Ramchand Pakistani,Khamosh Paniand the traumatic evocation of Partition

Abstract

This article will address the themes of partition, gender and trauma within two independent films from Pakistan, Sabiha Sumar's Khamosh Pani (2003) and Mehreen Jabbar's Ramchand Pakistani (2008). The article will consider how the events of 1947 Á partition of India and creation of Pakistan Á recur within the films as disruptive trauma. The article will consider what an engagement with the characteristics of trauma such as involuntary recall and disruption can bring to my readings of the films. Connections are established between women's experiences of ethnic tensions within the contemporary settings of the films and the gendered experiences of 1947. These are expressed in distinct ways, however; the prominence of the themes of trauma within both work to create a powerful presentation of women's subjectivity in Pakistan. Further to this, they draw attention to the possible inevitability of trauma being central identities and locations forged out of a partition that entailed border creation, large-scale disruption, and violence. The article will conclude that close readings of both films highlight the role of the traumatic in the formation of gendered national identities.

How We Remember 1947

“…Establishing that the partition was a traumatic "time of mass displacement, sexual violence, abduction, assault and disappearance", Saeed's (2009, p. 483-4) analysis sheds light on the gendered nature of experiences of trauma, looking at how women responded to the partition both, when it took place and to its memory in modern day engagements. Engagements with and effects of nation and border creation and maintenance continue to be gendered, as is their enactment in media texts (Saeed, 2009). In addition to gender, other differences in how audiences are located can mean that the same media text can be read in multiple and sometimes opposing ways (Gopinath, 2000, p. 284).…”

“…Women are depicted as symbolic guards of the country, therefore producing gendered responses to national identity and borders (Saeed, 2009). It appears that Pakistani feminists contend that in addition to nationalism, religious forces support the restriction of women to the private domain and the regulation of their lives through codes of morality (Jamal, 2006).…”

“…Construction of identities also takes place through the creation of adversaries and is a mechanism for humans to organize and comprehend their worlds (Durrani & Dunne, 2010). Moreover, nation building is deeply intertwined with trauma (Saeed, 2009).Unaddressed trauma is integral to the remembrance of the partition, which is essential to the performance of nationhood (Ray, 2006;as cited in Saeed, 2009). Historically, national identity formation for India and Pakistan have been defined in opposition to each other (Lall, 2008).…”

“…This section looks further into how trauma is linked to nationalism. Saeed (2009) introduces the concept of disruptive trauma as an organizational tool for the emotional effects of partition. The partition came with the cost of an estimated one million people's death, thousands of rapes and between six to fifteen million people becoming refugees (Debs, 2013).…”

Historical Continuities in South Asian Film Narratives:Contemporary Representations of Religious,Ethno-linguistic and Sexual Minorities

“…Since academic work on Pakistani films remains scarce, this article relies on three specific sources for secondary material—Mushtaq Gazdar’s survey of the growth and development of Pakistani films particularly since 1947; Iftikhar Dadi’s brief analysis of the crisis in Pakistani cinema; and Ahmad and Khan’s analysis of ‘cinema on the margins’ (2016). While there exist a few scholarly works on representation of regions (Sindh; Levesque and Bui 2014), masculinity, caste and gender (Sevea 2014) and most importantly the Partition in Pakistani films (Saeed 2009; Sundar 2010; Vishwanath and Malik 2009), the dearth of studies on the portrayal of religious minority groups in Pakistan remains glaring.…”