Diaspora_and_Dislocation_in_the_Shadow_Lines

Thamma and the partition, dislodgement of one’s own Baari in The Shadow Lines The Shadow Lines is the most appreciated novel of Amitav Ghosh. The partition of Bengal and the trauma resulted from the partition are depicted very vividly in this novel. The world largest migration in the history of the humankind as a result of Partition of India which created a vast dislocation of people in Pakistan (east and west) and India. Thus the novel questions physical borders between nations, arguing that these obfuscated the emotional and cultural ties between officially separate countries, India and Pakistan. The division of India, mainly the partition of Bengal, dictates all the courses of the novel The Shadow Lines. So the dislocation of people as refugee is one of the main concerns of the novel. The partition was the direct result of the mutual misunderstanding of nationalism of the two major religious groups. Both the Hindus and the Muslims took the idea of racism as the idea of nationalism. The partition of Bengal had such a strong trauma on the life and culture of the related inhabitants that the event dictates their mindset for generations. But the differences in be imminent and outlook should not stand in the way of developing a common reference point for rewriting the histories of an event that cast its shadow over many features of state and society in the subcontinent. In the novel there are two kinds of dislocations, forced migration and the mercantile migration or professional migration. Forced migration was due to the partition of India, mainly because of the partition of Bengal. The professional migration was due to the high skilled work force of India. Both dislocations are so strongly knitted in the novel that any of these dislocations must not be ignored in considering the novel as a text of diaspora and dislocation. The first diaspora resulted from the forced exile. Forced exile produced alienation among the members of diasporic community as it is a one way ticket to a distant and alien place. After the partition of India the return to home or motherland was almost impossible for the migrated people due to the newly shaped political geography of the subcontinent. In the case of forced exile, the physical distance from the motherland produced psychological alienation among the members of the dislocated communities. When the diasporic communities became alienated mentally and physically from their motherland then the motherland turned into a holy image in the diasporic imagination. The second diaspora is the result of professional migration. In the novel The Shadow Lines, the members of this diasporic community are from the privileged class. They are very highly educated and skilled in their respective fields. They have enough space to remain connected with their motherland. So the distances, mental and psychological, with the home or motherland are not so acute to them as to the members of the first kind of diasporic community. Though the distances are not so acute but there are distances which lead them to alienation. This is a very different kind of alienation from the alienation of the diasporic community of forced migrants. It is already mentioned that the motherland is remained as a holy image To the forced migrants. The professional migrants has not any such image. These varied realities create differences in the sense of alienation and agonies among the members of the diasporic communities. For the partition of Bengal Tha’mma was dislocated from her birth place, Dhaka. Though she had gone to Kolkata after the death of her husband and took a job as a school teacher there, she couldn’t back to her motherland Bangladesh as it became part of Pakistan. She was bound to live in Kolkata and it can be said as a forced exile. In The Shadow Lines the partition casted its shadow over the life of Tha’mma and the other major characters of the novel and it also dictated the mindset of the next generations of Tha’mma as they lost the ground of their standing. Losing one’s ground is really a matter of great difficulty but it becomes more intolerable when it’s happen for the shake of fake nationalism. Thamma and her family was the worst victim of fake nationalism. Thamma is the sufferer of the intolerable pain of the partition that always haunted her. In the face of decades of communal uncertainties and hatred the fake nationalism had led to a senseless arms build up and make an imbursement to the backwardness. An unforgivable violence had occurred in the region. It is still a matter of great sorrow and query for the people that how and why a generation was trapped up in the crossfire of religious narrow-mindedness and extremism who were living together in peace from the very dawn of history. It is assumed that the implementation of nationalism in a very narrow sense of fundamentalism is one of the major causes of the violent partition. This fundamental and extremist view of nationalism questioned the authenticity of nationalism in the history of post-independent India. Ghosh also raised the question of nationalism by denying the so-called lines that parted the sub-continent. In the novel the narrative of the dislocation of millions of Hindus and Muslims in the both sides of the boarder directly indicates the painful diasporic experiences because these experiences are characterized by loss and trauma. The dislocation and running away which began with the partition of Bengal creates such an impression on the minds of the victims that they always feel the unavoidable agony of loss. Invoking Amitav Ghosh, it might be said that The Shadow Lines is actually the true representation of the fake nationalism and the dislocation of people due to this fundamental nationalism. It is very clear when Ukil-babu remarks, Once you start moving you never stop. That’s what I told my sons when they took the trains. I said: I don’t believe in this India-Shindia. It’s all very well, you’re going away now, but suppose when you get there they decide to draw another line somewhere' What will you do then' Where will you move to' No one will have you anywhere. As for me, I was born here, and I’ll die here. (The Shadow 215) On the other hand Maya Debi, sister of Tha’mma, and her family travelled almost all over the world as her husband was a diplomat of Indian government. They travelled to various countries were due to professional need. That were not forced migration but the professional migration. The eldest son of Maya Debi, who worked as an economist in the United Nation also placed in various countries. These professional placements had a very sound impact on their child. Ila, the grand daughter of Tha’mma, and the niece of Ttridib. Ila had a very deep impact of the dislocation in her thought and life style. She was not like other Indian girls who were born and brought up in India as she was brought up in various countries which cultures were alien to her. Tha’mma was dislocated from her country of origin as a forced exile but the game of professional dislocation and cruel running away began with the birth of Ila and there was no going back- Kolkata. From there again, she was dislocated into the houses of various cities around the globe. The irresistible curiosity to know the truth of her country and culture, she went to the places she originally belongs to but her search was in vain so the game of dislocation gained further momentum. Ila earnestly and honestly made vain attempt to avoid the agony and trauma of dislocation. Ila was not the member of the society she lived as Tha’mma remarked, It took those people a long time to build that country; hundreds of years, years and years of war and bloodshed. Everyone who lives there has earned his right to be there by blood: with their brother’s blood, their father’s blood and their son’s blood. They know they are a nation because they’ve drawn their borders with blood. (The Shadow 76) Ghosh uses the concept of diaspora space to denote the space where mixture and inter-sectionalist view takes place. He explores the diaspora space of Indian and interrogates the complex processes of othering and being othered in which the Indian were involved, in their interactions with their own orders and congregations in England through the character of Ila and her dislocated family. Through the character of Ila Ghosh reminded us that the concept of diaspora space emphasises the multi-axiality of power relations recognising the intersection of discourses and experiences of diaspora with those of gender and class. There was a hint of dislocation due to the colonial British rule in India. The Price family in India in the colonial time had a relation with the family of Tridib and that relation was continued even after the independence of India from the British colonial rule. The British who ruled in India had some prejudices but the Price family had a very good relationship with the Choudhury of kolkata. This means that the complexity, specificity and contested nature of diasporic experiences are not lost. A dialogue between population, cultural, social and political geographers can provide valuable approaches for such diasporic experiences. Dispora relationships exceed notions of identity grounded in binary structures of thought such as nationalism. The difference between ‘home’ and ‘away’ is rendered complex, ambiguous and uncertain. (Mondal 127) It may be mentioned that the novel is a critique of the potential of geographies of diaspora. The novel contributes the understandings of diasporic groups and processes, while it also provides a point of connection between population geography and contemporary debates in human geography and there ‘Home’ in the diasporic discourse.