Narrating Trauma for Nationalism in South Asian Autobiographical Writings

Abstract

Political leaders from Nepal, India, and the regions that later became Pakistan and Bangladesh collectively resisted British colonialism in the struggle for Indian independence. Notably, Nepal supported this cause despite never being colonized. During this movement, the South Asian leaders endured significant suffering. While the pursuit of political freedom united them, their cohesive relationship disintegrated in the post-independence period. Based on this background, this study has analyzed the autobiographies Atmabrittanta by Bishweshwar P. Koirala and An Autobiography by Jawaharlal Nehru and the memoirs If I Am Assassinated by Zulfikar A. Bhutto and The Unfinished Memoirs by Sheikh M. Rahman to explore the connection between trauma and nationalism in the region. Generally, an autobiography is considered a chronological account of a person’s life, whereas a memoir is a collection of specific experiences. However, all four selected texts are autobiographical and communicate similar themes like trauma, resistance, independence, nationalism, and imprisonment. Specifically, this study has examined how the authors’ collective resistance to British colonialism fractures into disunity in the postcolonial period, how their personal and political grief is transformed into collective cultural trauma, and why this grief is narrated through the social process of cultural trauma, employing a qualitative research design and textual analysis method. The study has primarily drawn on the theoretical concepts from Jeffrey C. Alexander’s Trauma: A Social Theory, Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, and Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson’s Reading Autobiography to frame the analysis of trauma and nationalism. Finally, analysis has revealed a complex interplay of themes: unification for independence and division over nationalism, the projection of “my suffering was for all of us,” and the narration of pain as a means of forging a nation and nationalism, respectively, related to the viii objectives of the study. However, further research is needed to examine the relationship between autobiographical writing and intergenerational trauma, particularly in terms of political legacy, as this study primarily focuses on the narration of trauma within the context of nationhood politics.