Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines : Critical Appreciation
The Shadow Lines is undoubtedly
a benchmark in Indian writing in English.
The book stirs up a number of themes. Time and distance in The Shadow Lines are illusory. The novel moves back and
forth and the events are not narrated sequentially. The narrator is a man with
great and penetrating insight. He cannot only peep into the past and future but
also into the lives of characters.
The
novel questions the efficacy of borders. The family of Dutta Choudarys and
Prices in London defy the borders between them and there is a continuous to and
fro movement between the two. They have good relations despite the racial and
cultural differences. Ila gets married to Roby and May falls in love with Tridib.
Had the tragedy not struck, then the two might have tied the nuptial knot. It,
therefore, demonstrates that there is not much difference between the people
across the globe. The humanity is same everywhere. It would not be too bold to
say that Ghosh has gone a little too far to bring the people together.
Time
and again he has tried to drive home the point that the borders that are drawn
are more a source of violence than a mark of an actual separation. After the
division of India, a carousal of violence was let loose. People living as
brothers for centuries together turned on each other killing, ransacking and
maiming one another. ‘All the instances of brotherhood and unity of the past
were thrown to the wind. The happenings on one side affected and controlled the
events on the other.
The
undivided India had long been living in peace and harmony and though people
followed different religions, they stayed in mutual cooperation. It was towards
the beginning of 20th century that the seeds of dissension were sown by some
people in connivance with and on provocation of the ruling masters and the
matters came to such a pass where the partition was the only choice. M.A.
Jinna’s obstinate stand for a different nation for the Muslim population was
not only myopic but also hazardous. Even after partition, the people lived
peacefully except those led by the rumour mills of their brothers being
attacked and killed in the other parts. The most to suffer were typical
plodding countrymen who did not even know who M.A. Jinna or J.L. Nehru was or
what was India being partitioned for. The old uncle to Tha’mma gives entry to a
Muslim family, which stays with him and looks after him. Khali, the rickshaw
driver is more concerned for him than his own family; and both the innocents
are killed in the riots. The old folks stay where their roots are. They have an
unqualified love and a deep sense of belonging for the place where they have
been born. Tha’mma wants to get back to her native place in Dhaka and her uncle
does not want to come to India. Both of them do not believe in the borders.
Riots and other things of such nature are very transient in nature and get
sucked up in the history and fade away from public memory before long. The
Shadow Lines makes it amply clear.
The
resurgent nature of the people’s separatist tendencies is certainly taking the
world by storm. Where on one hand, the world has become a miniature globe due
to the rapid progress of information technology and means of transport; the
other differences have cropped up that are obstacles to linking people and
promotion of world peace or the idea of one Government. Be it in India or Sri
Lanka or Africa or Ireland, there is constant effort to establish a separate
identity by secessionists. Nationalism has been under a constant attack for
these developments.
The Shadow Lines questions the
sanity and efficacy of the borders that divide. These lines that are drawn on
maps and on lands are powerless. These lines may put the people in different
groups but they cannot divide and experience or memory as experienced by
Tha’mma, her 90-year old uncle, Roby or by the narrator but they are certainly
capable in one thing, that is, wreaking havoc, spree of violence, rape, murder
and loot. In most of these cases the commoners neither have a say nor a will
for such division. It is a handiwork of a few hungry of either power or ruled
by fanatic dispositions.
Ghosh
has also been able to comment on the riots, which are the result of people’s
insensitivity to their religion and the religion of others. A few amongst them,
by fiery speeches or actions, play on the most sensitive realm of human
beings—emotions and put them against each other. While the gullible bathe in
blood and mutilation of limbs, they revel over a drink in the air-conditioned
rooms.
If
people think that they can divide the people by dividing the territory then
they are sadly mistaken. The lines are only a mirage. Nobody can ever divide a
memory or experience. The happenings in Kashmir on the eve of disappearance of
the hair relic clearly demonstrated the same and benevolent nature of man. The
villages on the Indian borders are more close to each other than the relatives
on the either side. They still cross over without fear and get their daughters and
sons married in the families across the border. These lines cannot set people
free, had it been so Tridib’s death would have set Roby free.
However,
despite the weaknesses of these borders they also have their strengths which The
Shadow Lines blithely ignores and no matter how much we may
dislike them they would continue to exist and have their weightage. These
lines, which mark the borders and distinguish one piece of land from the other,
are certainly not warranted but even if these lines were not drawn the
differences would persist. Then the culture, the origin, the customs and the
influence of the areas would become the natural boundaries. We may do away with
the lines that we sketch with the pencils on the map and by barbed wires or
trenches on the land, the whole humanity is hard to be put under one umbrella.
This is what suggests at the present. To say that earth is but one country and mankind
its citizens will be rhetorical. A line has got to be drawn somewhere. To talk
in practical terms even a large family gets cracked up and divisions take place
like in the case of Tha’mma’s joint family where the walls were erected to mark
the separation. Then what can be said about the nation’s housing millions of
people sometimes divided by the lines of caste, religion, origin, customs etc
and about the world housing the nations? Good fence make good neigbhours.
Fences are the touchstone of sanity, to take in practical terms. Distance
separates but it also goes without says that it makes the hearts go fonder. One
has to respect the other in order to keep the good relationship and good
neighborliness and this comes only if each maintains certain distance.
The
narrator gives an incident of Jammu and
Kashmir when Mu-i-Mubarak believed to have been the heir of Prophet
Mohammad himself was lost. In Kashmir the riots did not breaks out. The
situations though was very tense and volatile, did not have any effect on the
health of the people. People expressed their anger; and violence irrupted but
it had a difference. It was not directed against other religious communities
but against all the properties identified with the Government and Police. It
happened this way because situation was not exploited by the so-called
self-appointed guardians of humanity and religious communities. The sanity
prevailed. The emotions of the people were not played with. The credit also
goes to Maulana Masudi— an authentic leader, forgotten and unsung today who
persuaded the first demonstrators to march with black flag instead of green and
there by drew various communities of Kashmir together in a collective display
of mourning.
Similarly,
when it was discovered and restored to its place there was a lot of rejoicing.
People came out on the street, danced together, and distributed the sweets
though Pakistan was provoking the local populace. People were chanting ‘central
intelligence Jindabad’ while on the other side a procession protesting against
the displacement of the relic turned violent and many people were killed and
injured. Thus it depends upon how you take up a situation. What surprised the
narrator was that even after so many killings, looting and arson, riots are
transient in public and Government’s memory. The newspapers talked about the
test match at Madras, which happened during the same time, and about the
congress and other political news, the riots were never discussed. When they
were happening the newspapers gave the details and details after details of accurate
description. But once they were over there was nothing left to describe and
they never spoke of it again. The Shadow Lines has thus an escapist tendency
here as the narrator states, “But for those other
things we can only use words of description when they happen and then fall
silent. For to look for words of any other kind would be to give them meaning,
and that is a risk we cannot take any more than we can afford to listen to
madness.” Such an approach can at best be described as wishing away the
realities. But the hard fact is that realities do not go away simply because
you close your eyes to it. The riots that are not discussed or causative
factors sorted out would not bring one to reality and equip one to face the
menace and stop its recurrence. It shows the lack of courage to take up the
situation.
The state is not free from the blame because it does
nothing to restrict them or discourage them. Very often the existence of the
Government depends upon them. Speaking or taking a stand against them means
losing the popular votes for they do command those particular sections whose
wrath may turn the tide against them.
The shadow Lines is a continuous
struggle of the author to undo the demarcations to prevent the establishment of
the borders. And to reinforce his ideology, he has even gone to the extent that
nationalism is a defunct force. Nationalism has been under attack in the novel,
which is perceived as a hurdle in the unification of mankind. Tha’ mma
initially is projected as a great enthusiast of the concept of the nation and
nationalism, the one who would not mind holding a pistol and killing for
freedom. She believes in strength and opines that without building a good body
first, one cannot build a strong nation, and similar other views. Her
nationalism is broad enough to include the two nations and the line drawn as
border between her native place in Dhaka and her present stay at Calcutta
disturbs her. She stills grows nostalgic about her home in Dhaka. After the border
between the two countries was demarcated, she believes that it separates. She
believed that there would be trenches or soldiers pointing guns at each other.
That the two would be distinct identities but to her dismay she finds otherwise
and that is the reason she laments: Why all this killing, so much of bloodshed
if there was nothing to demarcate. It would be the same when we used to take a
train from Dhaka and reach Calcutta. After the cruel killing of Tridib and the
old man on the street of Dhaka her nationalism shrinks. It comes to denote
India now. She tells her grandson that they must treat them now with guns and
bullets and gifts away her only necklace to the war fund. She grows fanatical
to the extent of donating a few drops of blood that drip when she bangs her
fist on the radio. But the million-dollar question, which is best explained by
Roby outside in London, is how many lines can be drawn. Everywhere they are
doing it to be free —in Assam, the northeast, Punjab, Sri Lanka, Tripura.
People are shot by terrorists and separatists and the army and the police. ‘You
will find somewhere behind it all that single word; everyone is doing it to be
free.’ says he. He also remembers an incident when he would tell his policemen
to be firm and kill whole villages if necessary to track down the terrorists
for they should be willing to pay a price of their unity and freedom and on his
return he would find a note saying ‘we are going to get you, nothing personal,
we have to kill you for our freedom’. Roby sums this up by saying: “why don’t they draw thousands of little lines through
the whole sub continent and give every free place a new name?” ‘What
would it change? It is a mirage, the whole of this is a mirage.’ Even after
hundreds of lines are drawn peace will not prevail. It will only lead to
greater distrust and sour relations. No one can divide the memory. People in
that case also [after the borders are marked] continue to be on friendly terms
then why to do all this? And this also happens to be the message to The shadow Lines.
Nationalism
has been painted black in The Shadow
Lines. It is held responsible though obliquely for division and
separation. Tha’mma has been ridiculed as fossilized specimen of nationalism. However,
to hold nationalism only responsible for such results in my opinion would be
unfair. And to affirm the death of nationalism would be making a profound and
authoritative statement.
It
is agreed that the present form of nationalism can become the greatest obstacle
to world unity and world peace. Nationalism
was present in nascent form in very early societies. The tribal instinct has
been magnified beyond limits resulting in political megalomania. But only
nationalism is not to blame. There are other forces as well, which are
responsible for division and conflict. Race, religion, colour, caste, economic
difference, customs and languages are potent factors for realization of world
government or world peace, Unlike Dutta Choudarys and the Prices in London, crossing
national frontiers is quite a task for an average man. They have overcome the
nationality and the borders because they are privileged and rich. Taking off
from one country and landing in another is not difficult for them nor is their
stay in different places. They might view the world as one but a common man
still sticks to his place of birth that he calls his motherland and it is
dearer a place than any other place on the earth. He has his reservations about
other countries.
The
novel has also thrown some light on the Hindu-Muslim
relationship in the past. In the riots during the division, there were
instances of Muslim families in Pakistan giving shelter to Hindus at the risk
of their own life and Hindus in India doing the same. The discrimination and
differences between the two communities are predominantly illusory. Khalil was
a Muslim and a poor man but looked after the old man as if he was his own
father but the bitter truth and irony remains that both the innocents are
killed as it always happens. The mob does not distinguish between the rich and
the poor, co-religionists or pagans.
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