The Nature of the Struggle: Internal Decay in Tughlaq vs. Imperial Threat in Khuangchera

Lalrinngheta; Zomuani Cherpoot

The Nature of the Struggle: Internal Decay in Tughlaq vs. Imperial Threat in Khuangchera

Author(s)	Lalrinngheta, Dr. Zomuani Cherpoot
Country	India
Abstract	This article reads Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq (1964) and Dr. Laltluangliana Khiangte’s Pasalṭha Khuangchera (1997; English translation 2024) as two historical tragedies whose dramatic energies issue from opposite directions. In Tughlaq, the antagonist is interior: the ruler’s own intellect, ambition, and unsteady idealism corrode the kingdom from within. In Khuangchera, the antagonist is exterior: the British colonial machine presses upon a small hill polity from outside, and the protagonist’s tragedy unfolds as a defence of land, kin, and culture. Using Aristotle’s account of tragic action as a starting point, and drawing on Edward Said’s analysis of colonial representation and Frantz Fanon’s account of anti-colonial resistance, this study argues that the two plays demand different theoretical instruments for adequate reading. The article reads closely the scenes of disintegration in Tughlaq — the murdered Sheikh, the failed copper coinage, the abandonment of Delhi — alongside the moments of confrontation in Khuangchera — Captain Browne’s reckoning at Sailianpuia’s court, Khuangchera’s farewell, and the final battle. It concludes that the two plays, taken together, offer a fuller account of what tragic struggle can mean in modern Indian drama than either provides alone, and that the field of comparative tragic studies stands to gain from reading them in conjunction.
Keywords	Indian drama, tragedy, postcolonial theatre, Girish Karnad, Laltluangliana Khiangte, Tughlaq, Pasalṭha Khuangchera, historical play, colonialism, Aristotle, Said, Fanon.
Discipline	Other
Published In	Volume 4, Issue 3, May-June 2026
Published On	2026-06-14

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The Nature of the Struggle: Internal Decay in Tughlaq vs. Imperial Threat in Khuangchera

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