The spatial and temporal location of more than half of The Inheritance of Loss (2006) is Kalimpong and the period of Gorkhaland agitation in the 1980s. It is against the backdrop of a historical momentous event in the Darjeeling hills that the story of the retired Judge, Sai and Gyan unfolds. However, in the fabric of the story, history seems to serve a marginal purpose, merely providing the spatio-temporal coordinates for the development and dénouement of a love story. This paper proposes to critically examine the depiction of history in this novel in order to critique the author's treatment of a historical event as a function in the story, ignoring its independent importance in the political history of India and its impact on the everyday lives of the people involved in it. Also, a selective treatment of history leads to a stereotyping of India, where inane violence and rabble rousing demagogues lead the country to dogs. This paper argues that history is an organic entity that needs to be understood and absorbed first, before using it to further the plot of a novel as Desai does.

The Inheritance of Loss ([IL] 2006) is situated in Kalimpong, a town in the district of Darjeeling in the state of West Bengal in India. The period in which it is set is the 1980s when an ethnic movement for a separate state of Gorkhaland for Indian Nepali citizens engulfed the lives of the people of north Bengal for twenty-eight months. This movement failed to achieve its goal and the Gorkha National Liberation Front, the political party which spearheaded the agitation, settled for the much less effective Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council which gave only limited autonomy, both legal and political, to the hill district. This minor achievement came at great cost: widespread loss of life and property, violence perpetrated in a sort of a near-civil-war situation, draconian measures clamped down on the local populace by state agencies and an almost complete cancellation of civil liberties and fundamental rights. A thriving economy—based primarily on local and international tourism—was wiped out. In choosing this momentous period as a backdrop for her novel, Kiran Desai does not appear to delve into the origin and cause(s) of the movement, or the development of events, or the short and long term ramifications of it. Rather, her depiction of it seems limited only to creating a general atmosphere of violence and unnecessary disturbance. The following extracts from the novel illustrate this:

Recently a series of strikes and processions had indicated growing political discontent. And now a three-day strike and a raasta roko roadblock endeavor were postponed because of the weather. What was the point of preventing rations from getting through if they weren't getting through anyway? How to force offices to close when they were going to remain closed? How to shut down streets when the streets had gone? Even the main road into Kalimpong from Teesta Bazaar had simply slipped off the incline and lay in pieces down in the gorge below. (IL, 107)

Commonwealth Literature Journal, Gorkhaland Agitation, Gorkha National Liberation, International Tourism, Gorkhaland Movement, Indian English Fiction, Political Movement, Indian-Nepali Insurgency, Commonwealth Countries, Social Responsibilities, Historical Errors.