Abstract
The discourse of history plays a pivotal role in building anticolonial
narratives. For the Muslims in Indian subcontinent, this discourse is fraught with
contradictions and fissures, both at temporal and spatial levels. The arrival of
Muslim colonizers in India dates back to A.D. 712. And the converted Muslims
after A.D. 712 find it problematic to define the spatial and temporal boundaries of
their history. As native Indians, their history, rooted in Indian soil/space, begins
with Asoka and Chandragupta Murya. And as Muslims, they find closer affinity
with Muslim invaders. Thus the specific time period i.e. A.D. 712 becomes a site of
contestation/intersection between the temporal and spatial versions of history/ies.
In this paper, I intend to analyse how the protagonists, Mir Nihal in
Twilight in Delhi and Sughra in The Heart Divided imagine their history/ies
during the era of colonization. Mir Nihal is proud of his Muslim identity which he
finds embodied in the spatial metaphor of the city, Delhi. But the city is not related
only to the Muslim rulers. Its old name is Hastinapur and its glory dates back to
the classical age of Mahabharata, Asoka and Chandragupta Murya. Contrary to
this nationalist imaginary, Sughra, in The Heart Divided, feels proud of the
temporal history that dates back to A.D. 712. As a favourite of her grandfather,
she had heard many stories about the Muslim history beginning from the time of
caliphates. Thus both the protagonists build their anticolonial imagination on
different versions of spatio-temporal history/ies. I would like to explore the politics
of de/ privileging one version of history/ies over the other. And how the state of
Pakistan is struggling to locate the points of intersection in the postcolonial
religio-nationalist imaginary.
Khurshid Alam. (2018) Periodizing the National History/ies: A Comparative Study of Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi and Mumtaz Shahnawaz’s The Heart Divided., Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan, Volume 55, Issue 2.
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