Abstract
A widely-held perception which has developed through
and within the feminist literary as well as theoretical framework is to
analogize the land ravaged by war to a female body raped by the
aggressive attackers. The semblance qualifies the female body as an
impetus for objectifying the interrelation of power and identity
formation. During the partition of the sub-continent as well, the
gendered coloration of the instances of violence has historically
foregrounded the case of women more than any other gender. This
research aims to study the possibility of viewing the invaded land as a
male figure castrated, and the male body as an omphalos for relations of
power and a site on which systems of discourse and power inscribe
themselves. The investigation is supported by the work of Judith Butler
(2004, 2005), a feminist who challenges the idea of the ‘body’ as a
strong marker of identity and sees it instead as a surface for social
inscriptions. This study digs into the insistent denial in Butler’s work on
being involved in any identity politics in order to make the following
inquisitions: Is Butler’s belief in a shared identity in terms of ethnic,
racial, and sexual existence equally valid for the other ethnic, racial or
sexual groups? When Butler says that body is a site for cultural and
political inscriptions, which violently imprint the body to give it a
meaning, does she mean a specific gendered body, i.e. a female body, or
can it also be the body of a man? As with women, can the bodies of men
also be seen as vulnerable in the face of the violent markings engraved
by the coercive power representations? Can the mutilation of a male
body, as presented in novels such as Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India and
Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan, be regarded as just as powerful a
symbol of colonial and ethnic assertion of power and identity as that of
the molestation of the female body?
Fatima Syeda, Dr. Rizwan Akhtar. (2018) Body, Power and Gendered Identity: Inscribed Bodies of Men in Partition Fiction, Journal of Research ( Humanities), Volume LIV , Issue LIV.
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