Globalizing the Ramayana: The Role of the Indian Diaspora in Shaping Bharat's Cultural Identity in Kaikeyi.

This paper studies how the Indian diaspora helps shape and share Bharat’s cultural identity across the world through a close reading of Vaishnavi Patel’s Kaikeyi (2022), a modern feminist retelling of the ancient Indian epic, the Ramayana. Written by an Indian-American author, the novel shows how writers living outside India reinterpret traditional stories to address present-day issues such as gender, power, identity, and cultural memory in a global context. The paper explains how Kaikeyi helps take Indian mythological heritage to international readers and how such diasporic writing acts as a form of cultural soft power by connecting Indian traditions with global audiences. By presenting Kaikeyi as a strong and thoughtful character, Patel challenges the traditional, male-centered version of the epic and offers a new perspective that reflects modern ideas of equality and social justice. The study also highlights how the novel keeps a link with India’s mythic past while reshaping it for a modern, worldwide readership, showing the important role of the diaspora in preserving, reinterpreting, and spreading Bharat’s cultural identity in the global literary world.