Abstract
This study briefly describes the moral and immoral effects of National Boundaries which have been suffered by a nation. In different perspectives idea of partition and its political background has been discussed by sub continents writers. The present study has been done under the selected writing of sidhwa Ice Candy Man, The Crow Eaters and An American Brat. This research dissertation highlights that how boundaries unite and isolate people, it has an important role in our lives. It draws a special attention and detailed information with reference to the particular texts that how they put an impact on an individual and on a community. This research highlights that how forcefully people have been separated because of the migration, they have faced the physical and psychological disturbance. Although the border line has been created between both the nations, but the idea of independence has promoted the multicultural society which later becomes a progressive approach.
Key Words
Partition, Border, Boundaries, Nation, Nationalism, Self vs Other
Introduction
The memorable event of the separation of India Pakistan still exist and discussed even today. It was not the small event, it has changed the lives of millions of people. The writers of sub-continent have portrayed the Partition and the political background in different perspectives according to their own set pyramids. A famous Pakistani writer Bapsi Sidhwa has not only discussed the life of people during partition but also has highlighted the after effects of the partition as well. She has been criticized by number of
critics but she never gives up and portrays the reality from different approaches.
She has experienced the partition trauma herself. It has been researched that Sidhwa’s work has acquired positive precarious attention for providing a unique Parsee perspective on the culture and the politics between the separation of India and Pakistan. The issues of cultural difference have been always highlighted by Sidhwa because she herself was the victimizer of that event. which has been elevated after the partition of sub-continent.
Literature Review
Historical Background of the Boundaries
National boundaries have become important for everyone to live with freedom. In 1857, East India Company brought major portion of Pakistan under its own control. It was declared after the war of 1857 that the descendants of so called Mughal emperors will not be allowed to live in the Red Fort. After the war of 1857, western culture spread in whole India. It became more difficult for Muslims to stay in that culture. Rumors were that the government will be converted to Christianity. All of the difficulties and problems have been created for Muslim to show them less able or disgrace them in front of all communities.
The British attacked Delhi because they cannot see the Muslim Mughal’s power. After a desperate fight for throne between Mughals and British, the British reoccupied Delhi. Thousands of innocent and poor people were murdered and hanged. The old Mughal emperor was sent to Rangoon, his sons were slaughtered. At last, exactly that happened which British’s had wished for; the imperial dynasty of the Mughal finished. After the war of 1857 Muslims suffered a lot. Though it has been called war of independence but for Muslims it proved to be war of slavery and cruelty. Muslim leaders were sentenced to jail or hanged. Their properties were confiscated. Besides this, British and Indians snatched the government jobs from Muslims. The ratio of Muslim representation shrink. Then a great Muslim came forward to rescue Muslims named Sir Syed Ahmed khan. When Sir Syed Ahmed Khan saw the terrible condition of Muslim community, he came at the forefront and fought for the Muslims. He is the founder of Aligarh Movement that tried to save the decline of the Muslims in political, social, educational, and economic spheres. Sir Syed Ahmed khan realized after the establishment of Indian national congress that it is purely a Hindu organization. Subsequently, he suggested the Muslim to stop taking part in its activities.
This research argues fictional canvas that ranges from issues of traditional concerns to contemporary challenges. It examines many controversial and dialectical issues from pre-independent India to the great partition of 1947 and its impact on people. Sidhwa’s major novels like The Crow Eaters, An American Bride, Ice candy man courageously talks about the importance of nation and gender issues, the problem of colonization, and the bitterly divided predicament of partition and reconsideration of the socio-cultural society that shaped the fortune of the Indian subcontinent.
Anderson has discussed that language also plays an important role in national identity. “What the eye is to the lover–that particular, ordinary eye he or she is born with–language–whatever language history has made his or her mother-tongue–is to the patriot” (Anderson 2001). After reading this study one can understand that the meaning of nationalism has changed in contemporary era. After the partition, Urdu became the official language of Pakistan but gradually, other languages in Pakistan became more dominant than Urdu. In contemporary era, it has been researched that English and some of the other languages have become worldwide languages.
This study has researched the idea of nationalism and derived the meaning of the past historical events which has happened. Otherwise to define the idea of sub-continent without keeping into its historical time, it is difficult to describe the precarious report on subjective or objective terms, because all the nations have different historical backgrounds. This study is a window for the reader to learn nationalism in Pakistani context. After discussing nationalism, it is being viewed as a vast concept which can derived in different ways and sense. This study is one of the window to know that what actually nationalism is in Asian context.
Research Methodology
The critical analysis done by critics on Sidhwa’s work as well as on Benedict Anderson Imagined Communities and Edward Said Orientalism have used as secondary source of data for this research study. Relevant books, journals, articles, critics views, research papers and thesis reports will give authenticity to the critical points. A specific approach has been used to conduct this study that is known as textual analysis.
Data Analysis
It has been researched that Sidhwa’s writings can be a very authentic source to know about the precarious report of sub-continent partition. The Crow Eaters focus on the Parsee community in the city of Lahore and remote areas that have been merged into the newly formed nation of Pakistan. Serious cultural and historical issues have been discussed in The Crow Eaters, not only this it is written in a hilarious, absurd style that ironies elements of political separation of India and Pakistan. Sidhwa’s novel, Ice-Candy-Man, describes events surrounding the Partition through the eyes of Lenny, a precious Parsee girl who has been disabled by polio. Throughout the novel, Lenny relates the effects of the Partition on her family and community. After the migration to America she has written another novel The American Brat She has discussed in detail why she migrated to America by leaving Pakistan after the partition. She has discussed that how the culture conflicts have been raised between Parsee and Muslim community. Her writing follows a sixteen-years-old Parsi girl named Feroza Junglawalla.
The consequence of this research dissertation is that the true picture of the partition between India and Pakistan. It highlights that how boundaries unite and isolate people, it has an important role in our lives. It draws a special attention and detailed information with reference to the particular texts that how they put an impact on an individual and on a community. This research will contribute a beneficial role and will be leads towards the practical implementation. Precarious report of sub-continent Partition is the core of this research paper and all the discussion about separation have been highlighted under the umbrella of Bapsi Sidhwa’s selected writing. The great and important deal of information has been gathered through the view pointed of Benedict Anderson, Edward Said, Smith and Fanon Before the discussion of nationalism, it is necessary to define its main concepts. It can be said that Nationalism is a philosophy or an idea which has an image of being natural. Nationalism is created by a clarify philosophy of the universal law of nature. It tells us that it is important to know that we must find out the things which are common in different nations rather to find the difference between nations. The term nationalism first appeared in the period 1880-1914, when it was democratized through politics and took a dramatic leap ideology (Hobsbawn 142). Smith has defined nation as “The nation was to incorporate all those who shared a common history, culture and ethnicity, and the people of that state would work together in order to achieve autonomy and a united homeland” (Smith 2).
Anderson’s Idea of Nationalism
Anderson has defined nationalism in his book Imagined Communities in a detailed and comprehensive way. Benedict Anderson has worked on nationalism. Anderson defines the nation as, “an imagined political community–and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign…It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (Anderson, 2012). Nationalism is a positive force. It can be an appealing ideology. Nationalism is not nasty. In fact, it provides a platform to people to live with freedom. Anderson has given another point of view about nationalism that nationalism cannot be linked with racism. Both of these are two different things. Racism means the belonging to the ideology of a class and as for as nationalism is concerned. It belongs to the nation. Nation means all the people who have same community, no matter if they are rich or poor. Nationalism is a force for good. It has been researched through Sidhwa’s writing that national boundaries make a nation economically and politically strong. National boundaries make a nation unite. National identity has been the major point of concern for everyone in colonial era. Ultimately, independence movements have been evoked which are treated as the urge to get self-identity.
Frantz Fanon’s Idea of others
Nationalism provokes the idea of self vs other and self-representation. Frantz Fanon has stated that researcher seeks to consider how literature describes the other. The colonizer and the colonized are represented as self vs others not only politically but culturally as well. The binary opposition is used to understand the idea of Self vs Others that ultimately helps us to understand how meanings are being shaped, created or reinforced in a text.
It has been researched after the thoroughly reading of Sidhwa’s woks that “Post-colonial novels are written to present the "unequal relations of power based on binary opposition: “Us” and “them”, "First World” and “third world”, “White” and “black”, “Colonizer” and “colonized”, (Kehinde, Ayobami108). “Self” and “other”, “Powerful” and “powerless”, “Torturer” and “tortured”, “Master” and “slave”, “Civilized” and “savage”, “Superior” and “inferior”, “Human” and “subhuman”.
In an attempt to create a precarious report of sub-continent partition. This research study creates an amalgamation of the different approaches which has been discussed in the further study. The main points which has been researched in the light of sidhwa’s writing follows:
? That the world is divided into different units (the nation), as Pakistan gets separation from India.
? That every community of nation has a traditional, ethnical, ancient and defensive domination (real. Imagined, or created); and
? That the units are controlled by their citizens.
? Every nation has different political and social approaches.
These are the some of the main points of Partition which has been derived from this research.
Creation of National Boundaries
The first section deliberates the problems which occur during the creation of Pakistan. This research rises the questions as why and when national boundaries should be created, what impact national boundaries have on an individual’s life. This study finds out that how national boundaries create differences in nations and in their identities, how people suffer because of national boundaries.
Ice Candy Man presents unprecedented violence at the time of partition. Sidhwa has discussed the political changes which occur after the demand of Pakistan, she portrays that how every individual speaks to show of different religious identities. “Hindu, Muslim Sikh: we all want the same thing! We want independence!” (63). Everyone wants independence, nobody wants to be below the other community. If a community lives with another community with in their national boundary. They have to share the problems and sufferings. Researcher will find out through the eyes of Sidhwa, the problem and sufferings of Parsee community and how they have been marginalized to Pakistan after the separation of India and Pakistan.
Sidhwa has shown another side of picture through her novels that how migrants or refugees feel bad when they have to leave their loved ones. At last, they except the reality that they have to live wherever they have migrated. They have no other way. Gradually they become the part of that nation and get their place in society. In Crow Eaters after facing all the troubles and difficulties in life, at the last stage of Faredoon’s life before death, he said gently, “we will stay where we are…let Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, or whoever, rule, what does it matter? The sun will continue to rise-and the sun continue to set-in their arses…!” (255).
“Bowon chang states that…since borders contain both geographical and political implications they are likely to bring crucial consequences in domestic and international politics” (2). The concept of border has been divided into two forms geographical borders and economical borders. In Ice Candy Man, the importance of border has been portrayed.
Borders are very important for defensive control. They give information about migration and exile. According to political and economic point of view borderlines are necessary. Bombers can penetrate a country by its borderline and successes can also achieve by them. The history is full of the examples of state administrators who conducted fights just to expand their borderline or to be separated from the other nation to get their identity their self, because they do not want to be like others. In the forepart, most of the time national boundaries are mentioned on the bases of geographical violence. When Muslim demanded a separate homeland for themselves, it has already decided if the partition of Punjab occurs Lahore will be given to Muslims, “If the Punjab is divided, Lahore is bound to go to Pakistan. There is a Muslim majority here” (130). When the Sikh community comes to know about this decision, they developed hatred against Muslims. They raise the slogans, have given torture to the Muslims. “Pakistan Murdabad! Death to Pakistan! Sat Siri Aka! Bolay so Nihal!” (137). When the Muslim gets the idea that Sikh community is coming in their way of independence, they have become against Sikh and shout: “So? We’ll play Holi-with-their-blood! Ho-o-o-li with their blo-o-o-d!” (137). In return Muslims has raised the slogans, “Allaha-o-Akbar! Yaaaa Ali and Pakistan Zindabad” (138). The narrator of Ice Candy Man, Lenny describes that the whole world has burnt at the time of partition because of the dirty politics which every nation has played for their survival. “The whole world is burning. The air on my face is so hot I think my flesh and clothes will catch fire. I start screaming: hysterically sobbing” (140). Narrator clarifies everywhere in the world only the slogans have roared “Allah-o-Akbar!” (157), “Bolay so Nihal!” (157), which has made the environment very definite and challenging that something is going to happen. Lenny the narrator gives the graphic details of the post partition events. She also critiques the political ethos of the traumatic period. Sidhwa has discussed how this separation disturbed everyone. Sikh community will be severed from their people. Most of the Sikh have lived in Amritsar which became the part of India and Lahore became the part of Pakistan. The author has examined that Sikh community has faced many problems that is why they become against of Muslims and are ready to stand in front of them for their land, all of the situations has been created by the politicians just to create the war in the world, and to stop the separation of India and Pakistan. Ayah the most nearable and lovable person near to Lenny the narrator also suffer from this misery as Lenny says about ayah, “Ayah is crying softly. ‘I must get out of here,’ she says, sniffing and wiping her nose on her sari-blouse sleeve. ‘I have relatives in Amritsar I can go to” (161). The division have to be done, now it has become the matter of respect for the Muslims as well. They want to live in a separate nation according to their custom, ethics and values. So, the orders of division have done and after the lot of trouble problem, difficulties and miseries, at last, Muslims gets success. “Within three months seven million Muslim and five million Hindus and Sikhs are uprooted in the largest and most terrible exchange of population known to history. The Punjab has been divided by the icy card-sharks dealing out the land village by village, city by city, wheeling and dealing and doling out favors”. (162) The great celebrity Jinnah has suffered a lot to get a separate homeland for the Muslims. Muslims get their national identity and becomes happy, but opposition have done their level best, even after the division to reverse the decision, British favors Nehru.
“For now, the tide is turned-and the Hindus are being favored over the Muslims by the remnants of the Raj. The objective to divide Indian is achieved, the British favors Nehru over Jinnah. Nehru is Kashmiri; they grant him Kashmir. Spurning logic, defying rationale, ignoring the consequence of bequeathing a Muslim state to the Hindus: while Jinnah futilely protests: ‘Statesmen cannot eat their words!” (162).
When the idea of separate nation has been materialized, the agreement signed, Jinnah the great leader has given a patriotic and free speech not only for Muslims but for every nation for every community. The great leader utters:
“I blow out the candles and cut the squashed cake. And then we sit around the ratio listening to the celebrations of the new Nation. Jinnah’s voice, inaugurating the Constituent Assembly sessions on 11 August, says: ‘You are free. You are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or any other place of worship in the State of Pakistan. You may belong to any relation or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of State…etc.., etc.., etc. Pakistan Zindabad!” (147).
Gradually, on 14th August, 1947. Pakistan a new nation was born. This day can never be forgotten in the history of Pakistan. It was the day when the Lahore has been fulfilled of Muslim community, the nation has enjoyed the air of freedom, they have taken the breath of peace. “Lahore is suddenly emptied of yet another hoary dimension: there are no Brahmins with caste-marks-or Hindus in dhoties with bodhis. Only hordes of Muslim refugees” (163). National boundaries are most of the time expanded, intense, and can never be determined. A nation’s desire to get more place is genuine and there can be basic reasons that they want to live the way they want. “We’ve all produced a baby… We’ve given birth to a new nation Pakistan!” (145). Muslims become happy because they have conquered their own homeland where they can live with freedom and peace. Religion is one of the basic reason between two nations to be separated because every nation, every human being wants to live according to his/her religion. Quaid-e- Azam the great leader has raised the voice for Muslims for their homeland where they can live with freedom. The separation between India and Pakistan is one of the major historical incident which reveals that it is the right of every nation to fight for its homeland where the people can rule as an independent nation. and to prove their individual identity. To get separation from other countries and make own border is not the target of nations, in reality it helps to achieve their identity. If a nation does not have any border line, people who belong to different areas, races, and cultures will start living together in result, many conflicts and issues raises for that nation. Sidhwa has disclosed in her writings that Parsee community have been unable to live according to their own customs. Which has leaded them towards the demand of a separate homeland Pakistan. National boundaries create limitations and constraints for people, for the betterment of nation. So, the national boundaries are a positive approach to avoid and save one nation from identity crisis and racial issues.
It has been find out from an essay of “female political participation in south Asia” that Shami has conducted a research in 2009 which investigates that Pakistani women has been associated to politics when Pakistan has come into being. Ms. Fatima Jinnah has been the first women who worked with her brother Jinnah at the time of partition she always stands with him at the time of need in fact, she has become the part of struggle movement also. Sidhwa has shown that during the era of Bhutto women’s role in politics has been raised as Zareen also gets political rights. But in the era of general Zia-ul-Haq, the role of women has lean because of the martial law, In the era of general Musharaf women have been very actively participating in politics, he has increased the seats allocation for the women in politics. In the history of Pakistan women place in politics has undergone many ups and downs. “male consider women subordinate to them hence they don’t want to share political power and decision making with women” (latif 2015).
According to Nancy cook, she describes in an essay of “Discourse of gender identities and gender roles in Pakistan”, “Muslim politicians, through their speeches during the Pakistan independence movement of the 1940s, have created a discursive space that has opened up the possibility for women to engage in politics. She and other authors (Jalal, 1991; Rouse, 2004) argue that it was above all Muhammad Ali Jinnah who actively drew on women for the cause of independence” (Julia 9).
Sidhwa has disclosed how Muhammad Ali Jinnah has engaged women in politics, he always actively uses to talk about the women rights as well, he has encouraged women’s participation in public life and has taken his sister Fatima Jinnah with him in Rallies. Jinnah always remains very respectful to ladies, he has been of the view that every woman must be able to stand for herself. Women also have the right to live with freedom. He has stated to Muslim women that:
“Tell your young girls, I am a progressive Muslim leader. I, therefore, take my sister along with me to backward areas like Baluchistan and NWFP and she also stands the session of All India Muslim League and other public meetings. Pakistan will be a progressive country building of which women will be seen working shoulder to shoulder with men in every department of life” (Julia 9). At the time of partition Jinnah has been the only leader who stood with the Muslim women because Jinnah wants to see them equal to men. He wants to give a message to Muslim women that everyone is equal in their religion. I have argued in this research how various civilizations have made their different boundaries for men and women. People of different culture and religion have different values and they follow their specific pattern of society. As the time progresses it has been observed that in the modern contemporary world, how national boundaries make a nation strong, gives space to every nation, offer the idea of freedom and promote multicultural approach and welcome the new migrants to be the part of that nation. Freddy, who does not want to live in Lahore and faces difficulties because of the migration. His ideas change about living in Lahore, as the story progresses. Freddy’s mind about Lahore has been changed, as narrator states: “Freddy’s mind settled on a smug clutch of smiling thoughts. Right there he took a silent oath that he would never leave Lahore so long as he lived” (11). Sidhwa wants to convey a message to her readers that gradually one becomes the part of other nation in which he lives and accepts it as Freddy does.
In The Crow Eaters Putli and her mother Jerbano’s clothes gives the idea to a reader that they are not Muslims. Freddy himself declares that what type of clothes her family ladies’ use to wear. “Wife and mother in law never appeared in public without mathabanas-wife kerchiefs wound around the hair to fit like skullcaps. The holly thread circling their waste was austerely displayed and scared undergarments, worn beneath short blouses, modestly aproned their sari-wrapped hips” (13). Wherever a child opens his eyes, he/she adopts the culture of that place. Culture and religion are in the instinct of human being and it passes through one generation to another generation, from one society to another society. Parsee community follows Zarathusti faith, “Zarathusti faith is based on charity” (35). After the migration, it has become a big challenge for the migrated Parsee to assimilate the cultural traditions on the new social environment. After the partition the refuges have migrated to different places, redefining the ideas of national boundaries. People have become ready to happily adopt others’ culture. The emergence of different culture has become an issue for the nations that how they can save their culture and promote it as every culture has its own customs. Same is the case in the Muslim and Parsee culture.
In the Parsee religion, they have very different death rituals than Islam. “PARSEES ARE A tiny community who leave their dead in open roofed enclosures atop hills—to be devoured by vultures. The British romanticized this bizarre graveyard with the title’ Tower of Silence” (33). The narrator gives a full description of the tower where the dead bodies are left. “These wells are full of lime, charcoal and Sulphur and provided an excellent filter” (33). It has become a big trouble for Parsee community who migrated to Lahore, they had to face a challenge for the proceedings of their death rituals that how they will accomplish their death ceremonies because in Lahore there has no tower of silence situated. “Now, the height of the Tower is precisely calculated. Bombay, where Parsees live in substantial numbers,” (33). When the death of Soli occurs, it was a very hard time for the Juglwalla family. Firstly, they have been suffered because of the young death of their son and secondly, they have become upset that how they will complete his death rituals. “The body was bathed and dressed in old garments of white cotton. Freddy wrapped the Kusti around his son’s waist, reciting prayers. As there is no Tower of Silence in Lahore, the body was transported to the fire Temple. A room in the living quarters of the priest had been hastily prepared to receive the body” (57).
Sidhwa artistically paints a picture about the struggle of Pakistan. She has discussed the problem and sufferings which have come in the way of Jinnah for a separate homeland. She has revealed through her writing Jinnah’s vision of Pakistan, as a secular modern welfare state. When Pakistan was created in 1947, it was the dream of founders that this nation would have rich culture but the clever of subcontinent has raised many issues. when Muslims migrated to Pakistan many of the other diverse ethnic people came with them like Sikh and Parsee communities as Sidhwa has shown in her writings as well. When the people of different culture migrated, they took their culture with them including religion, language, clothing, ceremonies of birth and funeral, music, art and their literature. Several cultures have died because of their lack in population, and their small units of families and their break ups became of migration. Same has happened in The Crow Eaters, Yazdi tells his father that he wants to get married a girl even he does not know properly, Freddy first becomes angry because it is against their culture that a boy wants to get married a girl by his will. So, that is why Freddy tells his children that when he gets married he does not know her wife, but now the son Yazdi, as for as he is concerned, he does not live with his own community and his borders has changed that is why he does not follow his culture, he wants freedom and power in his decisions as he says to his father “I didn’t care whom I married-as long as the girl was young, decent and reasonably good-looking-but your mother was beautiful: one of the bewitching pitcher-bearers, veiled in maidenly modesty, I was overripe for love and I fell passionately in love”(96).
This research highlights that how people have separated because of the migration, they have faced the psychological disturbance. Freddy always keeps a distance between himself and his children, he has been never allowed anybody in his whole life to come close to him, he loves to remains in his own. Most of the people in the Parsee community have no knowledge about Muslim culture due to the fact that they belong to different culture. The immigrants of other nation are always remained in a separate state. Whether those who migrated in 1947 by force or those who migrates to other nation by their free will just to make their livelihood better, they are always found to belong from no-where. The impacts of others culture effects migrants very badly as the Parsee community bears the impact of other cultures. No one is culture free. In the twentieth century, everyone is interweaving a different culture in his own self. But the migration from one place to another redreams the maps of cultural territories. The hosts’ culture and the immigrants’ cultures create a dialogic space to give birth to a new hybrid culture. Thus, the idea of national boundaries remains in constant state of fluidity, re-defining itself at a critical juncture of history. It has been researched that Multi-cultural identities provide a challenge to kill the language and provokes communication barriers, different culture, race, ethnicity, values, ethics, and racial difference create various discriminations in the society. The People who experience to live with the multiple identities, they have the ability to bear problems and resolve conflicts and issues which comes in their way. They have the ability to be a leader.
Mushtaq Bilal the famous Pakistani writer has conducted an interview of Bapsi Sidhwa about her life and writings which he has mentioned in his book The Writing Pakistan. He has asked her question not only about his life but also, he inquires her about the pre-and post-effects of partition between India and Pakistan. Some part of his interview with Sidhwa has been mentioned in this very research paper.
Bilal has asked her question about Ice candy man that: “col. Bharucha says to “Lenny’s mother “if anyone’s to blame, the British! There was no polio in India till they brought it here (15). While the cultural, political and sociological effects of the British colonialism are frequently mentioned in postcolonial discourse, the disease the colonizer brought are not discussed that often. What do think are the reasons for overlooking this disease brought by the colonizer?” (Bilal 30).
Sidhwa herself has suffered all the torture trauma and pains that is why she very bluntly tells him in the interview: “well, the colonizer always like to paint himself in the best possible manner. He is not going to say, I have brought chicken pox, syphilis and other diseases to the colonized. One can write about it now but the British would not write about it. The colonizers, weather they are French or British or general, only like to talk about themselves in glowing terms. They always like to talk about themselves in terms of how good they were to the natives and what good they had done to the country of the colonized people” (30-31). The hard but true answer of Sidhwa shows her anger towards colonizers that how they deal with colonized.
Ayesha Jalal has been Pakistan’s leading historian. She says in one of her speech that the “The pity of partition was not that the country had been divided into two, Independent India and Independent Pakistan; but it was that people had become slaves to bigotry, religious passions and barbarity”. This is what the Sidhwa has showed in her writing that the people have become slaves of others identity. The partition has not only done between the earth in fact it has been done between the hearts. Which later on becomes the reasons of nation’s downfall.
On her remark, Bilal raises a question for Sidhwa that the Parsee characters which Sidhwa has mentioned in her novels are affected by the partition but why they do not become religious fundamentalist, and they are not able to resist becoming hostage of their religious identity why it is so what is the reason behind it? Sidhwa at once answers him back. “Because Parsees are only 120,000 in the whole world they are tiny community. So, they did not have a chance to become religious bigots. If they were a big community, two or three million, they would have become bigots as well------- The Parsees had a strong sense of identity among themselves and they did not get involved in the partition in the sense that they help a lot of Hindus escaped from Pakistan” (Bilal 32).
Conclusion
This study claims that to know the history of partition between India and Pakistan is important to know the people of that very nation. It has been researched that boundary between India and Pakistan has been created due to cultural and religious conflicts as the Muslim wanted to have a separate nation. Although the border line has been created between both the nations. Sidhwa has argued in her writings that the true purpose of this migration has been neglected. It has been find out that though migrants adopt others culture but it is also true that they do it by force not by their will. So, the situation remains same after the partitions of border.
References
- Amudha, R. (2013). Borders and Boundaries in the Novels of Bapsi Sidhwa. McGraw Hill.
- Anderson, B. (2001). Western Nationalism and Eastern Nationalism. Time, Space, Nation, Armonk.
- Anderson, B. (2012). Nationalism Studies: Monitoring the Changing World. McGraw Hill.
- Botting, E. H. (2002). Wollstonecraft, Mill, and Women’s Human Rights. Yale University Press.
- Bruslé, T., & Varrel, A. (2012). Introduction. Places on the Move: South Asian Migrations through a Spatial Lens. South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 6.
- Burrill, E. S., Roberts, R. L., & Thornberry, E. (2010). Domestic Violence and the Law in Colonial and Postcolonial. Ohio University Press.
- Calhoun, C. (2017). Nation and Imagination: How Benedict Anderson Revolutionized Political Theory. ABC Religion and Ethics, 27.
- Campbell, J. R., & Rew, A. (1999). Identity and Affect: Experiences of Identity in a Globalising World. Pluto Press
- Chambers, C., & Herbert, C. (2015). Imagining Muslims in South Asia and the Diaspora: Secularism, Religion, Representations. Routledge.
- Chan, K. B. (2012). Cultural Hybridity: Contradictions and Dilemmas. McGraw Hill.
- Creed, B. (1993). The Monstrous-feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Routledge.
- Cook, M. (2006). The Male Gaze vs. Female Gaze. Ohio University Press.
- Demissie, F. (2007). Postcolonial African Cities: Imperial Legacies and Postcolonial Predicament. McGraw Hill.
- Derichs, C., & Thompson, M. R. (2013). Dynasties and Female Political Leaders in Asia: Gender, Power and Pedigree. McGraw Hill.
- Fretté, J. (2011). The Meaning of Breasts. McGraw Hill
- Glover, W. J. (2007). Construing Urban Space as “Public†in Colonial India: Some Notes from the Punjab. Journal of Punjab Studies, 14(2), 211–224.
- Grünenfelder, J. (2013). Discourses of gender identities and gender roles in Pakistan: Women and non-domestic work in political representations. Womens Studies International Forum, 40, 68–77.
- Gynther, P. (2007). Beyond Systemic Discrimination: Educational Rights, Skills Acquisition and the Case of Roma. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
- Hai, A. (2000). Border Work, Border Trouble: Postcolonial Feminism and the Ayah in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India. Modern Fiction Studies, 46(2), 379–426.
- Jackson, J., & Molokotos-Liederman, L. (2015). Nationalism, Ethnicity and Boundaries: Conceptualising and Understanding Identity through Boundary Approaches. McGraw Hill.
- Jones, D. P. (1998). Cultural views of the female breast. ABNF Journal, 1(4)
- Kalra, V., Kaur, R., & Hutnyk, J. (2005). Diaspora and Hybridity. SAGE.
- Kevin, L. (2009). How important are the Borders between Countries? Why Do They Even Exist? University of California, Berkeley
- Kitamura, K. (2009). The Female Gaze. McGraw Hill.
- Khalid, A. (2014, July 19). Feminism and the female body in Bapsi Sidhwa’s novels: The Pakistani bride and Cracking India. Amna Khalid’s Blog.
- La Barbera, M. (2015). Identity and Migration: An Introduction. In Springer eBooks (pp. 1–13). Springer Nature.
- Latif, A., Usman, A., Kataria, J. R., & Abdullah, M. (2015). Female Political Participation in South Asia: A Case Study of Pakistan. South Asian Studies, 30(2), 201-213.
- Loreck, J. (2016, January 5). Explainer: what does the “male gaze†mean, and what about a female gaze? The Conversation.
- McMonagle, A. A. (2010). Performative National Cultures: Hybridity, Blurred Boundaries, and Agency in Untouchable and Brick Lane. McGraw Hill.
- Moosavinia, S. R., Niazi, N., & Ghaforian, A. (2011). Edward Said’s Orientalism and the Study of the Self and the other in Orwell’s Burmese Days. Studies in Literature and Language, 2(1), 103–113.
- Pickering, M. (2008). Research Methods for Cultural Studies. Edinburgh University Press
- Selby, J. (2006). Edward w. Said: truth, justice and nationalism. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 8(1), 40–55.
- Sima, R. (2017). Theorising Public and Private Spheres. New York: McGraw Hill
- Sroufe, L. A., Bennett, C., Englund, M. M., Urban, J. B., & Shulman, S. (1993). The Significance of Gender Boundaries in Preadolescence: Contemporary Correlates and Antecedents of Boundary Violation and Maintenance. Child Development, 64(2), 455-66.
- Weedon. (1987). I take my definition of feminism: Feminism is a politics. Square Press.
- Zein-Elabdin, E. O., & Charusheela, S. (2004). Postcolonialism Meets Economics. Routledge.
Cite this article
-
APA : Azhar, F., Ahmad, K. M., & Imdad, J. C. (2023). "Precarious Report of Sub-continent Partition" under A Critical Look on Sidhwa's Selected Writings. Global Language Review, VIII(I), 59-70. https://doi.org/10.31703/glr.2023(VIII-I).06
-
CHICAGO : Azhar, Fatima, Khalid Mehmood Ahmad, and Jonathan Caleb Imdad. 2023. ""Precarious Report of Sub-continent Partition" under A Critical Look on Sidhwa's Selected Writings." Global Language Review, VIII (I): 59-70 doi: 10.31703/glr.2023(VIII-I).06
-
HARVARD : AZHAR, F., AHMAD, K. M. & IMDAD, J. C. 2023. "Precarious Report of Sub-continent Partition" under A Critical Look on Sidhwa's Selected Writings. Global Language Review, VIII, 59-70.
-
MHRA : Azhar, Fatima, Khalid Mehmood Ahmad, and Jonathan Caleb Imdad. 2023. ""Precarious Report of Sub-continent Partition" under A Critical Look on Sidhwa's Selected Writings." Global Language Review, VIII: 59-70
-
MLA : Azhar, Fatima, Khalid Mehmood Ahmad, and Jonathan Caleb Imdad. ""Precarious Report of Sub-continent Partition" under A Critical Look on Sidhwa's Selected Writings." Global Language Review, VIII.I (2023): 59-70 Print.
-
OXFORD : Azhar, Fatima, Ahmad, Khalid Mehmood, and Imdad, Jonathan Caleb (2023), ""Precarious Report of Sub-continent Partition" under A Critical Look on Sidhwa's Selected Writings", Global Language Review, VIII (I), 59-70
-
TURABIAN : Azhar, Fatima, Khalid Mehmood Ahmad, and Jonathan Caleb Imdad. ""Precarious Report of Sub-continent Partition" under A Critical Look on Sidhwa's Selected Writings." Global Language Review VIII, no. I (2023): 59-70. https://doi.org/10.31703/glr.2023(VIII-I).06