The Secondary Citizenship of Indian Muslims in About Daddy

Abstract

The objective of this study of the novel About Daddyis to show the secondary citizenship status of Indian Muslims, and the effect of partition violence on the next generation becomes fore grounded. Meena Arora Nayak's About Daddy deals with the effect of communal holocaust of 1947 and the effect of partition violence on the post-independent generation. The novel was written at a time when it was a fashion to attribute any subversive act anywhere in Indiato a Muslim terrorist. The envisaged work proposes to examine the citizenship status of Indian Muslims in the 1990s-the time period that the novel covers. It finds the status as a secondary--a condition of the marginalized Indian Muslims--that the texture of the novel criticizes very strongly. Nayak’s strong disapproval of the victimization of Indian Muslims stems from her ideology and her unshakable belief in Gandhian politics.