Mark My Words: The Trauma of Abducted Women in Two Short Stories by Ramapada Chaudhury

  1. Llano Busta, Andrea 1
  1. 1 Universidad de Oviedo
    info

    Universidad de Oviedo

    Oviedo, España

    ROR https://ror.org/006gksa02

Journal:
Indialogs: Spanish journal of India studies

ISSN: 2339-8523

Year of publication: 2019

Issue Title: Wrongs / Agravios

Volume: 6

Pages: 45-64

Type: Article

DOI: 10.5565/REV/INDIALOGS.125 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

More publications in: Indialogs: Spanish journal of India studies

Abstract

Since the paradigm shift that occurred in the 1990s, the human dimension of Partition has gained visibility within academia, chiefly with regard to abducted women. Their kidnapping, as well as the government measures adopted, deprived them of free will and intensified an already traumatic experience. This paper focuses on their representation in two short stories by Ramapada Chaudhury: “Embrace” and “The Stricken Daughter”. By drawing on trauma and affect theory, it highlights the individuality of the abducted despite their shared background and shows how seemingly opposite historical events—abduction and recovery—combine to bring about a gendered trauma. The ultimate aim is to prove that affection via words, or lack thereof, is the determining factor in the healing of wounds.

Bibliographic References

  • AHMED, SARA (2004). The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014.
  • ALI, RABIA UMAR (2009). “Muslim Women and the Partition of India: A Historiographical Silence”, Islamic Studies, Vol. 48, Nº3, Autumn: 425-436.
  • ANTHARJANAM, LALITHAMBIKA (1948). “A Leaf in the Storm”, In: Richard Allen & Harish Trivedi (eds). Literature and Nation: Britain and India 1800-1990, Narayan Chandran (trans). London: Routledge: 329-336, 2000.
  • BAGCHI, JASODHARA & SUBHORANJAN DASGUPTA (eds) (2003). The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and Partition in Eastern India, Vol. 1, 2 vols. Kolkata: Bhatkal & Sen, 2005.
  • BAGCHI, JASODHARA, SUBHORANJAN DASGUPTA & SUBHASRI GHOSH (2009). The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and Partition in Eastern India, Vol. 2, 2 vols. Kolkata: Bhatkal & Sen, 2005.
  • BALDWIN, SHAUNA SINGH (1999). What the Body Remembers, New York: Anchor Books, 2001.
  • BEDI, RAJINDER SINGH (1951). “Lajwanti”, In: Muhammad Umar Memon (ed & trans). An Epic Unwritten: The Penguin Book of Partition Stories, New Delhi: Penguin Books India: 14-29, 1998.
  • BUTALIA, URVASHI (1993). “Community, State and Gender: On Women’s Agency during Partition”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 28, Nº17, April: WS12-WS21+WS24.
  • BUTALIA, URVASHI (1998). The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India, New Delhi: Penguin Books.
  • BUTLER, JUDITH (1988). “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory”, Theatre Journal, Vol. 40, Nº4, December: 519-531.
  • CARUTH, CATHY (1996). Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • CHAKRABORTY, PAULOMI (2014). “Gender, Women and Partition”, In: Leela Fernandes (ed). Routledge Handbook of Gender in South Asia, London & New York: Routledge: 41-52.
  • CHAUDHURY, RAMAPADA (2008a). “Embrace (Angapali)”, In: Bashabi Fraser (ed). Bengal Partition Stories: An Unclosed Chapter, Sheila Sengupta (trans). London: Anthem Press: 339-344.
  • CHAUDHURY, RAMAPADA (2008b). “The Stricken Daughter (Karun Kanya)”, In: Bashabi Fraser (ed). Bengal Partition Stories: An Unclosed Chapter, Sheila Sengupta (trans). London: Anthem Press: 323-338.
  • DAS, VEENA (2007). Life and Words: Violence and Descent into the Ordinary, Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • DAS, VEENA (2008). “Violence, Gender and Subjectivity”, Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 37: 283-299. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.36.081406.094430.
  • DEY, ARUNIMA (2016). “Violence against Women during the Partition of India: Interpreting Women and their Bodies in the Context of Ethnic Genocide”, ES. Revista de Filología Inglesa, Nº37: 103-118.
  • EAGLETON, TERRY (2003). Sweet Violence: the Idea of the Tragic, Hoboken: Blackwell Publishing, 2009.
  • FREUD, SIGMUND (1917). “Mourning and Melancholia”, In: James Strachey, Anna Freud, Alix Strachey & Alan Tyson (eds & trans). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, XIV (1914-1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works, London: Hogarth Press: 243-258, 1957.
  • FREUD, SIGMUND (1920). Beyond the Pleasure Principle, James Strachey (trans). New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1961.
  • GANDHI, MAHATMA (1999). The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 98, 98 vols. New Delhi: Publications Division Government of India. accessed 17 August 2018.
  • GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (1949). Abducted Persons (Recovery and Restoration) Act. accessed 17 August 2018.
  • HARAWAY, DONNA (1988). “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”, Feminist Studies, Vol. 14, Nº3, Autumn: 575-599.
  • HASHIMI, JAMILA (c. 1960). “Banished”, In: Muhammad Umar Memon (ed & trans). An Epic Unwritten: The Penguin Book of Partition Stories, New Delhi: Penguin Books India: 85-103, 1998.
  • KNAPP, BETTINA L. (1997). Women in Myth, Albany: State University of New York Press.
  • LACAPRA, DOMINICK (2001). Writing History, Writing Trauma, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.
  • LOFLAND, LYN H. (1985). “The Social Shaping of Emotion: The Case of Grief”, Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 8, Nº2, Autumn: 171-190. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/si.1985.8.2.171.
  • MANTO, SAADAT HASAN (1948). “The Return”, In: Saadat Hasan Manto. Mottled Dawn: Fifty Sketches and Stories of Partition, Khalid Hasan (trans). London: Penguin Books: 8-10, 2011.
  • MENON, RITU & KAMLA BHASIN (1993). “Recovery, Rupture, Resistance: Indian State and Abduction of Women during Partition”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 28, Nº17, April: WS2-WS11.
  • MENON, RITU & KAMLA BHASIN (1998). Borders & Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
  • MISHRA, VIJAY (2007). The Literature of Indian Diaspora: Theorizing the Diasporic Imaginary, London: Routledge, 2014.
  • PANDEY, GYANENDRA (2001). Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism, and History in India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • SINGH, RITIKA (2015). “Remember, Recover: Trauma and Transgenerational Negotiations with the Indian Partition in This Side, That Side and the 1947 Partition Archive”, Prospero. Rivista di letterature e culture straniere, Vol. 20: 183-199. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13137/2283-6438/11875.
  • TRIPATHY, ANJALI (2014). “History is a Woman’s Body: A Study of Some Partition Narratives”, Odisha Review, Vol. 70, Nº6, January: 80-84.
  • YUVAL-DAVIS, NIRA (1997). “Ethnicity, Gender Relations and Multiculturalism”, In: Pnina Werbner & Tariq Modood (eds). Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multi-Cultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-Racism, London: Zed Books: 193-208.
  • YUVAL-DAVIS, NIRA & FLOYA ANTHIAS (eds) (1989). Woman-Nation-State, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.