Literature, Gender, and the Trauma of Partition: The Paradox of Independence

213 Pages·2017·2.28 MB·English

by  Debali Mookerjea-Leonard

Literature, Gender, and the Trauma
of Partition
Partition occurring simultaneously with British decolonization of the Indian
subcontinent led to the formation of independent India and Pakistan. While
the political and communal aspects of the Partition have received some atten-
tion, its enormous personal and psychological costs have been mostly glossed
over, particularly when it comes to the splitting of Bengal. The memoryof this
historical ordeal has been preserved in literary archives, and these archives are
still being excavated.
This bookexamines neglected narratives of the Partition of India in 1947 to
study the tracesleft by thisfoundationaltraumaonthe national-and regional-
cultural imaginaries in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. To arrive at a more
complex understanding of how Partition experiences of violence, migration,
anddisplacementshapedpostcolonialsocietiesandsubjectivitiesinSouthAsia,
the author analyses, through novels and short stories, multiplecartographies of
disorientation and anxiety in the post-Partition period. The book illuminates
how contingencies of political geography cut across personal and collective
histories, and how these intersections are variously marked and mediated by
literature. Examining works composed in Bengali and other South Asian lan-
guages,thisbookseekstobroadenandcomplicateexistingconceptionsofwhat
constitutes the Partition literaryarchive.
AvaluableadditiontothegrowingfieldofPartitionstudies,thisbookwillbe
ofinterest to scholars of South Asian history, gender studies, and literature.
Debali Mookerjea-Leonard is Associate Professor of English and World
Literature at James Madison University, US.
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Literature, Gender, and the
Trauma of Partition
The Paradox of Independence
Debali Mookerjea-Leonard
Firstpublished2017
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Names:Mookerjea-Leonard,Debaliauthor.
Title:Literature,genderandthetraumaofPartition:theparadoxof
independence/DebaliMookerjea-Leonard.
Description:MiltonPark,Abingdon,Oxon;NewYork,NYRoutledge,
2017.|Series:RoutledgeresearchongenderinAsiaseries;18|Includes
bibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2016044260|ISBN9781138183100(hardback)|
ISBN9781315646060(e-book)
Subjects:LCSH:Indicfiction--20thcentury--Historyandcriticism.|Women
inliterature.|Psychictraumainliterature.|Partition,Territorial,in
literature.|Collectivememoryinliterature.|India--History--Partition,
1947--LiteratureandthePartition.
Classification:LCCPK5423.5.T37.M662017|DDC891.4/0935854042--
dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2016044260
ISBN:978-1-138-18310-0(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-64606-0(ebk)
TypesetinTimesNewRoman
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
To Baba and Spencer, with love
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
List of tables viii
Acknowledgements ix
Preface xii
Introduction 1
1 Tainted liberty: Women and the Partition 24
2 Midnight’s children: Inhabiting the postcolonial landscape 49
3 Teachers, train hawkers, sales-girls: Women, wage-work,
and the family 77
4 The diminished man: The mythic and the mundane 103
5 Geographies of belonging: Home and the persistence of memory 117
6 Recasting men: Constructing the heroic national masculine 145
7 Identity lessons: Trauma and children’s education in difference 166
Conclusion 178
Bibliography 186
Index 195
Tables
3.1 Women andwage labor in Partition fiction from Bengal 82
Acknowledgements
The journey to this book began long ago, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge
the many debts of support, generosity, and hospitality I have gathered over the
years to institutions and individuals who made the research and writing
pleasurable.
This project originated towards the end of mygraduate studies at the Uni-
versityof ChicagowhileI wasfinishing up mydissertation. Iam privileged to
have received the advice and unstinting support of the university’s talented
faculty, especially Lauren Berlant, Martha Nussbaum, and Clinton Seely. I
am indebted to them for intellectual stimulation, their infinite pedagogical
gifts, and their exceptional scholarship. And still more: At a critical moment
Berlant and Nussbaum stepped in and restored serenity to my unravelling
world. At Cornell University where this project was further developed, I
thank the South Asia Program and my colleagues, particularly, Alaka and
Kaushik Basu and Mukul Majumdar for their support. Shelley Feldman was
an invaluable interlocutor. At James Madison University where the bulk of
the research and writing was done, I thank the Dean of the College of Arts
and Letters, David Jeffrey, for his abundant generosity. I am also grateful to
Dabney Bankert for her faith in and enthusiasm for this project. My sincerest
thankstoRobertandBettyHoskinsfortheirkeeninterestinseeingthisworkto
completion, and to Mark Parker for his advice on all aspects of the publishing
process. My colleagues in the Department of English have contributed to a
stimulatingandfriendlyenvironmentthathassustainedmethroughtheprocess
of working on this book; I am especially grateful to Sharon Cote, Marina
Favilla, Annette Federico, Laura Henigman, Laurie Kutchins, and Matthew
Rebhorn. My colleague and friend Mary Thompson gave generously of her
time listening to my ideas, andwasalways ready with sage counsel, infectious
enthusiasm and laughter, and also with dinners and dominos. Rose Gray
always had the answers. I thank Bidyut Chakrabarty for our conversations
about this project during his year-long stay at Harrisonburg, and Sanchita
Chakrabartyforhergeneroushospitality.Thisstudyhasbenefittedimmensely
fromKavitaPanjabi’smentorshipatJadavpurUniversity.Mystudents’curiosity
regarding modern South Asian literature, society, history, and politics has
always been a fount of inspiration.