Bio politics of Gendered Violence in Sahadat Hasan Manto’s Stories, “Sharifan”, “Xuda Ki Kasam” and “Ghate Ka Sauda”: Reflections on Authentic Testimonies of Trauma

Uttam Poudel

doi:10.22161/ijels.52.8

Abstract

Bio politics of Gendered Violence in Sahadat Hasan Manto’s Stories, “Sharifan”, “Xuda Ki Kasam” and “Ghate Ka Sauda”: Reflections on Authentic Testimonies of Trauma

Highlights

It can be said that Manto’s mentioned stories craftily foreground the plight and predicament of abducted, displaced and raped women caused by the biopolitical violence, the violence in which human bodies and lives are targets and focal points of politics and war
Due to the patriarchy-unleashed violence perpetrated on women they are reduced into homo sacer and muselmann as conceptualized by Agamben
The female characters, who suffer from brutal rape, abduction and mutilation in the stories, are nothing but the abject object, which speak the vastness of trauma without speaking

Summary

Uttam Poudel

The researcher here claims that the female characters in the stories of the mentioned writer, who undergo with trial, trouble and tribulation with a slow realization of loss and a deep sense of sorrow amidst hallucinatory state of mind due to the trauma, are nothing but homo sacers, or “bare lives” victimized by the biopolitical violence of Partition riots These characters are in liminal position— neither totally alive not totally dead. Bimala in “Sharifan”, girls losing mental order in “Xuda Ki Kasam” and perpetrated girl by two men in “Ghate Ka Sauda” are the true victims of biopolitical violence, who are reduced into abject objects having no space and identity in their respective communities They are muselmann of Agamben which speak the vastness of trauma without speaking. The line of morality is apolitical whereas the line of ethics is political and compromising

Conclusion

Introduction