South Asian Partition Fiction in English

publications series Monographs 4 South Asian Partition South Asian Partition Fiction in English English in Fiction Partition Asian South Fiction in English South Asian Partition Fiction in English: From Khushwant Singh to Ami- tav Ghosh explores a significant cross-section of South Asian fiction in English written on the theme of Partition from the mid-1950s to the late 1980s, and shows how the Partition novel in English traverses a very interesting trajectory during this period – from just ‘reporting’ the cata- From Khushwant Singh clysmic event to theorizing about it. The six novels selected for study (Train to Pakistan, A Bend in the Ganges, to Amitav Ghosh Ice-Candy-Man, Clear Light of Day, Midnight’s Children, and The Shadow Lines) show that, essentially, three factors shape the contours and deter- mine the thrust of the narratives – the time in which the novelists are Rituparna Roy writing; the value they attach to women as subjects of this traumatic history; and the way they perceive the concept of the nation. Rituparna Roy taught English Literature for several years at Basantidevi College, Kolkata. She is currently a Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Amsterdam. “By a fresh reading of six novels that are representative of the various perspectives on the Partition of the subcontinent, and placing them in a larger historical and literary context, dr. Roy’s book fills an important › lacuna in current criticism, and does it convincingly.” — Peter Liebregts, Professor of Modern Literatures in English, Leiden Rituparna Roy University “In this thoughtful and thoroughly readable book, Rituparna Roy looks at fictional representations of the cataclysmic birth-pangs of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and indicates how literary envisionings mesh in with reportage, historiography, nationhood, femininity and personal identity.” — Subir Dhar, Professor of English Literature, Rabindra Bharati Univer- sity (RBU), Kolkata isbn 978 90 8964 245 5 amsterdam university press www.aup.nl 9789089 642455 amsterdam university press South Asian Partition Fiction in English Publications Series General Editor Paul van der Velde Publications Officer Martina van den Haak Editorial Board Prasenjit Duara (University of Chicago) / Carol Gluck (Columbia University) / Christophe Jaffrelot (Centre d’E´tudes et de Recherches Internationales-Sciences- po) / Victor T. King (University of Hull) / Yuri Sadoi (Meijo University) / A.B. Shamsul (Institute of Occidental Studies / Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia) / Henk Schulte Nordholt (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Car- ibbean Studies) / Wim Boot (Leiden University) The IIAS Publications Series consists of Monographs and Edited Volumes. The Series publishes results of research projects conducted at the International Insti- tute for Asian Studies. Furthermore, the aim of the Series is to promote interdisciplinary studies on Asia and comparative research on Asia and Europe. The International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) is a postdoctoral research centre based in Leiden and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Its objective is to encourage the interdisciplinary and comparative study of Asia and to promote national and international cooperation. The institute focuses on the humanities and social sciences and, where relevant, on their interaction with other sciences. It stimu- lates scholarship on Asia and is instrumental in forging research networks among Asia scholars worldwide. IIAS acts as an international mediator, bringing various parties together, working as a clearinghouse of knowledge and information. This entails activities such as providing information services, hosting academic organisations dealing with Asia, constructing international networks, and setting up international cooperative projects and research programmes. In this way, IIAS functions as a window on Eur- ope for non-European scholars and contributes to the cultural rapprochement be- tween Asia and Europe. For further information, please visit www.iias.nl. South Asian Partition Fiction in English From Khushwant Singh to Amitav Ghosh Rituparna Roy Publications Series Monographs 4 Cover illustration: Gargyee Bhattacharya Roy Cover design: Maedium, Utrecht Layout: The DocWorkers, Almere ISBN 978 90 8964 245 5 e-ISBN 978 90 4851 283 6 NUR 692 / 617 © IIAS / Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2010 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owners and the editors and authors of the book. To my parents, Prof. Birendra Narayan Roy & Prof. Kalpana Roy … the only gift I can give… Contents Acknowledgements 9 Introduction 13 Theories of partition – why/when/ironies 13 Historiography of the Partition 18 Representation in literature 20 The IE Novel – Gandhian whirlwind/partition preoccupation/ Punjab bias 21 The six novels studied in this book 24 Novels not selected for study 28 Filling up a lacuna 29 1 Partition: The Holocaust 33 Iconic status of Train to Pakistan 33 Symbolic significance of trains 35 The five events of the narrative 37 Flaws/Jugga, and Singh’s redeeming vision 44 Manohar Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges 47 Malgonkar’s fascination with history 48 Double-hero/pluralistic method 49 The Hindu-Muslim question 50 Revolutionary terrorism vs. non-violence 53 The failure of both ideologies 61 2 Women during the Partition: Victim and agent 63 The Pakistani version of the partition 64 The Partition in Bapsi Sidhwa’s novels 66 Ayah’s Circle, Ice-candy man and Ayah’s abduction 67 Gurdaspur and Lahore 72 ‘Recovery and rehabilitation’ – Hamida and Ayah 74 Lenny’s awakening consciousness 78 Agency to women 79 Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day 80 Desai stereotyped 80 Critics on the novel 81 Clear Light of Day as a Partition novel 82 8 SOUTH ASIAN PARTITION FICTION IN ENGLISH Bim enabled 87 Desai’s revisioning of the traditional Partition narrative 87 3 The making of a nation: Religion or language? 89 Midnight’s Children: A watershed 89 Two aspects of the novel’s representation of history usually missed 91 Freedom at midnight: The moment of birth 92 Bombay-Karachi-Dhaka 98 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War 101 Rushdie and Ghosh 108 4 Imagined communities: Questioning the border 111 Proust and the anti-Sikh riots 111 Midnight’s Children and The Shadow Lines 112 Four ways to read the novel 112 Of borders and lost histories 113 The Shadow Lines and the aftermath of the Partition 114 Why Tribib got killed in Jindabahar Lane 118 Meaninglessness of borders – colonial and post-colonial perspectives of the nation 122 Imagined communities 124 Warring critics, and an author in denial 126 Ghosh’s real antecedents 128 Conclusion 131 Three factors determining the thrust of the narratives 132 Interflows of images/motifs 135 Glossary 139 Notes 141 Bibliography 163 Index 171 Acknowledgements I was greatly fascinated by the story of ‘India’s struggle for independence’ in secondary school and cheerfully devoured entire sections of the History syllabus for my exams. Much later, I learnt that what I so loved reading at school was the ‘nationalist narrative’ of modern Indian history – and that it told an incomplete story. History gave me all the facts about Independence at school, but it was at university that literature introduced me to the Partition. The original idea for this work came while I was doing my post-grad- uate studies at Calcutta University (1995-97) in English Literature with a specialization in Indian Writing in English. That is when it struck me how many of the most significant Indian-English novels dealt with the theme of partition – and how differently. Hence, when I landed a doc- toral fellowship soon after, I knew exactly what to work on. This work – from the nascent idea of the original thesis to the fin- ished manuscript of the monograph based on it – has spanned an entire decade, and became associated with all the landmarks of my personal and professional life. It also went places – starting from Calcutta, it travelled with me briefly to Bangalore and Chennai, and finally, leaving India’s shores, ended its (tortuously long, bumpy, jerky and singularly unpredictable) journey in Amsterdam. Along the way, my debts have accumulated – both to individuals and institutions. I would first like to thank my supervisor, Dr Esha Dey, who not only oversaw my work over a long period of time, but as a teacher at Calcutta University was instrumental in kindling my interest in this literature in the first place. Calcutta University deserves special thanks for being my host institu- tion throughout the period of my research. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the debt I owe to my teachers at the Department of Eng- lish – Prof. Krishna Sen, Prof. Jharna Sanyal, Prof. Tapati Gupta and Prof. Dipendu Chakraborty – who went far beyond the call of duty to help me and facilitate matters at various phases of this work. I started my PhD with a student fellowship (JRF – Junior Research Fellowship) and completed it with a Teacher Fellowship (under the Fa- culty Improvement Program, FIP, of the Xth Plan) – both granted by 10 SOUTH ASIAN PARTITION FICTION IN ENGLISH the University Grants Commission (UGC) of India. Without these fel- lowships it would not have been possible for me to sustain my research. For this, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Basantidevi College, Kolkata, for sanctioning the two-year leave. In this regard, I would espe- cially like to thank the then principal, Dr Bijoy Lakshmi Mukherjee, for her kindness; and my colleagues in the English Department – the then Head, Dr Sreemati Mukherjee, Dr Ralla Guha Niyogi and Malobika Sarkar – for their love and generosity. They actively supported and en- couraged me even when, given the realities of college teaching in Cal- cutta, my absence made their own work more difficult.

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