Raag Darbari as a Story of Corruption: A New Historicist Reading

Abstract

Shrilal Shukla’s Raag Darbari (1968) is one of the most influential political satires in Hindi literature, acclaimed for exposing the rot within the Indian bureaucratic and political system. Written by an IAS officer who was deeply familiar with the machinery of state power, the novel depicts how corruption permeates rural life through political opportunism, caste politics, bureaucratic inertia and educational decay. Unlike the idealistic narratives of post-independence India, Raag Darbari portrays a grassroots disillusionment with Nehruvian progress. Using a New Historicist approach, this paper situates Raag Darbari within its socio-political context and analyses it as a corruption narrative constructed around four central pillars—bureaucracy, education, politics and cooperation. By comparing the failures of Nehru’s vision of “Newness” with the realities of Shivpalganj, this study reveals how literature becomes a mirror to the crumbling ethos of governance in postcolonial India.