Unhousement To Rehousement : A Cultural Encounter, Ethnicity To Identity In The Novels of Bharati Mukherjee

Abstract

In the European countries the groups of migrants are called “minority” and “cultural minority” and are considered as a part of “Pluralism”, “cultural?Pluralism” and “multicuralism.” When a group is socially marginal in comparison to the majority host culture, it is called a “minority group.” The term ethnic has been placed as prefix before the name of the community such as ethnic Indians, ethnic truks and so on. In literature Ethnicity works as an identity phenomenon meaning the search for self. It defines social boundary of the ethnic groups and develops a strategy of acquiring the resources one needs to survive. The diasporic force which emerges from identity formation becomes ethnicity. Ethnicity becomes an important concern as one shift one’s location and becomes a member of minority community in an alien land. In the novels of Bharati Mukherjee all the female protagonists suffer from the politics of ethnicity and identity. In her novels she describes an immigrant woman is at once made conscious of her difference in term of color, race, and gender. A life cycle model of ethnic conflict is also analyze various stages of ethnic conflict with state should be handled on the priority basis. If state fails to resolve conflict the reformation of nationality of a particular ethnic group creates serious unrest and threat to the process of nation building.