Fiction as Resistance: Arundhati Roy’s Vision of an Unjust India

Abstract

Arundhati Roy’s novels exemplify the transformative potential of literature as political resistance. Through The God of Small Things (1997) and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017), Arundhati constructs fiction that questions the moral failures of contemporary India, where caste hierarchy, gendered oppression, religious fundamentalism and persecution, and state violence perpetuate structural injustice and oppression. Roy's fiction refuses to isolate the aesthetic from the ethical; instead, they transform storytelling into an act of defiance. This paper analyzes Roy’s novels through a postcolonial and feminist lens to expose how narrative form, language, and character embodiment become tools of dissent. The analysis elaborates that Roy’s fiction destabilizes hegemonic discourses and reclaims the silenced voices of India’s marginalized communities. Ultimately, the study concludes that Roy’s work establishes fiction as an ethical space of resistance, where empathy, love, and imagination become powerful tools against systemic injustice.