RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE IN THE NOVELS OF NAYANTARA SAHGAL (Pages 42-49) by Ms. Haseena Palagiri in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

Literary writing has been considered a male domain since long and a patriarchal privilege. The contribution of womens’ writing has been ignored, excluded, submerged and dismissed on the ground that they were concerned with a limited world of experience because they were more confined to their domestic duties and liabilities. Political and religious doctrines have been responsible for assigning the womens’ writing a place of subordination and labeling them as less rational and less intellectual than the work of men. The last four decades have witnessed the emergence of womens’ writing. A Woman is no longer merely a muse or an idealized inspiration for a male writer. Instead the woman herself is a creator and an imaginative being who has come of age and is beginning to question and assess her position in the social framework. Nayantara has broken the stereotype thinking of women writing womens’ themes. Her work needs to be placed simultaneously in several genres as it has a unique inbuilt multiplicity. Several threads like socio-political backdrop of the country, an individual’s quest for identity, man-woman relationships, and east-west encounter, pre-occupation with Hindus and Hinduism .A variety of perspectives run through her texts and transform them into definite subtexts acquiring their own identity and recognition. The present paper attempts to explore the discourses on religion embedded in the various novels of Nayantara Sahgal.simultaneously in several genres as it has a unique inbuilt multiplicity. Several threads like socio-political backdrop of the country, an individual’s quest for identity, man-woman relationships, and east-west encounter, pre-occupation with Hindus and Hinduism .A variety of perspectives run through her texts and transform them into definite subtexts acquiring their own identity and recognition. The present paper attempts to explore the discourses on religion embedded in the various novels of Nayantara Sahgal.Keywords: Woman’s writing, Religion, discourse, perspectives,