Justification of the Partition in The Weary Generations and Cracking India: An Alternative Pakistani Perspective

Abstract

This paper analyzes selected partition novels in the light of affect theory in order to demonstrate how Pakistani writers counter the Indian mainstream nationalist line and offer alternative revisionary perspectives on independence that also led to partition violence. The affective subjectivity of the writers—Abdullah Hussein (The Weary Generations) and Bapsi Sidhwa (Cracking India)—discredits the mainstream Indian historiography, valorization of the independence struggle, and trivialization of partition issues. The notable affects highlighted in the novels are those of love, hatred, happiness, unhappiness, and rage. One positive affect in favor of one at the same time invites the opposite affect for the other. The paper concludes that the affects evoked in the abovementioned novels are ethically tilted to the notions of community and nationhood of the respective writers—an ideologically biased orientation that results in prose of demonization and an open declaration of evil on whom they consider the other.