Research Article

Justification of the Partition in The Weary Generations and Cracking India: An Alternative Pakistani Perspective

Dipak Raj Joshi
Tribhuvan University, Nepal
* Corresponding author
DOI icon 10.24018/ejsocial.2022.2.5.318

Read Counter
642

Downloads
659

Citations

Share

Article Sidebar

Submitted 2022-08-26
Published 2022-09-28

Read counter = 642 times

Table of Contents

Article Main Content

This paper analyzes selected partition novels in the light of affect theory in order to demonstrate how Pakistani writers counter the Indian mainstream nationalist line and offer alternative revisionary perspectives on independence that also led to partition violence. The affective subjectivity of the writers—Abdullah Hussein (The Weary Generations) and Bapsi Sidhwa (Cracking India)—discredits the mainstream Indian historiography, valorization of the independence struggle, and trivialization of partition issues. The notable affects highlighted in the novels are those of love, hatred, happiness, unhappiness, and rage. One positive affect in favor of one at the same time invites the opposite affect for the other. The paper concludes that the affects evoked in the abovementioned novels are ethically tilted to the notions of community and nationhood of the respective writers—an ideologically biased orientation that results in prose of demonization and an open declaration of evil on whom they consider the other.

Keywords: Affective Politics, Indian Mainstream Nationalist Historiography, Pakistani Counter Perspective, Partition Literature.

References

  1. Ahmed, S. (2004).The cultural politics of emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
     Google Scholar
  2. Highmore, B. (2007). Bitter after taste: affect, food, and social aesthetics.Theaffect theory reader, Eds. Gregg, Melissa and Gregory J. Seigworth. Durham: Duke University Press,pp. 118-137.
     Google Scholar
  3. Hussein, A. (1999).The weary generations. India: Harper Collins Publishers.
     Google Scholar
  4. Joshi, D. R. (2020). Politics of affect in Train to Pakistan and Tamas.Contemporary Research: An Interdisciplinary Academic Journal,4(1),59–75. https://doi.org/10.3126/craiaj.v4i1.32730.
     Google Scholar
  5. Kleist, J. M. (2011). More than victims: versions of feminine power in BapsiSidhwa’sCrackingIndia.Pakistaniaat: A journal of Pakistan Studies, 3(2),pp.69-81.
     Google Scholar
  6. Lee, Y. C. (2006). Representing partition: subaltern studies, BapsiSidhwa’sCracking India, Deepa Mehta’s Earth. Unpublished Thesis, National Tsing Hua University.
     Google Scholar
  7. Palakeel, T. (2001). Reluctant hero and the question of class: a review article.Annual of Urdu Studies, pp. 589-601.
     Google Scholar
  8. Pandey, B. (2012).Historiography of partition. New Delhi: The Study Publication.
     Google Scholar
  9. Probyn, E. (2007). Writing shame.The affect theory reader. Eds. Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J. Seigworth. Durham: Duke University Press,pp. 71- 92.
     Google Scholar
  10. Roy, R. (2010).South Asian partition fiction in English: from Khuswant Singh to Amitabh Ghosh. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
     Google Scholar
  11. Sidhwa, B.,&Montenegro, D. (1990). An interview.Massachusettts Review, 31(4),513-533. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25090210.
     Google Scholar
  12. Sidhwa, B. (1991).Cracking India: a novel. Minneapolis: Milkweed.
     Google Scholar
  13. Thapa, A. (2014). Dialogic play and parodic subversion: alternative national identities in BapsiSidhwa’s Cracking India.Crosscurrents,2(2),pp.217-231 Kathmandu: Tribhuvan University, CDE.
     Google Scholar