Nayantara Sahgal, one of India’s foremost post-independence writers, portrays the complex intersections of gender, politics, and identity in her fiction. Her novels reveal how women, despite being educated and socially privileged, remain victims of emotional repression and patriarchal silencing. The phrase “mutilated voice” symbolizes the psychological, moral, and social constraints that deform women’s self-expression within male-dominated structures. In novels such as This Time of Morning (1965), Storm in Chandigarh (1969), The Day in Shadow (1971), and A Situation in New Delhi (1977), Sahgal explores the inner conflicts of women who are trapped between personal desire and social conformity. Through characters like Rashmi, Saroj, and Simrit, Sahgal presents the Indian woman’s struggle for identity, dignity, and moral autonomy. The domestic sphere becomes a microcosm of the larger political world, where power and control suppress individual freedom. Yet, within this suppression lies the seed of rebellion — a gradual awakening of consciousness that transforms silence into resistance. Thus, the paper examines how Sahgal reclaims the mutilated female voice as a symbol of self-realization, moral courage, and the quest for liberation in a postcolonia
Shanlax Journals (Thu,) studied this question.