the regime in power. This paper, however, deals with surveillance not as a mere apparatus for the incumbent regime but as a mode of production that has coevolved wit…
Impact of Urban Migration on Caste
This study investigates the impact of urban migration on the caste system by thoroughly examining Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance. The primary research questions are why rural-to-urban caste migration occurs, how urban migration affects the caste system and whether it fulfils the aspirations of Dalit migrants. The research reveals that the promise of mobility and emancipation provided by class operations drives rural-to-urban caste migration in …
The ‘Untouchable’ Communist and the Caste-Class Struggle in Sujatha Gidla’s Ants Among Elephants
This article analyses, through Sujatha Gidla’s memoir titled Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India (2017), whether the socio-economic subordination of dalits can be challenged by tackling class exploitation. Gidla’s book emphasises the Kambham family’s status as ‘untouchables’ in its very title by tracing the story of Gidla’s uncle K. G. Satyamurthy, who sought to combat class and caste exploitation with the i…
Homing in
Prominent anglophone Indian writer Dom Moraes (1938−2004) has usually been categorized as a committed anglophile and his work dismissed for upholding what is seen as the warped and misconstrued perspective of a colonial empathizer. Born and brought up mostly in Bombay, Moraes moved to England for education in 1955. This article will trace Moraes's initial dissociation from India and his repeated returns to argue that his 20th- and 21st-century tr…
Discourse and Madness in Shadows in the Sun
This article is on the narrativization of mental illness regarding Gayathri Ramprasad’s memoir Shadows in the Sun (2014). Ramprasad’s rendition of her depression becomes an act of defiance because the production of discourse by a madwoman is a relatively new phenomenon. Ramprasad not only produces discourse but also intends it to be healing for people with depression. This is because Ramprasad herself benefitted from first-hand narratives of depr…
The Rise of Korean Sci-Fi
This study delves into the unique qualities that make Korean SF stand out and explores the shortcomings of American productions. By examining the complex themes, stunning visuals, and intricate narratives of selected Korean SF films and web series, this study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the genre’s current state. My study also highlights the need for a re-evaluation of the traditional formulaic approach to American science fiction…
Caste Identity of Contemporary Naxalites
This article aims to study the relationship between caste and contemporary Naxal organizations through A Naxal Story (2008) by Diptendra Raychaudhuri. Through the text, the article explores how the caste identity and attempt to eradicate the intricate web of caste hierarchy played a prominent role in the formation of one of the contemporary Naxal organizations. The interweaving of the historical facts and the literary depiction is one of the prim…
Planting the weathervane
Through Anuradha Roy’s novel Sleeping on Jupiter (2015), this article explores the complex relationship between neo-liberal capitalism and international charity, and how this creates and sustains sites of exploitation and violence in the Global South. It uses Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s concept of the “premodern” to read Roy’s powerful critique of a new-age ashram in India where indigenous patriarchy, sexual exploitation, commodity production, a…
Dalit Middle Class and the Crisis of Colonial Modernity
This study attempts to understand the relatively new phenomenon of the rise of Dalit middle class by examining Ajay Navaria’s short story titled Yes Sir. The continued survival of caste in modern India compels one to ask if it is possible to enter modernity and achieve class mobility without shedding one’s caste identity as a Dalit. This study shall focus on how Narottam, a Dalit officer’s character, as a representative of the modern Dalit male, …
Passage through India
This article analyses the self-fashioning of the cosmopolitan travel writer Santha Rama Rau (1923–2009) as a quintessentially “Indian” memoirist for her metropolitan audience of the global North. The article explores how her self-fashioning involves a complex duality that underlines most of Rau’s travel writings on India with a characteristic sense of aporia. In these travel writings, Rau lays claim to her Indian identity on the basis of her Indi…
Walking the Indian Streets’
This essay attempts to explore the autobiographical narratives by Ved Mehta that can be categorised as memoirs of return. Born before the partition (in 1947) of the Indian subcontinent, Mehta travelled to the West at fifteen and returned to India after a decade. This return remained significant since around it we find a cluster of memoirs (Face to Face, Walking the Indian Streets, Ledge between the Streams), which document some of the most comple…
From Indianness to Englishness
In Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses , the protagonist Saladin Chamcha, born Salahuddin Chamchawala, undertakes a journey to England in order to escape his Indian identity and refashion himself as a “goodandproper Englishman”. In my article I read this journey of Chamcha through the prism of other similar journeys towards England and “Englishness”, which recur frequently in the past 200 years of Indian history. By highlighting the common …
Homeward journey abroad
This article seeks to place the autobiographical works of the maverick intellectual Nirad C. Chaudhuri within the context of twentieth-century Indian national autobiographies. It begins by tracing the trajectory of exile and homecoming that forms an integral part of the structural convention of this genre. It explores the conventional notions of “Indianness” and “West”, and village and city that act as opposite poles in the national autobiographi…
Reconstructing the history of exile and return
Throughout his life the celebrated Indian English poet Dom Moraes had suffered the dilemma of being doubly exiled. His Eurasian origin had exiled him both from his motherland India as well as from an England which he vainly tried to make his home. This article focuses on his last book, The Long Strider (2003), co-authored by Saraya Srivatsa, where Moraes revisits this idea of exile and homecoming through a double narrative relating the fascinatin…
Homeward journey abroad
This article seeks to place the autobiographical works of the maverick intellectual Nirad C. Chaudhuri within the context of twentieth-century Indian national autobiographies. It begins by tracing the trajectory of exile and homecoming that forms an integral part of the structural convention of this genre. It explores the conventional notions of “Indianness” and “West”, and village and city that act as opposite poles in the national autobiographi…
Reconstructing the history of exile and return
Throughout his life the celebrated Indian English poet Dom Moraes had suffered the dilemma of being doubly exiled. His Eurasian origin had exiled him both from his motherland India as well as from an England which he vainly tried to make his home. This article focuses on his last book, The Long Strider (2003), co-authored by Saraya Srivatsa, where Moraes revisits this idea of exile and homecoming through a double narrative relating the fascinatin…
Walking the Indian Streets’
This essay attempts to explore the autobiographical narratives by Ved Mehta that can be categorised as memoirs of return. Born before the partition (in 1947) of the Indian subcontinent, Mehta travelled to the West at fifteen and returned to India after a decade. This return remained significant since around it we find a cluster of memoirs (Face to Face, Walking the Indian Streets, Ledge between the Streams), which document some of the most comple…
From Indianness to Englishness
In Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses , the protagonist Saladin Chamcha, born Salahuddin Chamchawala, undertakes a journey to England in order to escape his Indian identity and refashion himself as a “goodandproper Englishman”. In my article I read this journey of Chamcha through the prism of other similar journeys towards England and “Englishness”, which recur frequently in the past 200 years of Indian history. By highlighting the common …
Reconstructing the history of exile and return
Throughout his life the celebrated Indian English poet Dom Moraes had suffered the dilemma of being doubly exiled. His Eurasian origin had exiled him both from his motherland India as well as from an England which he vainly tried to make his home. This article focuses on his last book, The Long Strider (2003), co-authored by Saraya Srivatsa, where Moraes revisits this idea of exile and homecoming through a double narrative relating the fascinatin…
Homeward journey abroad
This article seeks to place the autobiographical works of the maverick intellectual Nirad C. Chaudhuri within the context of twentieth-century Indian national autobiographies. It begins by tracing the trajectory of exile and homecoming that forms an integral part of the structural convention of this genre. It explores the conventional notions of “Indianness” and “West”, and village and city that act as opposite poles in the national autobiographi…
From Indianness to Englishness
In Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses , the protagonist Saladin Chamcha, born Salahuddin Chamchawala, undertakes a journey to England in order to escape his Indian identity and refashion himself as a “goodandproper Englishman”. In my article I read this journey of Chamcha through the prism of other similar journeys towards England and “Englishness”, which recur frequently in the past 200 years of Indian history. By highlighting the common …
Passage through India
This article analyses the self-fashioning of the cosmopolitan travel writer Santha Rama Rau (1923–2009) as a quintessentially “Indian” memoirist for her metropolitan audience of the global North. The article explores how her self-fashioning involves a complex duality that underlines most of Rau’s travel writings on India with a characteristic sense of aporia. In these travel writings, Rau lays claim to her Indian identity on the basis of her Indi…
Walking the Indian Streets’
This essay attempts to explore the autobiographical narratives by Ved Mehta that can be categorised as memoirs of return. Born before the partition (in 1947) of the Indian subcontinent, Mehta travelled to the West at fifteen and returned to India after a decade. This return remained significant since around it we find a cluster of memoirs (Face to Face, Walking the Indian Streets, Ledge between the Streams), which document some of the most comple…
Dalit Middle Class and the Crisis of Colonial Modernity
This study attempts to understand the relatively new phenomenon of the rise of Dalit middle class by examining Ajay Navaria’s short story titled Yes Sir. The continued survival of caste in modern India compels one to ask if it is possible to enter modernity and achieve class mobility without shedding one’s caste identity as a Dalit. This study shall focus on how Narottam, a Dalit officer’s character, as a representative of the modern Dalit male, …
Discourse and Madness in Shadows in the Sun
This article is on the narrativization of mental illness regarding Gayathri Ramprasad’s memoir Shadows in the Sun (2014). Ramprasad’s rendition of her depression becomes an act of defiance because the production of discourse by a madwoman is a relatively new phenomenon. Ramprasad not only produces discourse but also intends it to be healing for people with depression. This is because Ramprasad herself benefitted from first-hand narratives of depr…
The Rise of Korean Sci-Fi
This study delves into the unique qualities that make Korean SF stand out and explores the shortcomings of American productions. By examining the complex themes, stunning visuals, and intricate narratives of selected Korean SF films and web series, this study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the genre’s current state. My study also highlights the need for a re-evaluation of the traditional formulaic approach to American science fiction…
Caste Identity of Contemporary Naxalites
This article aims to study the relationship between caste and contemporary Naxal organizations through A Naxal Story (2008) by Diptendra Raychaudhuri. Through the text, the article explores how the caste identity and attempt to eradicate the intricate web of caste hierarchy played a prominent role in the formation of one of the contemporary Naxal organizations. The interweaving of the historical facts and the literary depiction is one of the prim…
Planting the weathervane
Through Anuradha Roy’s novel Sleeping on Jupiter (2015), this article explores the complex relationship between neo-liberal capitalism and international charity, and how this creates and sustains sites of exploitation and violence in the Global South. It uses Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s concept of the “premodern” to read Roy’s powerful critique of a new-age ashram in India where indigenous patriarchy, sexual exploitation, commodity production, a…
Impact of Urban Migration on Caste
This study investigates the impact of urban migration on the caste system by thoroughly examining Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance. The primary research questions are why rural-to-urban caste migration occurs, how urban migration affects the caste system and whether it fulfils the aspirations of Dalit migrants. The research reveals that the promise of mobility and emancipation provided by class operations drives rural-to-urban caste migration in …
The ‘Untouchable’ Communist and the Caste-Class Struggle in Sujatha Gidla’s Ants Among Elephants
This article analyses, through Sujatha Gidla’s memoir titled Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India (2017), whether the socio-economic subordination of dalits can be challenged by tackling class exploitation. Gidla’s book emphasises the Kambham family’s status as ‘untouchables’ in its very title by tracing the story of Gidla’s uncle K. G. Satyamurthy, who sought to combat class and caste exploitation with the i…
Homing in
Prominent anglophone Indian writer Dom Moraes (1938−2004) has usually been categorized as a committed anglophile and his work dismissed for upholding what is seen as the warped and misconstrued perspective of a colonial empathizer. Born and brought up mostly in Bombay, Moraes moved to England for education in 1955. This article will trace Moraes's initial dissociation from India and his repeated returns to argue that his 20th- and 21st-century tr…
Migration, modernity, and caste in colonial India
This paper examines Narendra Jadhav’s memoir Untouchables as a narrative of dalit social mobility pivoted on a dalit family’s migration from rural Maharashtra to the colonial city of Bombay. It locates the memoir within the discourse of casteless emergence and studies the narrativization of the family’s pursuit of modernity. This paper studies the correlation between colonial middle-class emergence, the role of colonial cities in shaping Indian m…
Ubiquitous Labour and Differential Dispossession
Dystopian fiction routinely employs the trope of surveillance, the various mechanisms for which, while often exemplifying the level of technological advancement the given society has achieved, also demonstrate how scientific innovations invariably become instruments of oppression for the regime in power. This paper, however, deals with surveillance not as a mere apparatus for the incumbent regime but as a mode of production that has coevolved wit…
Sociology (11 works) · Art (9 works) · Literature (8 works) · Narrative (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · History (6 works) · History (6 works) · Social science (6 works)