FROM SILENCE TO SUBJECTIVITY: REVISIONIST MYTHMAKING AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF SITA IN MODERN INDIAN ENGLISH FICTION

Abstract

At the centre of the Ramayana stands Sita, a figure long received as the embodiment of virtue, endurance, and silent strength. The image is familiar, almost unquestioned. And yet, when her story is revisited through contemporary literary engagements, something begins to shift. Not dramatically, not all at once but enough to introduce a certain unease. There is presence, certainly, but also a quiet absence that becomes difficult to ignore: her interior voice remains only partially heard. It is this absence that the present inquiry turns toward. Modern Indian English fiction, particularly within the framework of revisionist mythmaking, does not seek to erase the archetype. Instead, it returns to it more slowly, more attentively. In texts such as The Forest of Enchantments, The Liberation of Sita, Sita: Warrior of Mithila, and The Missing Queen, the narrative does not break away from the epic; it leans into it. And in doing so, something subtle begins to change. The centre of the story shifts almost imperceptibly. What once remained at the margins begins to move inward. Through first-person narration, moments of psychological interiority, and even deliberate silences, Sita’s presence acquires a different texture. She is no longer only acted upon; she begins to think, to question, to respond. And with that, the narrative itself seems to loosen. The transformation does not announce itself loudly. It accumulates. It appears in fragments in pauses, in hesitations, in moments where thought seems to gather before it is spoken. What changes is not only Sita’s character, but the reader’s position in relation to the text. The epic no longer feels entirely fixed; it opens, inviting a different kind of attention one that listens as much to what is unsaid as to what is expressed. Revisionist mythmaking, then, does not operate through rupture. It does not discard tradition; it returns to it. But it returns differently. It creates a space of dialogue where inherited meanings are not fixed, but revisited. Within this space, voices that once remained muted begin to emerge, not suddenly, but gradually, through shifts in perception. And perhaps this is where the significance of these retellings resides.