Nationalism, trauma and memory of partition, the issues of identity and belonging in selected partition fictions

Abstract

This research aims to explore how Partition of India in 1947 and the subsequent sectarianism and forms of fragmentation are represented in selected literary texts. To be more specific, this paper intends to investigate how the division of India on the ground of religion affected the lives of ordinary people in the light of three Partition fictions- “Toba Tek Singh” by Sadat Hasan Manto,” The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh and Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. The study is not dismissive of the national and historical accounts of Partition and the events that followed this grand political event. However, it argues that focusing only on the facts and information about these political events is not enough to make sense of the trauma that partition and communal violence gave birth to. Taking into account the fact that partition should be understood from multiple perspectives, this paper, with the help of the three aforementioned primary texts, attempts to investigate what Partition and sectarian violence mean to the ordinary people who lived through it and how it profoundly affected their sense of self and belonging.