The Mega Journal 2020 [139] Vol 1, 2020 ISSN: 2717-4840 The Mega Journal Published by NEPAL MEGA COLLEGE The Mega Journal 2020 [1] Advisors Hom Nath Bhattarai Prem Raj Panta Gopal Khanal Dinesh Khanal Editorial Board Keshav Bhattarai Maha Nanda Chalise Motee Lal Sharma Satish Devkota Dhundi Bhattarai Executive Editors Sohan Kumar Karna Beerendra Pandey Associate Editors Madhukar Pandey Barun Panthi Yadap Chandra Neupane Bishnu Prasad Khanal [2] Nepal Mega college Contents Muslim Society and Partition Drama in Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column: A Womanist Critique Anju Gupta 5 Devkota’s Vision in “The Necessity of a Strongly Organized Writers Union for Nepal”: A Study in Rhetoric Bal Krishna Sharma 17 Surreal Play of the Corpse in Ramesh Ranjan’s Murda: A Study in Marxist Revolutionary Politics Beerendra Pandey 25 Jofs/0f lzIf0f ;DaGwL c5fd lhNnfsf lzIfsx?sf] wf/0ff / sIff lzIf0fdf To;sf] k|Tofjt{g lbg]z l3ld/] 33 Sports Tourism Initiatives For Sustainable Livelihood Adaptation In Nepal Dwarika Upreti 44 Grounds of Maoist Insurgency in Nepal Gunanidhi Sharma 54 Disputed Territories between Nepal and India: The Cases of Kalapani, Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Susta Keshav Bhattarai / Madhukar Pandey 67 Impact of Credit Risk Management on Performance of Commercial Banks of Nepal Rabin Dahal 94 The Mega Journal 2020 [3] Performance Appraisal and Employee Motivation in Nepalese Commercial Banks Sarad Sharma Dhungel 107 Education and Economic Growth: What Does the Literature Say? Satis Devkota 119 uf]/vfkqsf] ;DkfbsLo :jtGqtf / ljZj;gLotf aLrsf] cGt;{DaGw lzjz/0f 1jfnL 126 Guidelines for Submission 138 [4] Nepal Mega college Muslim Society and Partition Drama in Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column: A Womanist Critique Anju Gupta Central Department of English Tribhuvan University [email protected] Abstract Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column traces the changes that transpired in the years immediately before and after partition on a Muslim family in Lucknow. The winds of change blow through the aristocratic house and, by the time the winds have died down, the family has been scattered. Some have crossed the border to Pakistan, while some have been killed in the train massacres. The rest remain in India, sad- dened and somewhat disillusioned, but still believing in a united, secular country. In the novel, politics leading to the partition of India becomes secondary to the story of a young woman’s growth to sad maturity through personal loss. Her reflective memories of the disintegration and displacement expose the patriarchal contours of the upper-class Muslim society. Keywords: Attia Hosain, Sunlight on a Broken Column, Muslim aristocracy, partition of India, secular India, displacement and disintegration Introduction The first phase of partition novels in English by women writers are all from the upper- class stratum of the Muslim society. The Heart Divided by Mumtaz Shah Nawaz (The Heart Divided) from Pakistan and Attia Hosain (Sunlight on a Broken Column) from India are cases in point. However, unlike Nawaz, Hosain also places the spotlight on the woman’s body even as she concentrates on the marginalization of Muslim women The Mega Journal 2020 [5] in the Muslim society. She protests against incompatible marriages, male dominance and craze for male child among the Indo-Pakistan Muslims but she also indirectly criticizes the partition violence on women in the form of her depiction of Jumman, a female helper, who becomes the victim of man’s lecherous nature—the same thing that was at the heart of the rape of massive number of women during the riots of 1947. Abuses of the women’s body, however, turn out to be secondary to Hosain’s scathing criticism of the patriarchal nature of an upper-class Muslim household. Methodology Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column is an interesting combination of historical and social document along with the story of a young girls’ growth into maturity. This essay attempts a textual analysis of the novel in order to dramatize Hosain’s criticism of the marginalization of women in the pre-partition society and the delineation of the partition vis-à-vis women. Analysis Going back to the time when she was hardly eleven, Attia Hosain learnt from her mother how to bear a challenge bravely when she looked after the family with five children after the death of her husband. Since the beginning, Hosain has displayed immense pride, belief and confidence in womanhood. Once she said to Anita Desai that “her ideal of womanhood was embodied in Sarojini Naidu, who had made her overcome her shyness and attend the All India Women’s Conference held in Calcutta in 1933” (Pathak,1995: 201). On the one hand, she recommends simplicity and modesty to women, while on the other, she encourages them to be confident and courageous. Through her works, she presents a fine example of Indian women’s capacity for assimilation and synthesis. She typifies an amalgamation of modernity with custom and tradition. She shares a sense of cultural alienation and sentiments such as nostalgia, love for beauty along with emotional involvement with India. She displays superb imagination, understanding and poignancy of human beings which she reflects in most of her novels which are interesting and sensible. Sunlight on a Broken Column, according to Kaul & Jain (2001), is “not a period novel, nor is it mere autobiography or a Muslim narrative”…, and goes beyond the “inadequacy of religion as a code for free life and the failure of faith to uphold human values” (212- 13). Her carefully selected words and language act like a custodian. It allows the reader to cross the threshold and discover the connection of one part of Ashiana (the [6] Nepal Mega college home) to the other and also unfold the inner world of Ashiana with all its silences that begin to speak and to be heard. The novel follows the framework of bildungsroman or personal autobiography (Laila’s saga) and enhances the use of the home as a metaphor for the nation. It also provides some interesting glimpses of the range of options available to Indian women in emancipating themselves from patriarchal control. It ranges from rejection to withdrawal and from surrender to negotiated compromise. The range of options available to women has dramatized through the portrayals of various characters. Sunlight on a Broken Column has a large number of characters. The list of main characters runs to twenty seven names: thirteen of them drawn from the same family to which the narrator and central character belong. Of the remaining fourteen characters, three are maids of the family and the others are friends either of the family or of its individual members. Three generations of a rich Muslim patriarchal family are here, most of them living in the same house, Ashiana, with a corridor that bridges the zenana with the men’s living. The walled-zenana is self-contained with its lawns, courtyard and its veranda. Along with its typical Muslim family setting, the novel spans a thirty-year period between 1922 and 1952, covering India’s transition from a colonial to postcolonial state which deals with India’s struggle for independence and presents the ironic reward of this struggle. The novel depicts the ugly acts of communal violence, shows how the fight of the Indians against the British Raj turned into the fight among themselves, and tries to diagnose the malady of partition and its devastating consequences. Sharma and Johri (1984: 7) assert that Sunlight on a Broken Column “expresses a deep feeling of guilt and sorrow because the original impulse for the partition came from the Muslims.” Hosain, however, presents an impartial study of the whole situation. The Hindus are appreciated for saving the Muslims from cruel violence. Likewise, Kemal and Asad, members of distinguished Muslim family, favour India in spite of all doubtful looks around them and take the country to be their home. Her spotlight is something else: the double standards by which the rich and the poor, men and women are judged are exposed by Attia Hosain through the character portrayal of Nandi whose situation becomes like that of the blacks in pre-emancipated America. We, the reader, are made to see her through the eyes of Laila. Her role in the novel mainly is to open our eyes to the two-fold exploitation to which the women servants are primarily subjected to. She says: “Laila Bitia, you don’t know what life can be for The Mega Journal 2020 [7] us. We are the prey of every man’s desire” (Hosain, 1980: 68). But her spirit refuses to be crushed. She has a deep understanding of the male psyche. She says: One goes through life with jackals stalking behind. They look like lions and tigers when you are frightened, and if you show your fear they eat you, bone and marrow. But if you turn on them and threaten them, just snap your fingers at them, they turn into jackals again and run away. (ibidem: 228) Nandi is a woman who is oppressed on grounds of class as well as gender. She is the daughter of the washer man, Jumman. Her misfortune is that she has a face that has become a burden to her parents as “it was not the face of a girl of the lower castes” (ibidem: 27). She, therefore, becomes an attraction to lecherous men, inviting seduction or even rape attempts. But her spirits refuse to be crushed when she retaliates against Uncle Mohsin who blames her being a whore: “A slut? A wanton?” (ibidem: 28). In spite of all these sufferings, the spirit of defiance has not been crushed.