The Silence of the Subaltern in the Partition of India: Bengali Gendered Trauma Narratives in Shobha Rao’s “The Lost Ribbon” and Ramapada Chaudhuri’s “Embrace”

Dolors Ortega Arévalo

doi:10.5565/rev/indialogs.185

El silencio del subalterno en la partición de la India: relatos de trauma y género en “The Lost Ribbon” (Shobha Rao) y “Embrace” (Ramapada Chaudhuri)

Autores/as

Dolors Ortega Arévalo Universitat de Barcelona https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0672-0001

PDF (EN)

Resumen

La partición de la India constituye unos de los momentos cruciales que han marcado la transición entre la era colonial y poscolonial. Desde entonces, la partición se ha erigido como un proceso a largo plazo que sigue propiciando contextos políticos, culturales y emocionales en Asia del Sur. La creación de Pakistán como patria para los musulmanes asiáticos del Sur tuvo como resultado la división de Bengala y Punjab según divisiones religiosas. Mientras que la historiografía oficial de 1947 estaba marcada por relatos triunfalistas de decolonización y nacionalismo, elementos como el trauma, la pérdida o el desplazamiento quedaron fuera del relato. El siguiente artículo se centra en la experiencia de las mujeres secuestradas en Bengal, en los disturbios entre comunidades durante la partición de la India. Este análisis parte de una breve aproximación al silencio que ha presidido la historiografia de la partición de Bengala y la escasa respuesta literaria que ha articulado estos silencios. El artículo trata la violencia que las mujeres secuestradas sufrieron en este contexto y finalmente se centra en los dos relatos breves, “The Lost Ribbon” y “Embrace”, que sitúan el relato del trauma y el género mediante dos respuestas radicalmente diferentes al hecho de ser madre de un hijo de secuestrador más allá de la frontera. Así mismo analiza el efecto que el desplazamiento y la repatriación forzosa tiene sobre los cuerpos femeninos.

Palabras clave

La partición de la India, Bengala, relatos de trauma y género, mujeres secuestradas, desplazamiento, repatriación forzada

Citas

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Biografía del autor/a

Dolors Ortega Arévalo, Universitat de Barcelona

Dolors Ortega Arévalo has been a lecturer of Literature in English at the University of Barcelona since the year 2010. She received her PhD degree from the University of Barcelona and she was awarded the European Doctorate Mention after a year as a Visitor Doctorate Researcher at the University of East London. Her research has focused mainly on Contemporary British Fiction and Postcolonial Literatures.