Abstract
In this chapter, I argue that while Kanthapura can certainly be read as a national allegory, moments of doubt also complicate the seamlessness of the allegory, offering a more complex relationship of the novel to political thought than is usually assumed in postcolonial criticism. Attention to the moments where the Gandhian message fails or is unconvincing becomes equally important as reading for a dominant ideology. These moments allow us to offer alternatives to the dominant way in which not only Kanthapura, but much Indian fiction, is read and taught. Comparing the novel to a more recent work, Uday Prakash’s 2005 Hindi novella Mohandas, it is suggested that both texts might open up new possibilities for reading postcolonial fiction beyond allegory.
