Chapter-I Introduction

Chapter-I Introduction Resistance literature The struggle for national liberations particularly in the twentieth century has not only mapped the new world borders but also produced a significant corpus of great literary writings both narrative and poetic. These writings gave representation to erstwhile suppressed people and portray their stories of oppression which demands now recognition as well as appreciation in a literary world, usually dominated by the canonical literature. This kind of literature mainly relies upon the idea of resisting the meta- narratives and the mainstream literature which usually misinterpret and misrepresent the marginalized people across the world. After the fall of colonialism the struggle between the neo-colonizers and colonized continues because many territories in the world today have been turned into the microcosm of colonial oppression and travesty of justice. The ongoing conflicts in the disputed territories like Palestine and Kashmir are nothing but the imperial legacies which were intentionally left unresolved for the future socio- political designs. These disputed territories continue to haunt present and future because of their political and economical strategic importance. It has made the life of millions of people in both the places miserable and murky. Much has changed in the world since the fall of colonialism but the act of political and military intimidation continues to make havoc in the most unfortunate parts of world like Kashmir and Palestine. In these places, resistance springs from the well of historical dissent which exceeds all the lines of ultra- nationalist narratives haunted by the forceful occupation and the disproportionate use of brute force. The resistance literature in the Indian administered Kashmir and the Palestine are consistently being written or translated into English to tell the stories of loss and longings to the world audience. They very choice of language in which the writers from the conflict zones is itself a political statement to reach out the people and power corridors of the world who have forgotten their desperate plea of justice. However this un-canonized 1 literature coming out from the two conflict zones with its own self-defined aesthetics unfortunately remained ignored and unexplored by the students of literature in many parts of the world. Any literature which portrays the resilience and struggle of the people against the injustice deserves to be evaluated and studied. The present comparative study of resistance poetry by the Agha Shahid Ali and Mahmoud Darwish is intended to foreground the theme of loss which they suffer personally as well as collectively with their besieged people. As we are well aware that in the post-colonial literature only two main ideas surfaced that is representation and resistance. It‘s this resistance literature which categorically refutes the mainstream narratives of rosy pictures and connotes the saga of state subjugation in both the places. The oppressive tactics to quell the sentiment forcefully has procreated numerous resistance writings in English fiction as well as in the native languages that delineate this human estrangement and dissent in their own way. These anthems of resistances mainly revolve around the deep rooted political crisis and the large scale of unabated human rights violation that is taking place in both the places with impunity. Lullabies of pain and the tales of oppression are the common themes in the post conflict literary enterprise of Indian administered Kashmir and Palestine. In the Indian administered Kashmir poets and writers now no more see the color red in roses; rather see blood soaked petals in the beautiful landscape of their homeland. The post 1990 English resistance literature of Kashmir is somehow managing to break the long spell of solitude by speaking and writing the collective conscious of people, who remained literally voiceless for a long time. The contemporary Kashmiri English writers, both native and diaspora, are not only chronicling the epic battle of fact and fiction but also showcase their moral courage and intellectual integrity in the international literary corridors. These new writings indeed employ subjective elements to present Kashmir as a conflict involving all the factors that has made life miserable for people there. The writers like Agha Shahid Ali, Basharat Peer, Mirza Waheed, Nitasha Kaul, Shahnaz Bashir, Sanjay Kak and SuvirKaul are today enhancing and enriching the English resistance literature of Kashmir. 2 On the other hand Palestine continues to remain another festering wound of the humanity which bleeds profusely because of the vested interests of the west and its historical and religious importance between the three faiths; Islam, Christianity and Judaism. After the 1948 Nakba (Tragedy) the resistance literature inside the occupied has gain new momentum and direction to portray the colossal loss of people who are caught up in the Zionist onslaught and the political limbos of the region. The Palestinian writers and poets grew up in refugee camps and in sieges which conditioned their writings of representation and resistance. They not only fought with pen and ink but are politically active which sometimes leads to their assassinations and arrests by the Israeli authority. Their writings didn‘t stop to write back about their lost identity and the un-forgetful memory of roots which they are trying to recreate in the form of words and sentences. It was the Palestinian resistance literature which succeeded in laying the foundations of a new literary movement better known as the literature of exile or refugee literature. Poets like Kamal Nasser, Khaled Ennasra, Samih al-Qasim, Mahmoud Darwish, Ibrahim Nasrallah, and Fady Joudah are the jewels in the casket of resistance literature of Palestine, who not only show defiance but have achieved the great recognition as well as respect in the Arabic literature. Their poetry should not be looked upon as if it springs suddenly but it is like a stream flowing with loss, identity and longings slowly pouring into the world literature. The Palestinian resistance poetry had become the subject of many studies and research works around the world for many scholars however the Kashmiri writers and their works remained ignored and forgotten. In the contemporary resistance movements across the world prose writers and poets play an important role in the political mobilization through their verses. Traditionally Poetry always evokes deep feelings about the complex socio-political issues and serves as a vehicle for expression. In 21th century, when challenges and crises intensified due to the political uncertainty, the poet became more involved and their role in enhancing the critical understanding among the people became important and inevitable. Today, the poets from different conflict regions of the world according to Nietzsche, have become a 3 ―fighter against his time‖. The Lebanese novelist and critic, Elias Khuri writes in his article, ―The world of meanings in Palestinian poetry; Language is the very frame of steadfastness; language is the repository of the collective memory. It is the basic national value which must be preserved. The role of poetry is therefore a major one, not only because it is more powerful than other forms of writing as a means of political mobilization, but also because it sustains, within the popular memory, national continuity. (Elias Khuri, 1982, 245) The poetry not only portrays the circumstances and position of conflict ridden nations but also suggest the necessary steps to be taken for peace and reconciliation. Thus, in the present study I have selected two seminal poets; Agha Shahid Ali, the Kashmiri American poet and Mahmoud Darwish , the national poet of Palestine who struggled and suffered along with their people in the ongoing struggle of basic rights and political identity. Over the short period of time their poetry became the anthems of resistance among their people because it resists against the mainstream meta- narratives and their hollow aesthetics. These resistance poets have produced new vital literary corpus which is remarkable not only for coherence and magnitude, but also challenges the mainstream literary conventions. Their poetry is unique addition to the world literature because it represents the collective conscious of people. It also portrays their vicissitudes against the forceful occupation and serves an archive for the popular sentiment. The present study aims to analyze the theme of loss in the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali and Mahmoud Darwish. The sense of loss is a complex phenomenon and is very difficult to define in one definition. Its thematic interpretations are deeply rooted in the psychological and socio political approaches. The most interesting approach which describes the sense of loss among sensitive souls emanates from the situation of doubt or when ―a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason‖ as stated by famous English poet John Keats. The great 4 philosopher and theorist Friedrich Nietzsche attributes skepticism as one of the main factors that leads to the creation of a state of doubt and ultimately to the sense of loss. Nietzsche‘s explains this in his own words when he says: One should not be deceived; great spirits are skeptics. Zarathustra is a skeptic. Strength, freedom which is born of the strength and over strength of the spirit, proves itself by skepticism. Men of conviction are not worthy of the least consideration in fundamental questions of value and disvalue conviction are prisons. Such men do not look for enough; they do not look beneath themselves: but to be permitted to join in the discussion of value and disvalue, one must see five hundred convictions beneath oneself-behind oneself. (Richard Ellman, 1965, p.98-99) Nietzsche continues his argument and underlines the fact that even the concepts of freedom, spirit and power of existence all fall in the repository of skepticism. In his words; A spirit who wants great things, who also wants the means to them, is necessarily a skeptic.

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