South Asian Partition Literature

Utopian comes from the word ‘Utopia’ coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The meaning of the term is excellent or ideal, visionary and it would not be wrong to call Shakespeare a visionary. According to Marcuse “The Utopia in great art is never the simple negation of the reality principle but its transcending preservation {aufhebung} in which the past and present cast their shadow on fulfillment.” Kiernan Ryan opines that “Shakespeare’s plays dramatize the historical reality of their time in such three dimensional depth and solid, sensuous detail, the universalizing perspective from which they dramatize it is charged with a power and a capacity to convince, that it would not otherwise possess.” Shakespeare’s drama dislocates its vision from his time and projects it into the future beyond our time yet that would not take away the plays immersion in their moment in history. The timeless is the product of the temporal. The utopian is latent within the dystopian facts of history.

History is utilized as an inter-text and co-text by creative writers. Kamleshwar's Kitne Pakistan has evoked many discourses on history, nationality and culture. Kamleshwar raises questions on identities based on religion, culture and nation. Present paper is an attempt to travel back to trace the roots of anxieties prevalent in the name of various identities.

Le 15 août 1947, au moment où l’Inde obtenait son indépendance, l’Asie du Sud donnait naissance à un nouvel État, le Pakistan, disloqué entre l’extrême ouest et l’extrême est du Sous-continent. Cette partition à grande échelle s’accompagna d’un exode massif des deux côtés des nouvelles frontières, donnant lieu entre communautés hindoue, musulmane et sikhe, à des massacres d’une violence inouïe perpétrés par des populations paniquées et désorientées. On parle de près d’un million de morts et de dix à douze millions de personnes déplacées, sans parler des viols, des incendies, des pillages et des dizaines de milliers de femmes kidnappées, qui entachèrent durablement l’histoire du sous-continent indien.

Il ne s’agit pas dans cet ouvrage de s’interroger sur les causes des événements tragiques de la Partition, mais plutôt d’en examiner les conséquences à long terme et de percevoir, à travers la production littéraire et artistique massive qui a suivi les années 1947-1948 et continue à la documenter et à la discuter, l’impact majeur suscité par cette fracture historique, culturelle et sociale. Cet ouvrage, composé d’articles critiques, d’entretiens et de textes littéraires en traductions inédites, propose ainsi d’examiner la Partition comme « paradigme esthétique », en identifiant tant les récurrences de sa représentation, de ses conséquences et de sa mémoire, que la variété des genres et des modes dans laquelle cette mémoire se formule. Enfin, il s’agit d’examiner les enjeux de ces représentations, tant au niveau de la culture qu’au niveau de l’Histoire et de son écriture.

Cet ouvrage, de nature inédite en France, fait écho à de nombreux travaux entrepris ces dernières décennies en Inde et dans les universités anglophones, qui visent à reconstruire l’Histoire de l’Inde au regard d’une histoire sociale et culturelle restée longtemps inexplorée.

My essay looks afresh at the South Asian Partition in conjunction with trauma theory to excavate affective histories of the region obscured by “the overpowering emotional experience” of nationalism (Jawaharlal Nehru). Nehru’s exploratory urge to map South Asia as an “ancient palimpsest” to “know if there was any real connection between the past and the present” (Nehru 25) is echoed in Qurratulain Hyder’s feminist novel Sita Betrayed (1960), which, however, casts memorialization in more uncanny, melancholic terms. Hyder constructs a trans-subcontinental trauma sensorium – a memorial landscape shaped by sensory experiences – to contain the marginalized histories of the Partition dispossessed obscured by the Nehruvian dialectic of antiquity within modernity that the new Indian nation confidently claimed, or the “newness” of an Islamic birth distanced from the subcontinent’s past, that Pakistan declared. Hyder’s composition of a sensorium of trauma through tropes of the palimpsest allows spatial and temporal projections of grief and memory. By exploring her affective landscapes and their histories we can get a distinctive sense of material traumas as they permeated Partition history and shaped the conditions of postcoloniality that the subcontinent experienced as both independence and rupture. Hyder’s mobilization of melancholia and haunting, significantly, offers us a way to understand how the South Asian Partition endorses the value and promise of affect-mediated postcolonial trauma theory.

Treatises on the 1947 Indian Partition have been mostly centred on the vehemence of riots and the travails of refugees, but the present article chooses to take a revisionist line and focus on the humane amidst this overwhelming violence and misery. It explores episodes of compassion when ordinary men and women admirably extended help to members of the ‘Other’ community during their moments of dire need. Though not numerous, these instances where they showed exemplary courage in rising beyond the boundaries of their religious affiliation constitute a significant feature in Partition Studies and deserve to be suitably highlighted. Such incidents also gain immense significance in the light of sectarian hostility repeatedly rearing its ugly head across the Indian subcontinent, even in the post-independence period, making minority groups feel vulnerable. Literary and historical accounts based on the theme of inter-religious amity amidst those vicious times of the Partition have the potential to play an ameliorative role in the current scenario by bridging the gulf between different communal factions and foregrounding essential human principles of peace and harmony. 

Keywords:
Compassion, Humanity, Sacrifice, Saviour, Violence

This article analyses the changing trends of globalization and modernity that transform the social and individual
perceptions. In postcolonial era, globalization proves to be an impetus that precipitates the tension between tradition and modernity. This article studies the competing forces of tradition and modernity as dramatized in Kamila Shamsie’s Salt and Saffron (2000). The novel is a playful account of past memories revisited and preserved by family lore. It is also an appropriation of those traditional views in the modern scene by the members of new generation. Therefore, the novel becomes a microcosm of traditional versus modern values conceived by the family members of Dard-e-dil family. The novel is an effective display of past Muslim cultural and political glory yet it revisits the current issues of identity,
displacement and immigration. The article situates the story of Dard-e-dils within the theoretical context of globalization
and postcolonialism, and reads the flux and change that the Pakistani fiction reflects as it enters a new realm of changed
national, social and individual perception in the post–partition and postcolonial era.

Khushwant Singh’s 'Train to Pakistan' uses the bloody history of India’s Partition as the backdrop for creating a fictional account of the common masses’ experience during the August of 1947. This paper majorly explores the politics of identity among the newly liberated people by engaging with Khushwant Singh’s novel.

This paper is a study of angst in Atia Hosain's novel Sunlight on a Brocken Column. The novel is about a wealthy and cultured family of Lucknow. The aim of this paper is to locate the existential crisis of the female characters particularly the idea of angst and how does it influence the domestic and subjective life of the female characters during the course of the story. It is generally believed that women do not have existential crisis. They do not think of the basic questions of existence. Their angst has very little to do with existential crisis. In this context, this paper aims at uncovering the prevalent angst related to the existential crisis of the female characters Laila and Aunt Abida. Although the novel is supremely feminist in themes, existentialism finds much expression in the narration.

The term 'diaspora' is often loosely used in an inclusive, capacious fashion when referring to all migrant communities. But recent diaspora theorists prefer to use the term in a more restrictive sense where only those communities which have retained the memory of migration can be categorized as a diaspora. Thus nostalgia becomes a prerequisite for a migrant community to be called diaspora. Intizar Hussain's novel 'Aage Samandar Hai', translated as 'The Sea Lies Ahead', represents Muhajir characters who affirm their Muhajir identity by holding on to customs and culture of their places of origin. This essay will analyze how the Muhajirs can be called a diaspora because nostalgia for lost homeland forms a major part of their self-fashioned identity. It will also look at the various, often contradictory, attitudes towards abandoned homeland that can be observed in Muhajirs, and study the novel in the tradition of the old elegiac shehr afsos mode where the Muhajirs lament for the cities and towns they left behind.

Anindita Ghoshal’s Refugees, Borders and
Identities is a historical account of the journey
of post-Partition refugees in India’s east and
northeast, focusing on West Bengal, Tripura,
and Assam. With this much-needed approach,
where the refugee influx is perceived
from an interconnected vantage point,
Ghoshal looks not only at points of separation
between these regions but also at areas
of convergence, arguing for a shared history
of these refugees. Based on documents and
literature from diverse sources, such as administration,
political parties, individuals and
organisations, the book introduces itself as a
grounded telling of a history that is often perceived
as fragmented.

Movement of peoples can be seen as a defining hallmark of the twentieth century, but the aftermath of these movements rarely falls under the critical eye of the intellectual. This paper collides and interprets the affects of two historical movements of people: the division of Panjab in 1947 and the migration to Canada from Panjab after the Green Revolution. I understand the process of movement in these contexts as a disturbance and therefore violent in nature. Through my reading of the stories Tobha Tek Singh, by Saadat Hasan Manto, Baraf da Geet, by Sadhu Binning, and Do Tapu, by Jarnail Singh I seek to understand the migration alternately than the Freudian distinction of Heimlich/Unheimlich. Away from a binary modality and unbeknownst to an interstiti- ality, I seek to put forward the term Dis-locatia, as a term that emerges from an engage- ment with the disorienting e ́migre ́ pose that describes a haunted dispossessed space of searching occupied by emigre authors

The term diaspora refer to the group of people who do not reside in their country of origin. In today"s world where identities are increasingly defined with reference to dominant powers; marginalization becomes central with regards to diasporic communities. Though marginalization can be due to various factors such as class, caste, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, etc., the primary focus of this article will be the experience of marginalization because of the diasporic status of the authors and characters, and further marginalization they encounter within the diasporic communities due to their class and caste. Therefore one can see that there are levels of marginalization with regards to diasporic communities, and the marginalization is both within and without. This article aims to explicate it and further explore how in the hegemonic paradigm, varied means of resistance are undertaken by some of the oppressed marginalized communities, to rebel against the dominant powers. The select short stories, "Story of Social Consciousness", "The Man Called Ratan" and "Reminiscences of Life at a Refugee Camp" from the anthology called Stories of Social Awakening: Reflections of Dalit Refugee Lives of Bengal by Jatin Bala, illustrate experiences of the diasporic community of Namasudra refugees from Bangladesh. The characters in the stories are doubly marginalized along the lines of caste or class and refugee status, although they shared the language and religion of the host land. The contradictory ideas of marginalization and empowerment coincide in the idea of resistance. Though they are not successful in changing the social scenario, but the narratives do not end on a bleak note. The Namasudra refugees continue to resist as a community.

One of the major Post-Modern issues in respect of India is partition. The partition and the migration in the Bengal side have for long been neglected. Literature related to that in English is hard to find. However, some works may be found in either side of the border written in the vernacular. The society being usually conservative, to trace the narrative detailing the experience of women during partition is a hard nut to crack. However, those who became direct victims of the partition, their experiences, became the main plot of several literary works. But women who remained concerned with family problems and partition never really haunted their thoughts, were also affected by partition. The present essay tends to trace the mention of these women in Bengal Partition Stories, especially during the times of partition riots.

The essay explores the theme of nostalgia and refugee identity in Sunil Gangopadhyay's epic-scale Bangla novel Purba-Paschim, translated by Enakshi Chatterjee as East-West. The novel, with its two expansive parts, is a monumental study of displacement and relocation. Using Homi Bhaba's notion of hybridity and third space, the essay interrogates the new identities that emerge from the interaction of two cultures, and how it is beyond one to commit oneself to a particular identity in case of diaspora of any kind. It also explores the function of nostalgia and the difficulties faced by refugees in the attempt of resettlement. The essay also looks with a Marxist perspective at the different effects of Partition on different classes of refugees, and examines how class was a major factor in hatred towards refugees as well as communal disharmony, as represented in the novel.

Movement of peoples can be seen as a defining hallmark of the twentieth century, but the aftermath of these movements rarely falls under the critical eye of the intellectual. This paper collides and interprets the affects of two historical movements of people: the division of Panjab in 1947 and the migration to Canada from Panjab after the Green Revolution. I

This paper analyzes Sunil Gangopadhyay’s JochhonaKumari as a novella that combines realism and fantasy to bring out the complex silences around the India-Bangladesh border relations. It demonstrates how the voice of the individual gets silenced in the face of the clamor of the contrary narratives of the two nations. Keeping in mind the significance of the Indian narrative of infiltration and the Bangladeshi narrative of denial in today’s political discourse, this paper studies the literary representation of an individual who is rejected by both nations and ends up in the no man’s land between the two countries. It examines how the author uses silence as a literary tool in the narrative to reflect the voicelessness of transnational migrants and illegally trafficked women in public discourse.

The act of translation has opened up a wide vista of knowledge, facilitating exchange across languages and cultures around the world. However, the process at times entails gaps, intentional or otherwise, between the original and the final versions. This concern figures in the context of the Bangladeshi writer Hasan Hafizur Rahman’s Bengali short story “Aro Duti Mrityu” (anthologized in the collection Aro Duti Mrityu in 1970) which offers a poignant depiction of Eastern Bengal/Pakistan caught in the throes of communal violence and the insecurity faced by religious minorities in its wake. It has been twice rendered into English, first by Niaz Zaman as “Deaths on the Night Train” and included in her edited volume The Escape and Other Stories of 1947 (2000). The story was later re-translated by Debjani Sengupta as “Two More Deaths” and incorporated in her compilation Mapmaking: Partition Stories from Two Bengals (2003.) Even a cursory reading of these two translated texts reveals their distinctiveness in terms of approach and nuance. The present paper endeavours to explore these divergences, the most glaring of which lies in their respective endings–an aspect that invariably impinges on their final artistic impression(s).

The 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent has figured extensively in socio-political and historical discourse, as well as in the body of cultural representations. This essay proposes to appraise some of its depictions in the realm of world cinema rendered by filmmakers having native roots. It engages with the Deepa Mehta-directed 1947-Earth [an adaptation of Pakistani writer Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel Ice-Candy Man], the Vic Sarin-directed Partition and the recent Gurinder Chadha-directed Viceroy’s House which have elicited distinctive potrayals of this seminal event and its aftermath on the celluloid. While the corpus of homegrown movies on this topic in the vernaculars [including Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi and Urdu] targeted mainly the local viewers, these three English movies were produced–in collaboration with international financiers–to cater to a global audience with diverse tastes and expectations. Their makers have had to tread a particularly fine line in the course of handling the subject, bearing in mind the web of contested nationalities that ineluctably casts its long shadow on a theme as contentious as the Partition. Moreover, their respective locus coupled with filmmaking ethos assumes vital significance in this context, for it combines the dual vision of their current disaporic consciousness with that of their ethnic identity. Through a closely-examined study of these movies, I intend to delineate the intricate negotiations that such filmic ventures entail upon their directors, as they inhabit the composite in-betweenness of the diasporic sphere with conflicting pulls. Incidentally, this twofold intellection is characteristic of many analogous productions both emanating from and concerning with the diasporic domain, as evident in literature, art and other cultural renditions.

Aurangabad (MS) Partition of the country caused the great damage to feudalism causing complete erasure of landlordism. It created the dilemma, difficulties for the people who enjoyed royal status, put the challenges before them of coping with post partition realities. This paper attempts to focus the confrontation of feudal family to the bitter realities of the partition aftermath. It gave rise to the new class, freedom to the poor to aspire to new ambitions. It gave them opportunities to see and fulfill their dreams which was impossible to think of in colonial India and prevalent feudalism. Attia Hosain highlights the decline in social and financial status of the feudal family after partition of India. Attia Hosain portrays the trauma of a feudal family of Laila"s maternal uncle. It lived lavishly in the colonial era. In the wake independence and partition family was setback to financial crisis. The first blow the family had is the constitutional abolishment of feudalism. It has forsaken them from the ancestral rights and privileges which nourished the life and blood of their whole existence. It caused panic among many of families at the cost of their psychological health, complete retirement from public life, leading the life of being neglected. Attia Hosain highlights the predicament of these feudal families as: At the end of a long, legal struggle landowners had to accept the fact that their feudal existence had been abolished constitutionally as swiftly as by the revolution they had always feared. Hundreds of thousands of families were faced with the necessity of changing habits of mind and living conditioned by centuries. Hundreds of thousands of landowners and the hangers-on who had lived on their largesse, their weaknesses and their follies. Faced by prospects of poverty, by the actual loss of privilege, there were many who lost their balance of mind when their world cracked apart. Others retired to anonymity in their villages.

En 1974, Anis Kidwai, jeune veuve de la bourgeoisie intellectuelle musulmane d’Inde du Nord devenue travailleuse sociale, publiait Azadi ki chaon me (« Dans l’ombre de la liberté »), autobiographie bouleversante rédigée vingt ans plus tôt, dans le bruit et la fureur qui accompagnèrent en 1947 la Partition de l’Inde au moment de la décolonisation. Elle y raconte notamment le meurtre de son mari, alors administrateur local d’une petite ville des contreforts de l’Himalaya, puis son engagement auprès de Gandhi et des travailleurs sociaux investis dans l’accueil des centaines de milliers de réfugiés qui affluaient à Delhi, enfin et surtout sa participation aux vastes campagnes de récupération et réhabilitation des femmes kidnappées lors des violences qui accompagnèrent la Partition. Elle mettait ainsi en évidence l’ampleur des violences genrées pendant la Partition, violences largement bannies des histoires nationales jusqu’aux années 1990-2000 où elles furent réinvesties par les histori...

The Partition of British India in 1947 was a cataclysmic occurrence in the history of the subcontinent, with far-reaching politico-social consequences. The impact of this disastrous division was multi-faceted, causing unmitigated suffering to millions who were either killed or left destitute. Writers across regions engaged with the innumerable strands of this catastrophe and its repercussions in diverse languages and genres, generating an extensive range of Partition Literature as well as other modes of artistic depiction. Taking up the question of forced migration, my paper examines the short story “A Thorn in the Path” by Ramesh Chandra Sen [“Pather Kanta” in the Bengali original] that depicts the strenuous journey to West Bengal on foot undertaken by some Hindu families around the time of the Partition. Their decision was compelled by the escalating violence in their native places which had been demarcated as East Pakistan by the momentous Radcliffe’s Line. Fear of the ‘Ansar’ gangs–Muslim groups who were notorious for robbing, killing or abducting Hindus–haunts them throughout as they trudge along their way. Amongst them is a lower-class Hindu family consisting of Parashar, his wife Mohini and their young son Jadav, through whom Sen portrays the feelings of anxiety and despair that afflict these hapless people. En route, they come across a similar column of refugees headed towards East Pakistan – once again, religious minorities in search of their ‘homeland’. The comparable experiences of these two groups as they negotiate the arduous crossing of the same stretch of the newly-constructed border underlines the common affliction befalling people, irrespective of their religious affiliation. Contrary to the conventionally restrictive connotations of a border that constitutes a barrier to movement and communication, the encounter of these refugees along their way marks an emotive connect between them, despite belonging to disparate communities. Furthermore, beyond the descriptive trope that is characteristic of such journeys, the migration here is coincident with a corresponding transition in the outlook of the protagonist Parashar. Sen’s tale is, thus, a nuanced take on the migration attendant to the Partition, and may also be regarded as augmenting the domain of kinopolitics.

Movement of peoples can be seen as a defining hallmark of the twentieth century, but the aftermath of these movements rarely falls under the critical eye of the intellectual. This paper collides and interprets the affects of two historical movements of people: the division of Panjab in 1947 and the migration to Canada from Panjab after the Green Revolution. I