Tyranny of Partition: A Retrospective Analysis of Chaman Nahal’s Azadi

Abstract

The Partition of India was the route of separating the sub-continent along parochial lines in 1947
as India achieved its independence from British Empire. It led into a Muslim dominating
northern state of Pakistan and Hindu predominating southern part became the Republic of India.
Partition however demolished both India and Pakistan as it averted many lives in riots, rapes,
murders and looting but also about 15 million people were displaced from their homes. The two
countries commenced their independence with bust economies and lands without an entrenched,
competent system of government. Chaman Nahal’s Azadi is a modern classic which conceals an
inclusive revelation of life signifying the chaos that partition played on the people of the country
both at the social and individual levels. It portrays the realistic historical documentation of the
atrocious confrontations caused by the partition through literary perspective. As Chaman Nahal
himself was a refugee, he writes with incredible ingress and realism. Therefore he has written his
own experience through the character of Lala Kashiram and his son Arun. The novel is about the
mum environment before the declaration of Partition, the awful incidents caused by the partition
and the wretched circumstances of the deracinated refugees after the Partition. Here in this paper,
I propose to examine poignant description of historical trauma of the theme of Partition in Azadi.