Reimagining
Decolonisation: The Blurring of Boundaries in The Shadow Lines
Jeet
Ojha,
Department of
English,
University of
Calcutta,
West Bengal,
India.
Abstract: This research
paper dissects the magnum opus of Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines through its
wide range of postcolonial characters and their mental and physical journey of
being displaced. The novel challenges the geographical boundaries, singular
identities and the concept of nationalism. It juxtaposes the ideals of
nationalist characters like Tha’mma with the cosmopolitanism of Ila. This paper
also probes into the minds of male characters like Tridib, the narrator and
Robi and shows the various ways in which they try to deal with their complex
postcolonial identities. Drawing on the research papers of Padmini Mongia and
Ajanta Sircar, this paper argues how the very depiction decolonisation and the
liberation of a postcolonial cosmopolitan identity has been inherently flawed
because it excludes individuals on the basis of gender and class. Ultimately,
this paper concludes that Ghosh's narrative demonstrates how true
decolonisation must dismantle not only physical maps, but also the internal
"shadow lines" which are the mental divisions we create ourselves.
These abstract divisions eventually become even deeper than mere geographical
boundaries and become unerasable for an individual.
Keywords:
Decolonisation, Postcolonialism, Identity, Boundaries, Nationalism
The term ‘decolonised’
has become a popular phrase among activists of colour, yet its meaning is
complex and difficult to define. While it has been used to liberate minds, it
has also caused divisions within communities. It is important to note that the
process of decolonisation does not place colonisation at the centre of our
culture, nor should it romanticize our indigenous past, as this perpetuates the
dominant culture’s point of view. Instead, decolonisation should involve
changing the way we view the world. Frantz Fanon once wrote that we must
clinically detect and remove the germs of rot left behind by imperialism in
both our land and our minds (Fanon 181). Rejecting labels, selfishness,
egotism, and black-and-white binary discrimination are key traits of a decolonised
mind. A decolonised individual defends their culture by staying true to their
roots, accepting their past, loving their present, and creating their future,
regardless of obstacles in their way.
Amitav Ghosh’s
novel, The Shadow Lines, attempts to portray the blurring of borders
between East and West, castes, and religious beliefs through a unique
postcolonial lens. The story depicts colonised individuals traveling to and
from the coloniser's territory. Ironically, this exploration of a world without
boundaries is instigated by the author's personal experience of communal riots.
The characters’ search for identity and confrontation with their divided
selves, coupled with a nationalist spirit, help them understand the meaning of
the boundaries created by the British Empire through their multi-layered
experiences. Through their journeys, the characters, especially Tha’mma,
Tridib, and the narrator, transcend beyond boundaries and discover the barren
reality of their displacement and get to know themselves truly.
Exploring the
complexities of nation and nationalism, the novel delves into the modern
phenomenon of nationalism and the various forms it can take. While nationalism
can refer to an ideology, sentiment, or social movement, its origins are widely
accepted to be in Europe. Against the backdrop of globalization and
post-colonialism, contemporary literature grapples with the question of fixed
identities and the avoidance of nations and nationalism. The Shadow Lines
portrays the conflict between nationalism and migrant cosmopolitanism,
highlighting the limits and failures of both. Through the novel's exploration
of the crossing of frontiers - nationality, culture, and language - and the
shadow lines we draw between people and nations, Ghosh challenges the
simplified and often violent narrative of national identity, unearthing the
suppressed memories and unsettling the notion of a seamless national identity.
The protagonist
of The Shadow Lines grapples with various conflicting notions of
national and cultural identity that are embodied by the novel's key characters
- his grandmother, Tha’mma, cousin, Ila, and uncles, Tridib and Robi. Growing
up in a middle-class family in Calcutta, the narrator develops a metropolitan,
bilingual, and English-speaking perspective as a post-colonial subject. His
exposure to his cousin and uncles, whose fathers are globe-trotting diplomats,
and his own time spent in London for research work reinforce his cosmopolitan
approach to issues of nation and culture. However, his grandmother Tha’mma, a
fiercely independent and militantly nationalist woman, exerts a profound
influence on his life and worldview.
Tha’mma’s
unshakeable beliefs about nationality, religion, and belonging are thrown into
disarray when she visits her birthplace in Dhaka after a long absence, for the
first time since partition. She is shocked to learn that she will not be able
to discern any visible distinction between India and East Pakistan during her
plane journey, as modern borders are crossed within airports while filling out
disembarkation forms. As the narrator observes, “My grandmother’s eyes widened
and she slumped back in her chair… It had suddenly occurred to her that she
would have to fill in ‘Dhaka’ as her place of birth on that form… and at that
moment, she had not been able to understand how her place of birth had come to
be so messily at odds with her nationality” (Ghosh 152). Tha’mma’s confusion is
emblematic of the millions of people in the subcontinent who grapple with
similar issues. The discourse of nationhood prioritizes the physicality of
space and distance and places faith in the inviolability of national borders.
However, this ideology is challenged by Tha’mma’s uncle, who rejects the idea
of being rescued from the Muslim East Pakistan in order to live with his Hindu
relatives in India. “I don’t believe in this India-Shindia”, he asserts. “It's
all very well, you are going now, but suppose when you get there they decide to
draw another line somewhere… I was born here, and I'll die here” (Ghosh 215).
According to Dr.
Elham Hossain, through Tha’mma’s character the authors show the ambivalence of
Indian mind, psychology, identity and culture which are affected by British
colonialism (Hossain 14). Mongia on the other hand, points out that Tha'mma’s
definition of freedom is severely limited precisely because it is completely
encompassed by the idea of the nation-state (Mongia 227). Sircar echoes this
sentiment, noting that Tha'mma's internalization of nationalist ideology traps
her within a "sacrificial complex," blinding her to her own
autonomous selfhood and causing her to view her independence merely as a duty
to patriarchal structures (Sircar 37). Thus, the novel suggests that the dismantling
of colonial borders remains an incomplete project, hindered equally by the
inflexible narratives of the new nation and the enduring legacies of female
subjugation.
Ghosh presents a
contrast between Tha’mma’s militant nationalist fervour and the quiet strength
and sanity of the narrator’s uncle, Robi. Robi is an upright, principled, and
moral man who is intrinsically Indian in his culture and values. He grew up in
the post-colonial era with a unitary identity as a citizen of independent,
secular India and did not have to confront the fractured sense of self
experienced by those who experienced decolonisation and partition. Robi’s
formulation of freedom and nationhood emphasizes the futility of political
boundaries. He questions why anyone would want to draw thousands of little
lines and give every little place a new name, and asks, “What would it change?
... How can anyone divide a memory?” (Ghosh 247). In contrast, Tha’mma’s belief
in the existence of physical borders is evident when she expresses her
disapproval of Ila living in London, as she has not fought for the freedom of
that country and does not belong there. Tha’mma believes in nourishing physical
borders and once said, “I would have done anything to be free.” (Ghosh 39). The
characters of Tha’mma and Ila raise the strained relationship between
nationalism and individual freedom. While Tha’mma prioritizes the collective
struggle for political freedom and the existence of physical borders, Ila’s
individual freedom and cosmopolitanism challenge the idea of fixed national
identities.
In postcolonial
societies, the trauma and complexity caused by colonial rule make it difficult
for the colonised people to meet the colonisers on equal terms. Instead, they
may try to associate with the colonisers to elevate their own status and
embrace their world, which appears glamorous and superior to the native
culture. However, with the emergence of new nation-states, the colonised people
often try to forget the colonial past and revive their native culture to upgrade
their sense of nationalism and erase the painful memories of colonial
subordination.
Through his
portrayal of Tha’mma’s nationalism and Robi’s rejection of dominant ideologies
of freedom in The Shadow Lines, Ghosh critiques the limitations of identity
formation through the discourse of nationhood. He highlights the need to
consider larger cultural and historical sensibilities when conceptualizing
issues of identity, and suggests that Indian nationalism overlooked problematic
issues such as female subjugation, caste and rampant poverty. Furthermore,
Ghosh illustrates the fragility of the borders created by Partition and the
frontiers policed by nation-states that separate people, communities, and
families. He uses the metaphor of a looking glass to suggest that the national
border between India and West Pakistan is like a mirror’s boundary, where the
self and the reflected other are essentially the same.
The
characterisation of Tridib, further sheds light on the novel’s treatment of
boundaries and the role of imagination and memory. Ghosh gives his readers an
alternative to the state-sponsored histories that proposes to draw deep lines
across subcontinents such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. These lines
eventually, become impossible to erase, not only from the maps but also from
the memories of people who begin to see themselves inherently different from
the people of the neighbouring countries even if their ancestors didn’t think
the same. The narrator learns a lot from Tridib including using his imagination
with utmost precision. According to Tridib, a person can only know something
through their own desire which transcends even the physical reality. Ajanta
Sircar in his paper argues against this approach to history which is highly
individualised and comes with its own limitations. The ultimate desire of
Tridib which is to meet May in a place "without a past, without history,
free, really free" (Ghosh 144). According to Sircar, Tridib through this
statement completely negates his postcolonial identity and his social past
(Sircar 39). Tridib’s definition of freedom as the complete erasure of history,
shifts the burden of the formation of postcolonial identity entirely on the
fragile shoulders of personal imagination, bypassing the need of collective
social action.
The narrator’s
imitation of Tridib’s thinking patterns complicates the novel’s critique of
political borders. Through internal contemplation, the narrator attempts to
reimagine and reconstruct his physical reality and thus tries to bridge the
geographical chasms between India and Bangladesh. This contemplative mission
falls on its foot when the narrator tries to find the reason of Tridib’s senseless
death which resorts to the very religious and geographical essentialisms which
the author seems to write against. Sircar contends that by relying on a
transhistorical, metaphysical concept of "sacrifice," the narrative
ultimately reinforces bourgeois individualism (Sircar 42). Rather than offering
a radically materialist redescription of the complex socio-economic pressures
in the postcolonial Indian metropolis, the novel occasionally retreats into
interpreting systemic historical violence as a universal, "special quality
of loneliness" (Sircar 43).
When we examine
the novel through the lens of gender, the limitations of this postcolonial
freedom become even more pronounced. While the male characters such as Tridib
and the narrator are granted the intellectual and imaginative mobility to travel
through the boundaries of time, space, and culture, the female characters are
frequently denied this liberating energy. Padmini Mongia highlights this
disparity in her research paper, noting that the reinvention of the self-conscious
reinvention of the postcolonial identity in the novel appear largely as a male
prerogative (Mongia 227). The women of The Shadow Lines, despite their
geographical mobility or fierce convictions, remain trapped by the specific
cultural stresses and limitations of their patriarchal environments.
This gendered
constraint is starkly visible when we look into the lives of Ila and May.
Despite Ila’s extensive travelling, her top-tier education, and her desperate
attempts to assimilate into the cosmopolitan culture of London, she is unable
to construct a coherent, empowered self. Mongia observes that Ila is doomed to
a mundane and often sordid existence, entirely incapable of meaningful action
or self-respect (Mongia 227). Ila’s fragile westernised concept of freedom leaves
her isolated and subjected to the racism and sexism of her British husband.
Similarly, May’s political commitments prove ineffectual, condemning her to a
lonely life. For these women, the erasure of borders does not result in emancipation;
it instead leads to a profound sense of cultural and personal impotence (Mongia
227).
Amitav Ghosh’s The
Shadow Lines offers a complex and nuanced portrayal of the blurring of
boundaries in the postcolonial era. The novel challenges the idea of fixed
identities and national borders and instead suggests that our sense of self and
community is shaped by a range of cultural and historical sensibilities. Ghosh’s
critique of the dominant discourse of nationalism and his portrayal of the
transnationality of community and memory underscores the need for a more
nuanced and inclusive understanding of postcolonial identity. The Shadow
Lines is a powerful reminder that the legacies of colonialism and decolonisation
continue to shape our world today, and that the struggle for individual freedom
and collective identity is an ongoing and complex and often a violent process.
By engaging with these issues in a thoughtful and nuanced way, Ghosh’s novel and
its characters offer a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate about
decolonisation and postcolonial identity.
Works
Cited
Fanon,
Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Richard Philcox, Grove Press,
2004.
Ghosh,
Amitav. The Shadow Lines. Oxford UP,
1995.
Hossain,
Elham. "Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines: A Critical Response to the
Colonial Historiography." Creative
Flight Journal, Oct. 2020, pp. 11-23, www.creativeflight.in/2020/10/amitav-ghoshs-shadow-lines-critical.html.
Mongia,
Padmini. "Postcolonial Identity and Gender Boundaries in Amitav Ghosh’s
The Shadow Lines." College
Literature, vol. 19/20, no. 3/1, 1992, pp. 225–28. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25112007.
Sircar,
Ajanta. "Individualising History: The ‘Real’ Self in The Shadow
Lines." Social Scientist, vol.
19, no. 12, 1991, pp. 33–46. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3517650.