Depiction of Partition Violence in Cracking India and Earth: A Critique from the Perspective of Subaltern Studies Project

Abstract

This thesis investigates the problem of representing the Partition of India in 1947. It investigates the representation of the Partition in two sites—the Subaltern Studies project and Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel Cracking India (1991). It focuses upon the silence of the subaltern. The Subaltern Studies project questions the representation of the freedom moment of India in nationalist historiography and argues that, in nationalist historiography, only Independence and the elite leaders are celebrated whereas the Partition and the subaltern have been absent. Chapter One of this thesis introduces the view of the Subaltern Studies project. Chapter Two investigates the representation of the Partition in Sidhwa’s novel Cracking India and it screen adaptation in Deepa Mehta’s Earth. Chapter Three concludes the discussions of the representation of the Partition in the Subaltern Studies project, Sidhwa’s Cracking India, and the film Earth, contemplating the representation of the Partition and the subaltern. Through an investigation of the silence of the subaltern in these sites, we can detect the limits of the representation of the Partition and obtain a chance to re-think and re-read this history from these alternative versions of the Partition.