A Study of Marginalized Characters in Urdu Fiction in the Perspective of Subaltern Studies

Abstract

This research explores the representation of marginalized characters in Urdu fiction through the theoretical framework of Subaltern Studies. The study aims to examine how Urdu fiction reflects the voices, experiences, struggles, and resistance of socially, politically, culturally, and economically oppressed groups that remain excluded from dominant historical and literary narratives. Subaltern Studies, developed primarily by Ranajit Guha and later expanded by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and other postcolonial theorists, focuses on those communities whose identities and experiences are suppressed by structures of power and authority.

Urdu fiction, particularly the modern short story and novel, provides a rich space for the portrayal of marginalized individuals such as peasants, laborers, women, migrants, lower classes, religious minorities, and other socially excluded communities. This study analyzes selected fictional works of prominent Urdu writers including Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chughtai, Abdullah Hussain, Intizar Hussain, and Khadija Mastur to investigate how subaltern consciousness is represented in their narratives. The research also examines the relationship between power, language, identity, and resistance within literary discourse.

The paper argues that Urdu fiction not only depicts the sufferings of marginalized groups but also presents their hidden forms of resistance, agency, and struggle for identity. Through realistic, symbolic, and psychological techniques, Urdu writers challenge dominant ideologies and expose social inequalities embedded within society. The study further highlights how fiction becomes an alternative historical document that records the voices often ignored by official history and elite-centered narratives.

This research concludes that Subaltern Studies offers an important critical approach for understanding the deeper socio-political dimensions of Urdu fiction. It also establishes that Urdu literature serves as a powerful medium for articulating the realities of marginalized communities and questioning systems of oppression and exclusion.