CONTENTS

I. Introduction 1

II. (Trans)cultural memories of South Asian Partition 20 2.1. Concepts of (trans)cultural memory 20 2.2. Remembering South Asian Partition 26 2.2.1. Mediated memories of Partition 27 2.2.2. Transgenerational, gendered, and traumatic memories of Partition 29

III. Narratological approaches towards the representation of South Asian Partition 35 3.1. From narrative worlds towards world-making through narratives 37 3.2. Nexus between feminist theory and narratology 39 3.3. Gendered space, time, and narrative transmission in Partition fiction 41 IV. Oscillating between agency and victimhood: Indian women during colonial rule, independence movement and partition 47 4.1. Colonial India: women as bearer of traditions in need of social reforms 47 4.2. Independence movement: women as preservers of tradition mobilized for nationalist purposes 55 4.2.1. Sarojini Naidu: advocating Hindu-Muslim unity 57 4.2.2. Gandhi: mobilizing women for the cause of Indian independence 62 4.2.3. M.A. Jinnah: mobilizing Muslim women for the cause of Pakistan 67 4.3. Partition: women's bodies as cultural markers turned into sites of violence 70

V. South Asian Partition Literature in Urdu 79 5.1. Victimization of the perpetrator: (trans.: Cold Meat) 88 5.1.1. Revenge upon the perpetrator 90 5.1.2. The confession of a perpetrator 91 5.1.3. Cold Meat in legal trouble 93 5.2. A mother's refusal to leave her 'roots': (trans.: Roots) 97 5.2.1. When India is operated upon 99 5.2.2. Amma: storekeeper of memories 101 5.3. Crossing the threshold of the house: (trans.: Inner Courtyard) 103 5.3.1. Kariman Bua: lamenting the forlorn past 105 5.3.2. Kusum: suffering social stigmatization 107 5.3.3. Aaliya: suffereing the burden of past memories 110 5.4. How many more Partitions? (trans.: Basti) 113 5.4.1. Zakir: caught between forgetting and remembering 117 5.4.2. Sabirah: the remembered one 121

VI. South Asian Partition Literature in English 125 6.1. Sikh martyrdom amidst Partition violence: Train to Pakistan 126 6.1.1. Set gender roles in Mano Majra 128 6.1.2. Nooran: when courage is punished 129 6.1.3. Haseena: when courage is rewarded 131 6.1.4. Sundari: the voiceless victim of Partition violence 132 6.1.5. Feminization of Hindu men 134 6.2. Negotiating gender, memory and history in Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day 135 6.2.1. Family house as a memory evoking site 140 6.2.2. Healing trauma through acts of memory 143 6.3. Travelling purity: Midnight's Children 145 6.3.1. The fragmented female body as a foreboding of Partition 148 6.3.2. Tracing 1947-Partition 149 6.3.3. Pakistan as the partitioned other of India 152 6.3.4. Indo-Pak War(s) as a legacy of Partition 155 6.4. Dismantling fixed notions of Partition: Ice-Candy Man 156 6.4.1. Lenny: witnessing and narrating Partition 158 6.4.2. Ayah: enduring Partition violence 160 6.5. A post-amnesian generation looks back: Kartography 166 6.5.1. Familial and affiliative generational correspondence 167 6.5.2. Interactive spatial mapping of Karachi 174

VII. Conclusion 179

Bibliography 184