Circulation of Power and Construction of Identity: Reconfiguring Cultural Exigency and Populism in Aravind Adiga’s Last Man in Tower

Abstract

This paper quite strategically maps out the range, flow and nature of power structure where the force of power taking its shift from one group to another implies its omnipresent nature. The novel Last Man in Tower showing the exigency of identity and culture in the post-colonial background focuses on the growth and radical development of communalism and commercialism that consume the value and importance of individualism. On the other hand, the novel emphasises on the praxis of popular culture in the framework of power circulation in metropolitan cum cosmopolitan cities showing the universal crux of cultural presentation in the age of globalization. Adiga believes that the popular culture does not belong to any cultural industry, but to the people; it is produced from within, not imposed by capitalism. The popular culture with its deterioration and development at its peak in a discourse of power politics touches every sphere of life.