RIOT: A NOVEL

Riot by Shashi Tharoor is a powerful statement on the

essence of the Indian society and its ethos, bearing testimony
to the profound intimacy that the author- an expatriate to the
first world, shares with India and her people. Unlike his
intellectually challenging work- The Great Indian Novel, and his
satirical introduction to the cinematic world of India-
Showbusiness, Tharoor addresses innumerable concerns and
issues confronting contemporary India in Riot. While some of
these issues can be perceived as characteristically
subcontinental others possess, a global credence. Unfolding
complex questions about the personal, social and communal
politics of the quintessential small town of Zaiilgarh in Northern
India, Riot skims through the anguish of isolation and the social
mores of the Indian society. A poignant tale of love and
betrayal, it is exquisitely coloured by the political scenario of
the sub-continent, accompanied by the fanaticism on which it
thrives, and the consequent sufferings of her people. In fact, it
is observed that as one reads Tharoor's Riot, one actually
encounters a veritable riot of ideas, beliefs, moods, styles and
perspectives that merge into a larger rubric stretching across
two antipodal, culturally disparate continents, individuals and
predicaments. All this shrilly and emphatically catapults the
novel into a postmodern 'anomie'.
Illustrating a profound concern for diverse socio-political
nuances of the Indian sub continent, Riot is set amidst the
vicious, sectarian clashes in North India in 1989. It is the story
of a twenty four year old New York University doctoral
candidate Pricilla Hart, visiting the small town of Zaiilgarh in
North India as a volunteer with the population control
organization HELP-US. Details about her commitment to help
the local women of Zaiilgarh and her passionate affair with the

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District Magistrate, followed by her untimely and mysterious
death, a few days before she was due to return home, form the
crux of the story. A few days after Priscilla's murder, her
stupefied parents - Katharine and Rudyard Hart - visit India
together in search of answers to their queries regarding their
daughter's mysterious and sudden end. However, despite their
sincere and consistent efforts, the Harts are forced to return
unsatisfied simply surmising that Priscilla's fatal end had many
deliberate and political reasons behind it such as the local
resentment against her work with the abused women in
Zaiilgarh, and her clandestine affair with the already married
District Magistrate of the town.
Tharoor, however, zooms out of the narrow parameters
of a murder of an American onto a much broader canvas and
portrays the all too fragile communal relations prevailing in the
Indian society through a sub-plot in the novel. While
introducing his readers to those close to his protagonist and
her work, he reveals the diverse yet essential features of the
human society and brings to light the communal belligerence
and religious intolerance plaguing it. Narrating the story of Riot
with sensitivity and exhibiting a restrained dignity in his
understatement of personal and national dilemmas, Tharoor
gives a subtle but cogent reminder of the remnants of
colonialism that have made a niche for themselves in the sub-
continental mentality even during the postcolonial times.
Further, a close analysis of the book from the postmodern
perspective shows that instead of simply echoing tradition Riot,
is a vivid exemplification of a 'pluralistic text' which does not
confine itself to a simple yet profound meaning, but owing to its
'polysemic' nature, possesses the potential to be read a
number of times. Although Riot is less allegorical than his
previous works, viz. The Great Indian Novel and Show
Business, yet one cannot ignore the fact that by writing it

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Tharoor has explicitly fulfilled his commitment to do something
new each time.

I have always believed that the word "novel"

implies that there must be something "new"
about each one.^

Aptly called by Elie Wisel as "a remarkable tale about

violence and hope in a land that has known both,"^ Riot
surfaces on the literary scene as a dexterously and intricately
designed expressive piece of fiction, that can boast of both its
thematic and technical virtuosity. Meditating upon India's social
conflicts and political uncertainties, the novel not only emerges
as an earnest quest to comprehend the sub-continent
encumbered by her labyrinthine issues, but also highlights the
universal implications of postcolonialism. Although when
cursorily read Riot evidences an emphatic consideration of
rather sour issues such as communal frenzy and emotional
violence against women, yet a closer analysis of the novel
reveals its postcolonial flavour skillfully tucked into its
postmodern narrative.
The novel begins with the series of 'spoof columns' in the
New Yorl< Times, reporting the murder of an American girl
Priscilla Hart in the North Indian town of Zalilgarh, to be
followed by excerpts from personal diaries, letters, journals and
interviews. It compares and contrasts the occidental and the
oriental societies rekindling the memories of a colonized India
or rather of any erstvyhiie colony. Juxtaposing the 'blacks' and
the 'whites' belonging to the contemporary postcolonial times in
the novel, Tharoor effectively portrays the divergent attitudes
and thought processes of not only those once colonized, but
also of the people belonging to the western world of the
colonizers, decades after the end of colonialism. These two

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antipodal societies and cultures (colonizers and colonized) are
represented by Priscilla Hart and V. Lakshnrian respectively in
the novel, and through thenri Tharoor dwells upon the continuity
of racial differences despite the official end of colonialism from
the face of this globe.
While the protagonist, Priscilla Hart is portrayed by
Tharoor as another first world philanthropist, readily
empathizing with the deprived denizens of Zaiilgarh, and
subsequently pursuing the "civilizing mission" of the third world
and thus mitigating the so called "Whiteman's burden," her
paramour V. Lakshman simultaneously signifies the "black
native" possessing an ingrained sense of inferiority when
compared to his "white" compradors. The detailed presentation
of the heart-rending episodes delineating the ruthless violence
against Fatima Bi and Sundari in Riot extensively justifies
Priscilla's and her organization's altruistic goals, opposing the
'commodification' of women and children in the uneducated
rural society of India. While on one hand Tharoor's description
of Fatima Bi, as a mother of seven malnourished children, who
is afflicted with severe physical exhaustion due to repeated
childbirth and squalor, aggravated by her husband's violent and
inhuman treatment, emerges as an unequivocal index of
victimization of women, on the other, Sundari's portrayal as an
intelligent and innocent girl, married off at a young age only to
be burnt alive by her husband and mother-in-law, epitomizes
the unflinching callousness of Zalilgarh's male chauvainst
society in the novel.
Voicing her revolutionary views of extenuating the
sufferings of such women of the small towns and villages of the
subcontinent, making them aware and independent, capable of
cherishing their own dreams and individualities as human
beings, Priscilla Hart, categorically asserts her intentions and

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her ambitions in a letter to her friend Cindy Valeriani. Emerging
as Tharoor's spokesperson in the novel she avers:

I v/ant to change the lives of these women,

the choices they believe they have. I want to
see them one day, these women of ZaIilgarh
and of a thousand other towns and villages
like it in India, standing around the well
discussing their own lives and hopes and
dreams instead of complaining about their
mother-in-law. I want to hear them not to say
with a cross between pride and resignation,
"My husband he wants lots of children," but
rather, "I will decide when I am ready for a
child." I want them instead of planning to
arrange their teenage daughter's marriage to
insist on sending her to high school. I want
all this for them, and that's why I'm
here.(170)^

Apparently, therefore the riotous stage of the novel,

which describes a communal riot in ZaIilgarh, is dexterously
utilized by the author to highlight serious issues such as
violence against women, dowry deaths and female infanticide.
Emphasizing such morbid issues vitiating the society of
ZaIilgarh (a miniature India) and explicitly focusing on the
inhuman and murderous violence faced by its women like
Sundari, indirectly belittling Priscilla's aforementioned desires,
Kadambari Sundari's sister expostulates before Mrs. Katharine
Hart;

You see, Mrs. Hart, this is the real issue for

women in India. Not population control but

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 violence, against women. In our own homes.
What good are all our efforts as long as men
have the power to do this to us? Your
daughter never understood that. (249)

Thus effectively foregrounding the prevalence of domestic

violence against women in Zaiilgarh, Tharoor succinctly states
the truth of the conservative societies of India in the following
words:

.Appearances are more important than truth.

Gossip is more potent than facts. Loyalty is
all one way, from the woman to the man. (63)

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has classified this violently

forced male dominance over the females of the third world, as
a blatant exposition of two types of colonization afflicting the
women of the erstwhile colonies. Mutely enduring the brutalities
of their spouses and in-laws at home, these women according
to Spivak have not only been exploited by the foreign rulers
colonizing their nations, but also by their own husbands and
conservative families. Spivak perceives these women from the
third world nations as victims of "double colonization". At the
same time her sceptic perception of the sympathizing
proclivities of the women from the west for their oriental
counterparts, brings Tharoor's main character Priscilla Hart's
role in the novel under scrutiny. In one of her discourses,
Spivak deplores the tendency of the First World women to pity
their third world compatriots and to take upon themselves the
task of ameliorating the famous 'Whiteman's burden' as did
Mother Teresa and now Priscilla Hart in Tharoor's Riot. Thus
categorically undermining and negating the latter's
revolutionary convictions to improve the lives of the women folk

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of Zaiilgarh, Spivak avers that "the first world woman must
learn to stop feeling privileged as a woman'"^. It may therefore
be inferred that although true to its name Riot revolves around
a communal riot in Zaiilgarh, yet it cannot be ignored that
through this piece of fiction, Shashi Tharoor has successfully
essayed to highlight a subtle and silent type of c o l o n i z a t i o n -
the colonization of the fair sex by the Falstaffian male
chauvinists, who paradoxically claim the contemporary social
fabric to be free from any colonization and announce the
complete obliteration of colonialism from this world. Thus the
fact that this marginalization and exploitation of women is not
simply confined to Zaiilgarh's Fatima Bi and Sundari, but has a
universal credence, as evidenced in almost all the female
characters of the novel, must be taken into cognizance. As the
story of the novel progresses, it becomes apparent that the
author has enunciated various forms of exploitation of women
by men through different characters. While Fatima and Sundari
can easily be categorized as the victims of domestic violence
and shallow male conceitedness, Priscilla also emerges as an
abused character, though in a different manner, at the end of
the novel.

Passionately in love with a married Indian bureaucrat- V.

Lakshman, also a father of a six year old- Priscilla aspired to
spend the rest of her life with him in America. However,
belonging to a cultured South Indian family Lakshman,
succumbing to the call of his conscience was unable to
abandon his wife Geetha and daughter Rekha annihilating
Priscilla's dreams. Evidently the passion and the love that
Lakshman incessantly bequeathed to Priscilla throughout the
novel prove to be false and misleading. In fact as one reads
between the lines, Lakshman's attraction towards Priscilla was
primarily a consequence of his shallow reverence of the 'White
skin'. By involving himself with Priscilla, a westerner with a

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complexion of 'peaches and cream', symbolizing the seductive
western world, and later expressing his incapability to
relinquish his family, Lakshman emerges as an unscrupulous
deceiver of all his relationships, both legitimate and
illegitimate. While he breached the trust of his wife and his
daughter by engaging in an affair with Priscilla, without any
qualms, Lakshman also deceived the latter by betraying her
love and confident trust by ruthlessly plundering all her young
dreams and desires. Thus in Riot Tharoor does not simply
confine male chauvinism to the unaware and the uneducated
stratum of Zaiilgarh's society but also highlights its marked
presence among the educated and the higher class of its social
structure. It is not only AM- Fatima's husband, who asserts his
despotic right to govern the latter's life by remarking "I decide
how my wife conducts her life ... Not her", but also the likes of
the district magistrate of the town V. Lakshman, and the
superintendent of police Gurinder Singh who show little respect
for women (160). While the latter is portrayed by Tharoor as an
abusive and 'practical' police officer, who maintains a
consummate balance between his lustful desires and culture,
categorically perceiving women both as instruments of pleasure
as well as utility, Lakshman is characterized by the author as a
dignified administrator whose polished mannerisms exquisitely
served the purpose of a veneer for his exploitative nature. He
not only betrayed his wife Geetha by involving himself with
another lady, whom he professes to be in love with throughout
the novel, but also deceived the latter, on the pretext of his
social responsibilities. Enamoured by the west and its
allurements, V. Lakshman is portrayed by Tharoor as an
embodiment of the 'colonized' world, which unable to liberate
itself from the fetters of subservience to the white colonizers,
continues to revere them inadvertently, and is therefore
willingly seduced by their glamour. With his subconscious self

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being governed by an inferiority complex, Lakshman manifests
his subservient colonial mentality by drawing a comparison
between himself, an Indian bureaucrat enjoying a high
administrative post, and an American janitor. Endeavoring to
impress Priscilla with his pragmatic argumentations, Lakshman
virtually degraded the entire Indian bureaucracy, the highest
paid and one of the most respected conglomeration of officers
of the Indian government - by juxtaposing them with the least
skilled workers of the United States, only to win over a white
lady's concern. Honest and suave as he always appeared,
Lakshman remarked.

Look Priscilla, by Indian standards an

American janitor's rich ... Do you know what
salaries are like here? You may think I live
like a king here ... but my take home pay
would put me below the poverty line in the
United States. I'd be eligible for food
stamps!(25)

As the story of Riot progresses and one is gradually

acquainted with Lakshman's psyche, through the excerpts from
his journal, his letters to Priscilla and his conversations with
her, and his friend Gurinder, the emotional turmoil in his life
becomes clearly obvious. His thought provoking and self
oriented monologues, despite being a candid expression of the
profundity of passion that he experiences for Pricilla, explicitly
showed his unconscious admiration for the occidental world,
and above ail revealed that his attraction for Priscilla was a
consequence of his subconscious desires to liberate himself
from his professional and social contexts, including his familial
connections. Enchanted by the Western society that he had
read about In books and witnessed in movies, for Lakshman

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Priscilla emblematized the 'white skin' of the colour of peaches
and cream accompanied by its liberal allurements.
Thus in Riot Sashi Tharoor suggestively explicates that
for this dark skinned Indian bureaucrat, the white skinned
beloved was actually "a fantasy come true" (155). His intimacy
with Priscilla did not simply harbour on his passion for her, but
also provided him with a satisfaction of being associated with
an 'American', a Westerner unquestionably far better than the
Indians, including his wife and family. This eulogizing attitude
evidenced in V. Lakshman's perception of the West clearly
portrays him as an Indian who readily accepts the secondary
status of a 'third world' citizen, (a subcategory that the
occidental academe has created for the once colonized
developing nations). According to Spivak, this easy accession
to a peripheral citizenship of the world by people like
Lakshman, indicts them as inadvertent creators of their own
colonisers who in turn are inebriated by the false illusions of
their superiority.
Displaying the shallowness of his personality, bereft of
concern and respect for his family, his job and his nation,
Lakshman evaluates his affair with Priscilla as an avenue to a
life in America. He avers:

Priscilla is consolation, she is escape, but

she is more than that: she is a fantasy come
true, the possibility of an alternative life, as if
another planet had flung its doors open for
me. (155)

Thus representing the avidity of an educated, suave,

refined yet complex ridden man, who unflinchingly infringes all
the confines of morality by gauging love as a vehicle of
entertainment, Tharoor's V. Lakshman emerges as the decent

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and dignified villain in Riot. Having no compunctions
whatsoever, for his infidelity tov\/ards his wife Geetha,
Lakshman shrewdly argued his way out of his association with
Priscilla, when the latter expected him to stand by her.
Concerned about everyone else in his life but Priscilla, and his
sanctimonious cultural beliefs which he had unhesitatingly
relinquished for the past few months. Lakshman
opportunistically introspects:

Is it freedom I want or Priscilla?... I'm not

even sure I have the right do that to Geetha,
to abdicate my husband hood? I did'nt
choose to start my marriage in the firstplace
how can I choose to end it? My role as a
husband and father is central to who I am; it
concerns my rootedness in the world; it is
inextricably bound up with my sense of my
place in the cosmos. I have been brought up
to believe that such things- marriage, family-
are beyond individual will, that they
transcend an individual's freedom of
action.(202)

Thus perceived by many as the author's alter ego, voicing

the latter's views about, religion, secularism and communalism
in Riot, Lakshman's character emerges as a paradoxical one.
Having already blemished his matrimony, and relegated his
wife vis a vis Priscilla in the earlier pages of his journal,
Lakshman paradoxically has no hesitation while expressing the
synonymity of his existence with his wife and daughter; with his
culture and traditions, in the very same journal. Owing to this
vacillating altitude of his, Lakshman proves to be a self
obsessed sexual sybarite emotionally abusing and toying with

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the lives of two women simply to fulfill his own desires. While
Priscilla represented the fantastic life of enjoyment and
liberation for him, Geetha symbolized a security in life and a
salve for his guilt. Thus analogous to Fatima Bi's husband and
Sundari's husband, V. Lakshman can be easily perceived as a
male chauvinist exploiting or rather manipulating the lives of
two women to suit himself.
Shashi Tharoor not only gives an assiduous enunciation
of Lakshman's ingrained mentality of a de-colonized
sychophant of the west, but also provides a succinct portrayal
of this Indian bureaucrat as an ultimate conqueror of an
occidentalist. Although contradictory, yet both these
simultaneously divulged aspects of Lakshman's character in
Riot carry equal importance when perceived from a postcolonial
perspective. At the same time the lucidity with which Tharoor
has represented Lakshman's complex yet convincing character,
is an exemplification of the formers dexterity in characterization
which is distinctly postmodern. While Lakshman's reverence for
the west and its people is an unequivocal instance of a
colonized subject's capability to equally respect himself vis a
vis the white colonizer, his final refusal to comply with
Priscilla's demand of a life long partnership for the sake of his
family can be perceived as a white skinned occidentalist's
exploitation by a brown skinned orientalist. The climax of the
Lakshman-Priscilla relationship in Riot, therefore, emerges as a
strident expatiation of Tharoor's vengeant attitude towards the
occidental colonizers of his country, condemning the acquired
superiority of these racial exploiters of humanity.

In fact the most cogent manifestation of the West's

natural inclinations to exploit the East is evidenced in the novel
through the Priscilla-Geetha equation. Highlighting the political
distinction of the 'centre' and the 'margin' between the two
female characters, Tharoor delineates the former as a 'self-

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oriented' foreigner exploiting the naivety of the latter. A young
feminist ready to devote her entire life for the well-being of the
women of India, Priscilla ironically did not hesitate even once
before jeopardizing Geetha's matrimony. According to her the
relationship between Lakshman and Geetha was devoid of love,
and through this lopsided conclusion of hers she tried to justify
her affair with Lakshman. Well aware of the fact that she was
knowingly wronging the innocent Geetha, at whose expense
and pain she will finally be able to fulfill her desires, Priscilla
also emerges as another marginalizer, in the novel- an
occidental enchasing the naivety of an innocuous oriental. Thus
consciously evading queries interrogating her morals and her
professional credibility, Priscilla Hart the feminist activist
working with the social organisation HELP-US repeats history,
and despite her abhorrence for her father Rudyard Hart, due to
his infidelity towards her mother Katharine Hart, surfaces as an
exploiter of someone's emotions. While Rudyard had played
with Nandini's life, Priscilla exploited Geetha's innocence, her
introversion and her mute yet mature acceptance of life. More
so a psychological victim of her father's illicit relations leading
to a divorce that dispersed her family, Priscilla's life itself
evolved into a paradox when she involved herself with a
married bureaucrat having a six year old daughter. Unable to
forget the past and forgive her father Priscilla expressed her
feelings before Lakshman:

I suppose I never forgave my father ...Just

seeing him... with that awful woman from his
office. I was barely fifteen, and I felt
personally hurt, as if it was me he'd betrayed
and not my mother. (77)

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 She does not seem to realize that little Rekha,
Lakshman's daughter is another little Priscilla Hart in the
nnaking, and probably Priscilla another "awful woman."
Therefore exhibiting a 'self oriented decadence and
deliberately avoiding questions regarding her personal and
professional scruples, Priscilla, the messianic protagonist of
the novel, could neither refrain herself from exploiting Geetha
by taking her for granted, nor could empathize with her and
Rekha, victims of circumstances which had tarnished Priscilla's
life itself long ago. Priscilla's character in Riot thus appears to
corroborate a hybridity in the postcolonial society- a society
which is clearly an amalgam of both its colonial as well as its
non-colonial versions in India.
Gurinder Singh, the superintendent of police of Zaiilgarh
and Lakshman's close friend is another character in Riot who
4

unequivocally resents the British who had colonized the Indian

subcontinent for almost two hundred years. Manifesting a
retaliatory attitude towards the British he averred, "the Brits
came to exploit us, took what they wanted and left, and in the
process they changed us" (170). It vividly foregrounds the
greedy and pillaging tendencies of the white colonizers who
/
ruthlessly erased the ancient roots of the civilization of the
subcontinent. Further giving vent to his venomous feelings for
the foreign rulers, Gurinder continued this argument on
colonialism at Lakshman's residence during a dinner, by
indicting Priscilla of a different kind of colonization. Addressing
her directly, he candidly remonstrated:

You come to change us but in the

process you also take what you want,
isn't that just another form of exploitation.
(170)

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 The fact, that decades after the end of colonialism,
orientals like Gurinder Singh continue to doubt the intentions of
the westerners and perceive them as exploiters, refers to the
horrors of the colonial times and the intensity of their
influences on the colonized race. Thus Tharoor adroitly reveals
the existence of an invisible yet an ever widening political
hiatus between the erstwhile colonizers and the colonized
which continues to divide humanity into the 'occidental whites'
and the 'oriental blacks', the 'selves' and the 'others'. This
difference between the two societies is clearly evidenced in
Gurinder's arguments aimed at revealing the futility of
Lakshman's infatuation for Priscilla;

...she's an American, Lucky, ...they're not

like us. It's a different country, a different
culture, a different planet, man. You've lived
all your life with a definite set of values. You
know what's right because it's always been
right I know you're not entirely happy with
Geetha, what the hell it's never been a
secret, but come on, yaar, she's been a good
wife to you. She runs a good house, serves a
great table, gets the best out of the servants-
so what if she gives them hell once in a
while?- and spends a lot of time with your
daughter. You can bring someone home for
dinner at practically no notice and she
adjusts to your needs. Your work takes you
away unexpectedly, keeps you out till no one
knows when man, and she doesn't
complain.(18)

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 Thus comparing Priscilla and Geetha in his effort to
convince Lakshman about the unworthiness and the immoral
nature of his illicit relations, Gurinder expresses his personal
views regarding women. While nationalism could never allow
him to have a favourable opinion about Priscilla, - whom he
blatantly equated with a prostitute - his male chauvinism could
merely perceive Geetha as a 'good house keeper', a person
with immense usefulness. This perception of women as
instruments of utility and worth is another exemplification of the
relegation of the fair sex to a secondary and unimportant status
in the male dominated society, described by Tharoor in Riot.
This male chauvinism colonizing women, and causing a
chaos in their lives, is further perceived in Rudyard Hart's
characterization. It is not only Gurinder Singh who equated
women with useful commodities In the novel, but also Rudyard
who actually perceived them as a means of entertainment. In
the person of Rudyard Hart, Shashi Tharoor emphasizes that
every individual from the Occident has a proclivity to exploit
and victimize the Orientals. A failure in his professional life in
India, Rudyard used his stenographer Nandini to add colour to
his monotonous life. Deceived by Rudyard's false
commitments, Nandini hoping to be his wife was ready to
abdicate her family and threaten her own matrimony. Thus
innocently unaware of Rudyard's dishonesty and his feigned
amorous attitude towards her, Nandini too falls into the
category of the many exploited women in Riot. Emerging as
more of a conqueror than a lover in his relationship with
Nandini, Rudyard epitomizes the emotionless and utilitarian
attitude of a colonizer. Thus in Riot the author once again
proves the historical dictum of the west exploiting the east, in
the person of a 'white' executive who allayed his frustrations
and satisfied his sexual desires at the cost of an Indian lady's
emotions. However, this American executive at the same time

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emerged as the exploiter of his wife Katharine Hart, whose
trust he betrayed, jeopardizing the peace of his family. Thus
Rudyard Hart also unequivocally emerges as a simultaneous
victimizer of two women, like V. Lakshman, and can therefore
be easily categorized as another member of the group of male
chauvinists in the novel.
On the other hand, Nandini is also presented by Tharoor
as a self centered opportunist, in pursuit of greener pastures
via Rudyard Hart. In fact, like V. Lakshman she emerges as
another 'native' who, unable to liberate herself from the
hangover of colonialism perceived America, 'the west' as the
best solution to life's problems. While for Lakshman, Priscilla
was the embodiment of his fantasies, for Nandini, Rudyard Hart
was the vehicle to her dream land. It was evidently the
possibility of an alternative life that allured Nandini to succumb
to Rudyard's advances, putting the morals and the ethos of her
culture at stake. Whereas Geetha was victimized by the
Priscilla-Lakshman relationship and its inherent infidelity, it
was apparently Nandini's husband and Mrs. Hart who were
unknowingly paying for their spouses' desires and aspirations.
Thus the Rudyard-Nandini episode not only highlights the
formers attitude of a conqueror but also foregrounds the latter's
high opinion about the occidental world. Exemplifying a feeling
of inferiority ingrained into her psyche, Nandini surfaces as a
synonym to Lakshman. It is through both these characters that
Shashi Tharoor brings out the subservient mentality of the
Indians who continue to look up to the West with acquiescence
in the contemporary postcolonial times in the novel. Shashi
Tharoor's Riot therefore hints at the continuity of 'colonization'
of the third world both by foreigners such as Priscilla and
Rudyard, and by 'natives' exploiting their own people as
observed in the treatment meted out by Lakshman and Nandini
to their respective families and spouses.

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 It is thus observed, that male chauvinism and
'colonization' of the female emerge as powerful and
unavoidable themes of Riot. Reiterating the repeated
exploitation of women by men in one form or the other, Tharoor
convincingly illustrates the widespread existence of a hidden
colonialism in the so called 'postcolonial' scenario of Riot. He
highlights a colonialism which not only harbours on the
reminders of the erstwhile colonialism of India but also
substantiates another division of humanity, the division
between its male and female members, with the former
emerging as the colonizer of the latter. Whereas earlier the
term 'colonialism' had divided humanity into the 'Whites' and
the 'Blacks', with the former occupying positions of power and
knowledge and consequently the centre-stage of the society
forcing the rest into its margin, Tharoor's 'postcolonial
colonialism' exemplified in Riot largely relegates the women as
the 'others', and the marginalized section of the society,
arbitrarily exploited and victimized by the 'selves', the men
perforce occupying the 'centre' of humanity.

However the fact that Priscilla Hart deliberately tried to

fulfill her aspirations at the expense of Geetha, shows that Riot
is not simply a fictional treatise elaborating on the colonising
tendencies of men, but ironically is also an elucidation of a
female's exploitation by an affable and philanthropic feminist.
Further, the fact that characters such as Lakshman and Nandini
in the novel, who strike an emotional affair with their American
counterparts in order to use the latter as vehicles to a fantastic
and a liberated life in America, ironically unveils the
exploitative and the utilitarian intentions Inherited by the
natives from their alien colonizers.
Shashi Tharoor thus is observed to adroitly shuffle the
colonial paradigms of the 'centre' and the 'margin', of the ' s e l f
and the 'other', arbitrarily distributing the colonialist 'power'

190
and 'knowledge' across the racial borders in Riot. Presenting
both 'whites' and blacks', as the colonizers and the colonized
in Riot, Tharoor categorically marginalizes the distinction of
colour as an inconsequential aspect of the colonial proclivities
belonging to the postcolonial times. At the same time^ the novel
clearly highlights the growing significance of the ' s e l f versus
the 'other' parameter of the contemporary society - supported
by the fact that modern day colonization primarily harbours on
the equation of power and knowledge with the ' s e l f and naivety
with the 'other'. In other words Tharoor gives an in-depth
enunciation of the 'postcolonial colonialism' afflicting the
contemporary humanity irrespective of its cast, colour or creed.
An analysis of Riot from the postcolonial point of view
reveals that although there has been a radical change in the
social dynamics after decolonization, yet there is still an
existence of a 'centre' and a 'margin', a ' s e l f and an 'other' in
the society. Apparently through Riot Tharoor interrogates the
veracity of the term 'decolonization'. Juxtaposing the erstwhile
colonizers and the colonized on the same stage of Zaiilgarh, he
unequivocally establishes that the tendency to colonize is
essential to human nature. Through this fictional writing of his
the author actually differentiates between the ' s e l f and the
'other' constituting the present day society. These distinctions
however are not simply confined to the exploitation of women
as a weaker sex in the novel, but are also easily noticeable as
marked resentments of the Orientals like Lakshman and
Gurinder, culminating in attitudes of vengeance towards the
Occidentals. Evidence of such differentiations is further
observed in the atavistic perceptions of the citizens of the sub
continent by Americans like Rudyard Hart and Randy Diggs.
Randy Diggs, an American correspondent, for the New
York Journal, visiting India to gather details about Priscilla's
untimely death, is the only character in Riot who plays the role

191
of a spectator. Perceiving Zaiilgarh as a 'dump', Diggs'
demeanour is similar to that of any cliched and self obsessed
westerner on his first visit to the sub continent. Like Priscilla,
Diggs could not escape his feelings of superiority and
perceived India and her people as the incorrigible third world
destined to have a degenerated and servile existence. While
the afflictions of Zaiilgarh had perturbed Priscilla who tried her
best to alleviate its inhabitants' grievances, Diggs remarked;

God, what a dump. The heat. The dust. The

flies. The shit. The crowds. You name it,
Zaiilgarh has it. Every horrific western cliche
about India turns out to be true here. (17)

The above quoted prejudiced perception of westerners

like Diggs is brought under attack by the author in the person
of Rarn Charan Gupta, a local Hindu leader of Zaiilgarh and a
prospective parliamentary candidate. Questioning the claim of
the erstwhile colonizers who professed to have completely
withdrawn, Gupta apparently interrogates the continuing
inclinations of the west to perceive the Indian subcontinent
negatively and thus supports Aijaz Ahmed's observations
regarding the transhistorical and commutative nuances of
colonialism^.
Reinforcing Homi K Bhaba's concept of 'fixity', inevitably
giving an immature, weak, effeminate, emotional and primitive
description of the erstwhile colonies, Gupta candidly indicts
Diggs and the western media for its sadistic tendencies and
says :

You foreign journalists and photographers

who cover India are only interested in the
kind of India you want to see. The horrible

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 dark India of killing and riots, like this riot
that you are so interested in, of course: it is
all of a piece with the stories of poverty and
disease, of the widows of Benaras, the caste
system and the untouchables, poor people
selling their blood or their kidneys, the slums
of Calcutta or Bombay, brides being burned
for not having brought enough dowry - how
many such stories have you written for your
American readers, Mr. Diggs? Of course it is
even better if the bad things about India are
being set right by kind white Christians -
Mother Teresa is a real favourite of yours ....
I do not deny that these things exist in India,
Mr. Diggs, but they are only a part of our
reality, and not such a large part of it either.
But it is all that you and your cohorts in the
foreign press are interested in and you tell
the world that is what India is all about. (228)

Gupta's remonstration clarifies that all the so called

'cliches' about India, mentioned by Diggs in the course of his
description of the town of Zaiilgarh, cliches which every foreign
visitor like Diggs is aware of much before his visit to the
subcontinent, are actually the creations of these foreigners
themselves. With Ram Charan Gupta as his mouth piece,
Shashi Tharoor once again elaborates upon the sense of
superiority that the Westerners automatically assume as
compared to the natives in the novel. Gupta's reference to
Mother Teresa further reinforces the comments made by
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak about the First world countries,
especially their women, for their over sympathetic attitude
towards the people of the oriental countries. Describing the

193
above mentioned Gupta - Diggs encounter, that presents a
citizen of the Third World as an accuser of the First World for
consistently endeavouring to reduce the former to ignominy by
highlighting its negatives, Tharoor's Riot evolves into a fictional
piece chastising the west and its media for adopting a biased
attitude towards the east. Emphatically stating that the richness
and the exuberance of the Indian culture and civilisation finds
little expression in the treatises written by foreign authors,
Gupta's argument brings out the irony that although colonialism
came to an end decades ago, yet its people, their past, their
culture, in fact their identity as a nation still continues to be
utilized as a source of entertainment and melodrama by the
foreigners. Instead of apprehending the sub-continental ethics
and culture these western visitors largely satisfy their lust for
excitement and fascination, by visiting its historical places and
festivals, by collecting evidences proving its gory and violent
image turning a blind eye to the magnanimity, tolerance and
the richness of its ancient culture. Highlighting this obvious
anomaly in the occidental journalism, Gupta asks:

When will you and your friends in the foreign

press give your readers an article on the
richness and glory of this ancient country,
Mr. Diggs, its varied and profound
civilization? (229)

Therefore reprimanding all the western reporters for

giving a lopsided portrayal of the oriental nations and their
citizens under the influence of colonial bias and prejudice. Ram
Charan Gupta, highlights that by writing "Western stories for a
western audience" and professing to provide the world with a
veritable description of India, journalists and authors like Diggs
indulge in dishonesty. Far from a true representation of the

194
subcontinent, their works apparently distort reality to produce
an image of India which is actually an amalgam of the
preconceived notions, likes and dislikes of their readers back
home. Evidencing these distinctions between pure and political
knowledge through Gupta's conversation with Diggs, Shashi
Tharoor alludes to the initiation of the fourth estate as another
regime of power in his novel Riot. This is of a piece with Homi
K. Bhabha's assertion regarding the inequities of modes of
representation. This indictment of the western press in Riot,
powerfully reinforces Bhabha's views that,

Postcolonial criticism bears witness to the

unequal and uneven forces of cultural
representation involved in the context for
political and social authority within the
modern world order. ®

Consequently, Tharoor's Riot also emerges as a potent

and convincing illustration of the evolution of the art of writing
and reporting, as a ploy to gain political ends- in this case the
end being to prove the American Randy Diggs as a ' s e l f
worthier and superior as compared to the Indians the 'others'.
Thus Tharoor asserts the politically deceptive nuances
implicit in the term postcolonial through this piece of fiction
Riot, substantiating Ama Ata Aidoo's comments during a
conference titled Critical Fictions in New York, where the latter
stated:

Perhaps the concept [of the post colonial]

was relevant to the United States, after its
war of Independence, and to a certain extent
to the erstwhile imperial dominions of
Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Applied

195
 to Africa, India and some other parts of the
world, 'postcolonial' is... a cover up of a
dangerous period in our peoples' lives.'^

It may also be perceived that Shashi Tharoor's comparison of

'pure' knowledge with its 'political' versions created by the
West . is obviously suggestive of the endeavours to
'reorientalize' the 'orient'.
Another instance of the Occidental efforts to 're-
orientalize' the 'orient' in Riot Is the juxtaposition of an
American executive with an Indian socialist leader George
Fernandes. Underlining the western penchant to continue its
imperialism by resorting to economic exploitation of the East,
Shashi Tharoor alludes to the postcolonial outgrowth of
colonialism termed as 'Neo-colonialism' by discussing the issue
of coca-colisation in the persons of Rudyard Hart and his
colleagues in Coca Cola. While Hart, the Marketing Head of
Coca-cola in India in 1977, found the political trepidations due
to the presence of coke in the Indian markets as ' a b s u r d ' ,
George Fernandes perceived the penetration of the Indian
economy by America as an economic exploitation of his
country. This coca colisation of the markets of the recently
liberated nation was perceived by socialists like Fernandes, as
another occidental effort to dominate, restructure and gain
authority over the subcontinent. Thus by incorporating this
example of the western efforts to once again gain dominance
over the East through economic colonization in Riot- Tharoor
highlights the persistent threat to the independence of the
developing nations from the capitalist countries of the west
even during the postcolonial times.

Besides its social implications discussed in detail, Riot

also emerges as a fictional critique by a diasporic author,
representing the communal unrest of the Indian society. Having

196
already dealt with a similar theme in The Great Indian Novel,
Tharoor reveals the waxing hatred between the Hindus and the
Muslims of independent India by exquisitely amalgamating
communal differences with other issues in Riot. With the
backdrop of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid issue, the
novel Is an audacious attempt of the author to provide an In-
depth and detailed look at the reasons behind the persisting
communal resentments between the Hindus and the Muslims as
well as the genesis of the problem termed as the Ram
Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute. Tharoor gives an unbiased
expression to the feelings of both the Hindus and the Muslims
in Riot by representing the opinions of the former through Ram
Charan Gupta, a leader and religious activist, and the latter
through Mohammed Sarwar, a reader of the History Department
of Delhi University.
Ram Charan Gupta had led the procession in Zaiilgarh on
the day the riot broke out, the 30'" of September 1989 in the
novel. A primary witness to all that prevailed during the riot,
Gupta is interviewed by the American correspondent. Randy
Diggs, visiting the town in order to comprehend the politics
behind the riot, and Priscilla Hart's murder. It is during the
course of this interview that Gupta not only elucidates the
illogical and immature reasons behind the social unrest, but
also digs out the causes of the growing intolerance between
the Hindus and the Muslims, from the nation's history. Through
Ram Charan Gupta, Tharoor essays to portray the recent and
the unprecedented resurgence of Hinduism in the Indian
subcontinent. While on one hand Gupta's character gives
expression to a myriad number of issues advocating the Hindu
causes that have been left unaddressed by the successive
governments of free India, and are quite illuminating, on the
other his religious chauvinism and refusal to accept religious
pluralism, especially Muslim co-existence with the Hindus in

197
India, force the readers to contemplate the nature of the
objections and grievances of the Hindus.
Mohammad Sarwar, on the other hand, a historian and an
ex-communist who had revolted against the penetration of Coke
into the Indian market way back in the 1970s as a student, has
been portrayed by the author as the strongest spokesperson for
the Muslim community. Although Sarwar with his newly found
faith in democracy and Islam also deliberates upon the
increasing dissidence between the Hindus and the Muslims, yet
he does not emerge as an exact mirror image of Gupta. In spite
of his noble and intellectual profession, Sarwar is portrayed as
a Muslim chauvinist unable to give greater priority to anything
vis a vis Islam. During his visit to Zaiilgarh in search of
information about a canonized saint Gazi Mian, Sarwar in
course of his meetings with Lakshman and Diggs reveals his
resentments against the Hindus of his nation.
Tharoor has given an equal space and participation to
both Gupta and Sarwar along with their religious communities,
in the novel, and has largely used Randy Diggs, the American
journalist to 'dig' into their psyches and express their
respective points of view. As one reads through the novel, it
becomes quite evident that actually Tharoor uses the
arguments advanced by both these characters, to interrogate
the 'secular' face of the Indian democracy. Emerging as a
categorical delineation of the grievances harboured by both the
Hindus and the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent, Riot
highlights the hollowness of India's emphatically proclaimed
secularism.
In fact qualifying Gyan Prakash's observation that any
postcolonial critique "does not enjoy a panoptic distance from
colonial history but exists as an after math, as an after .... After
being worked over by colonization", ^ Shashi Tharoor uses Riot
to give expression to the resentments harboured by the Indian

198
citizens against their own governments. With Ram Charan
Gupta justifying the increase in Hindu fundamentalism, by
quoting innumerable instances from the past (ancient and
recent) and Sarwar outlandishly and of course, ironically
negating historical facts, so as to prove himself. Riot surfaces
as the fictionist's stage which presents India on the verge of
another imminent, division. The author however holds Indian
politicians responsible for such a state of affairs, and indirectly
indicts them for unscrupulously playing with the people's
religious sentiments to serve Iheir own vested interests.
Reprimanding the Indian polity, Tharoor voices his views
through Ram Charan Gupta who categorically unveils the truth
about the country's leadership by commenting thus:

They are all atheists and communists in

power in our country, people who have lost
their roots. They forget that the English have
left. II was English law they upheld not Indian
justice .... (53)

Thus through Gupta, Tharoor not only indicts the government of

India, for upholding the laws practiced by India's colonizers-
the British, primarily referring to the imperial principle of divide
et impera- but also highlights the irony that the Indian
leadership has apparently inherited the art of colonizing from
the white imperialists, and has continuously used it since
independence under a secular veneer.
Tharoor's Riot therefore can be perceived as an example
of the contemporary social and political scenario of India,
which appears to be effectively oscillating between its 'colonial'
and 'postcolonial' poles. Revealing that colonialism is not only
confined to the racists and those who give importance to the
colour of the skin, but pervades human nature in general, Riot

199
questions the use of the terms such as 'colonial' and
'postcolonial'. While on one hand the novel establishes the
smooth continuity of colonial and exploitative proclivities and
actions of man veiled under the official garb of postcolonialism,
on the other hand, it underlines the presence of a hybrid era
which is an amalgam of the colonial and the postcolonial.
Ranging from the treatment meted out to women, to the attitude
of the Indian politicians towards their subjects, Riot apparently
is presented by Tharoor as a treatise on various types of
exploitation - an exploitation of the 'other' by 'the s e l f , of the
'margin' by the 'centre'. The only difference however is the
absence of a mandatory parameter envisaging the 'White'
versus the 'Black', the 'foreigner' ruling over the 'native'.
Thus a postcolonial appraisal of Riot establishes it as a
literary stage portraying the profound influences of European
colonialism on the psyches of both the Indians as well as the
Westerners. Asserting that the exploitative penchant has
become synonymous with the essential nature of man,
irrespective of whether he is from the West or the East, the
novel essentially emerges as an astute exemplification of a
pervasive decadence afflicting contemporary humanity.
Further playing with colonial distinctions and exhibiting a
chaotic confluence of all of them in Riot, the author presents
the novel as a Barthian 'text' with a multivalency rather than as
a 'work' with a deep meaning. Effectively representing the
transcendental values and principles essential to the nature of
man, Riot establishes the mortality of man but the immortality
of his views and inventions. In fact this continuity of thought,
and the existence of the past in the present, is evidenced in the
myriad historical references discussed by Gupta and Sarwar in
the novel. Substantiating Linda Hutcheon's concept, the
"Presence of the past", in this novel, Tharoor manifests the
potency of historical facts by looking at the present day Indian

200
society, justifying its communal afflictions and repeatedly
referring to events from history, relatively interpreted by its
members. While Gupta pointed out innumerable instances
exemplifying the exploitation of Hindus, Sarwar gave a
completely different picture of these instances to reveal the
repeated injustice done to the people of his community. Riot
therefore emerges as a book sparked by hatred, especially
religious hatred. Deliberating on this fanatic aspect of the novel
Tharoor remarks:

How we hate and why, how we build things

up in our minds to justify the hatred .... The
moment you get behind collectivity, you have
a problem. Group hatreds make people forget
the individual and demonize whole
collectives.^

Apparently, presenting a diversified and a dichotomous

perception of the past through Gupta and Sarwar- representing
the Hindus and the Muslims respectively- Shashi Tharoor, who
considers that the greatest difficulty with religions is that their
proponents think they have a monopoly on the truth,^°
questions the credibility of history and the veracity underlying
the art of historiography. At the same time Lakshman's
comments about India, her culture, her religious pluralism and
her secularism, provide an opinion about the sub continent,
divorced from that of the fundamentalist characters. In other
words, this multiperspectivisation employed by Tharoor in Riot
challenges history's claim to be globally valid as a
'me.taj>-a4^=a4+ve'^~aRd presents the novel as a built-in critique of
histowograph-y. Emphasizing that Riot is really about the
construction of identity and memory, as there is never really
one history, just different perspectives of the past, ^^ Tharoor

201
discloses, during an interview with First City, that through this
novel, he essayed to showcase the multiplicity of perspectives,
since people were disputing the ownership of history and trying
to uncover the truth behind a certain event. ^^ With the Gupta-
Sarwar dispute synibolising the lack of credibility of history in
the novel, Tharoor's above mentioned endeavour apparently
meets apposite success.
As confessed by Tharoor himself, the genesis of Riot: A
Novel can be traced back to two historical events - the first
being simmering Hindu-Muslim discontent of the 1980's,
culminating in communal violence concerning the disputed
Babri Masjid at Ayodhya, an account of which he recovered
from a friend of his in the form of a detailed description about a
riot in Khargone, Madhya Pradesh; and the second being a
report of the death of an American woman in a social riot in
South Africa. Tharoor coalesces both these events with
exemplary beauty and dexterity creating the story of his text. In
an interview with Sandip Roy Chowdhury he explains,

Years ago my college friend Harsh Mander,

an IAS officer, sent me an account he had
written of a riot he dealt with as a District
Magistrate in Madhya Pradesh .... his story
also sparked me thinking of a riot as a
vehicle for a novel about communal hatred.
At about the same time, I read a newspaper
account of a young white American girl. Amy
Biehl from Palo Alto, who had been killed by
a black mob in violent disturbances in South
Africa. The images merged in my mind, and
Riot was born.^^

202
 This amalgamation of the two historical incidents that
Tharoor elucidates is illustrative of the use of 'pastiche' in Riot-
a major postmodern ploy conceptualized by the critic Fredric
Jameson. With the 'pastiche' emerging as Tharoor's favourite
postmodern technique, it is observed that his genius is
apparently explicated in the poise and the skill with which he
blended a variety of dichotomous circumstances and
predicaments, besides the breathtaking innovations with which
he embellishes the novel. His command over the different
styles he uses is impressive. He is equally at ease with a
transcript of a Sikh police chief's caustic, expletive ridden
style, as he is with a tender moment between the two lovers.
Further, the fact that the novel has a fragmented narrative, a
story which needs to be connected, comprehended and
resolved by the reader, reveals that it is devoid of a centre,
highlighting its rhizomatic nature.
Adopting an 'eclectic' mode of writing, Tharoor envisages
a wide variety of devices and genres in Riot, meticulously
foregrounding the dimensions of multiperspectivisation, and
indeterminacy or inconclusiveness. Opposed to the linear
construction of conventional texts, the novel is essentially a
collage of journalistic reports, diary entries, letters, memoirs,
excerpts from scrapbooks and journals, transcripts of
interviews and conversations overheard. Conspicuous by its
absence of a normative linearity of flow, the novel envisages a
plethora of small discursive narratives, each having its own
story. Apparently, therefore, the author indulges m
experimentation with the narratology and is quite successful in
his endeavour to take liberties with the fictional form, and add
some kind of novelty to it.

I have always believed that the word "novel"

Implies that there must be something "new"

203
 about each one. What was new to me about
the way Riot unfolded was that I told the
story through news - paper clippings, diary
entries, interviews, transcripts, journals,
scrapbooks, even poems written by the
characters- in other words, using different
voices, different stylistic forms, for different
fragments of the story,^'*

This quotation emphases the existence of elements from

Warhol's postmodern hybridity', in Shashi Tharoor's Riot,
similar to the 'multivalency' which Charles Jencks had
considered to be mandatory to Postmodernism.^^ Tharoor's
respect for the validity of myriad styles of writing and the
plurality of experiences and apprehensions they are inserted
with, draws a parallel with Howard Fox who was quoted by
Steven Connor in Postmodernist Culture, as averring that "...
the postmodern object strives towards an encyclopaedic
condition, allowing a myriad of access points, and infinitude of
interpretive responses."^^ In emphatic opposition to the so-
called globally valid 'metanarratives', Tharoor's technical
experimentation with excerpts and transcripts from letters,
newspaper columns, interviews, journals and scrapbooks in
Riot undermines the authority of a 'metanarrative', and
approbates Lyotard's definition of postmodernism as an
"attitude of incredulity towards metanarratives."^^
Divided into seventy - eight sections of varying lengths,
Riot lacks any grand narrative and is made up of fragmented,
petite narratives. Disjunctiveness and a lack of cohesiveness
constantly pervade the novel. This fragmented writing which is
characteristic of postmodern writing highlights myriad issues
concerning individuals, cultures, ideologies, religion and their
collisions. Thus Riot emerges as a conglomeration of diverse

204
points of view. These views expressed through fragments of
narratives possess an astonishing variety and are placed by
the author before the reader in the form of a puzzle that the
latter unravels giving coherence to the whole. Consequently the
universally acknowledged omniscient narrator's role is entirely
undermined in the novel reinforcing the views held by one of its
own characters who states, "Down with the omniscient narrator,
it's time for the omniscient reader." (135)
Thus a reader oriented text, Tharoor's Riot, by advocating
the subjugation of the narrator to the reader, unequivocally
shares Roland Barthes views in his essay 'The Death of the
Author', wherein Barthes criticizes the romantic model of a
novel by saying that "the birth of the reader must be at the cost
of the death of the author."^° This alert omniscient reader
referred to by Bathes, persistently gropes for evidence
throughout the course of his reading of the Riot and draws his
conclusions. In fact obsessed with experimentation in the art of
writing a novel, Tharoor once again adhering to Barthes dictum
that "the text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the
innumerable centres of culture"^^ uses a murder as its pivotal
event and 'shows' the various pieces of incremental information
he has about Priscilla, his protagonist, through short narratives
to his readers who 'decode' the story, and the chronology of
events, from these scraps of information, leaving the novel
open for interpretation and thus remaining non-commital.

It may therefore be observed that by using sections of

varying lengths constituting pieces and fragments of crucial
information, the author enables the novel to progress smoothly.
These sections help unfold the story in a two-tier system. It
runs along two separate strands, the first one running through
records, entries and letters, and the second one moving along
interviews, conversations and interrogations. Every single short
narrative highlights a perspective about Priscilla Hart and her

205
personality, her universe, and also the tragic flaw of her
character which might be seen as one of the reasons
contributing to her death. Further, these pieces of narration
explore the socio - political conditions of the place In which she
lived and worked, besides exploring the conditions entrapping
her in circumstances leading to her death. It may also be
emphasised that although every single fragmentary narrative is
an independent whole in itself, wherein an individual story not
only begins but also ends, yet the fragments have
interrelatedness among themselves. As already discussed, this
interconnectivity has been established by a common subject
and event - here Priscilla and her death - which play the role
of a pivot around which the diverse and discursive accounts,
reports, experiences and controversies revolve. However, since
all these narrations, in whatever form, are separate and
possess an individuality of their own, each having a complete
story, therefore the reader may take the liberty of reading it in
any order without missing the crux of the story . Thus it is
perceived that despite possessing the potential to be read in
any order, the novel does not lose on its readership as the
readers enjoy a sort of easy, though dexterous,
interconnectivity among its different parts.
Unequivocally opposed to the Aristotelian guidelines of a
proper beginning, middle and end. Riot, is also a contradiction
of Nicholas Marsh's view which states that a novel consists of
an exposition in the beginning to be followed by a resolution
via complication. Manju Roy explains this contradiction in the
following words "... the novel [Riot]] begins with resolution, if
gone by the spatial arrangement, and then keeps on alternating
between exposition and complication."^° The beauty and the
significance of such an unconventional structuring of fiction is
emphatically underlined by none other than one of the two main

206
characters of the novel itself. V. Lakshman the administrator
aspiring to be an author writes in his journal:

I would like to write a novel that doesn't read

, like a novel. Novels are too easy - they tell a
story, in a linear narrative, from start to finish
... I would do it differently .... In which you
can turn to any page and read .... They're all
connected, but you see the interconnections
differently depending on the order in which
you read them. (135-36)

Expounding his own philosophy on novel writing, through

Lakshman, Tharoor appears to accept Andre Gide's concept of
"a transposition of the theme of a work to the level of a
character,"^^ in Riot. Discussed by various French literary
critics, this technique is exemplified by Gide's own work The
Counterfeiters - where a character is engaged in writing a
novel similar to the novel in which he appears.^^
It is further observed that championing Barthe's
postmodern concept that differentiated a 'work' from a 'text',
Riot sincerely adheres to his connotations of textuality that
highlight the way a text is put together. The events and
descriptions in the novel follow a somewhat cinematic style of
progression, as its chapters or sections have been arranged by
the author according to the text-time and not according to the
story-time. Ideally, story-time has been inferred by critics as a
reference to 'natural chronology', whereas text-time has been
perceived as a 'spatial dimension' - that is the way a text has
been arranged in the novel irrespective of a natural chronology.
In fact the minor narratives constituting Riot defy the strict
succession of events, arguably because of a multitude of
characters.

207
 The novel is set by Tharoor in the year 1989. Evidently
this year has been selected by the author because of its history
- a tinne which led to the major Ayodhya episode. Going by all
the entries of the novel (seventy eight in number), we observe
that the events in Tharoor's Riot start on the 2"^ of February
1989, and end on the 16^"^ of October of the same year. Thus
the novel spans an actual period of eight and a half months
only. However, considering the various issues and events
discussed by the different characters of the novel, Tharoor
successfully picturises a larger canvas of time before his
readers, encompassing events that occurred both pre- and
post- 1989, - the Hindu-Sikh Riots of 1984, and the Ayodhya
incident of 1992 for instance. Further in the 'Afterword' to the
book, Tharoor refers to the declaration made by the different
affiliates of the Sangh Pariwar regarding the commencement of
the construction of a temple in Ayodhya in March 2002, much to
the embarrassment of the Prime Minister. It is therefore
observed that in Riot, facts from history have been fully
exploited by Tharoor, so as to bring life and dynamism to the
novel. Advocating the importance of the historicity of time as
evidenced in Riot, Tharoor expostulates:

I think the best crystal ball is the rear-view

mirror .... It is part of the writer's job to
recapture moments of history. My novel [Riot]
stands as a portrait of time, of tendencies
that were brought to the fore, the genie that
was let out of the bottle and could not be put
back. I think we should take that genie by
looking it squarely in the eye.^^

Moreover, a polysemic bricolage, Riot further emerges as

an exemplification of the deft and astute technique used by

208
Tharoor to form a correlation between the novel and the Hindu
religious texts, the Ramayana and the Geeta. Resorting to the
technique of 'onomastics', he names as well as characterizes,
many of the important characters in Riot according to the
Ramayana. Thus laying a strong foundation for the story he
intends to narrate, Tharoor names the American girl Priscilla as
'Hart'- a stag victimized by V. Lakshman as was done by Lord
Ram, Lakahman's elder brother in the Ramayana. Further
despite being 'Lakshman' himself (an ideal character from
Ramayana) Tharoor's character infringes the sanctity and
discipline proclaimed in the Hindu text Geeta by betraying his
wife with the same name (Geetha). A father of a six year old
daughter 'Rekha', Lakshman ironically crosses his own
'Lakshman-Rekha' (a line drawn by Lakshman for Sita in the
Ramayana) of commitment and morality. In this way by
satirizing both the much professed sanctity of the Hindu culture
and the literature from which it flows, the Geeta and the
Ramayana, Riot exhibits the Baudrillardian concept of
simulation, in which both the scriptures become free-floating
signs, images of which are produced endlessly in this society.
This anchorage in the religious texts that Tharoor exemplifies
in Riot also alludes to the 'intertextuality' represented in the
novel, along with the language games that it harbours upon.
These language games and intertextual styles that the novel
Riot replicates, further highlight the fact that a reading of this
book is both a process of 'decoding' - interpreting the codes to
infer the meaning and 'encoding' - reading one's own cultural
codes into it, because if the reader is not well acquainted with
the Ramayana and the Geeta he would take recourse to the
former process, but if it is otherwise, he would encode the text.
However, both these concepts of reading a text do not remain
confined to the above discussed parameters and can also be
observed at many other levels in the novel.

209
 It is therefore observed that Tharoor's Riot embellished
with diverse themes, valencies, and meanings, addresses its
readers through fragmentary, short, and realistic narratives. It
is not only an example of Lyotard's concept of
'incommensurability', Jameson's 'pastiche' and 'eclecticism',
'pluralism' and 'polysemy' and Baudillard's 'simulation' but also
a rhizomatic text of Gilles Deleuze's metaphor for the networks
of language and meaning in postmodernism.
Analyzing this postmodern novel on the basis of the
already mentioned two different strands on which the story
moves- the first being the written accounts and the second
verbal ones- it is observed that while Tharoor uses fictitious or
spoof columns, excerpts from personal diaries, intimate and
personal letters, pieces from a scrapbook and journals in
presenting the tale on the lines of the first strand, he uses a
transcript of interviews and conversations overheard when
dealing with it on the lines of the second. The major reason for
this kind of stylistic writing undertaken by the author appears to
be the foregrounding of his smart writing skills with brilliance.

The story of the novel begins with a report titled

'AMERICAN SLAIN IN INDIA' published on Monday, October 2,
1989 in the Now York Journal, bringing the central event -
Priscilla's death - into light. A couple of articles concerning her
untimely and mysterious demise feature in the journal during
the following days, portraying the victim's life and family. These
articles which are written as spoof columns by the author serve
the purpose of providing a verisimilitude forcing the reader into
believing the information that they give. Having drawn his
reader's attention and creating a verisimilitude with the help of
these columns, Tharoor builds the edifice of his novel through
an interior monologue - an excerpt from Katharine Hart's diary
dated October ninth of the same year. Though quite
embarrassing and indecent, making one feel uneasy at the

210
thought of being a peeping Tom, yet a reading of this section is
quite illuminating as it reveals a lot about Priscilla's mother
Katharine's life. While remembering her past family life
especially her daughter's qualities Katharine makes her disdain
for male chauvinism quite evident and by comparing her life as
an individual before and after her divorce from Rudyard Hart,
she emerges as a feminist believing in equality of all kinds
between husband and wife. The extent of her frustration
consequent to her subordination to Mr. Hart before their
divorce is clearly noticeable when she writes:

How ... many flights, transfers, holidays, my

passport and ticket always with him, even my
boarding card: he was the man, the head of
the family, he held the travel documents. And
when it was all over, that was among the
many rights I had regained, the right to be
myself on an airline. Not an appendage, not a
wife, not Mrs. Rudyard Hart, no longer
waiting for him to pass me the newspaper
when he'd finished it, no longer having to see
the look of irritated long - suffering when I
disturbed him to go to the washroom, or
asked him to catch the stewardess's attention
to get something for the kids. (6)

She further expresses her abhorrence of her ex - husband

Rudyard by writing, "In the seat next to me sits my monstrous
ex-husband", in her diary as they flew to India. (7) This interior
monologue also reveals Katharine's attachment with her
children. Remembering her daughter Priscilla, she remarks:

211
 Priscilla with the baby blue eyes and the look
of trusting innocence with which she greeted
the world, Priscilla with her golden skin, her
golden smile that lit up the eyes of anyone
she was with. Priscilla with her idealisnri, her
earnestness, her determination to do some
good in the world. Priscilla who hated her
father because of what he had done to me ...
There was nothing arrogant or petulant about
Priscilla, not even when she was upset about
some flagrant injustice. She was just a good
human being... (7)

An important source of details regarding Priscilla Hart's

relations with her parents, Mrs. Hart's interior monologue gives
an unambiguous picture of the Hart family- not only its present
but also its past. Tharoor alludes to the significance and
complexities of all such personal and private narratives when
he says:

Of course, immense complexities are created

when you are intruding into someone else's
story. The key is to remember that what we
share is important but you can never ignore
what is different.^"

Having introduced certain essential parameters of

Priscilla's family, in the fifth fragment, the author furthers the
structure of the novel with the help of a cable sent by the
American office of the New York Journal to one of its
correspondents, Randy Diggs, in Delhi. This Introduces the
media as an important character in the novel Riot, as Randy
Diggs is asked to probe the events leading to Priscilla's murder

212
during a riot, and also to accompany her parents to Zaiilgarh in
order to write a detailed article on the death of the American
expatriate.
The reader is given a brief but precise portrayal of the
Harts through the impressions recorded by Randy DIggs in his
notebook. Written on the tenth of October 1989, when Diggs
received the Harts at the Delhi airport, this short narrative
explicates the feelings of superiority held by the Americans vis
a vis Indians, actually the denizens of the Third W o r l d . Tharcor
once again quotes Diggs giving evidence of a similar attitude
later on in the novel:

God, what a dump. The heat. The dust. The

flies. The shit. The crowds. You name it,
Zaiilgarh has it. Every horrific western cliche
about India turns out to be true. (17)

Priscilla's relations with Shankar Das, the project Director

of HELP - US at Zaiilgarh, and the major concerns of the
programme she worked for, are revealed by Tharoor in the
transcript of the conversation between the Harts and Mr. Das
during their meeting at the latter's office. Her attitude towards
the small town in Uttar Pradesh with all its complexities and her
sincerity for her work, find expression in Priscilla's scrapbook
on the 25th of December 1988, titled 'Christmas at Zaiilgarh.'
Her words, "Give me strength. Oh Lord to make things change.
Give me the time to make a difference," make her
untimely death both pathetic as well as ironic. (16)
Priscilla's letters to her friend Cindy Valeriani and
excerpts from her scrapbook form another highlight of the
novel. It is through these that Tharoor is able to go beyond
factual details about the tragedy and reconstruct her emotional
life. Her scrapbook that she always carried with her, and

213
maintained as a personal diary, gives us a vivid sketch of the
idealism that brought her to that isolated small town, her
passion for her job, the love and interest of her life, the secret
rendezvous with Lakshman - her paramour, and the uncertainty
along with the agony she experienced . Priscilia's letters to her
friend and confidante are similarly vocal about such personal
and private aspects of her life.
Cindy Valeriani is the only person with whom Priscilla
shared her feelings for Lakshman - the District Magistrate of
Zaiilgarh. Enraptured by the South Indian bureaucrat in the
backward town of Zaiilgarh, Priscilla confesses in one of her
letters to Cindy;

Until I met Lakshman, and talked and

connected with his kindred spirit, and said
goodnight, I found myself flooded with the
sense that I was missing something so bad I
could taste it. Something I'd taught myself not
to miss ....Companionship. I could find it with
him, I think. (21)

After her first meeting with Lakshman, Priscilla makes it a

point to write in detail about every rendezvous that they have in
her scrapbook and excerpts from the latter show the evolution
of their relationship from a casual friendship to a passionate
affair. While every letter from Priscilla to Cindy was an
expression of the love and excitement she experienced at the
very thought of Lakshman, the author does not give us any clue
about Cindy and her reactions. Thus.although elevated to the
status of the 'omniscient reader' ironically we remain in the
dark about Cindy's credentials, whereabouts and feelings.
Besides discussing her love life in the letters, Priscilla
also deliberates upon the contemporary social issues of the

214
Indian society, in her letters to Cindy. Issues such as women
empowerment, the lives of the poor, the bureaucratic system,
belligerence between the Hindu and the Muslim fanatics and
also her experiences at work that force her to remark,
"Population-control awareness seems more of a misnomer to
me," find expression in these letters . (171)
Tharoor has also used a random but meticulous
representation of the story with the help of transcripts from the
journals written by Lakshman. These excerpts not only mirror
his personality, his likes, dislikes and obsessions in life but
also express his passionate love for Prisciila and his
deliberations upon his married life and family. Unaware of the
fact that despite being 'Lakshman' himself with a six year old
daughter called 'Rekha', he had crossed his own ' Lakshman-
Rekha', Lakshman forsakes his morals, his scruples and his
principles simply to seek excitement in the love he receives
from an American girl whom he ultimately betrays. Tharoor
portrays the dilemmas that Lakshman persistently experiences
both in his interior monologues as well as in his conversations
with Gurinder Singh, the Superintendent of Police, and Prisciila
herself. With emotions vacillating between a young foreigner's
love, having no obligations - personal or professional - and the
love_joJ_a six year old daughter and her mother, not to speak of
the obligations of his profession, Lakshman undergoes an
ejD 01 i o n a I an d-D.s,vc.hi31 o q leal l u r.b,u I e.n.c e. A helpless slave to his

passionate dejsJtes,, he„finds himself incapable to remain

sincere to his faithful wife and loving child. Although guilty, he
indulges in the immoral act repeatedly and even considers
abandoning his world in India so as to go to America with
Prisciila. It is this ebb and flow of his thoughts and emotions
that Tharoor exquisitely portrays in the excerpts and poems
from his journals.

215
 Randy Diggs's notebook is also used by Tharoor to give
an unbiased account of the story. During his sojourn at
Zaiilgarh, Diggs with the intention of gaining more information
about the riot meets Ram Charan Gupta, the local Hindu
leader, and Professor Sarwar, a Muslim historian. He further
meets Lakshman, the District Magistrate and Gurinder Singh,
the Superintendent of Police of Zaiilgarh. The conversations
recorded by him in his notebook are adequate clues to the
simmering hostility between the Hindus and the Muslims and
the bureaucratic attitude towards thejcojTijmu.naLprobl.ems„Jn
India.
Further excerpts from Katharine Hart's diary reveal the
doubts that she has regarding her daughter's death, which is
considered to be a consequence of a communal riot. Although
she is never able to know the truth about Priscilla's murder, as
she is only aware of the official account, yet having talked to
Lakshman she senses Prisciila's relations with him. Another
pertinent account that one finds in her diary is the account of
the local hospital of Zaiilgarh, where she met Kadambari's
sister, suffering from major burns.
All the above discussed transcripts and excerpts from the
diaries and notebooks of various characters, that move the
story along the evidences of written information, are reinforced
by the verbal evidence in the form of conversations and
dialogues between various characters, the most important ones
being those between Lakshman and Priscilla.
These small fragments comprising spoof columns,
excerpts from notebooks, and scrapbooks, etc. accompanied by
dialogues and conversations between characters are small
narratives randomly presented, defying the strict succession of
events. Manju Roy writes: "Tzvetan Todorov also reiterates that
strict succession [of events] can only be found in stories with a
single line or even with a single character. He further illustrates

216
that the minute there is more than one character, events may
become simultaneous and the story is often multi-linear rather
than uni-linear."^^ While analyzing Riot, Deloris T. Ament
observes: "Riot slips back and forth in time, before and after
the murder.... Although Priscilla was murdered on 30th
September, 1989 yet the narration of the story not only goes
back into the distant past but also takes a short excursion into
the future."^^
Thus surfacing as a loose plot, Tharoor's Riot emerges as
a complicatedly narrated simple story by its characters. Having
replaced the omniscient narrator, all these character-narrators,
attempt to put together the events that might have led to
Priscilla's death. One witnesses a first person narrative when
introduced to each one of these characters who endeavour to
relate the event from his/her own point of view. Subsequently,
the novel is replete with diverse testimonies regarding the
same event. Evidently, Tharoor has successfully used this ploy
of multiple narrators to underline the multiplicity of perception
concerning a single subject at the same time in Riot: A Novel.
A postmodern perspective of the contemporary female
world is traceable in Tharoor's elucidation of the diversified
lives of various female characters in the novel. The description
of the occidental female view-points in the persons of Katharine
Hart and Priscilla Hart, accompanied by the detailed accounts
of the Oriental women like Geetha, Kadambari, Fatima Bi and
Sundari, highlight that social reality is lived social relations -
our most important political construction. Donna Haraway
asserts that "the 'vyomen's experience' constructed by the
International Women's 'movement' is a fiction and a fact of the
most crucial and political kind."^'' In Riot, by blending the social
and political experiences of his female characters, Tharoor has
created a 'cyborg', a socio-political hybrid, further affirming
Haraway's contention that "a cyborg is a matter of fiction and

217
lived experience that changes what counts as women's
experience in the late twentieth century."^°
Thus Shashi Tharoor has beautifully presented a love
story, a powerful social commentary and a broad historical
analysis all put together by his smart writing skills in Riot. His
extensive erudition, combined with his impressive command
over language and the styles of writing, make Riot: A Novel an
exemplary piece of literary fiction. Essentially an
experimentalist in the field of creating fiction, Shashi Tharoor
envisages a multiplicity of stories in Riot, thus defying the
normative linearity of story telling, and adhering to the
postmodern idea of inconclusiveness and indeterminacy. He
uses multiple narrators so as to provide diverse yet
simultaneous perspectives in the novel, thus highlighting the
unknowability of truth and the ironic vulnerability of history.
Presenting bits and pieces of the latter, in a fragmented and
chaotic narration, that is clearly characterized by postmodern
features such as 'pastiche', 'irony', 'electicism', 'rhizomaticism'
and 'simulation', Tharoor leaves an indelible impression of his
postmodern penchant in Riot. Sharpness and brevity also
characterize the novel with an illustrative consistency, in spite
of its thematic variety.

Thus representing different themes and diverse

colonial/postcolonial perspectives through his stand-in, rather
quintessential characters, Shashi Tharoor gives a postmodern
portrayal of the postcolonial scenario in Riot. While his
technique is entirely postmodern, the themes and issues of his
book highlight the contenT^porary postcolonial society,
explicating diverse themes specifically feminist and communal.
While a feminist perception of the novel surfaces as a potent
reminder of the colonization of women during the postcolonial
times, a postcolonial analysis of the novel foregrounds the
proliferation of exploitation/colonization by both the west and

218
the east, the men and the women, of everyone and everything
that constitutes the weal< and the innocent- the 'other'.
Simultaneously, the communalism and the fanaticism described
by Tharoor in Riot, portrays the violent and riotous environs of
the Indian society as a consequential after-math of the British
colonialism stretching more than half a century into its post
colonial existence. Thus consistently arresting the reader's
attention, Tharoor's Riot emerges as a consummate example of
postcolonialism that is presented through postmodernism.

219
 Notes

^ Sandip Roy - Chowdhury, "Love in the Time of Riots,"

rev. of Riot: A Novel, by Siiashi Tharoor, India Currents,
October 2 0 0 1 .
^ Manju Roy, "The Grammar of Narration in Riot: A
Scholarly Discussion," 8 Dec. 2002, <http://www.
shashitharoor.com/reviev\/s/riot/riot-grammer.html>.
^ Shashi Tharoor, Riot: A Novel (Nev\/ Delhi: Penguin
Books India, 2001) 170. Subsequent references are to this
edition and are parenthetically incorporated in the text.
" Gayatri Chakravaroty Spivak, In Other Worlds: Essays
in Cultural Politics (New York: Routledge, 1987) 136.
^ Aijaz Ahmed, "The Politics of Literary Postcoloniality",
Race and Class 36.3 (1995) 9.
^ Dennis Walder, Postcolonial Literatures in English:
History Language 7/?eory (Maiden: Blackwell, 1998) 79.
^ Ama Ata Aidoo, "That Capacious Topic: Gender
Politics", Critical Fictions, ed., Phill Mariani, (Seattle: Bay
Press, 1991) 152.
^ Gyan Prakash, "Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial
Criticism", The American Historical Review 99 (1994) 1475.
^ Susan G. Cole, "Riot Act." 22 July 2005 <http://www
.shashitharoor.com/reviews/riot/riot-act.html>.
^° Susan G. Cole.
^^ Susan G. Cole.
""^ Manju Roy.
^^ Chowdhury.
^'' Chowdhury.
^^ Glen Ward, Postmodernism (London: Hodder
Education, 1997) 48.
^^ Steven Connor, Postmodernist Culture (1989) 90.

220
 ^'' Jean Francois Lyotard, "Narrative, Knowledge,
Representation", Postmodernism and the Contemporary Novel,
ed. Bran Nicol (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002)
73.
^^ Roland Barthes, "The Death of the Author", Modern
Criticism and Theory: A Reader, ed. David Lodge and Nigel
Wood (India: Pearson Education, 2005) 168.
^^ Barthes 167.
^° Manju Roy.
^^ Manju Roy.
^^ Manju Roy.
^^ Harry Kreisler, "In Conversation with Shashi Tharoor,"
10 April 2003 <http: //www. shashitharoor.
com/interviews/berkeley.htiT\l>.
^"^Susan G. Cole.
^^ Manju Roy.
^^ Deloris Tarzan Ament, "Passion Politics Entwined in
Novel of a Complex India", The Seattle Times, 23, 2001 (April
10, 2003, Internet).
^^ Donna Haraway, "A Manifestation for Cyborgs: Science,
Technology and Socialist feminism in the 1980s",
Postmodernism and the Contemporary Novel: A Reader, ed.
Bran Nicol (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd., 2002)
396.
^^ Donna Haraway 396.

221