Theories 

Far too often, reading experiences are reduced to labels. One should not read something because it is good 'postcolonial' or 'feminist' literature, but simply because it is good literature. However, having said that, it can be interesting, enlightning, and academically fruitful to employ different types of reading and approaches to texts. These may highlight nuances and reveal layers you had not thought of before.

Firstly, you need to be introduced to three different theories that can be used within the frame of literary theory: Imagined Communities, Orientalism, and Postcolonial Theory.

Literary theories can help the reader understand literature, as all literary criticism draws on theories. Literary theory can also be called 'cultural theory' as it basically contains theories about society and people intertwined with philosophy and psychology, which in turn can help us to interpret literature. 

Below you can also read about Postcolonial Criticism which basically explores the relationship between the coloniser and the colonised.

Source: Narrating India, Katrine Brøndsted.

Imagined Communities, Orientalism and Postcolonial Theory and Criticism

The White Man's Burden
by Rudyard Kipling (1899) 

Indian Independence and Partition