Marginalization and Victimization in Omair Ahmad’s novel Jimmy the Terrorist: An Appraisal

Abstract

Persecution of Muslims in India is widespread and can be located within the daily microaggressions that this population faces as well as in more deliberate political ideologies. Muslims are targeted, rounded up, brutalized and killed. Vast numbers of Muslims are today faced with the painful dilemmas in the wake of mounting Islamophobia and increasing anti-Muslim prejudice, on the one hand, and radicalism and hatred in the name of Islam, on the other. Till about a couple of decades ago, Indian fiction in English carefully avoided the more unpleasant socio-political realities of the day. Many writers have either given a cursory look at this issue or the depiction of Muslim marginalization and victimization has been contracted to a single page in the literary narratives. An attempt has been made in this paper to show how Omair Ahmad in his novel has portrayed the plight of the Muslim community in Indian society in a realistic way which make him stand out from the rest of the Indian novelists writing in English.