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B. Problem Formulation
This study will be based on answering three definite problems, which are: 1.
How does the Indian value system preoccupy` Indian identity? 2.
How does the British India military system rearticulate colonial discourses?
3. How does Arjun re-negotiate his Indian rootedness, or Self, after
participating himself in the British Indian Army?
C. Objectives of the Study
This study has three objectives. Its first aim is to provide a thorough analysis on how the society of India conceives a presumption of Indian identity.
Secondly, this study aims to understand how British Indian military system, underlying all mechanism in the British India Army, rearticulates colonial
discourses. Finally, the third objectives is to scrutinize how Arjun re-negotiates his ‘Indian identity’, or Self, after participating in the British Indian Army..
D. Definition of Terms
Sepoy , Persian name for ‘soldier’, was formerly designated for an Indian
soldier. British sepoy, then, is a name referred to the native Indian who fight for and trained by British Army Mason, 1974: 5. Sepoy specifically refers to the
rank of Infantry Private in the British military system. It has been initiated into use in the forces of the British East India Company, which has established the first
British settlement of British dominion in the eighteenth-century. After India
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joined the British Commonwealth, sepoys have constituted the majority in British Indian Army.
In this study, the phrase ‘identity re-negotiation’ is derived from an understanding from Homi Bhabha’s book The Location of Culture 1994. Instead
of thinking that culture and difference is pre-given, Bhabha states that from the minority perspective, difference is an “on-going negotiation that seeks to
authorize cultural hybridities that emerge in moments of historical transformation” Bhabha, 2004: 2. So, we can infer that identity re-negotiation is
a process of authorization of cultural hybridities signified by emerging difference, which is unique in postcolonial context. The prefix ‘re-‘ implies that Arjun has
twice negotiated his identity: once in becoming like an ‘Englishman’, and twice when he manages to rediscover his Indian Self.
The term ‘postcolonial’ which is used in this study will relate to what John Mcleod has defined in Beginning Postcolonialism 2000:
“...we will be thinking about postcolonialism not just in term of strict historical periodisation, but as referring to disparate forms of
representation, reading practices and values. These can circulate across
the barrier between colonial rule and national independence” Mcleod, 2000:5.
Mcleod’s definition makes a certain framework that Arjun as the character in The Glass Palace,
though still lives under British domination and sovereignty, will be analyzed and criticized as an embodiment of postcolonial values.
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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE
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