Cultural Resistance, Identity Politics, and Feminist Nationalism in Indo-Muslim Fiction by Khurram N. K
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Discourse of Difference: Cultural Resistance, Identity Politics, and Feminist Nationalism in Indo-Muslim Fiction by Khurram N. Khurshid LL.B., Punjab University, Pakistan, 1992 M.A., Punjab University, Pakistan, 1984 B.A., Punjab University, Pakistan, 1981 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Academic Unit of English Supervisor: John Clement Ball, PhD, English Examining Board: Carolyn Bassett, PhD, Political Science, Chair Tony Tremblay, PhD, English Diana Austin, PhD, English External Examiner: Jill Didur, PhD, English, Concordia University This dissertation is accepted by the Dean of Graduate Studies THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK May, 2010 ©Khurram N. Khurshid, 2010 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du 1+1 Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-87676-3 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-87676-3 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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Canada DEDICATION For my mother and to the memory of my father ii ABSTRACT English fiction produced by Muslim writers of India and Pakistan between 1905 and 1964 provides insights into the social, cultural, and political sensibility of the Muslim community in pre-Partition India. These Indo-Muslim texts deploy tropes of cultural resistance, identity politics, and feminist nationalism, and unsettle the hegemony of colonial and Hindu discourses of the period, suggesting alternative epistemologies and spaces of alterity and cultural difference. Read as benchmarks of Indian Muslim identity and consciousness, these narratives reveal the crisis of identity that vexed Indian Muslims in the decades preceding India's Partition in 1947, and shed light on the ideology of Muslim political separatism of the period. The principal texts examined in this study suggest the cultural distinctness of the Muslims of India, and employ the resources of identity politics and politics of difference as modes of ideological resistance. Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi uses an Urdu-centric English voice to resist the hegemony of official English in colonial Delhi; Attia Hosain's Sunlight on a Broken Column deploys the identities of marginalized women to challenge the patriarchal structures of Lucknow's upper-class, feudal society; and Mumtaz Shahnawaz's The Heart Divided weaves an Islamic feminist narrative to construct a polemical discourse of Muslim political separatism and Pakistani nationalism. The works of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Zeenuth Futehally, Zeb-un-Nissa Hamidullah, and Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, among others, carve distinctive Muslim cultural spaces to register feminist protest and articulate anti-colonial resistance. The Muslim texts of this oeuvre engage with Islamic history and the Islamic cultural ethos in India, suggesting an Indian Muslim consciousness negotiating its sense of self between past and present, and evincing anxiety about its cultural identity and iii historical destiny. The Indian Muslim identities conjured up in this discourse are poised on the threshold of change and new articulations, struggling to formulate a viable synthesis between the contradictory influences of tradition and modernity. This Indo- Muslim imaginative discourse underscores the significance of religion in identity- formation in India and Pakistan, and projects a Muslim identity informed by an eclectic and pluralist conception of Islam. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to my teacher and supervisor, Dr. John C. Ball, who offered invaluable advice and encouragement at every stage of this project. I learnt immensely from his meticulous scholarship and editorial judgement, and this document would have been a great deal poorer without his interventions and guidance. I am also thankful to Dr. Mary Rimmer, not only for reading the dissertation and offering invaluable advice, but also for her support throughout my stay at UNB. I also learnt a lot from Dr. Diana Austin and Dr. Gwendolyn Davies when I began my graduate studies. Thanks are also due to Dr. Carolyn Bassett, Dr. Diana Austin, Dr. Tony Tremblay, and Dr. Jill Didur for examining this dissertation and offering very constructive and nuanced feedback. Special thanks to my wonderful friend Bill Randall, who has been an ever-willing sounding board for my thoughts through the years. I would also like to thank Dr. Jennifer Andrews for reading the dissertation, and Tony Robinson- Smith and Madeline Bassnett for their help and encouragement. I am grateful to my mother for her unconditional love, and to my sister, Yasmin Haroon, and her family. Most of all, I am indebted to Naushaba, Hassan, and Amna - fellow travelers - who have borne the many hardships of my PhD journey with patience and good cheer, and whose love has kept me going. v Table of Contents DEDICATION ii ABSTRACT iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v Table of Contents vi Introduction: Indo-Muslim English Fiction 1 Muslim Identity and Consciousness: Aspects of a Debate 5 Islam in India: Historical Ethos 13 Cultural Resistance: Paradigms of Alterity 32 Identity Politics: Epistemes of the Self 37 Feminist Nationalism: The Nation and its Margins 44 Politics of Difference: Pluralist Ontologies 48 Chapter 1 52 "Bol Gai My LordKukroon-KoorT\ Urdu Tropes in Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi 52 Negotiating English: Language and Resistance 57 Urdu/English Intertexts: The Short Stories 64 Unsettling English: The Vernacular Voice 71 Subversive Intervals: Authority of the Ghazal 85 Forms of Resistance: Narration, Imagery, History 94 Conclusion 110 Chapter 2 113 "Beyond the Encircling Walls": Resistance and Women's Identities in Sunlight on a Broken Column 113 Indian Feminism: Local Epistemologies 115 vi Lucknow: Pre-Colonial/Colonial Histories 120 Sunlight: The Text and its Critics 123 Personal is Political: Identity, Resistance, Patriarchy 128 Women's Lives: Forms of Oppression 141 Women's Lives: Forms of Agency 148 Laila's Quest: Agency/Authenticity 152 Cracking India: Partition and Nationalism 168 Conclusion 179 Chapter 3 181 "We Shall Build the World Anew": Islamic-Feminist Nationalism in The Heart Divided. 181 Feminist Nationalism: Theoretical Constructs 185 Religious Nationalism: Hindu/Muslim Constructs 188 Politics of Romance: Marriage and Nation 195 Politics of Difference: Hindu/Muslim Identities 204 Parting the Veil: Purdah and Islam 212 Islamic Polemics: Imagining the Nation 216 Conclusion 228 Chapter 4 230 Other Voices, 1905-1958: An Overview 230 "We Shut Our Men Indoors": Narratives of Feminist Protest 231 "Religion is a Force in India": Islam and Muslim Identities 244 vii "The Undoing of My Country": Indicting Colonialism 248 Narrating Partition: Voices in the Silence 254 Conclusion 258 Chapter 5 260 Conclusion 260 History and Indo-Muslim Fiction 260 Difference and Identity 262 Narratives of Resistance 263 Elite/Subaltern Consciousness 264 Works Cited 268 Curriculum Vitae viii Introduction: Indo-Muslim English Fiction Religion [in India] seems to be a natural, populist political force, articulating people's cultural and national identity at a level of emotive meaning more basic andfundamental than other kinds ofpolitical affiliations. David Ludden Communalism [...] is a form of colonialist knowledge. Gyanendra Pandey By the end of the [nineteenth] century, Indian nationalism had become synonymous with Hindu nationalism. Partha Chatteijee In 1905, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, a Bengali Muslim woman writer and social activist, published "Sultana's Dream: Purdah Reversed," the first English-language narrative by a Muslim published in India. "Sultana's Dream" is set in "Ladyland," a feminist Utopia where women have appropriated social and political power, and men are consigned to the seclusion of the zenana. While the men attend to household duties and the rearing of children, the women