Kaleidoscope : An Interdisciplinary Journal
of Humanities and Social Sciences

Current Issue

Volume II Issue i (July 2026)

Contents

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Introspecting India’s Linguistic Federalism: Identity, Territory and the Limits of State Action

Mr. Pritin Dutta

Kaleidoscope: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol. II, Issue i, July 2026, Page: 1-17 Download PDF

Abstract: India’s linguistic federalism implies the remapping of internal boundaries to accommodate the demands for federal self-determination of different linguistic groups. But the formation of linguistic state could eliminate the presence of linguistic minorities. This research paper aims to evaluate the role of language as a marker of identity in the accommodation of diversity in federal state-making and unmaking in India. It will examine the role of democracy and multiculturalism in strengthening the very process of linguistic federalism. It seeks to identify the limits of territorial determinism in such an accommodation as well. This research paper is both normative and exploratory. It is based on the analytical studies of primary sources, including reports, recommendations, data of several governmental committees and commissions, and political documents such as party reports and election manifestos of the Indian National Congress and regional parties set up on linguistic lines; secondary data viz. books, journal articles, etc. The history of federal exercise in India has remained a subject of considerable debate. This research paper has broadly three research findings: i) Indian federalism is basically territorial. Non-territorial groups (dispersed ethnolinguistic groups) remain underrepresented in the federal scene; ii) geographical congruity has been determined only on the basis of linguistic majorities while voices of linguistic minorities have gone unheard; iii) India’s identity question instigates a tug-of-war between plural monoculturalism and multiculturalism. This research paper seeks to examine the Indian federal system in depth to identify the limits of territoriality in accommodating linguistic diversity. It would be relevant in particular to the scholars of federal studies and policymakers.

Keywords: Linguistic federalism, federal self-determination, linguistic minorities, democracy, multiculturalism, territorial determinism

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A Case Study of False Information Literacy

Dr. Elizabeth Zak

Kaleidoscope: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol. II, Issue i, July 2026, Page: 18-29 Download PDF

Abstract: An increasing presence of misinformation in all forms of media highlights the necessity for a deeper understanding of false information literacy as a concept within information literacy research. This study evaluates an example of false information literacy, tracing the initial exposure to misinformation, the evaluation of the misinformation using information literacy techniques, and the reinforcement of and dissemination of misinformation. Furthermore, this study interrogates the use of source credibility as a justification for belief in misinformation. This case study contributes to ongoing research on the distortion of information literacy practices to believe in and spread misinformation. More research into false information literacy and its real-world implications is necessary.

Keywords: false information literacy, information literacy, misinformation

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Esotericism in Transition: Cultural Memory and Moral Economies in North Malabar

Mr. Ahammed Saneer

Kaleidoscope: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol. II, Issue i, July 2026, Page: 30-42 Download PDF

Abstract: This paper discusses the transformation of esoteric practices in North Malabar, particularly the shifting forms of ritual expertise, traditions in talismans, kinship-based power, and the rise of pseudo-esoteric fraud. Based on anthropological conceptualizations of ritual, material culture, and disenchantment, the paper places Islamic talismanic practices (“asmā, taʿwiz”) and Hindu māṭṭa in a historical and pluralistic regional context. The analysis holds that esoteric practices do not exist as static survivals but rather, they are adaptive systems that are embedded in cultural memory, kinship systems and moral economies. Simultaneously, state regulation processes, biomedical rationality, and digital mediation help in demystifying and remystifying these traditions. Through a combination of the use of ethnographic knowledge and the use of specific field-based observations of the North Malabar–Kasaragod region the paper has shown that the erosion of lineage-based authority has facilitated the introduction of commodified and decontextualized ritual practices. They are not viewed as a mere erosion of tradition, but as a reconfiguration of ritual authority in the new social, economic and technological circumstances.

Keywords: esotericism, North Malabar, cultural memory, ritual economy, māṭṭa, taʿwiz, remystification

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Language, Loss, and the Lacanian Lack: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Jon Fosse

Ms. Kashish Gera, Dr. Shilpa Phadnis 

Kaleidoscope: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol. II, Issue i, July 2026, Page: 43-60 Download PDF

Abstract: To voice the unutterable, Jon Fosse employs a minimalist aesthetic that functions not merely as a stylistic exercise but as a formal enactment of the breakdown of the Lacanian Symbolic order. This research examines how Fosse’s specific syntactic choices— characterised by hypnotic repetition and the absence of conventional punctuation— stage a crisis of signification in which traumatic loss remains trapped in "the Real," inaccessible to the structures of language. By focusing on Aliss at the Fire and Trilogy, this study demonstrates how Fosse’s prose formally reproduces the temporal distortions and the psychic afterlife of trauma as theorised by Jacques Lacan and Cathy Caruth.

In Aliss at the Fire, the narrative employs “free indirect vision” and long, unpunctuated sentences to blur the distinction between past and present, mirroring the protagonist Signe’s suspended state in a melancholic relationship to her husband’s disappearance. The text’s refusal of using period acts as a formal analogue for the absence of mourning, where the traumatic "Real" persists through unassimilated, spectral repetitions. Similarly, Trilogy investigates the instability of identity through the lovers' attempts at nominal transformation, ultimately illustrating the Lacanian insight that the subject is perpetually alienated within the pre-existing network of the Symbolic order. The "syntax of suspension" in these works enacts a desperate drive toward a fusion that remains structurally out of reach, as language itself inaugurates a primordial lack that can never be filled. Ultimately, this analysis posits that Fosse’s formal innovations do not merely invite psychoanalytic interpretation but constitute a rigorous mode of psychoanalytic thinking that implicates the reader in the very experience of linguistic failure.

Keywords: Jacques Lacan, Trauma Theory, Minimalism, The Lack, Melancholy

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The Agency of Things in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children

Dr. Richa Joshi Pandey

Kaleidoscope: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol. II, Issue i, July 2026, Page: 61-69 Download PDF

Abstract: The current paper examines Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children in terms of the narrator-subject’s negotiation with things. The paper reads Rushdie’s novel through the lens of Bill Brown’s “Thing Theory”, to re-negotiate the material underpinnings of displacement and memory. Objects as things interrupt, constitute, mediate, and regulate personal and collective history. The things of memory interact with each other as excessive manifestations of threatening otherness. Additionally, the novel’s use of unreliable narration is an illustration of the subject’s acknowledgement of the narrator’s uneasy and challenging, yet necessary encounter with objects as things.

Keywords: Thing Theory, Objects, Things, Thing/Object Dialectic

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The Discourses of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita in Mahatma Gandhi’s Philosophy

Dr. Suchandra Neogi

Kaleidoscope: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol. II, Issue i, July 2026, Page: 70-78 Download PDF

Abstract: Gandhi was a great Karmayogi. His life was profoundly influenced by the sacred text, the Srimad Bhagavad Gita (hereafter, the Gita). Through the discourses and teachings of the Gita, he discovered the true purpose of existence and gained a deeper understanding of life. He thought of the Gita as a dictionary with all the answers to moral questions written inside. Gandhi believed that the Kurukshetra War was a conflict between two forces within each of us, one constructive and the other bad, rather than a historical conflict. The main characters of the Mahabharata are also metaphorical manifestations. According to him, the Gita's greatest lesson is to work without attachment. Gandhi did not work for his own gain, making him a true Karmayogi. He was not concerned for the outcome. The Gita gave Gandhi the idea of a Sthitaprajna. Gandhi asserts that a staid or Sthitaprajna individual lacks desire. He is, of course, free from all forms of worldly desires.  Once more, the notion of a devotee had an impact on Gandhi. According to him, a devotee should be resolute and not envious. Gandhi also borrowed from the Gita the concepts of Satyagraha, non-violence, love, and welfare, which he applied to everyday issues, be they moral, political, or personal. Gandhi believed the Gita’s motto was ahimsa. It is initiative of Anasakti. Gandhi saw Ahimsa as the means to the end and anasakti as the ultimate aim. Gandhi's primary goal was to emancipate himself from all constraints by pursuing a religious path. Gandhi learned that religion may be applied to everyday life from the Gita. The proposed paper seeks to examine the influence of the Gita on Gandhi by exploring how its core principles of anasakti, Ahimsa, satyagraha, and karmoyoga shaped his spiritual, moral, social, and political vision.

Keywords: Gita, Religion, Ahimsa, Devotee, Karmayogi, Non-violence

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