Revisiting the Metanarrative of ‘Two-nation’ Theory: A Postmodern Study of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children

Abstract

In 1947 India was violently partitioned into the States of India and Pakistan. The political leaders behind this partition justified their decision based on the two-nation theory which had presented the two major religions namely Hindu and Muslim as two distinct civilizations that could not coexist. By marginalising and ignoring other important aspects of Indian society, and by magnifying only the religious aspect, they successfully created the metanarrative that would strengthen the ‘imagined’ border. Salman Rushdie, a postmodernist at heart, in Midnight’s Children artistically brings the minute details of common Indian lives to the fore and thereby compels the readers to reanalyse the validity of the theory. This study, thus, by referring to the postmodern theory propounded by Jean François Lyotard, has tried to examine the legitimacy of two-nation theory in the light of the micronarratives portrayed in the Midnight’s Children.