Sejal Khanna

Prof Ankan Dhar

B.A. (Hons.) English | Sem VI

259

Discuss the representation of home and exile in Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Arjun.

"Their desh was someplace else and now it is a place of no return. It can only be revisited in
memories and nostalgia. It has lost its spatial existence." Basu Ray

Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 witnessed millions of people move across borders
towards their newly formed respective homelands, India and Pakistan. That was a time of trial
and turbulence for many displaced people who sought shelter in transit camps and squatter
colonies. Their lives were fraught with massive struggles and hardships. These refugees often
became unwitting victims of politicised state policies and strategic rehabilitation measures.
Literary narratives on Partition are replete with tales of dislocation trauma and concomitant
hazards. Arjun by Sunil Gangopadhyay deals with a sense of loss of home and alienation
experienced by the refugees in a post-partitioned India. The story moves back and forth,
contrasting the present with the glorious memories of the past. The novel's central character,
Arjun, is revealed to be one of the exceptional few who, rather than leading a life of hopeless
resignation, are trying to establish some sort of foothold in an alien society that has labelled them
with the derogatory term "refugee."

The novel depicts a completely different aspect of the rehabilitation process. Gangopadhyay
embodies the misery associated with migration and provides a compelling depiction of violence
ingrained in the reconstruction of dispersed, shattered lives. The main themes of Arjun's
narrative are the political aspects and accompanying violence intrinsically tied to refugee
rehabilitation and the establishment of squatters' colonies. The story depicts the migrants as
objects of pain and then portrays some of them as perpetrators and planners of violence,
expressing conflicting compassion for them. In the initial chapters, the readers encounter the
eccentric psychological state of the protagonist, Arjun, as he takes us on a rollercoaster of
emotions he felt while forcibly migrating to an alien land, "away from home." Arjun's first vision
of his homeland in East Bengal as he lay on an ICU bed was that of an idyllic haven, brimming
with nostalgia and remorse; "lush green lands and a canal." This vision is later contrasted with
the feeling of claustrophobia, alienation and being "un-homed" (Anusua Basu Raychaudhury)
felt by all of Kolkata. Though it was true that some of the migrants would overstate accounts of
their possessions back in East Bengal, Arjun fails to convince Barun that even the poorest in East
Bengal did own some land, which was why being landless and a refugee was so painful to them
and made them exaggerate facts. Gangopadhyay tries to make contemporary readers realise that
the reconstruction of "home" enables a person to turn a past into a "perfect" past. The colony's
name, "Deshpraan" (Heart of the Country), which was chosen by the unfortunate "lot" (Arjun,
89-90) who had to abandon their homeland, also contains irony. In these circumstances, the
author consciously chooses to model his protagonist after a mythical hero to highlight the
inherent conflicts within the character as well as the consequences of aggressive and egotistical
power politics, which have rendered pawns out of the very people whose welfare they alleged to
be promoting (Naina Dey). Very often through the first-person narration, it is suggested that he
experiences a sense of alienation from other people. The narrative also hints at the possibility of
Arjun leaving the Deshapran colony. Arjun is not a radical activist or leader, but he engages with
his community of colony residents because he feels responsible for their overall suffering. He is
prodded into action, and his involvement—along with the following bodily harm it causes him—
helps put an end to the protracted dispute over the colony residents' forcible evacuation.

Despite escaping the large-scale massacre Arjun and his family have to negotiate loss and
dislocation. Samiran George Ghissing, in his article, The Storm of History: Memory,
Witnessing and Archiving Betrayal in Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide and Sunil
Gangopadhyay's Arjun, comments, "The popular rhetoric of homecoming is undercut by the
apathy of the state and dismal condition at the Sealdah station where women were exploited,
child labour ensued and hunger was a constant factor in their daily lives." The betrayal in the
land of arrival as Arjun explicates, "You cannot compare their lot with ours. They have acquired
rights. It is hard enough to forget the sorrow of forcible eviction and not being able to return.
Over and above, there is another sorrow, that of having been treated like beggars and destitutes
here. No one showed us any kinship, any closeness." (Arjun, 89-90) The postcolonial conception
of the subaltern is prominent here. The political ramifications of British rule had a negative
impact on the family. They are compelled to accept their circumstance and remain quiet. They
now have the status of the marginalised and alienated group. They are forbidden access to any
kind of authority and have lost their identities. Here, it is clear how identities were split apart
after the partition of India and Pakistan. Arjun's earliest recollections only paint a picture of
deprivation; he lost his valuable belongings, a pencil and a harmonica, and he also claims to have
"lost the red, blue, and silver dreams" of his childhood. Through the trivial episode of losing his
"invaluable" valuables, Gangopadhyay presents a broader picture of the gruesome event of
partition, and how people from both sides of the border lost their "home" along with their
identity.
The diasporic population faces a severe crisis and pain- the pain of having had to leave their
homeland, the pain of having to visit that same homeland with a permit, the pain of being called
a 'foreigner' in their own homeland and, above all, the pain of memory. Arjun gives the account
of Subimalbabu, who hails from the Faridpur district of East Pakistan, and embraces Arjun when
he learns that the latter comes from the same locality. But immediately thereafter, he insults the
refugees who are less fortunate than himself and who are swarming into the city of Calcutta and
overcrowding it. His family came to Calcutta in 1947 and, hence, they were able to bring some
money with them and, through favourable conditions, increased their fortunes. To him, these
penniless refugees are nothing more than a nuisance. He thereby echoes the sentiment of the
people on his side of the border, who thought the refugees were responsible for all the chaos and
disorder in the neighbourhood, and to be blamed for dirtying the city and raising unemployment.

As the narrative proceeds, the past interweaves with the present as Arjun reminisces about the
violent gang-rape, and subsequent grisly murder, of Amaladi on the eve of the Partition.
Amaladi's rape was a cataclysmic event in the course of the novel. Partition violence situated
women as objects of possession and vehicles of communication of reprisal between opposed
groups of men. Kamla Bhasin and Ritu Menon, in their book, Borders & Boundaries: Women
in India's Partition, revealed that the official number of women who were abducted while on
their way to Pakistan stands at 50,000, while 33,000 women were abducted as they attempted to
migrate to India. As Arjun looked back at this horrifying incident, he was reminded of the deep
maternal feelings that Amaladi possessed; "she used to feed us with mangoes and candies and all
the children loved her. They never felt alone in her presence." Through the figure of the young
widow, Gangopadhyay broadens his idea of a motherland: that which is feminine, virginal and
pure. He successfully builds the "almost asexual" image of Amaladi only to heighten the impact
of her rape and eventual mutilation of the body on the readers. Amaladi's rape also functions as a
sign of the destruction of the home caused by the tumultuous event of partition.

The bitterness and intensity connected with the situation of being homeless within the framework
of nationalist discourse are reflected in literary pieces like Arjun by Sunil Gangopadhyay.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Chaudhury Suranjana, “Pangs of Being ‘Un-Homed’: Engagements with ‘Displacement’

and ‘Relocation’ in Select Partition Narratives from Bengal,” The NEHU Journal, Vol
XII, No. 1, January - June 2014, pp. 1-16

2. Dey Naina, “Chaos, Dislocation and Problem of Identity in Sunil Gangopadhyay’s

Arjun,” Litscape (Journal of VURTC), Vol.6, 2010, ISSN: 0976-9064.

3. Ghissing George Samiran, “The Storm of History: Memory, Witnessing and Archiving
Betrayal in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide and Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Arjun,” Lapis
Lazuli, ISSN 2249-4529

4. Classroom Notes