THE IMPACT OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION AND POWER DYNAMICS ON PERSONAL DIGNITY, FREEDOM, AND IDENTITY, AS PORTRAYED BY NADEEM ASLAM’S GOLDEN LEGEND

Abstract

This work uses a literary analysis of Nadeem Aslam’s The Golden Legend to investigate the relationship between the corruption of politics and power dynamics and personal dignity, freedom, and identity. In Pakistan, how political corruption combines with religious extremism marginalizes already vulnerable groups, especially religious minorities, is explored. The study employs Hebrew ontologies and critical works from Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, Anderson’s notion of ‘imagined communities’ and Frantz Fanon to demonstrate the degradation of dignity, isolation of freedom and inversion of identity in corrupt system. The novel by Aslam is used as a case study to explore the wider socio-political impact of corruption and authoritarianism in authoritarian regimes and undemocratic regimes. Finally, the paper concludes by suggesting that social impacts of political corruption on marginalized people matter for oneself and therefore deserves further investigation in other cultural and literary contexts.