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The logics of colonialism employ various apparatuses to maintain the status quo of power relations. Postcolonial texts resist these colonial efforts at ideological "interpellation." However, this resistance often degenerates into essential ism and demands return to a mythical precolon ial past, rejecting any form of hybridity as mimicries of the colonizer. Rimi B. Chatterjee's Signal Red (2005) employs an sf framework to challenge such essentialism in the context of rising Hindu fundamentalism in India. This article argues that unlike postcolonial fictions written in more naturalistic modes, the sf framework allows Signal Red access to more critical devices such as futuristic extrapolations and literalizing metaphors. Along with critiquing the fundamentalist trend, these devices let the novel indicate the deeply hybrid nature of the Indian nation and of Indian sf through a double dialectic between the West and the East and between hybridity and indigenism.
RIMI B. CHATTERJEE'S SIGNAL RED UNRAVELS THE SOCIO-POLITICAL PROBLEMS of postcolonial India through the framework of a future dystopia and critiques the fundamentalist trends that may lead the nation towards a totalitarian future. However, I argue, unlike postcolonial fictions written in more naturalistic modes, the science fictional (sf) framework allows Signal Red access to more critical devices such as futuristic extrapolations and literalizing metaphors. Along with critiquing the fundamentalist trend, these devices let the novel indicate the deeply hybrid nature of the Indian nation and of Indian sf through a double dialectic between the West and the East and between hybridity and indigenism. This article shows that only such a dialectical force as present in Signal Red can articulate the real possibilities of the postcolonial future. The logic of colonialism employs various cultural and punitive apparatuses to create an environment conducive to the maintenance of the status quo of power relations. Postcolonial discourses attempt to resist these colonial ideologies of domination. Sometimes this resistance takes the form of an e ssenti al ism that demands total decolonization and a return to a mythical and organic pre colo nial past, rejecting any form of hybridity as mimicry of the colonizer. Such resistance also entails essentializing and celebrating racial characteristics. But, like any other form of es senti ali sm, this approach often degenerates into provincialism and ultimately falls back on the...