Mapping Male Power and Fragility: Representation of Masculinity in Khushwant Singh's Delhi: A Novel

Journal of Research and Development Peer Reviewed International, Open Access Journal. ISSN : 2230-9578 | Website: https://jrdrvb.org Volume-17, Issue-10(IV)| October2025 131 Mapping Male Power and Fragility: Representation of Masculinity in Khushwant Singh’s Delhi: A Novel Nandkumar Bhandari Department of English, Arts, Commerce and Science College, Satral Emailnandkumar343[email protected]m Manuscript ID: JRD -2025-171033 ISSN: 2230-9578 Volume 17 Issue 10(IV) Pp. 131-134 October 2025 Submitted: 29 Sept. 2025 Revised: 15 Oct. 2025 Accepted: 20 Oct. 2025 Published: 31 Oct. 2025 Abstract This paper analyses how Khushwant Singh’s Delhi: A Novel depicts the changing faces of masculinity across different moments in history. Moving through centuries of Delhi’s evolution, the novel interlinks together political conflict, sexual desire and spiritual longing to show how power and vulnerability coexist within male experience. Singh’s men, emperors, rebels, saints and storytellers, embody the frail balance between power and reliance. Sketching on R. W. Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity, Michael Kimmel’s concept of crisis in manhood, and Judith Butler’s theory of gender performance, this study examines how male identity in Delhi is bound to the structures of caste, nation and authority. The male figures, from Mughal emperors to modern politicians, show a cycle of control and collapse: power maintained through aggression but haunted by guilt and loss. The narrator himself becomes a symbol of the postcolonial man who is torn between lust and loneliness, pride and self-mockery. Finally, Delhi deconstructs masculinity not as a native truth but as a fragile, shifting performance, enlightening the emotional costs of patriarchy and history. KeywordsKhushwant Singh, Delhi: A Novel, masculinity, hegemony, manhood, male identity, deconstruction Introduction Khushwant Singh’s Delhi: A Novel (1990) occupies a place of the intersection of history, memory and moral inquiry. Spanning several centuries, from the Delhi Sultanate to the modern nation-state, it offers a panoramic exploration of how the city and its men evolve through violence, power and desire. Singh interlaces personal confession with political narrative, using an unnamed narrator who journeys through Delhi’s splendour and decay. Through this shifting voice, the novel examines how male identity in India is continuously reconstructed in relation to time, class, religion and authority. The narrator functions as both participant and observer: pessimistic, witty, yet profoundly aware of loss. His encounters with emperors, beggars, soldiers and courtesans foreground a crisis of masculinity. Each male character performs strength publicly while concealing anxiety privately. The novel therefore becomes a psychological as well as historical record of manhood. Masculinity in Singh’s image is not fixed; it changes with context and power relations. The study interprets this instability through Connell’s hierarchy of masculinities, Kimmel’s “relentless test” of manhood, and Butler’s argument that gender must be enacted repeatedly to appear real. Within Singh’s narrative, violence and sexuality become significant aspects through which men search for authority but also expose their vulnerability. This paper examines how Singh’s Delhi: A Novel redefines masculinity as a moral and emotional condition rather than simply a social role. By exploring the movement from imperial dignity to postcolonial cynicism, Singh shows that power, when exposed of empathy, leads to isolation. His novel transforms the history of Delhi into a symbol for the deconstruction and exhaustion of Indian manhood. Quick Response Code: Website: https://jrdrvb.org/ DOI: Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work noncommercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations ae licensed under the idential terms. Address for correspondence: Nandkumar Bhandari, Department of English, Arts, Commerce and Science College, Satral How to cite this article: Nandkumar Bhandari, (2025) Mapping Male Power and Fragility: Representation of Masculinity in Khushwant Singh’s Delhi: A Novel, Journal Research & Development,17(10(IV)), 131-134 Original Article Journal of Research and Development Peer Reviewed International, Open Access Journal. ISSN : 2230-9578 | Website: https://jrdrvb.org Volume-17, Issue-10(IV)| October2025 132 Literature Review Much of the research on Khushwant Singh’s works focuses on his treatment of history, sexuality, and secularism, but his complex idea of masculinity has received little attention.Scholars like Meenakshi Mukherjee and C. D. Narasimhaiah have clarified Singh’s use of realism and historical irony but did not address gender directly. Later researchers, including Sangeeta Mittal and Smita Kulkarni, have begun to examine how Delhi humanises male power by linking it to moral fatigue and desire. Within masculinity studies, R. W. Connell’s Masculinities and her essay Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept remain foundational. Connell defines masculinity as a hierarchy sustained through the subordination of women and of less dominant men. Michael Kimmel’s Manhood in America and his essay Masculinity as Homophobia further contextualise male identity as a constant test against fear and failure. Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble contributes the idea of performativity, suggesting that gender is produced through repeated social acts rather than biological certainty.Similarly, Indian scholars such as Ashis Nandy in The Intimate Enemy, and Sanjay Srivastava in his Constructing Post-Colonial India, broaden these theories into postcolonial contexts, arguing that colonial power reshaped Indian manhood by internalising Western ideals of control and restraint. Singh’s fiction reflects this legacy: his narrator’s obsession with strength and shame reflects the alienated psyche of postcolonial masculinity.This review therefore identifies a gap: while critics recognise Singh’s historical irony and sexual luster, they rarely combine him with the broader discourse of masculinity studies. The present research situates Delhi: A Novel within that theoretical framework, interpreting it as both a narrative of power and an structure of male vulnerability. Theoretical Framework This study uses an interdisciplinary framework that combines Western masculinity theories with Indian postcolonial thought. The approach is qualitative and interpretive, analysing textual representation, narrative structure and psychological tension within Khushwant Singh’s Delhi: A Novel. Masculinity is treated not as a fundamental attribute but as a performative, historical and moral construct expressed through social behaviour and literary form. R. W. Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity provides the foundation. Connell defines it as the dominant configuration of male practice that legitimises patriarchy and subordinates alternative masculinities. Her model allows an understanding of how power circulates among men as well as between genders. Michael Kimmel’s idea of the crisis of masculinity complements this by identifying the anxiety produced when traditional privileges erode under modern pressures. Kimmel observes that masculinity functions as “a relentless test” requiring constant proof of competence (150) Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity contributes another interpretive dimension. Butler argues that gender identities are produced through repeated acts that create the illusion of stability (34). This concept clarifies the novel’s portrayal of male roles as ritualised and unstable performances.To locate these ideas in the Indian context, the paper draws upon Ashis Nandy’s The Intimate Enemy, which explains how colonialism reshaped Indian masculinity by equating power with control and emotional restraint. Postcolonial men, in Nandy’s view, inherited a divided psyche, admiring Western rationalism yet desire for native intimacy and moral depth. Through close textual reading, this paper applies these frameworks to identify how Singh represents masculinity as both performance and predicament. The methodology is interpretive rather than statistical, seeking meaning through literary evidence, intertextual reference and psychological insight. Discussion Khushwant Singh’s reconstruction of Delhi’s violent past reveals the intimate bond between masculinity and colonial power. Across the novel, rulers exhibit their authority through invasion, discipline and power, acts that mirror Connell’s “culturally exalted” masculine ideal (832). Every regime, from the Mughals to the British, asserts control through military spectacle and moral hierarchy. Timur’s invasion, Nadir Shah’s massacre and the Mughal court’s ceremonial order exemplify how violence becomes the language of male authority. Singh strips away the greatness of kingship, showing that under public victory lies fear. Power depends on suppression; once submission ends, identity falters. Nadir Shah’s inability to control his anger dramatises Kimmel’s “relentless test” of manhood, victory cannot silence insecurity.Through irony, Singh contrasts colonial splendour with ordinary suffering. The beggar and the emperor, though socially distant, share the same affective rhythm: patience, pride and disgrace. Masculinity, whether dignified or indigent, emerges as a historical performance sustained by fear of weakness. Butler’s idea that gender must be “enacted repeatedly to appear real” (34) brings out these cycles of affirmation and deconstruct. Delhi itself becomes a metaphor of violated body, a feminine landscape conquered and abandoned. “History is written in blood and the scars never heal” (45) epitomises the cost of this masculine quest for immortality. Singh’s portrayal of ruin converts empire into allegory: masculinity, like power, is transitory, built on delusion and intended to deconstruct.Singh then shifts from the public theatre of empire to the private world of desire. The narrator’s relationship with Bhagmati, hijada (used by Singh) a sex worker, serves as the novel’s most major exploration of gender and power. Bhagmati exists outside binary categories, embodying both rejection and resilience. Her presence destabilises the narrator’s notion of manhood, revealing dependency where dominance was expected. The narrator’s desire fluctuates between affection and shame. His attachment exposes the tension between masculine control and emotional need. As Stephen Whitehead observes, Journal of Research and Development Peer Reviewed International, Open Access Journal. ISSN : 2230-9578 | Website: https://jrdrvb.org Volume-17, Issue-10(IV)| October2025 133 “shame gathers around need; asking for help is coded as humiliation” (13). Singh transforms this psychological truth into narrative form: the narrator’s body becomes the site where love, guilt and identity unite. Bhagmati’s laughter dismantles masculine pride. She survives scorn and poverty through humour and endurance, traits that re-define strength. Butler’s performativity clarifies her insubordination: she performs gender through survival, not traditional values. For the narrator, intimacy with her becomes a moral education. The colonial and patriarchal hierarchies that shaped his self-image collapse in the face of her bold humanity. Ashis Nandy’s claim that colonialism “colonizes minds in addition to bodies” (7) echoes throughout this section. The narrator’s guilt and self-mockery reflect the internalisation of Western and patriarchal standards of purity. Bhagmati’s fluid identity liberates him from these inherited constraints. Through sexuality, Singh exposes the false boundary between strength and tenderness. The body, long treated as sinful or political, becomes a source of wisdom. “The body has its own wisdom; it teaches what the mind refuses to learn” (213) summarises the novel’s moral insight. In the modern segments of Delhi, the narrator embodies the disillusioned postcolonial man, educated, ironic and weary. He wanders through the city’s chaos, chronicling its corruption and decay. Kimmel’s theory of masculine crisis clarifies his predicament: in a world where traditional privileges have eroded, manhood becomes a performance of control without conviction. Historical events such as Partition, the Emergency and the riots after Indira Gandhi’s assassination expose the instability of male authority. Men kill in the name of honour and faith, yet their actions reveal fear rather than strength. Singh connects this modern violence to traditional colonial patterns, showing that the desire for dominance simply changed costume. Nandy’s idea of psychological colonisation explains the narrator’s divided mind. He measures himself against Western rationality and fails and then mocks his own failure through irony. Jeff Hearn’s description of the “public man”, visible yet emotionally absent (1), captures his state. He jokes about faith and politics because belief itself has become suspect. His humour is survival, not detachment. However, Singh’s irony is sympathetic. The narrator’s self-awareness, though bitter, becomes a form of courage. By admitting confusion, he reclaims legitimacy. Delhi’s ruins mirror his emotional landscape: broken yet enduring. Through him, Singh replaces the heroic nationalist male with a reflective, human one, imperfect, aging and honest. Connell’s concept of “multiple masculinities” (837) helps locate him within a spectrum rather than a hierarchy. He is one among many possible men, defined not by conquest but by consciousness. Key observation and analyses The analysis of Delhi: A Novel demonstrates that Singh constructs masculinity as a changing field rather than a fixed essence. Across its historical, sexual, and post-colonial layers, male identity is repeatedly shown to depend on performance, approval and fear of loss. Three aspects were emerged from this narrative: 1. From the emperors to the modern narrator, Singh represents the flow of power and anxiety in masculinity. Each historical episode reproduces the same pattern—assertion followed by exhaustion. 2. The relationship between the narrator and Bhagmati reveals the body as a moral text. Singh converts the physical body into a site of truth. Desire exposes the limits of masculine control and reveals the need for empathy, aligning with Butler’s and Nandy’s insights that liberation begins with self-recognition. 3. The Post-colonial transforms the hero into a witness. Power gives way to reflection; irony replaces conquest. In admitting vulnerability, Singh’s narrator represents an ethical masculinity grounded in honesty rather than dominance. These analyses extend earlier readings of Singh’s fiction by situating it within global masculinity studies. They show how his narrative bridges Western theoretical frameworks and Indian socio-historical realities, presenting the male subject as both agent and victim of patriarchy. Conclusion Khushwant Singh’s Delhi: A Novel reinterprets masculinity through a thoughtful blend of satire, historical reflection and empathy. The novel narrows the gap between ruler and subject, between the proud image of masculinity and the settle down truth of human openness. Singh’s narrative reveals that strength and weakness are not opposites but knotted elements of the same experience. Acts of authority, desire and loyalty emerge as recurring expressions of a deeper human urge, the yearning to be acknowledged, remembered and valued. In Delhi, men are portrayed not as the makers of history but as its creations. They are formed by empires, faiths and shifting moral orders. Singh’s male figures, kings, soldiers, saints, and wanderers, show how ambition, belief and affection all voice the same search for permanence. Through their journeys, he discloses how the quest for power often conceals fear, grief and emotional emptiness. Singh’s satire is perceptive yet compassionate. He ridicules human stupidity without denying its pain. His humour strips away the false pride of patriarchy and reveals its moral loss, the loss of empathy and balance. In depicting men caught between command and insecurity, Singh turns Delhi’s vast history into a mirror of masculine fragility. The novel finally suggests that real strength is found not in control but in self-awareness and the courage to accept one’s vulnerability. Journal of Research and Development Peer Reviewed International, Open Access Journal. ISSN : 2230-9578 | Website: https://jrdrvb.org Volume-17, Issue-10(IV)| October2025 134 Works Cited 1. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 1990. 2. Connell, R. W. Masculinities. 2nd ed., University of California Press, 2005. 3. Connell, R. W., and James W. Messerschmidt. “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept.” Gender and Society, vol. 19, no. 6, 2005, pp. 829–859. 4. Hearn, Jeff. The Gender of Oppression: Men, Masculinity and the Critique of Marxism. Wheatsheaf Books, 1987. 5. Kimmel, Michael S. Manhood in America: A Cultural History. Free Press, 1996. 6. Kimmel, Michael S. “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity.” Theorizing Masculinities, edited by Harry Brod and Michael Kaufman, Sage Publications, 1994, pp. 119–141. 7. 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