Looking at the Past: Refiguration of History in Girish Karnad’s The Dreams of Tipu Sultan

Abstract

To review and revise history and to present it in an
imaginative form is one of the challenges taken up by South-Asian
historical theatre. However writing back to the empire poses many
problems, the foremost of the danger of hegemonic re-construction which
ultimately leads to an inversion of the power structure (through
replacement or substitution) without making a genuine effort to engage
with the colonial/western perspective along with its tools of erasure and
overwriting. Such a text, ultimately written as a rebuttal, without trying
to delve into the very process by which the colonial version of history is
created, indirectly legitimizes its perspective. Taking Girish Karnad’s
The Dreams of Tipu Sultan I explore how South-Asian theatre not only
deals with the politics of representation questioning euro-centric
conceptions of objectivity and authenticity by decentering colonial
version of history but also deconstructs historiography by challenging
the dichotomy between fact and fiction and most importantly questioning
the nature of historical truth itself. .