Reclaiming the Past: Language, Literature, and Cultural Memory in Postcolonial India

Abstract

This paper explores how language and literature function as vital instruments for reclaiming, preserving, and reshaping cultural memory in the Indian context. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from cultural memory studies (Assmann, 2011) and postcolonial criticism (Said, 1978; Spivak, 1988), the study examines how written texts, oral narratives, autobiographies, folk traditions, and contemporary digital practices intervene in official histories to retrieve marginalized pasts and reconstruct communal and individual identities. The paper focuses on three interconnected sites of reclamation in India: Partition literature and testimony; Dalit autobiographical writing; and vernacular oral and folk traditions. The study shows how language and narrative form act as prostheses of memory, enabling communities to testify, archive, contest, and reimagine their pasts.