LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:2 February 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001




BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!


REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES


  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.
  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.
  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2015
M. S. Thirumalai


Custom Search

Communalism and the Politics of the Sacred:
A Study of Tamas by Bhisham Sahni

Prateek Deswal, M.A Eng., NET


Tamas cover

Abstract

Tamas is a Sahitya Akademi award winning novel, based in a small town, which endures the ravages of communal riots that succeeded the Independence of India. But transcending the limits of a fictional story, it lays bare the policy of segregation followed by the Britishers, the futility and brutality of communal violence and puts before the reader a dwarfed version of the tragedy. This paper is an attempt to unravel the parallels existing between Tamas and the situation prevailing in the nation as well as the roles played by the national leaders during the riotous times. It also enumerates the all-important lesson that Tamas beckons on all Indians to maintain unity and peace during tough times and discard any attempt to create dissensions between them.

Keywords:Communal, Conflagration, Atrocity, Riot.

Tamas – Repository of India’s Independence

A nation’s greatest teacher is its own history which bears within itself the zenith of pinnacles it has reached and the tragic abyss it has endured. Only by keeping in mind the fruits of our experience that we can construct our present in a pragmatic and purposeful manner and plan our future with wisdom, care and perspective. Awareness of one’s own self-identity is indeed the first step towards self- realization. Every nation possesses a unique history and one such repository of India’s Independence is Bhisham Sahni’s novel Tamas.

Almost every nation in the world has at one point or another endured the ravages of patriotic struggle for its Independence. When, as in Nehru’s words, it makes a tryst with destiny and when its soul long suppressed finds utterance and the moment always stands as a symbol of harnessing unity, strength and patriotism in the nation. But the Independence struggle of few nations have stood out because of the eternal messages in the principles of morality and humanity they have conveyed to the world. The American War of Independence illuminated the world with the concept of Democracy. The French redeemed it with the ideals of equality, fraternity and liberty. And the Indian Independence movement alluded to the century fraught with violence of its two world wars, the only alternative of peaceful co-existence - Doctrine of Ahimsa- “Non-Violence”.

Led by the apostle of peace - Mahatma Gandhi, if the message reached its culmination by stirring the multitudes of the second most populous nation in the world against the British Empire, its conclusion in the form of Indian independence was nothing but opening of Pandora’s Box filled with conflagration and cataclysm. India’s Independence, achieved on 15th August 1947 was succeeded by communal riots which transcended every limit and horror imaginable to a sane mind. And the most poignant and realistic depiction of the national tragedy can be witnessed in Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas.


This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.


Prateek Deswal, M.A Eng., NET
Research Scholar
Central University Himachal Pradesh
Shahpur, Distt. Kangra
Himachal Pradesh
India. Pin- 176206
patrickdeswal.601@gmail.com

Custom Search


  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.