Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters: Re-narrating Partitionand its Trauma

Abstract

Partition tarnished Indian history with bloodshed and inhumane acts. Many writers describe Partition in their works elucidating its causes and results. Manju Kapur is one of Indian writers who deals with the theme of Partition in her novel, Difficult Daughters. The novel underlines the pains of Indians who were parted from their lives, loved ones and origins documenting their miseries and trauma of Partition. It underscores communal hatred destroying secular spirit and peaceful coexistence of different communities of India. It is a manifestation of the bloodiest phase of Indian history where brothers killed one another. Through the plethora of characters stating their miseries Kapur makes her work cover a wide range of people attempting to reproduce real and original accounts of trauma undergone by Indians during the period. It discusses communalism, its causes and effects on human existence taking and threatening innumerable lives. It re-narrates miseries of Indians who were partitioned for the interest of communities. The paper is a study on the Partition and its effects on Indians who are shattered from their roots and lost their lives. It addresses the woes of Indians bearing the trauma of Partition as reflected in the novel.