Blog Paragraph #2

Cracking India

    Bapsi Sidhwa uses the term "cracked" to describe India.  By using this word she is juxtaposing the importance placed upon a country's history and the physical boundaries that have been long established to parallel the difficulties a new nation faces when identifying themselves.  When one considers a nation's foundation, one envisions a strongly bonded community and finds the struggles in other nations.  Sidhwa displays the internal struggles of India through the a neighborhood, places people associate civility with, "My world is compressed.  Warris Road, lined with rain gutters, lies between Queens Road and Jail Road; both wide, clean, orderly streets at the affluent fringes of Lahore"(11).  A physical alienation is depicted, a girl is born into division and an understanding that highlights her otherness and denies her an affiliation to her surrounding barriers.  Nations are connected because the past has a collective and celebrated meaning among its inhabitants and when this powerful body becomes isolated parts boundaries become physically visible and differences are easily recognized.  By separating a nation one loses a solid foundation and this in turn transposes a solid history into one of fragments, "they'll dig a canal...this side for Hindustan and this side for Pakistan-cracking India with a long, long canal" (101). Nations are difficult to dispose of because of long standing tradition and landmarks that have become permanent staples to economic and daily life.  

 

 During a class discussion, concerning boundaries and the infringement of boundaries in the book, Cracking India, we looked at the partition of India.  In her novel, Sidhwa portrays the partition between the Hindus and the Muslims and the battle of religions that forms the country, Pakistan.  According to an article published by Emory University, "Hindu revivalists also deepened the chasm between the two nations.  They resented the Muslims for their former rule over India...many are still in search of identity and a history left behind beyond an impenetrable boundary" (Keen). The article focuses on the history of the partition, but what interested me most about this article was the religious persecution both sides faced and practiced on one another. http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/Part.html

Sidhwa uses the servant, Ayah's sexuality to explore the issues surrounding partition.  Typically, people view countries in relation to the female sex.  Traditionally, men left the home to fight wars to protect their women and they refer to their country as female; something fragile that needs protection.  The right to claim India as their own, emerges in the novel between the Hindu Ice Candy Man and the Muslim, Masseur. In the beginning of the novel, Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus sit together discussing politics and fawning over Ayah.  They enjoy one another's company and do not see one another as the enemy, but as a group of friends. Ayah is the center of the groups affections and the men treat her as an object, a prize to be won.  An aspect that intrigues me, is the idea that men fight over the women, imprison Ayah and women like her through prostitution, and their family's denounce them after they have been defiled.  If woman is a prize to be coveted, than one would expect their virtue and beings would be more respected.  During Partition, women were subjected to numerous forms of prostitution and the opposing sides violently raped and abused each others women.  The women, doing nothing but existing, had no way of defending themselves and have no voice in religious and political matters, but were the ones who suffered the most violent punishments at times. At least this seemed what Sidhwa was portraying when she wrote Ayah's character and the women who were with her in the 'prison' because they had been shamed. In Lawrence James' book, The Raj, The Making and Unmaking of British India, he recounts the brutality towards women with violent rapes and the dismembering of women's breasts and the breasts being carted off so that all of the Hindu men could see what the Muslim men had done in a retaliation.