A GLIMPSE INTO AFGHANISTAN THROUGH SYED MUJTABA ALI’S ‘DESHE BIDESHE’: AN INDIAN VOYAGER'S INSIGHTFUL LENS

The depiction of the Afghan identity in the face of foreign colonial forces and internal turmoil is both stimulating and demanding, since it does not seek to demystify or categorise like colonial works that strive to understand the Oriental. The individual's colonised awareness finds a reason to rejoice in the autonomous Afghan, enabling us to examine his work as a postcolonial piece of literature. Justine D. Edwards and Rune Graulund argue that postcolonial travel writing challenges both the authority of colonial powers in shaping reality and the connection between travel and dominance.

They assert this in their book "Postcolonial Travel Writing: Critical Explorations" (3). Hence, although Robert Byron's travelogue "The Road to Oxiana" (1937), which was written a few years after Ali's visit, presents Afghanistan as a historical artefact in need of British safeguarding, an account of Afghanistan by a colonised Indian criticises the connection between travel and domination and aims to foster a dialogue between southern regions, driven by the aspiration for regional cooperation.