Constructing the self and “discovering” India: Abala Basu’s travelogues for children

Abstract

ABSTRACT In Abala Basu’s travelogues for children, published in the journal Mukul and based on her travels across India and Europe, the author appears to be performing the dual task of disseminating knowledge and creating an image of the nation. Travel, employed in this way, becomes a tool of both education and politics where retelling the past serves both purposes equally. Within the broader context of the development of travel writing and nationalism, this article focuses on Abala Basu’s travelogues about India to seek an answer to how Indians were constructing and representing themselves and the nation to children through travel writing. It is by studying landscapes produced by the writing as well as images accompanying the text through the lens of gender, religion, and class that this article deals with the questions of construction, representation, and “discovery”.