Emerging Forces of Internal Colonialism in Chhuden Kabimo’s Urmaal

Abstract

Background: Chhuden Kabimo, in his novel Urmaal (2024), portrays the long-standing problems of landlessness, marginalization, and everyday struggles for survival experienced by tea plantation workers in India's Dooars region. The novel reveals that the tea plantation workers remained dispossessed of land rights from the colonial period into the postcolonial era, as the tea plantation management system continued to operate under colonial structures and practices.

Methods: This literary study employs close textual analysis of Urmaal, supported by translated textual evidence, contextual interpretation, and theoretical framework of internal colonialism to examine the continuity of colonial power structures in post-colonial society.

Results: The analysis reveals that Urmaal represents internal colonialism through continuous landlessness, political manipulation, labor exploitation, and the use of normalization techniques against the suffering among indigenous and Nepali workers in the tea plantation area. The novel demonstrates how colonial policies persisted through internal colonial structures after national independence.

Conclusion: The study concludes that colonial domination did not end with national independence but was perpetuated in altered forms as internal colonialism. It argues that, to decolonize genuinely, there should be structural and cultural transformation, not merely formal liberation from colonial rule.

Novelty: This study offers a new reading of Urmaal by interpreting it through the framework of internal colonialism, demonstrating how literary narratives expose the continuity of colonial power relations in post-colonial India and contribute to critical scholarship on Indian Nepali literature.