Political overtones and Allusions in Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Published in 2017, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is the second novel of famous Indian author, and Booker Prize winner, Arundhati Roy. The novel can be seen to have two parts where the first half of the novel is a bildungsroman of Anjum (a hermaphrodite), set in the old city of Delhi while the second half is the story of Tilottama, Naga and Musa spanning Kashmir insurgency. The novel engages in many political and social incidents that have occurred in India and other parts of the world at the backdrop of its story. It is full of allusions to many political figures, political issues, events, and incidents that have occurred in the past few decades in India and around the world. The present paper attempts to examine the political overtones implicit in the novel by decoding and explaining few significant allusions used in the novel.