A History of the Future: Time-Travel, Technology, Dystopia, and Postcolonial Anxiety in Vandana Singh’s “Delhi”

The paper examines postcolonial concerns arising in and through the science fiction, “Delhi,” by Vandana Singh as the author consciously deviates from generic conventions of the structures of Western science fiction. We argue that the protagonist in “Delhi” could be viewed as a postcolonial subject experiencing alienation and powerlessness. The character‟s postcolonial subjectivity is traced through Singh‟s manipulations of western science fiction tropes vis-à-vis time-travel, technology, dystopia, and narrative techniques. Using „abrogation‟ and „appropriation‟ (Ashcroft, Griffiths & Tiffin, 1989), and Ricoeur‟s Time and Narrative (1988), the paper analyses how postcolonial elements are foregrounded. It also examines the larger implications of engaging in a postcolonial reading of a science fiction text produced from a technologically developing Indian context