How would you view Tamas as a partition novel?

How would you view Tamas as a partition novel?

Ans : Tamas novel is based on Indian partition. Tamas or ‘darkness’ at another level is also a critique of the growing communal forces in the country in 1970s and 80s. It is constructed on the dichotomy of communalism on the one hand and secularism on the other. Director Govind Nihalani reiterated Sahni’s introductory words by saying “the communal elements who created the (Partition) holocaust are still active today and the patterns too remain the same… The Partition provided a good historical backdrop.” (qtd in Sarkar: 2009) Hence, Tamas was, in fact, intended to be a social commentary of the day seen through the lens of Partition. The autocratic rule of 1975, the rise of Hindu fundamentalism, the Sikh carnage of 1984 and the other communal riots rising in different parts of the country beckoned the need to create a compelling story of the evils of sectarian ideologies and the xenophobic tendencies in the society. For Sahni and Nihalani, the forces which led to the Partition were still discernible even after four decades of that poignant page of history, and Tamas thus came to signify the turbulent contemporary socio-political scenario. Many critics have identified both the author and the Director with ‘leftist cultural politics.’[iv] One instance of the politics of memory working in the miniseries erases the name of Thekedar, i.e., Murad Ali, a name which can identify him as a Muslim, which according to me would have served the purpose of the serial better. To quote Mankekar, “in constructing a secular nationalist portrayal of the communalconflicts leading to Partition, his aim was to warn his viewers to be vigilant about the potentially harmful consequences of Hindu nationalism for the integrity of the nation.”

Like many narratives on Partition, Tamas also creates the two contrasting worlds of ‘ordinary’ people and the elite, ruling class in the society. Nathu, his wife Karmo; the old Sikh couple Harman Singh and Banto; Akran, the Muslim woman who saves the Sikh couple; the woman with a sword to save the neighbor; all these marginalized people in their essential humanity come in contrast to the elites like scheming Thekedar, the Congress and Muslim League workers, the D.C., the wealthy merchant, etc. They display exemplary courage and humanity at the face of all the violence that was meted out to them. Their attempts to save themselves are not devoid of their concern to protect their neighbours. They merely are mute spectators amidst the violence that was set ablaze around. The reverberations of one such communal conflict during the Shah Bano  ase verdict in 1986 were even felt in a distanced land like Mysore[v] where amidst the wide curfew, my parents were assured protection from a Muslim family in a predominantly Muslim area. An old neighbor seemed to have warned my father to park the vehicle at some other place as he expressed his possible inability to prevent the young men from setting it ablaze. Tamas is a significant contribution to society as it broke the silence that was long pervading the Partition experience in the country. With its ‘progressive optic’ it generated a lot of debate, controversy, public litigation, etc. in the 1980s. While we have analyzed the contribution of Tamas in recreating the traumatic period of violence and loss, it is also important to dwell on the ‘problem of representation’ which it is an example of. The question to be asked here, in Pandey’s words is, if Tamas is ‘an unacceptable history?’ Does it, by conforming to the existing nationalist historiography, also veils some factors that are crucial in understanding the nuances of human atrocities across space and time? Here is an attempt to trace some such problems[vii] drawing from scholars like Purnima Mankekar, Bhaskar Sarkar, and a critique of nationalist historiography by Gyanendra Pandey