The Arena of the Colony: Phoolan Devi and Postcolonial Critique

Abstract

In February 1994, a woman of legendary status, Phoolan Devi, was released from prison in the full glare of the media of the Indian nation. Phoolan Devi's larger-than-life image is that of a victim of caste oppression and gender exploitation, who fought back first by resorting to acts of revenge and later by moving on to the political plane. In order to locate the debate on the Bandit Queen in the context of feminist postcolonial studies, a brief survey is required of the most pertinent aspects that have emerged from this discipline. Postcolonialism makes a plea for the interrogation of the concepts of culture and identity. In the colonial discourse these concepts function mainly as a western tool for dominating, exploiting and silencing other histories and traditions. Postcolonial theory's major intervention in cultural critique is to account for the political in the aesthetic system of representation at a global level.