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@article{185715,
        author = {Venitha and Dr. K. Mohan},
        title = {Fractured Allegiances: The Individual and Democratic Ideals in Nayantara Sahgal’s Rich Like Us},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {5},
        pages = {4208-4210},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=185715},
        abstract = {Rich Like Us by Nayantara Sahgal is a devastating questioning incident of the connection between individuals and democracy in one of the most perilous political eras in the history of India the Emergency (1975-77). The novel, through its twin leads, Rose and Sonali, discusses the theme of agency lost in the process of authoritarian governance and how the same affects not just the political system in place, but equally the morality and psychology of the lives that are adverse to it. This paper explores how Rich Like Us criticizes how a democratic principle is being abused in post- colonial India and that the personal struggles of the characters in the story are those who reflect the institutional rot in India. The novel ends up becoming the newfound place of the democratic ideals freedom, justice, equality, which are challenged by the lived experiences of the key characters of the novel. Another theme that comes out in this analysis is how Sahgal employs narrative structure and changing points of view to emphasize the disintegration of truth that prevails in a politically interfered world. This mixture of the personal and the political, the novel is able to show how institutional oppression makes dissent unheard and moral sense corrupt. Rich Like Us is therefore a critique of the particular historical turn, and at the same time, a reflection upon how prone democracy is to the onslaught of authoritarianism.},
        keywords = {Democratic ideals, Freedom, Individuals and Struggles.},
        month = {November},
        }