(Extra)Ordinary Violence: National Literatures, Diasporic Aesthetics, and the Politics of Gender in South Asian Partition Fiction

George, Rosemary Marangoly

doi:10.1086/518371

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Another register of symbolic emasculation that one can trace in the novel is the striking parallel that exists between Tara’s vidaai (send-off) from her maike (natal home) to her sasural (the home of a woman’s in-laws) and the forced displacement of the three male characters, Puri, Naiyyar, and Somraj. As Rosemary George (2007, pp. 152–153) cogently argues, displacements such as these were an ‘emasculating predicament for men’, since ‘after the dislocations of Partition, sons too found themselves banished to alien lands’.…”

Section: Masculinity Gendered Violence and Patriarchal Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yashpal is sensitive enough to point out that instances of gendered violence are ‘standard events in women’s lives’ (George, 2007, p. 154), 8 and not just a peculiar downside of cataclysmic historical events such as the Partition. The magnitude and scale of such violence could only intensify or become further compounded in the wake of sectarian conflicts and widespread rioting instead of being absent altogether in the first place.…”

Section: Masculinity Gendered Violence and Patriarchal Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…She further comments: ‘The gendering of this banishment to an alien land [quite explicitly conveyed by the word bidesh ] via marriage is very clear. Sons, the song wistfully complains, get to stay and inherit the patrimony; daughters are led into exile through marriage arrangements’ (George, 2007, p. 152). One can clearly discern how homesickness and displacement also become unavoidable experiential realities, even for the male protagonists in the novel.…”

Section: Masculinity Gendered Violence and Patriarchal Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rewriting Purushartha: Masculinity, Gendered Violence, and Patriarchal Control in Yashpal’s Jhutha Sach

Singh

2023

Social Change

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This article investigates the implicit subtext of masculinity that undergirds Yashpal’s two-volume novel Jhutha Sach (The False Truth, 1958–1960), one of the most frequently sidestepped classics of Partition literature. It seeks to address the persistent scholarly amnesia that largely exists within the ever-expanding corpus of Partition Studies and which, more often than not, reveals an overwhelming preoccupation with questions relating to violence, memory, trauma, and testimony. While the usual suspects of Partition literature have been analysed and re-analysed over and over again, the most voluminous fictional account of the devastating tragedy has received scant critical attention. Yashpal’s novel both foregrounds a narrative of hurt, violence, and suffering as well as espouses discursive notions of survival, fortitude, and recuperation. The male characters are not only symbolically emasculated on various occasions but also strategically pitted against the more defiant, heroic, and resourceful female protagonists, enabling the novel to underscore a radical feminist aesthetics that seeks to move beyond the classical themes of Partition literature, such as bewilderment, disorientation, and vulnerability.

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Section: Masculinity Gendered Violence and Patriarchal Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Masculinity Gendered Violence and Patriarchal Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Masculinity Gendered Violence and Patriarchal Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Rewriting Purushartha: Masculinity, Gendered Violence, and Patriarchal Control in Yashpal’s Jhutha Sach

Singh

2023

Social Change

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“…Not only the sane people suffer from such holocaust, physically disabled and the inmates of asylum also get affected. George (2007) claims that during the partition months of India and Pakistan, violence against women (in the form of sexual assault, mutilation, murder, and abduction) rose to unprecedented levels (p. 136). In spite of their innocence, the case of women was so pitiable that touches too painfully on sensitive nerves (Mansergh, 1965, p. 1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expressive Aphasia and Functional Amnesia in Manto’s “Toba Tek Singh”

Dahal¹

2022

Koshi Pravah

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This article, based on Saadat Hassan Manto’s short story “Toba Tek Singh”, attempts to explore the effect of the decision of diplomatically agreed exchange of lunatics of Lahore asylum from the perspective of war, violence and trauma. The decision was made between the two newly formed nations, India and Pakistan, just after some time of their partition in 1947. The madmen were forcibly brought to the border on the trucks and they were to be exchanged on the basis of their religious faith. The Hindus and the Sikhs were going to be deported to India and the Muslims to Pakistan. This paper investigates how violence, beyond physical injury, hurts one’s psyche pushing the victim to a loss of language and memory. It uses the theory of violence and trauma to study the effect of partition. Reflecting on the meaning disorder, it analyzes the traumatic shock that is conveyed through blurry words that sound insensible according to the rule of semantics. Revisiting the common notions of lunacy, it examines how expressive aphasia and functional amnesia impair the major character of the story. Its finding suggests that the trauma and psychological breakdown caused due to partition violence can lead one to a state of expressive aphasia and functional amnesia.

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Remembering a Lost Presence: The Spectre of Partition in the Stories of Lahore-Based Punjabi-Language Author Zubair Ahmed

Murphy

2017

Partition and the Practice of Memory

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(Extra)Ordinary Violence: National Literatures, Diasporic Aesthetics, and the Politics of Gender in South Asian Partition Fiction

Cited by 11 publications

References 11 publications

Rewriting Purushartha: Masculinity, Gendered Violence, and Patriarchal Control in Yashpal’s Jhutha Sach

Rewriting Purushartha: Masculinity, Gendered Violence, and Patriarchal Control in Yashpal’s Jhutha Sach

Expressive Aphasia and Functional Amnesia in Manto’s “Toba Tek Singh”

Remembering a Lost Presence: The Spectre of Partition in the Stories of Lahore-Based Punjabi-Language Author Zubair Ahmed

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