B.A.Hons.

English semester vi

PARTITION LITERATURE

TEXT: BASTI Week---20th-26th April, 2020

Partition literature has undergone different connotations in the hands of different group of writers;
while writers like Manto, Krishan Chander etc would give predilection to bloodcurdling description of
violence that spiraled out of partition, it is not clear so many decades clear whether partition was bad or
wrong, critic Debjani Sengupta in Looking Back: The 1947 Partition of India 70 years on, Introduction,
pgxxv, (OBS, Delhi,2017)argues It possibly could not be wrong if one comes to see the long-term effects
of the Partition, and concludes for them, the only meaningful reality is the present but ‘not the past
that was irrevocably changed’, nor even the uncertain future awaiting them, of another phase of
violence, brutality and misery.

Experience of Urdu writers, Nasir Kazmi from Punjab and Intezaar Hussain share common experience of
being ‘mujahirs’ in their new home as they reminisce the early days while probing the newness they had
once felt, said Nasir Kazmi,
But there was something in this condition of not having anything, and it was a great will to live, as if
we were the inheritors of this new country.” (ibid, pgxxvii) however got soiled.

This group of writers belonging to Progressive writers Movement however preferred to speak about the
disillusionment that came very quickly in the wake of independence.
Sahir Ludhianwi, poet and lyricist asks in a poem titiled, “Twenty sixth January”
What happened to all those beautiful dreams we had dreamt?

A generation younger and several decades later, Javed Akhtar, also a poet and lyricist paints a terrible
picture: the smoke rising from a burnt house, the wasted shops, the deserted streets and the deep
silence ask the same question.
N.P. Try to recall how Intezaar Hussain expresses disillusionment over the failure of people of Pakistan
at not using their creativity in building their new nation.
Similar note of despair echoes in these words of Faiz, in his letter written to his English wife, Alys, from
Lahore in the months leading upto partition. Commenting on the violence he sees at Amritsar,

The Muslims have got their Pakistan, the Hindus and Sikhs their desired Punjab and Bengal, but I have
yet to meet a person Muslim, Hindu or Sikh who feels enthusiastic about the future. I can not think of
any country whose people felt so miserable on the eve of freedom and liberation.

TASK
Try to compare and contrast the writers, Amitabh Ghosh and Intezaar Hussain on their treatment of
Partition in their respective fictions.
Take up points like their treatment of History, Memory, nostalgia and narrative and of course their
approach to the subject of partition itself. Common point is of Bangladesh partition in both the fictions.
Look at their approach.