Rewriting the Nation: A New Historicist Reading of Partition Narratives in Shahnawaz’s The Heart Divided and Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column

Abstract

This study examines the ideological underpinnings of South Asian Partition novels through a New Historicist framework, proposing that such narratives often reinforce the dominant discourses of the states from which they emerge. Focusing on The Heart Divided by Mumtaz Shahnawaz and Sunlight on a Broken Column by Attia Hosain, the research explores how literary texts interact with non-literary historical documents to sustain or contest national ideologies. Two significant political speeches—the 1947 presidential address to the All-India Muslim League by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the 1940 Congress address by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad—serve as contextual anchors for this inquiry. By correlating these political narratives with the fictional representations in Shahnawaz’s and Hosain’s novels, the study reveals how both texts reproduce the “discursive practices” sanctioned by their respective national ideologies. The analysis further suggests that such textual constructions contribute to an “epistemic transformation” of consciousness—operating simultaneously as a form of ideological poison and medicine. Ultimately, this research underscores how Partition fiction participates in the production of state-sanctioned knowledge systems, blurring the boundaries between historical truth and literary representation.