Title: The socio-economic marginalisation of the depressed in Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance: an analytical study

Authors: Sri Sakuntala Sanagavarapu; Mutyala Suresh; Rajani H. Pillai; A. Ibemcha Chanu; Sidar Atalay Şimşek

Addresses: School of Sciences, Malla Reddy University, Hyderabad, India ' Koneru Lakshmaiah Educational Foundation (KLEF), Guntur, India ' School of Commerce, Mount Carmel College, Autonomous, Bengaluru, India ' Department of Commerce, Bodoland University, Kokrajhar, India ' Batman University, Yenişehir Mahallesi Batman Üniversitesi Batıraman, Kampüsü 72000 Merkez 72, 060 Batman Merkez/Batman, Türkiye

Abstract: This paper explores how the fabricated social structure during the 1940s and 1950s, and the imposition of an emergency by the Indian government during the 1970s aggravated the wretched living conditions of the downtrodden in Rohinton Mistry's novel, A Fine Balance. Our research question is "is the socio-economic marginalisation of the Dalits dealt with by the author objectively?" The study's objectives are: 1) to study/analyse the problems of the Dalits depicted in the novel; 2) to closely investigate and analyse the plot and characterisation of significant characters in the then contemporary history; 3) to analyse how the social marginalisation and the economic marginalisation victimising the oppressed are dialectically related. We use a qualitative analysis conducted within the theoretical framework of cultural materialism according to which social, cultural, political and economic institutions mutually interact.

Keywords: socio-political turmoil; religious dogma; Dalits; political tyranny; bureaucracy; fiction; Rohinton Mistry; India; economics; marginalisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPEE.2025.150358

International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, 2025 Vol.15 No.4, pp.330 - 344

Accepted: 01 Jun 2025
Published online: 10 Dec 2025 *

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