Memory of Refugee and Cultural Displacement Through the Eyes ...
Abstract
Forceful displacement from one’s homeland for the reason of mass historical events like Partition 1947 defines very problematized selves of South Asians, their belonging, and identity. The children who survived over communal violence and hatred carry a different historiography of their commemoration of Partition history. Veera Hiranandani’s The Night Diary (2018), a historical fiction configures the partitioned history of the subcontinent through the vision of a child survivor, Nisha, who centralizes her traumatic emotion and experiences of the sociopolitical scenario of the devastated human condition. The theory of trauma demonstrates the inherent collective memorialization of a particular event that is constructed and contested over a long period of remembrance and reworking of the self. This study intervenes to underscore the traumatized self of children whose personal experiences of forceful displacement, communal violence, and refugee struggle shaped them with a counter-understanding of dominant discourses of nationalism. Following the frameworks of trauma by Caruth and LaCapra, this article examines an adolescent Nisha’s narratives on Partition experiences, and her understanding of the darkest sides of political upheaval. Through the literary representation of Hiranandani’s novel, this article highlights the traumatic memories of Partition experienced by marginalized groups such as women and children at Partition, whose voices and psychic wounds are unheard.