How We Remember 1947

Abstract

In my Major Research Project, I explore how the India-Pakistan partition of 1947 is conceptualized in a popular media text. Specifically, I look at a TV series produced in Pakistan that explores the partition and the events immediately preceding it, that led to the splitting of India into India and Pakistan from a nationalistic perspective. Major themes that are noteworthy of analysis include gender relations, notions of belonging and community, nationalism and identity, contextualization and impact of media, and trauma. Moreover, I pay attention to how gender relations and notions of family are conceptualized in relation to nationalistic ideologies, and how both are impacted during traumatic events. In particular, my research interest includes studying how this media depiction of the partition plays into or contests dominant narratives of the nation and citizenship along the lines of religious and gender classifications. The literature review below aims to explore theoretical conceptualizations of my areas of interest in order to enable my media text analysis to be situated in relation to existing literature.