Abstract: Since the early 1980s, novels by Indians in English have become the site of a transnational publishing ‘boom’ made possible by the opening of Anglo-American literary markets to non-white writing. This essay begins by illuminating the disconnect between the postcolonial versus transnational framings of Indian English fiction. It shows how this literature has gone from being grounded in the politics of particular places to being framed as a de-territorialized literary flourishing, thereby denuding it of its political relevance in an era of transnational literary production.
Abstract: Histories and aesthetics of space intersected in South Asian decolonization. The contest for space has continued to be reflected in South Asian cinema from the 1950s to the present. Spatial politics and the aestheticization of spaces both reflect current politics and urban policies and also glance back at colonial and postcolonial histories of national fragmentation and nation-formation.
Abstract: The disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir represents the unfinished business of the Partition of India and Pakistan. This essay examines how claims to Kashmir by India, Pakistan, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and the Kashmiri Pandits influence usage of the term ‘Kashmiriyat’ (i.e. the ethos of being Kashmiri). The term is frequently invoked with inconsistent meaning. Kashmiriyat is analysed, through linguistic and semiotic theories of the ‘empty signifier’, to identify which groups are present and absent within sociopolitical discourses.
The push for Indian independence quickly gained momentum following World War II; alongside demands for independence from Great Britain was a second movement to create a separate state for Muslims. The All India Muslim League felt that as minorities in a Hindu majority India, Muslim interests would not be represented in independent India. Leaders in Hindu and Muslim political organizations, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and Muhammad Ali Jinnah (both staunch secularists) advocated the idea that Hindu and Muslims formed two separate nations.
This paper focuses on the issue of violence against women during the communal riots that followed the Partition of India in 1947. The gender-specific reading of partition genocide facilitates a discussion on various forms of violence that targeted women and the symbolic meanings behind these acts. In addition, the paper explores the notion of nation as “mother” and its ideological implications for female citizens.
Abstract: Through readings of Adhir Biswas’ memoirs – Deshbhager Smriti [2010. 4 vols. Kolkata: Gangchil] and Allar jomite paa [2012. Kolkata: Gangchil] – as well as Manoranjan Byapari’s autobiographical work Itibritte Chandal Jibon (2012), I study the importance of education in the lives of first-generation literate Bengali Dalit immigrants. I evaluate the journey of Biswas and Byapari from being labelled as “chhotolok”, towards becoming a part of the bhadralok social group, redefining what it means to belong to either group.
Abstract: Much has been written on Hindu nationalism in the past few years. Indeed, the rapid ascendancy of the Hindu Right has been the focus of attention of numerous scholars from a wide variety of disciplines. What remains neglected thus far is the role of recent migrations from Bangladesh, increasingly characterized in popular parlance as ‘infiltration’. The present paper aims to rectify this situation.
Abstract: India has had a very different history of violence and conflict from South Africa's, yet each democracy has had to face questions of how to deal with memories of past suffering, which bear directly on the quality of political life in the present. In India, the dream of national independence in 1947 rapidly changed into a nightmare of religious and ethnic violence. Britain's empire in the sub-continent was divided into two countries, Muslim-based Pakistan and constitutionally secular India, amid horrific massacres of Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs.
