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This article applies a Marxist reading of selected folktales of Vijaydan Detha’s oeuvre of Rajasthani folktales. The folktales selected include “Aasmaan Jogi”, “New Birth”, “Power”, “Lajwanti”, “The Dilemma”, and “Press the Sap, Light the Lamp”. The present article draws on the theoretical framework of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, especially their concept of false consciousness, class struggle, ideology, base and superstructure, commodity fetishism, and alienation. The article argues that Vijaydan Detha’s folktales are a repository of Rajasthani oral tradition and present a sharp social critique of the patriarchal, feudal, and bourgeois structure of power. Subaltern voices such as women, thieves, ghosts, potters, peasant women, and farmers’ shared experience in feudal and patriarchal structures are taken into consideration. Through subaltern discourse, he dismantles the mechanism by which dominant classes maintain hegemony, discloses how ideology naturalises exploitation and unveils how resistance erupts from marginalised communities. Thus, the article also contends that he presents a counter-hegemonic position, asserting the voice of the oppressed and excluded. The argument is that his folk-narratives are not merely means of entertainment but also serve the purpose of subaltern perspective on the social world, challenging the dominance of caste and class hierarchy while celebrating and asserting the agency of the downtrodden.
Mr. Rajesh Kumar, Dr. Seema Sharma. “Social Critique and Subaltern Perspectives in Vijaydan Detha’s Folk Tales: A Marxist Analysis of Class, Power, and Resistance in Selected Tales.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 3, June 2026, pp. 163-176. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n3.12.
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