H0224446 PDF
H0224446 PDF
H0224446 PDF
Abstract : Freedom from political colonialism came as a refreshing wind to the Indian writers who were now
enthused to write with new outlook and express their indigenous ethos and beliefs. Post-colonial Indian English
writers like Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth , Amitav Ghosh etc, writing with great dynamism, distinctive voice,
vigor and a level of self-reliance, have liberated Indian English literature from the colonial yoke. Historical
nationalist issues such as diaspora, migration, refugees, colonial hegemony; socio-economic and cultural issues
like east-west encounter, caste and class etc. become the concerns of these writers.
The present paper is intended to examine Amitav Ghosh‟ treatment of the problematic of identity in “The
Shadow Lines” (1988), which as a memory novel, sketches few historical events like the freedom movement in
Bengal, the Second World War and the Partition of India in 1947 and the communal riots in Bangladesh and
India. In this novel, Ghosh problematizes nationalism in his search for identity. The fervent nationalism upheld
by grandmother is put to question and re-analysis. Ghosh explores the unreality and invalidity of traditional
identity constructions such as nation and nationalism.
Keywords - Identity, nationality, „The Shadow Lines', trans-nationality.
I. Introduction:
Freedom from political colonialism came as a refreshing wind to the Indian writers who were now
enthused to write with new outlook and express their indigenous ethos and beliefs. Post-colonial Indian English
writers like Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth , Amitav Ghosh etc, writing with great dynamism, distinctive voice,
vigor and a level of self-reliance, have liberated Indian English literature from the colonial yoke. Historical
nationalist issues such as diaspora, migration, refugees, colonial hegemony; socio-economic and cultural issues
like east-west encounter, caste and class etc. become the concerns of these writers.
The present paper is intended to examine Amitav Ghosh‟s treatment of the problematic of identity in
“The Shadow Lines” (1988), which as a memory novel [1], sketches few historical events like the freedom
movement in Bengal, the Second World War and the Partition of India in 1947 and the communal riots in
Bangladesh and India.
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Amitav Ghosh‟s “The Shadow Lines”: Problematics of National Identity
III. Problematics of Individual Identity:
Identity is a very debatable proposition/ question, both theoretically and practically. The theoretical
debate about identity concerns its nature, process of formation and its existential questions. Whereas
essentialists believe in singularity of individual„s identity, the post – modernists deny any such identity. Identity
construction has been thus debated time and again, but one must acknowledge that an individual‟s identity is to
as large extent formed by his / her social location which include his/her race, class, gender, etc. These
problematics of individual identity have been applied / noticed in the national context in Ghosh‟s novel” The
Shadow Lines” – the title itself suggesting the unreality and invalidity of constructions such as nation and
nationality . The Shadowiness of the border line puts a question mark to the geographic boundary line between
countries / nations and thus its identity. Ghosh considers space / place as non neutral, non objective. To him „a
place does not merely exist …………. It has to be invented in one‟s imaginations‟ [4]. Ghosh presents it
through Tridib‟s concept of space which was vast and comprehensive. Tridib‟s mind strove to a place where
there was no border between oneself and one‟s image in the mirror. (32)
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Amitav Ghosh‟s “The Shadow Lines”: Problematics of National Identity
“But if there aren‟t any trenches or anything, how are people to know? I mean, where‟s the difference then? And if
there‟s no difference, both sides will be the same; it‟ll be just like it used to be before, when we used to catch a train in
Dhaka and get off in Calcutta the next day without anybody stopping us. What was it all for then – Partition and all the
killing and everything – if there isn‟t something in between? (167)
VI. Conclusion:
Ghosh in this way problematises the idea of national identity. Interrogating Grandmother‟s fervent nationalism,
Ghosh explores the unreality and invalidity of traditional identity constructions such as nation, nationality and nationalism.
This he has brought to the forefront through three aspects : (1). Political borders are questioned and shown to be arbitrary –
as they are whimsically taken by politicians, (2.) The idea of nationality – nation as a homogenous whole – has been
contrasted – with inhumane activities poisoning the fraternal relationship among different races of the country and (3). The
looking glass border has been set up – showing identical scenes of violence across border on the one hand and feeling of
oneness with people of other countries on the other. Ghosh in “The Shadow Lines” attempts to create the image of the global
umbrella which includes and encompasses various cultures and create a single unified global picture.
REFERENCES
[1] Manjula Saxena, The Shadow Lines as a Memory Novel, in Arvind Chowdhary (Ed) Amitav Ghosh‟s The Shadow Lines- Critical
Essays (New Delhi: Atlantic publishers & distributors(p) Ltd, 2008) 39.
(„Ghosh has made maximum and effective use of memory in almost all its dimensions and forms‟-Saxena writes)
[2] Murari Prasad, The Shadow Lines –A quest for indivisible sanity, in Mithilesh k. Pandey (Ed) Contemporary Indian literature in
English- A humanistic perspective. (New Delhi: Kalyani Publishers,1999) 56.
[3] Rangrao Bhongle, The Evils of cosmopolitanism: a native approach to Amitav Ghosh‟s The shadow Lines, in Rangrao Bhognle
(Ed) The inside view – Native responses to contemporary Indian English Novel. (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors
(P) Ltd, 2003) 131.
[4] Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines, (Ravi Dayal Publisher & Penguin Books, 2009) 23
(All subsequent textual references presented within brackets are to this edition)
[5] Sukanta Das, Beyond the frontiers: Quest for identity in Amitav Ghosh‟s The Shadow Lines, in The Atlantic Critical Review
Quarterly. Vol-8 No-1, Jan – March, 2009, 87.
[6] Amitav Ghosh, “The Ghost of Mrs. Gandhi” in New Yorker, 17 July 1995.
(Ghosh states that he got inspiration to write “The Shadow Lines” from the anti Sikh riots of 1984 in Delhi. “It became a book not
about anyone event but about the meaning of such events through them”, he writes).
[7] Someswar Sati – Interrogating the nation, Growing global in The Shadow Lines in Arvind Chowdhary (Ed) Amitav Ghosh‟s The
Shadow Lines- Critical Essays (New Delhi: Atlantic publishers & distributors(p) Ltd, 2008) 56.
[8] Novy Kapadia, Imagination and politics in Amitav Ghosh‟s The Shadow Lines, in Sharmistha Panja (Ed) – Many Indias, Many
Literatures-New Critical Essays. (Delhi: World View.2004) 147.
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