Oppression and Retaliation: A Study of Prem Chand’s Resignation and K.S. Duggal’s The Masters

Basic human rights get denied very often. To expose the denial of human rights,literature is used effectively The storiesResignation by Prem Chand and The Masters by K.S.Duggal represent the whole of India and portray struggles from the pre-independence era tothe contemporary struggles against terrorism in the border states of India.Resignation andThe Masters show how the feudal mode of power which is invested in one group leads toinhuman treatment of the powerless. The stories focus the pre-independence days. Theprotagonists of the stories- the Indian office clerk under the British Sahib during colonialtimes and the common man struggling under the Zamindari system are presented in a contextwhen they cannot but retaliate. The marginalized groups are distanced from the powercentres. The position of the authority changes when the system changes. The protagonists aremotivated to retaliate in different ways. The short storiesResignation and The Masters areindeed an eye-opener to the struggles of the subalter