Subaltern Silencing in Megha Majumdar’s A Burning: A Critical Re-Reading of Jivan’s Marginalization

Abstract

In recent years, contemporary South Asian fiction has increasingly foregrounded questions of voice, marginalization, and state power; within this context, Megha Majumdar’s A Burning (2020) offers a compelling narrative of subaltern silencing in a neoliberal, digitally mediated society. Against this background, the present study critically re-reads the marginalization of Jivan, a poor Muslim woman whose attempt at political expression leads to criminalization and erasure. Accordingly, the primary objective of this research is to examine how intersecting structures of class, gender, religion, media discourse, and state authority operate to silence subaltern voices, while also assessing whether meaningful forms of resistance are possible within such hegemonic frameworks. To achieve these objectives, the study adopts a qualitative, interpretive methodology grounded in close textual analysis and informed by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s theory of the subaltern, supplemented by insights from postcolonial feminism and discourse theory. The findings reveal that Jivan’s silencing is systematic rather than incidental, produced through overlapping mechanisms of economic precocity, gendered violence, communal othering, judicial coercion, and digital surveillance. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates that subaltern speech—particularly when articulated through social media—is not merely ignored but actively re-coded as threat and sedition. Consequently, while moments of resistance and agency do emerge in fragmented and symbolic forms, they remain structurally constrained and ultimately ineffective. In conclusion, the study affirms Spivak’s central thesis that the subaltern may speak but cannot be heard within dominant epistemic and institutional structures without distortion or suppression. Therefore, the paper recommends a critical rethinking of narratives surrounding free speech, digital democracy, and justice in contemporary societies, and calls for further interdisciplinary research that bridges literary studies with media studies, surveillance theory, and human rights discourse to better understand and challenge ongoing practices of subaltern silencing.