In the novel Broken Verses, Kamila Shamsie depicts a moving story of life full of grievances and hardship, violence and oppression of the state. The main character of the work is a daughter of the famous political leader Samina Akram who fights for freedom and women rights. This novel portrays the history of Pakistan, political and social struggle of progressive activists and their destinies.
The events of the story took place at the end of the 1980s marked by violence and state corruption. After the Partition, depicted in The Other Side of Silence, Pakistan began life as a fragile nation-state. Formed by the partition of the subcontinent, the new country, Pakistan, was a geographical oddity to begin with. In the novel, the murder of the Poet was a political issue. The narrator describes: “when I was a child, the Poet told me that the sky-painters’ union had negotiated reduced working hours on days of oppressive heat.. ” (Shamsie, p. 17). Consequently, in the conditions then prevailing in Pakistan, the bureaucracy and the military emerged as the principal institutions in the country, especially salient in the need to build a young, fragile country, emerging in the wake of partition, and in meeting the perceived external threat from India. The political dominance of the civil-military oligarchy in Pakistan was also evidence of the pre-eminence of Punjab in the post-colonial state of Pakistan.
Another political issue unveiled by Kamila Shamsie was women rights movement and active position of women in the society. Samina Akram was a leader of feminist movement fighting for equal rights and democratic state. The protagonist depicts: “in 1972 the whispers about the ‘coffee party feminist began to subside. This was the second phase of “Samina Akram, Activist”, and she inaugurated it by speaking out vocally against the false imprisonment of the Poet” (89). This novel is not about opportunities but about barriers. The issues of women, ethnicity, and rights discourse eventually come to a head in the area of family law and personal law. Strict political control and corruption limit opportunities of the citizens and their freedom.
Through the character of Samina Akram, Shamsie portrays that equality should be carried with it the responsibility of the state to socialize maternity and maternal functions so as to allow a woman to work and fulfill her public life. For Samina Akram, equality is an ideological disposition, rooted in attitudes of independence. For Pakistan leaders, equality of women is completely dependent on their class, caste, or ethnic group, if these attain equality, then women in these groups will also achieve equality. For feminists, of course, equality is the other side of patriarchy. Since every aspect of life seems to be infected by the gender bias and classification, equality will only be achieved if it is linked to social transformation of a very radical sort.
The personal issues, affected life of Aasmaani Inqalab, involve loss of parents and mother’s love, emotional distress and search for personal identity. The main problem for Aasmaani was absence of her mother’s love and care so important for every child. Life grievances and separation from her mother was caused by political regime and the Partition. Samina Akram was forced to leave her daughter and disappear for many years in order to save her life and protect Aasmaani from the persecution. Aasmaani supposes that the mother abandoned her many years ago: “I had played myself as victim of my mothers’ lack of love for too long, had wrung myself out thinking it” (Shamsie, p. 331). Shamsie depicts completed relations between a mother and daughter caused by political violence and dictatorship in Pakistan. Mother-daughter relations reflect and are derived in part from the deep bond that Aasmaani develops with her mother.
Aasmaani is not an activist like her mother because she fears of the state corruption and intrigue. Political career and political activity of her mother cause Aasmaani to separate from activism and political struggle against injustice and oppression. A figure of the mother appears central in life of Aasmaani and her destiny. “In all those things she had built her identity around” (Shamsie, p. 272). Working at Pakistan’s first independent TV station, Aasmaani searches for personal identity. This process is closely connected with maturation and is commonly articulated in conjunction with a perceived need for Aasmaani to overcome fear and anger towards her mother and her political activity.
Letters, written in a secret code, mark a turning point in the life of Aasmaani. At the end of the novel, Aasmaani wants to find the truth about her mother and the Poet, and turns to activism. For Aasmaani, the Partition continues to leave its imprint on aspects of everyday life in the subcontinent. If accounts of officials provide a partisan view of partition, those of Indian and Pakistani political figures make the story even more complicated. Shamsie questions: “How could a government can be stupid enough to kill him while everyone knew he was working on a collection of political poem?”. The Partition of India and strict political control exercised by the Pakistan government changed lives and destinies of about 2 millions of people including Aasmaani, her mother and the Poet. People were not allowed to express their political ideas and views, fight against the government corruption and oppression.
Kamila Shamsie demonstrates that the Partition allowed the bureaucracy and the military in Pakistan to dominate the evolving structure of the state. Pakistan as a new nation experienced extraordinary trials and tribulations affected ordinary citizens like Aasmaani. The day to day administration of the state, resetdement of the millions of refugees flooding in from India, rehabilitation of the disrupted economy and the maintenance of law and order were some of the immediate problems that needed urgent attention. Butalia writes:
These aspects of Partition—how families were divided, how friendships endured across borders, how people coped with the trauma, how they rebuilt their lives, what resources, both physical and mental, they drew upon, how their experience of dislocation and trauma shaped their lives.
This book helps to understand and locate events depicted by Shamsie. The regional tensions and cross-border conflicts which partition engendered continue to take their toll in human and economic terms.
In sum, Kamila Shamsie vividly portrays political situation in Pakistan after the Partition of India and its impact on ordinary citizens and their lives. Indian and Pakistani national discourses remain united. Often the heroes in one ‘national’ discourse end up as the heroes in another. Kamila Shamsie and Urvashi Butalia unveil that people experienced partition in diverse ways: in the manner in which communal violence manifested itself palpably in their vicinities, in the loss of life of family members, kinsmen and friends, in the trauma which young women endured as a result of sexual violation, in the loss of properties and ancestral lands.
Works Cited
- Butalia, U. The Other Side of Silence. C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd; New Ed edition, 2000.
- Shamsie, K. Broken Verses. Harvest Books, 2005.