Modernism and the Birth of Divided Subjectivity in Postcolonial India: A Study of Muktibodh (1917–1964)

This essay is an exploration into the nature of modernism in the works of Muktibodh (1917–1964), the most influential Marxist Hindi poet in postcolonial India, and one of the founders of modernism in Hindi poetry. It argues that the advent of modernism led to the emergence of the poet as a figure of divided subjectivity. This development had its origin in the simultaneous grounding of the poet in two different, competing, and conflicting intellectual legacies—western and Indie. Significantly, this historical phenomenon of divided subjectivity may be reflective not just of the poet, but of postcolonial India as a whole.