Depiction of Violence and Studying Literature: A Comparative Literary Perspective.

Abstract

Contemporary South Asia milieu witnessed multiple geo-political segregations, emergence of ‘new’ nations. The partition of 1947 and the subsequent emergence of Bangladesh established a geographical space where irrespective of geo national boundaries the complex histories created a kaleidoscopic world. The world is divided along the line of communal, sectarian violences, fragmented by the mistrust, hatred. Literatures of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh bring forth this multifaceted panoramic experiences, but the same literary space also depicts into the world of shared histories of love, friendship and resilience. Literatures produced in the backdrop of these political events have produced categories like ‘Partition literature’, ‘literatures of trauma’ etc but a discerning literary method will problematise the process through these categories are created.

The violence and the trauma evoked in these narratives can be the common stoff through which one can connect these literary texts but if one pay attention to writers like Manto and Chughtai, then it will be clear that the violence depicted in these narratives are not centered around only the idea of physical violence (rape and murder are the physical manifestation of this kind of violence) rather there are narratives which talk about the mental and psychological agonies. All these forms of violence will open up the intersectional space where issues of gender, class, caste, religion will interact with each other to describe ‘South Asian’ realities. Also after independence, South Asia has witnessed atrocities which can question the idea of nation and its political governance. The colonial histories, ‘neocolonial’ states alliances with capitalist powers – all these factors will question our world views about individual and collective subjectivities.