Post colonial analysis of The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

"You lived intensely with others, only to have them disappear overnight, since the shadow class was condemned to movement. The men left for other jobs, towns, got deported, returned home, changed names. Sometimes someone came popping around a corner again, or on the subway then they vanished again. Addresses, phone numbers did not hold. The emptiness Biju felt returned to him over and over..”
― Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss 

Kiran Desai is the daughter of a well know Indian author, Anita Desai. She is well known for her book The Inheritance of loss. The Inheritance of Loss is her second novel which was first published in 2006. This book has many post colonial elements such as migration, alienation, identity loss, national identity (minority) and separatism.

Set in the north-eastern state of Kalimpong in 1980, this novel is diaspora post colonial text. Most of the characters are displace from their native land and undergo a sense of loss.  They try to make this displace place their home but fail to do so. Migration is essential component in Kiran Desai’s novel. Due to this Diaspora a person faces identity crises. With no place to call their own, the characters Biju, Sai and J Patel have no identity at all.  Colonialism not only destroyed their native culture but impelled them to follow theirs. Biju tries his best to adjust in America but is unable to do so. Colonized cannot adopt the culture of the West and lose their own just facing a loss if identity. Jemubhai Patel’s identity mimics the Europeans. Bhabha defines ‘mimicry’ as the process by which the colonized subject is reproduced as ‘almost the same, but not quite.  Patel tries to live the way Europeans lived.
Migration does not only bring one kind of loss but it also causes identity loss and alienation. Characters like Sai, Gyan Biju all experience alienation.  Sai and Gyan faces this due to Gorkha Movement while Biju because he is an illegal American immigrant. Thus these characters experience confusion, trauma and a sense of loss.

Kiran Desai also brings in the concept of separatism by showing the effects of Gorkha movement on Gyan. Such moments that emerged after end of colonization created a negative impact on citizen as it not only created a psychological “loss” but also a physical one, changing their life entirely. The Inheritance of Loss shows cracks in a postcolonial nation. Gyan represents the minority community Colonization never stops after colonies are free, the effect of colonization remains till the end. The minority never gets recognized even after the nation is independent. They get more sidelined and this creates a sense of double loss- loss of identity because of colonialism and loss of identity because they are not represented in the nation even after independence.

 Desai has carefully and creatively bought out the impact of colonialism and post colonialism by travelling back and forth in time and by elaborating through her characters physical and psychological trauma they go through.