Decolonising the Margins: How Two Writers Used Language as Resistance
What happens when two writers, from two corners of the world, use language not just to tell stories but to reclaim identity?
This is the shared legacy of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan literary giant, and Anilchandra Thakur, the multilingual voice of rural Bihar. Despite their geographic distance, both authors turned away from dominant literary languages—English and standard Hindi—to embrace the tongues of their people. Their reason?
Language is memory. Language is power.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: From English to Kikuyu
Ngũgĩ started as a novelist in English but shifted to Kikuyu, his native tongue, in a radical act of literary rebellion. In his seminal essays, Decolonising the Mind, he argued that colonial powers didn’t just take African lands—they captured African minds through language. For Ngũgĩ, to write in Kikuyu was to return the gift of imagination to the people who truly lived it.
His novel Devil on the Cross is more than a story—it’s a revolution in prose. Performed and read in Kikuyu, it brings literature back to the villages, to oral traditions, to community.
Anilchandra Thakur: Rooted in the Soil of Bihar
Thousands of kilometers away, Anilchandra Thakur was doing something similar. Writing in Hindi, Maithili, Angika, and English, he focused not on Delhi or Mumbai, but on Katihar, Bihar. His characters were laborers, potters, abandoned women—the forgotten voices of Indian literature.
Through his handwritten magazine Subah, Thakur preserved stories that mainstream publishers ignored. He wrote for people around him, in the language they lived and dreamt in. For him, literature was not just about aesthetics. It was about access and dignity.
Where Their Worlds Meet
Both authors:
Chose language as a weapon against cultural erasure.
Centered marginalized communities in their stories.
Created non-commercial, people-powered platforms (oral theatre for Ngũgĩ, handwritten magazine for Thakur).
| Theme | Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o | Anilchandra Thakur |
|---|---|---|
| Language Shift | English ➔ Kikuyu | Urban Hindi/English ➔ Maithili, Angika |
| Platform | Oral storytelling, local theatre | Handwritten magazine (Subah) |
| Audience | Rural Kenyan communities | Rural Bihari communities |
| Goal | Cultural reclamation | Social dignity and literary access |
Why It Still Matters Today
In a world that privileges English and "standard" tongues, we risk silencing millions who speak in dialects, slangs, or non-dominant languages. The works of Ngũgĩ and Thakur remind us that every language holds a universe.
They show us: Literature isn’t global because it’s in English. It’s global because it speaks to the soul.
So whether you're a writer, a reader, or a teacher—pause to ask:
What language do my stories need to be told in?
Because maybe, just maybe, your mother tongue isn't a limitation. It's the revolution.
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