Table Of ContentFilm, Media, and Representation in
Postcolonial South Asia
This volume brings together new studies and interdisciplinary research on the
changing mediascapes in South Asia. Focusing on India, Pakistan, and
Bangladesh, it explores the transformations in the sphere of cinema, television,
performance arts, visual cultures, cyber space, and digital media, beyond the
traumas of the partitions of 1947 and 1971.
Through wide-ranging essays on soft power, performance, film, and televi-
sion; art and visual culture; and cyber space, social media, and digital texts,
the book bridges the gap in the study of the postcolonial and post-Partition
developments to reimagine South Asia through a critical understanding of
popular culture and media. The volume includes scholars and practitioners
from the subcontinent to foster dialogue across the borders, and presents
diverse and in-depth studies on film, media and representation in the region.
This book will be useful to scholars and researchers of media and film stu-
dies, postcolonial studies, visual cultures, political studies, partition history,
cultural studies, mass media, popular culture, history, sociology and South
Asian studies, as well as to media practitioners, journalists, writers, and
activists.
Nukhbah Taj Langah is Associate Professor of English at Forman Christian
College University, Lahore, Pakistan.
Roshni Sengupta is Assistant Professor at Institute of Middle and Far East,
Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland.
Film, Media, and Representation
in Postcolonial South Asia
Beyond Partition
Edited by
Nukhbah Taj Langah and Roshni Sengupta
Firstpublished2022
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Contents
List of figures vii
List of contributors ix
Foreword xiii
Preface xv
Acknowledgements xviii
Introduction: Moving beyond partitions: Theorising the
academic dialogue 1
NUKHBAHTAJLANGAHANDROSHNISENGUPTA
PARTI
Soft power: performance, film, and television 9
NUKHBAHTAJLANGAHANDROSHNISENGUPTA
1 Trouble in paradise: The Portrayal of the Kashmir Insurgency in
Hindi cinema 19
JULIASZIVAK
2 The vale of desire: Framing Kashmir in Vishal
Bhardwaj’s Haider 31
NISHATHAIDER
3 Finding comfort in silence? The absence of Partition narratives
from the contemporary group theatre in Kolkata 46
ARNABBANERJI
4 The rise of the celebrity anchor in Pakistan’s private TV network:
The one voice that kills other voices 60
ALTAFULLAHKHAN
vi Contents
PARTII
Art and visual culture 75
NUKHBAHTAJLANGAHANDROSHNISENGUPTA
5 Discourses on Partition through visual culture 81
KAMAYANIKUMAR
6 Post-71: Photographic ambivalences, archives, and the
construction of a national identity of Bangladesh 98
NUBRASSAMAYEEN
7 Speaking soon after catastrophe: The Partition art of Satish Gujral
and S. L. Parasher as record, testimony, trauma 119
SHRUTIPARTHASARATHY
PARTIII
Cyber space, social media, and digital texts 155
NUKHBAHTAJLANGAHANDROSHNISENGUPTA
8 Politicising the body of the ‘other’: India’s gaze at Pakistan 161
DEBANJANANAYEK
9 Keyboard nations: Cyberhate and Partition anxiety on
social media 178
SURYANSUGUHA
10 Pakistani literary digitalisation: ‘Mediascaping’ Mohsin Hamid’s
‘The (Former) General in His Labyrinth’ 190
WASEEMANWAR
Conclusion: Reflections: Building bridges 203
NUKHBAHTAJLANGAHANDROSHNISENGUPTA
Index 208
Illustrations
5.1 Heavy Despair 84
5.2 In Search of a New Home 85
5.3 LikLikoti 89
5.4 Erasures 90
5.5 Video still ‘The News’ 2001 92
5.6a From 1.7 million mi2 to 55,598 mi2 93
5.6b From 1.7 million mi2 to 55,598 mi2 94
5.7 Twins 95
6.1a A Newspaper Clip on Lablu (Daily Ittefaq 1971) 100
6.1b A Newspaper Clip on Lablu (Daily Ittefaq 1971) 101
6.2 Unidentified body from mass killing during1971 Civil War 102
6.3 Image of a dead body (unidentified) from 1971 Civil War
of Pakistan 112
6.4 Unidentified body from 1971 Civil War of Pakistan 113
6.5 Children at the Museum of Independence, Dhaka, Bangladesh 114
6.6 The exhibits inside the Museum of Independence, Dhaka 115
7.1 Mourning en Masse, oil pencil on paper, 1948 121
7.2 Days of Glory, oil on canvas, 1953 123
7.3 Dance of Destruction, oil on canvas, 1950 124
7.4 Sermon on the Mount, oil on canvas, 1952 125
7.5 Snare of Memories, oil pencil on board, 1953 127
7.6 Untitled (Self-Portrait), oil on canvas, 1956 129
7.7 Portrait of ‘P’, oil on canvas, 1959 130
7.8 The Condemned, oil on board, 1957 131
7.9 Untitled, oil on canvas, 1959 132
7.10 The Black Road, acrylic on canvas, 1959 132
7.11 Cry II, graphite on paper, 1947–49 135
7.12 Heavy Despair, graphite on paper, 1947–49 137
7.13 Grieving, graphite on paper, 1947–49 138
7.14 Small Comfort, graphite on paper, 1947–49 139
7.15 In Search of a New Home, graphite on paper, 1947–49 140
7.16 Clean Sweep, graphite on paper, 1947–49 141
7.17 Untitled, graphite on paper, 1947–49 142
viii List of illustrations
7.18 Amnesia of Grief – Baldev Nagar Camp, Ambala, oil on canvas,
c. 1950–53 143
7.19 Refugee Woman, terracotta, c.1947–49 143
7.20 Undivided Punjab, concrete, 1968, on site Leisure Valley Park,
Chandigarh 144
Contributors
Waseem Anwar is Professor of English at Forman Christian College-University
or FCCU, Lahore, Pakistan. Formerly, Dean (Humanities) and Chair (Eng-
lish) at FCCU and GC University, Lahore, he is a two-time recipient of
Fulbright at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (1995, Doctoral) and Duke
(2007, Postdoctoral). He has also served as President of the Punjab Pak-US
Alumni Network and Fulbright Alumni Association. A Gale Group Amer-
ican Scholar, he has been bestowed with ‘Salam Teacher Award 2004’ and
HEC ‘Best Teacher Award 2003’ in Pakistan. He is currently serving the
SALA (South Asian Literary Association, an allied association to the MLA
or Modern Language Association) Executive Committee for the third time.
His book, ‘Black’ Women’s Dramatic Discourse was published in 2009. He
jointly guest edited the 2010 South Asian Review special issue on Pakistani
creative writing in English. With his interest in Critical Theory, a range of
Anglo-AmericanandSouthAsianandpostcolonialliterature,hehaswritten
several articles for various journals and is Editor-in-Chief of the JELLS, a
research journal of FCCU English Department. He has presented papers at
numerous conferences and ison theadvisory and editorialboards of several
research journals.
Arnab Banerji is Assistant Professor of Theatre History and Dramatic Litera-
ture at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, USA. He is currently
working on a monograph on Bengali Group Theatre to be published by
Routledge. His essays and reviews have been published in Theatre Journal,
Asian Theatre Journal, TDR, BOOM California, Ecumenica, Theatre
Symposium, Sanglap, Cerebration, SERAS, and Virginia Review of Asian
Studies. His current research is on performances by the Indian diaspora,
translations of Indian vernacular plays, and contemporary Bengali theatre.
SuryansuGuhaisaresearchscholarpursuinghisPhDintheCenterforEnglish
and Cultural Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. He completed
his MA and MPhil from the same department and university in 2014 and
2016, respectively. His primary fields of interest are cultural studies, television,
pop culture, humour, and digital media.
