The Spectacle of Death and Deception: Analysing Fictional and Non-Fictional Writings on the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

Abstract

The act of remembrance and memory-making becomes significant in the discourse regarding watershed events of a nation. The role of memory in recounting historical experiences acts as an interface that specifically underlines the ‘horror’, psychologically more potent than ‘terror’, of an event in the cultural consciousness of a society. The representation of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre gives rise to questions related to historiography in regard to a binary privileging of narratives that are bifurcated into two distinguishing strands of dominant discourse and marginalized narratives. We are forced to contemplate our national history where Gandhi referred to the Rowlatt Satyagraha as a “Himalayan Miscalculation” or should we take pride in the fact that Tagore had relinquished his Knighthood in retaliation to the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre? In consideration of the binary privileging of hegemonic discourse, this paper will bring the marginalized experiences into the mainstream dialogue. Thus, through my paper, I would like to analyse selected texts in English and bhasha languages that highlight personal and alternative accounts of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. These texts will help us to understand the act of representation that brings our attention to the way memory itself is perceived and given relevance to as a framework of the national history and a marker of identity.

Keywords

• jallianwala bagh massacre
• memory
• marginalization