Abstract

This paper explores the dynamics of territorialism in the present-day nation-state governmentality across the world. The spatial dimension in any historical narrative always tends to be aligned with linearity, but as this critical excavation approaches, it will try to find out the conflicts and individual accounts across the boundaries and territories and where they stand in the context of space and spatiality? These conflicts and tension present in the memories and lived experiences have been later well reflected in post-independence as well as in partition narratives in Indian English. The exploration in this paper aims to find out the cracks and fissure of this dilemma and dichotomy pertinently present in the empirical history and nation state’s idea of geographical and physical territory and sociological idea of lived territory (includes lived experiences of citizens which by conditioning and acculturing them gives concrete idea of state, border, nation and political nationalism) all in a flux and jeopardy with ever-shifting momentum and is never restricted to any fixed notion of governmentality, territorial dominant ideologies and equilibrium subjecthood of postcolonial subject. In its course, this paper studying the Indian socio-political scenario, adjusts the lens of territorialism amidst the issues of partition and colonial hangover; and tries to address it from the angles of memory, loss and diasporic emotions. Amitav Ghosh’s post-partition novel The Shadow Lines is at the centre of attention in this following analytical writing, as it justifies the tradition and reason of territorial issues in Indian writing in English. The novel, by dealing with memories of three generation migrants (directly and indirectly) constantly shift through different national identities as their own experiences coalesce and contradict with nation archives, oral narratives and historical records.