Racializing Muslims : Saxena’s Partitions

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between Hindus and Muslims in Saxena’s novel Partitions. The novel has presented tragedy of Hindus and Muslims people who were facing unnatural division of their family and land along lines of religion. With India’s partition in 1947 as its reference point the novel has presented disastrous turmoil of the world in the different periods of time. It uses racism as a methodology to represent Muslims racialization and Hindu- Muslim relation. It is an interdisciplinary study of racism and literary criticism which is a belief system or a set of beliefs about the superiority of one’s own race or ethnic group other than that of one’s own.

Racism is not only takes note of racial difference but evaluates that differences ranking it into superior, higher or lower types. By analogy racism is concerned with the relationship between the literature and religion, skin, color and physical appearance are reflected in literature. This research reaches to the conclusion that there is unequal and unfair treatment to the Muslims in the different periods of the history as well as power of politics even before the partition of India in 1947 with Pakistan.