Ethnicity in South Asian Culture and Literature-

by
Saurabh Pant
IN Guidance of-
dr. Pandurang Bharkale

Soul research work

Representation of Social, political, Cultural and Literature's image in South Asian Ethnic Groups-

Note: This book contains two parts;

1st deals with social and identical formation of Ethnicity
2nd, this one however deals with the literature that represents Ethnicity in South Asian Subregions,
especially SAARC at large.
Part 2- Ethnicity in Sellected Narratives

This research work is a property of universal efforts by Asiatic Society of Mumbai.

No statements, ideas or records can be copied or outsourced as mentioned from the same for any other
project, analyses or international demonstration without soul permission of Author.
The author is himself representative of A S M, thus He by the soul permissionof Pune office of A S M
reserves right of this research work distribution, management and permission of transforming this book or
to be used it as a syllabus book, Thus all monetary subequal efforts in this research work's regard shall be
treated by the author himself.
The violation to the guidelines put forward by the Author can lead to cultural demine of such certain
person, authority or groups those who find guilty of the same, Thus You must treat this book as the
property of the Author at large...
This part illustrates the critical notion of 6 legendry novels and their view point on Ethnicity, as they all
set around the same-

They are as follows:

1. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistri
2. FunnyBoy by Shyam Salvadurai
3. The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi
4. Seasons of Flight by Manjushree Thapa
5. The KiteRunner by Khaled Hosseini
6. A Golden AGe by Tahmima Anum

The remarks of Ethnicity are essentialy explained in this part for equal explainations in context of
Literature and it's role-
Thus, This part is equally a generous part to work on as power of literature in context of Ethnicity and
help in International Relations with realist posture of these novels to understand SAARC regions in a
better way at large...
Ethnicity in A Fine Balance

A. Parsi Perceptions with ethnic mentality in Mistri's writings

In Mistrys novels, we can easily find interconnectedness of various themes like theme of nationalism,
alienation, oppression, human-relationship, fear and temptation. The homelessness of Ishvar and Om in
the city makes them victims of the central governments plans for a city beautification-project endorsed
by people of the middle class such as Nusswan Shroff and Mrs. Gupta, the manager of Au Revoir Exports
people who have absolutely no idea of the misery of the absolute poor, the dispossessed and the
disempowered. Unlike these two, Dina Dalal (whose fortunes begin to change with the death of her
father) becomes martyr and servant to her brothers family, and is left to fend for herself.
Dinas relationship with the two tailors is at first one of distrust and tyranny as she forces them to work
long hours without knowing that they go without food. She forbids Maneck, a ?nice Parsi boy? from
socializing with them. But the barriers gradually disappear as they all get to know each other. The bond
between the four becomes stronger after their horrific experiences at the construction plant. Dina Dalal
allows the tailors to sleep on the terrace of her tiny flat. But this promise of happiness is soon to be
destroyed.
Ishvar, who believes in the tradition of with marrying young, persuades his nephew, Om that despite their
difficult material circumstances, he ought to marry a girl from their village. This return to the village
marks the onset of their sorrows. Oms youthful challenge of the supremacy of the oppressive Thakur,
who had murdered his whole family leads to his castration by the politicians. Ishvar, who had earlier been
sterilized along with his nephew under the central governments Family Planning Programme, loses his
legs to gangrene. Both Om and Ishvar make their way back to the city where Dina has lost the battle
against the landlord and finally allowed herself to be evicted from her flat.
Dinas resignation is the effect of a misapprehension on her part. She believes that the tailors, who are
actually caught up in the caste turmoil in their village, have deserted her. She also believes that Maneck,
who files away to Dubai, having failed his exams, has also deserted her. She allows Nusswans family to
take over her destiny and convert her into an unpaid family servant.
When Maneck returns to Bombay eight years later, the city is in the throes of a new form of madness
the killing of Sikhs in the wake of the Prime Ministers assassination. Even though this proof of human
madness saddens him, it does not shatter him as much as discovering the fate of Dina and the tailors does.
It is, for him, the final proof of the chaos of the world. He had earlier described God thus:
I prefer to think that God is a giant quilt maker. With an infinite variety of designs. And the quilt has
grown so big and confusing, the pattern is impossible to see, the squares and diamonds and triangle dont
fit so well together anymore, and its all become meaningless. So He has abandoned it. (418)
Theme of Communitarianism along with the politics in Mistrys novel is a fine documentation of the
human dimensions of the Emergency. Mistry could have made the tailors inhabitants of the city who
suffer from such torture. But bringing in people from the village allows him to document new areas of the
varied sub - continental social reality-poverty prejudice and caste oppression in the villages, inter-
communal harmony or its obverse and the terrible predicament of honest hard-working villagers who
become a mass of statistics in the city.
The two tailors, who represent common humanity as they endure the consequences of all the political
measures decided in the higher echelons of power, are Om and Ishvar Darji, Chamaars-turned-tailors
from the countryside. Once in the city, Om and Ishvar can only join the masses looking for jobs and
shelter. When they initially have to sleep under the awning of the shop of Ashraf Chachas suspicious
friend, Nawaz, they think it is but a temporary measure. Soon, they find out that this temporary measure
will last for three months, for jobs are not easy to come by.
Their next stop is the slum quarter where they encounter for the first time the horrendous experience of
the poor city migrant. A poor shack is sublet to them by an agent manipulating state lands, where illegal
shacks are erected and rented out to the desperate. This is hardly any comfort but it ensures a roof over
the head. At the jhopadpattys, Om and Ishvar have to interact with a curious group of people. It is here
that they experience water shortage, the dire poverty of those even worse off than them, like the Monkey-
man who cannot leave his animals alone for fear they will devour each other out of hunger, and the poor
battered woman with five children to feed.
As the foursome break up, each to their own fate, the sway of national politics takes over. Om, Ishvar and
Dina have to earn their livelihood within the very structures of societal oppression they had set out to
challenge. When Maneck comes back from Dubai, he returns at the peak of anti-Sikh riots in the madness
following Indira Gandhis assassination. The driver who transports him is one who has had to disguise
himself to hide his Sikh identity. The madness of communal riots has surface again and again in post-
Independence India. Beyond the causes of riots, the politics of rioting demands a reassessment of the
politics of identity within multicultural, secular India.
The political theme of Family Matters is expressed through the figures of Yezad and his employer the
idealistic Mr. Kapur and their lives. Mr. Kapur has dreams of reforming the city, making it safer for the
ordinary citizen. From the time of his first appearance, he talks of contesting the Municipal elections in
order to deal with lawlessness, and acting as a buffer against the fundamentalist Hindutva agenda of Shiv
Sena apologists.
Mistrys critique of Indian communal politics in this novel is rarely about the public domain. Unlike Such
a Long Journey where political figures and events occur prominently in the public sphere, Family Matters
shows the events at the level of the local and the familial. Communal politics and disturbances affect the
common man (in this case, Yezad) though he is in no way involved in sectarian strife, or even local
politics. Mistry shows how fundamentalism and skewed political thinking have altered the very social
structure in such a way that even the common man dissociated from politics is scared and affected.
Beyond the concern with the right-wing politics of the Hindu majority, Family Matters also deals with
larger issues of religious zealotry, bigotry and fundamentalism within all communities. The Parsi
community is not spared criticism Nariman Vakeels parents and their cohort of friends who are
zealously religious and exclusivist Parsis, and the final transformation of liberal Yezad into a
fundamentalist religious bigot.
It is the perfect canvas to explore the politics of the individual in relation to the community. In Mistrys
earlier fiction, characters like Sohrab in Such a Long Journey and Dina Dalal in A Fine Balance emerge as
strongly individualistic people who struggle to carve a personal, individual space for themselves within
the family whole. In the case of Sohrab, his rebellion is against his fathers dreams for his future, to which
he is eventually reconciled as he realizes the older man only wishes his well-being. In the case of Dina
dalal, her rebellion is both that of a disempowered woman and a sister against a wealthy and manipulative
brother.
However, it is only in Family Matters that the question of the private space of individual identity is fully
explored through the many instances of conflict between individual desires and duties towards the family
or community. The foremost of these is the tragic story of Nariman Vakeel. He is forcefully separated
from his Christian girlfriend by his parents and their well-wishers and forced to bend to the general
demand of the community. This is presented as a submission of his will to the higher good: ?No happiness
is more lasting than the happiness that you get from fulfilling your parents wisher?. (FM, 13) But
Nariman accepts the separation from Lucy out of weariness and a sense of the futility of the unequal
struggle: ?They had been ground down by their families, exhausted by the strain of it?. (13)
Narimans parents see education as the cause of sorrow: ?Modern ideas have filled Naris head. He never
learned to preserve that fine balance between tradition and moderness?. (15) This theme of coercion
exercised by the family is repeated in a different context with Jal, Narimans stepson.
Nostalgia is a recurrent theme in Mistrys fiction. This nostalgia is generally for a past way of life, forever
lost to the main characters. It is occasionally manifest in the idealization of religious rituals which are
seen as a way to preserve the past and prevent the disintegration of the family and the community. It also
takes the form of reminiscing about childhood which is seen as a more stable and reassuring world than
the present. These reminiscences, presented in the stories of various characters in both the short stories
and the novels, are linked to the changed circumstances of the Parsi community following Independence.
This politico-cultural nostalgia helps to create a sense of loss about the changed circumstances of the
characters in both domestic and public spheres.
All of Mistrys texts play with the boundaries of the private and the public. Most of Mistrys main
protagonists, such as Gustad and Yezad, inhabit the two realms simultaneously, while testing the
boundaries of both. The public world is the world of the ordinary citizen, consisting of friends,
acquaintances and the professional space of work where these adult relationships are forged. As the earlier
we have indicated, the themes of politics, history and community are integral to the life of Mistrys
characters. The private world is the space of the home and the family, inhabited mostly by women and
children.
Age is a central theme in Mistrys fiction and relationships between and across generations is a major
concern whenever Mistry discusses the private realm of the family and the household. The private world
is where the family gathers. In Mistrys fiction, it consists of the world of the old and the young. Women
dominate the private realm with their nurturing attention and the hard labour through which the stability
of the family is ensured.
Immigration is a recurring theme in Mistrys fiction from his short stories to the latest novel Family
Matters where Yezad narrates to his two sons his unsuccessful experiences with bureaucracy in his young
adolescent days as he attempted to go to the West. Thus, expectations about the inevitability of migration
are very strong. But he can neither feel his brothers nationalist commitment nor Jamsheds alienation.
His migration is a pre-ordained trajectory that he undertakes, not out of enthusiasm but because it has to
be.
We can very well see the theme of alienation, fear and temptation in the story of Dinas struggles against
the social conditions of her existence could easily have existed independent of the long incursion into the
life of the tailors. As such they would have existed, within the absurdist frame of an illogical universe, as
ever-enduring puppets. It is through these people and events that the novel tackles the immediate
consequences of the ?City Beautification?, ?Garibi Hatao? and ?Family Planning? schemes. Their tragic-
comic fates are apt illustrations of the absurdity of human existence, where human will have no power
over the illogical course of events. Both Om and Ishvar are presented as fully rounded human characters.
Om is impulsive, easily irritated and always has to be called back to practical reality by his uncle. Early in
the story, when they learn of the massacre of the family, Om dreams of =Dalit revenge. He has to be
persuaded of the impracticality of this scheme by Ishvar.
Mistry recognizes the significance of religion and ritual in the construction of human identity. He,
therefore, use religion, ritual and the responses to these as a central theme in his fiction. In fact, rituals
and religious beliefs become the markers of ethnic, racial and communitarian identities; they highlight
difference. Mistrys fiction can be read within this framework as the predicament of an individual as
he/she seeks to cope with the contradictions of the past and the present, community and self, family and
community. Each of these =contexts of individual contradictions and dilemmas is an emotionally-
charged event in his work.
Mistrys novels are a marvelous showcase of relationships, and this can be observed under the theme of
human-relationship. Mistry reveals the fragility of human relationships in ?The Collectors?. He suggests
that relationships are extremely tenuous and that the trust that cements these is easily broken or damaged.
A misunderstanding and a degree of paranoia (which all his characters seem to possess/suffer from) can
cause the breakdown of relationships and even lead to oppression.
In A Fine Balance we can see the middle class and the anonymous, faceless working class meet
sympathize with each other, and learn to overcome their prejudices and forge bonds of friendship,
affection and humanity. In an interview, Mistry stated that this novel started with an image a woman at a
sewing machine- and was later expanded to include the tailors, to bring in the horror of caste exploitation
and violence of rural India, and the figure of Maneck Kohlah from Kashmir. All of these characters,
together with Dina Dalal- the fiery-tempered, intelligent, fiercely independent and prematurely aged
young woman- constitute a small world of recreated family of the novel.
Thematically, Mistrys fiction has moved from the family in Tales from Firozsha Baag to the wider Parsi
community in Such a Long Journey to the national tapestry in A Fine Balance. Family Matters moves
back to the theme of the family and uses narrative strategies first used in A Fine Balance to intensify the
plot, the human interest and the sense that the characters are firmly embedded in their present.
B. Intersectionality perspective for Ethnicity in A Fine Balance

ABSTRACT
Intersectionality is a feminist theory --- a major paradigm of research in womens studies; a method of
textual analysis as to how the intersection of different multiple identities combine together to enhance the
process of exclusion, oppression and marginalization. It has its origins in class struggle movements and
works like Marxistfeminist theory also to dig the root-causes of woman discrimination on the bases of
class, caste, race and gender and investigates the reasons which are pushing them even farther away in
their effort to access to basic necessities for survival.
This article advocates a multilevel analysis which takes into account the reciprocal effects between
various social practices which contribute together to speed-up the oppression of woman belonging to
minority class with multiple identities in multicultural society of India with affected colonial past and
dominant patriarchal and cultural ideologies, institutional arrangements, and ultimately the outcome of all
these interactions in terms of power. This unit also unmasks the age old held beliefs of equality, fair play
and justice to expose all other forms of othering and exclusion of woman from social spheres regarding
their age, marital status and nationality as well.
This paper argues Intersectionality specifically in Rohinton Mistrys novel A Fine Balance to encapsulate
the interconnectedness of gender, race, class and caste in Indian context involving the issues of age and
nationality as well and will focus the character of protagonist, Mrs. Dina highlighting her struggle for
survival in a world of ruthless competition and segregation as a result of converging identities and forces
of power working against her jointly.

Key words: Intersectionality, class, caste, Marxist-Feminist, exclusion, Multiple-identities.

1. Introduction
Intersectionality a feminist-theory, is used as an analytic tool to understand that the convergence of
multiple identities tend to push the minority woman to the fringes of marginality and thus makes her more
vulnerable to discrimination in terms to access to basic human rights, opportunities, resources etc.
Intersectionality refers to the interaction between gender, race, and other categories of difference in
individual lives, social practices, institutional arrangements, and cultural ideologies and the outcome of
all these interactions in terms of power (Crenshaw, 1989).
The theory is based on the premise that individual belongs to multiple identities which are the
consequence of artificial constructed stratification in class society. Wendy Brown writes : We are not
only oppressed but produced through these discourses, a production that is historically complex,
contingent, and occurs through formation that do not honor analytically distinct identity categories
(1997.p.87).
These hegemonically constructed discourses about race, gender, and ethnicity and other dimensions of
difference shape the representation and constructions of behavior consequently forming different subject
positions in social practices. The basic purpose of this theoretical framework is to advocate a more
humanistic pleading for the rights of minorities like woman, disabled, colored and indigenous individuals
(Symington,2004).
Intersectionality is offered as a theoretical and political remedy to what is perhaps the most pressing
problem facing contemporary feminismthe long and the painful legacy of exclusion (Davis, Nair Yuval,
1983 p.74-75).
The fundamental and primary concerns of this theory deal with the question of the acknowledgment of
difference among woman. This very fact of difference among woman has become a touching issue in
feminine scholarship along with the legacy of exclusion through unmasking the multiple positioning that
constitute the everyday life and the power relations( Zack,2007,p.197).
In sociology and political philosophy, and economics the most basic class distinction is between the
powerful and the powerless. In Marxist theory and historical materialism, social class is caused by the
fundamental economic structure of work and property. Various social and political theories propose that
social classes with greater power attempt to cement their own ranking above the lower social classes in
the social hierarchy to the detriment of the society overall.
In the hierarchy of power and privilege oppression is not a singular process or a binary political relation
rather it is constituted by multiple converging or interwoven systems; woman oppression is not just a
gender based phenomena only. Yearnings by Bell Hooks (1990), also explores the intersections of race,
class and gender in the inequitable social relations of power. For hooks the notion of yearnings provides
a foundation for a counter-hegemonic political standpoint that incorporates race gender and class as
dimensions of social power; Yearnings is a common psychological state of mind shared by many of us in
this world of segregation and compartmentalization.(p.149).
Contemporary India is a land of hierarchically structured society based on class, caste, race and gender
inequalities based on economic disparities. The reality of India is multilayered and multidimensional; it is
not unilateral and monolithic. People belonging to different caste, class and creed live here since
centuries. The purpose of this paper is to detach the power of truth from the constructed myth of equality,
justice, fair play and upward mobility in secular India. The condition is equally worse both in cities and
village alike. Rohinton Mistrys A Fine Balance exposes the constructed myth of Indian progress and
equality which it always tries to show-off to The World Bank and International Monetary Fund to gain
maximum financial add. India has mastered the art of bogus statistics to show World Bank about its
economic policies and politically balanced attitude toward ethnic minorities and different groups of
society.
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry following the realistic tradition of storytelling portrays the actual
lived experience of four characters who become the microcosm of Indian society. Indian society is purely
a divided society; different groups are formed on the bases of class, caste and creed and mostly we find
that economic determinism is there behind this sectionalism and class division. All struggles within the
state, the struggle between democracies, aristocracy, the monarchy, the struggle for franchise, etc., etc.,
are merely the illusory forms in which the real struggles of the different classes are fought out
among one another(Marx, 1846,p.46-47). These differences are kept at all cost alive. People are mostly
known and respected according to the profession they are engaged in and the position and status they hold
in society economically.
All the four characters in A Fine Balance belong to the lower strata of society; engaged in humble
professions they are accordingly treated by the upper class or the elite groups of society. The more we
read the dilemma of these four characters the more we believe in Marxist ideas of economic determinism
and the myth of haves and have not, powerful and powerless. The question as to how the class
economically less resourceful and less skilled, accepts the unequal relations of power and relations of
production in society, is solved. Whole of hitherto existing history is the story of class war (Marx, 1948,
p.34); that one class is always trying to get the control of the other class. Marxism clearly presents two
class model of society; this is especially true under capitalism where one group owns and controls the
means of production in society; these means includes production of food, shelter, clothing and so on.
Gender, class and race may be seen as ideologies or discursive practices resulted in the wake of the
imposition of relations of power production; these can be regarded as systems of subordination and
intersectionality refers to as to how these systems intersect.( Weber,2001).
One of the major significant contribution of the transnational feminist is to investigate the role of state
and its policies in circumscribing the daily lives and survival struggles of woman by exposing its
complicated institution in a complex nexus of power and domination that is gendered, patriarchal,
radicalized and sexualized( Mohanty,1997).

2. Conceptual Frame Work: Intersectionality and Marxism

This paper aims to follow a conceptual frame work of intersectionality with specifically encapsulating the
interconnectedness of class, gender and race, age nationality as multiple identities grounded in Marxists
feminist roots thus emerges a more reductionist model where gender and race are determined by class.
The paper seeks the relationship among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relationships and
subject formation ( McCall, 2005).
The paper following the paradigm of intersectionality will argue that the classical conceptualization of
oppression within society, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, religion based bigotry, do not act
independently of one another rather all these forms of oppression interact to work together r to evolve a
systematic mechanics of oppression. The interconnectedness of class with other discriminatory factors
makes the exploitation of the marginalized woman, facing maximum oppression clearer.
The paper will mainly focus on gender discrimination in minority communities in Indian context, who are
further discriminated again due to their class, caste, race, thus revealing and exposing the multiple
discriminatory experience of woman. The research will be limited to the character of Dina Dalal the
protagonist and the main knitting force of the novel and will bring out all the complexities of
intersectionality regarding her being woman, uneducated, unskilled, widow, and age old and belonging to
the lower strata of society. This unexplored dimension of the novel A Fine Balance will definitely fill the
gap in the existing body of knowledge. Discrimination based on the intersectionality of gender and
literacy, gender and class (social and economic etc) is also unmasked and debated.
An effort has been made to show the effects of illiteracy, marriage, career, financial background to
understand the interrelations in a better perspective. This framework would help develop rich analysis
regarding the various factor involved in creating the oppressed position and subjectivity of the protagonist
challenging the dominant beliefs of the society in terms of hierarchy, patriarchy, power politics etc.

Class
The concept of class as is presented by Marxists purely defines class as a material based phenomena;
Marx divides society into two classes haves and haves not, powerful and powerless. These are the
practical and material facets of life that determine human consciousness. Consciousness is regarded as
from the beginning a social product and remains so as long a man exists at all (Marx, 1846,p.44).
These two main classes share common economic interestsone who owns the means of production and
the other has to sell its labor to the former (the capitalist). Max Weber (1964) too defined class as purely
economically determined, group of people sharing same economic concerns and possession of goods.
Pierre Bourdieus contribution to the classs concept are based on the arguments that classes are
constituted though peoples location in a social space and resultantly their relations to various forms of
capitalcultural, symbolic and economic capital; Bourdieu combines culture along with economic
determinism to constitute relations of power in society. Any attempt to create a classless society free of
poverty, exploitation, and violence is bound to run up against the fact that human beings are naturally
selfish, greedy and aggressive(Callinicos,1995,p.115).

Gender Relations
Gender relationship refer all types of relationship that are present in all institutions and in turn give rise to
gender based regimes of control, power and resistance which operate at multiple levels of existence in
society. Patriarchal relation follow the same pattern of power relations in society where men are
privileged and so they dominate woman Beechey, 1979).
These can also be defined as gender oppression when economic and political control is exercised over
virtually less powerful and resource less member of society (Hartmann, 1976). This gender based
inequality stems from their powerlessness in decision making within family structure and social spheres
which in turn is the result of their economic marginalization in society. So we see like less powerful
groups in society they cant manage to get themselves educated or to gain economic independence and
this vicious circle goes on. Patriarchal relations of power and the resultant inequality affects the decision
making power of the woman in family setting which again enhances their economic marginalization
( Barrett,1980). This fundamental principal lies under all societal behavior and affects all the major areas
of life, work, family, sexuality, and plays a vital role in the formation of all types of subjectivity in
society.

Race:
Race too is a major factor in multiplying the subject position of a woman in a capitalistic society
following patriarchal, political and gender biased ideologies; here we see that Marxist economic
determinism gives way to a more complex web producing and ensuring subjectivity. Ideological
discources are included in those tools of oppression to make sure that certain races should be kept at bay
from mainstream culture and must be merged in the dominant culture. Theorists of Race bring racial net-
works of power and discrimination into limelight. Looking at the immediacies of the colonial context, it
is clear that what divides this world is first and foremost what species, what race one belongs to. In the
colonies the economic infrastructure is also a superstructure. The cause is effect: You are rich because you
are white, you are white because you are rich( Fanon,F.2004,p.5).
Applying Marxist theoretical schemes to class politics Fanon observes In this compartmentalized world
the indigenous colonized are also the subject to a cultural, psychological, and economic hegemony.
Unmasking class stratification and their intersection: A: social stratification; B: gender stratification; C:
ethnic stratification; Each of these grouping can be discussed separately regarding their theoretically
perspectives but in our day today interactions in society these coexist rather are interdependent.

Multiple intersecting systems of oppression at work:

The question of intersection between class and gender were first raised by Marxists- feminist to analyze
the subordination of woman and class exploitation. Early Marxists critics emphasized that capitalism
reinforces the oppression of woman later on Marxists Feminists argued that patriarchy and capitalism are
intertwined systems that operate simultaneously to oppress and subordinate woman. We see in A Fine
Balance the institution of family, state, capitalism, patriarchal ideologies and above all money as the root
cause of all these evils are at work; all these forces work together to destroy the fine balance not from the
life of a single weak woman rather makes her struggle for survival almost impossible. She absorbs
everything like a spacious sponge (Mistry, 1996, p.574).
Dina Dalal is struggling to survive at various levels of existence, being woman, widow, member of
minority community, illiterate and technically unskilled in a society where to be weak is a crime and a
logical justification for all types of victimization. Its the world of endless segregation, ruthless
competition with money its God and power its sole aim. The interplay of material cultural ideologies and
patriarchal hegemonic stance makes it difficult for her to maintain her independence and individuality
with her approaching age and failing eyesight. She is fighting incessantly for a place to stand and to
secure her identity in a hegemonically imbalanced society. She is the victim of power-gender at the hands
of her brother at home and from the materialistic capitalistic forces of gender discrimination on the other
hand which were defining and designing India in 1975.

Exploitation at the hands of family institution:

Intersectionality involves Marxist principals of work/ family nexus, describing the woman experience in
gender hierarchies and her disadvantages in labor market. Investigating property laws, inheritance laws,
and the conditions in labor market all combine together to guarantee the marginality of weak woman. The
family is one of the most important institution of society providing growth, continuity to mankind and
civilization. Family parallels to love, care, protection, support and loyalty creating human bounds on
selfless love it knits blood relations together.
Male enjoys all ultimate authority and decision-making in turn his financial contribution in the family.
The entire family especially women are supposed to be submissive to their husbands, brothers and father
for they carry the purse of the family. Womans economic independence has resulted in some drastic
changes in traditional societies and resultantly the transformation in social relation is to be seen.
Education is considered to be a key for progress and independence for woman. Marxist feminist thinkers
demand an equal right in all opportunities and ultimately in distribution of wealth and the power decision
making. Here in A Fine Balance we see the same battle for domination and rule is going on in family and
public sphere.
After the death of her father, Nuswan the elder brother takes the charge of the family and soon after
becoming the head he takes hold of family finance and his first decision was to cut back on hired help.
The cook was allowed to continue but the cleaning servant was asked to leave. Mrs Dalal tried to interfere
pleading as to who would do the cleaning and dusting his answer was Dina is a young girl, full of
energy. It will be good for her, teach her how to look after a home (Mistry,1996,p.18). She was only
thirteen and this was her school age, instead of encouraging and motivating her to get education and help
get her more skilled for the tough life ahead he forced her into the domestic course just to make her obey
him. But Dina knew this was not the whole story behind firing Lily the maid, The weak before, while
passing the kitchen on her way to WC well past midnight, she had noticed her brother with ayah (Mistry,
1996,p.18) and thus Lily departed (with a modest bonus unbeknownst to Mrs. Sharoff ).
He puts the responsibility of the whole of the house on Dina who is too young for the tasks assigned as
she still needs attention, care love from the family. Family becomes the first institution to destroy her; she
is not allowed to continue her education. Nuswan is the typical example of rigid, male stubborn mentality
who wants to rule by fear rather by love. As the head of the family he committed all atrocities he can to
suppress her voice and to crush her individuality. He plays the central role in the destruction of her future
prospects by not allowing her to continue her education just to save money on the one hand and secondly
just to save money of a servant. After the maid is fired he makes her wash his cups and plates, polish his
shoes, and press all the shirts. She cant argue as he stares her harshly, They were helpless with laughter
when he entered the room. He fixed each one with a black stare before turning away with a menacing
slowness, leaving behind silence and misery. (Mistry, 1996, p.21). Not only this he started beating her
with a ruler whenever he wished to hush her in the name of discipline, The ruler became Nuswans
instrument of choice in his quest for discipline. His clothes were the frequent cause of Dianas
punishment..despite the beating she never tired of provoking him (Mistry, 1996, p.23).
He does not allow her to wear short hair like her friends and forces her to obey in dress and manner; he
snatches her little happiness of a small age girls. When one day Zanobia her best friend who wants to be a
hair stylist forcefully cuts her hair short and back home she is treated severely by Nuswan, Her insolence
and her defiance, could not go unpunished; or how would he look himself in the mirror? (Mistry, 1996,
p.23).He suppresses and mutes her voice; he takes every right of question from her, he becomes the sole
authority, the owner of her life as he possesses this commodity. When asked about her disobedience she
replies she committed no disobedience, he becomes enraged and slaps her saying, Dont question me
when I ask you anything (Mistry,1996,p.23), No back talk I am warning you (Mistry,1996,p.23).
Feminist theorist while analyzing the causes of suppression of woman in domestic sphere questions the
age old beliefs of patriarchal domination on the bases of woman as biologically sex oriented phenomena
and demands equal rights for woman in social status. Here we can also observe that home becomes the
battle ground where types of basic gender discrimination, sexist determination, exploitation and
suppression takes place in the name of the discipline. Same drama of deceit, betrayal and fraud is being
played at the top level in political sphere; political atmosphere is also intersecting and helping
emphasizing the patriarchal ideologies. There are no laws by the state which can question the orthodox
age old beliefs of domination, injustice and exploitation, where man takes the hold of all family assets and
financial resources and snatches the right of education even from the younger weak sister rather makes
her more vulnerable for all types of atrocities.
Dina short hair cut according to Nuswan was the sign of her defiant attitude. He dragged her to the
bathroom and started tearing off her clothes, shivering in cold she was standing naked in front of him,
Shivering she stared defiantly at him, her nipple stiffing. He pinched one, hard, and flinched. Look at
your little breasts starting to grow. You think you are a woman already. I shall cut them right off, along
with your wicked tongue (Mistry.1996, p.24). He was eyeing her strangly.that it was vaguely linked to
the new fledged bloom of hair where her legs met. It would be safer to seem submissive to douse his
anger (Mistry, 1996, p.24).
Nuswan like an autocratic brother is snatching the last hope of getting skilled and ultimately fight her
second-class citizenship in capitalistic competitive society; he does not all her to continue her education
on the pretext of her poor performance in exams. Nuswan decides there was no point in Dina
matriculating. (Mistry, 1996,p.26).
The fact is that she is all the time busy in dusting, cleaning and washing that she is unable to find enough
spare time for preparing exams. You make me clean and scrub all the time, I cannot study for even one
hour a day! What do you expect?(Mistry, 1996, p.26).Thus he closes all doors of better living on her
sister just to prove his authority and manhood. When she argues he just make her shut-up with the
authoritative voice, Dont make excuses Do you know how fortunate you are? There are thousands of
poor children in the city, doing boot-polishing.Whats lacking in you is the desire for education (Mistry,
1996,p.27).

Capitalism and Patriarchy:

Grappling between unrealistic expectations of society and her own individual truth and interests the
minority woman in India is still being treated as the second class citizen by the power structure operating
in public sphere. Following the desire of her own heart she marries Rustam, the man of her dreams,
humble, noble, committed and loving. He couldnt give her anything except few good memories and dies.
Nuswan the brother was not happy with her decision of getting marry with a man of lower status who
have only a rented flat to comfort her. He wanted her to get marry with one of his friends some
businessman with money and a comfortable life style. He continued inviting his friends for full four
months to introduce Dina to his friends resulted in nothing fruitful.
He bursts into anger I have been tactful, I have been kind, I have been reasonable. But which Raja son
are you waiting for?(Mistry,1996,51). When she argues that she cant re-marry so soon he enrages
again, You call this soon? You are twenty-six already, what are you hoping for? Not only age has he also
reminded her position of being a widow as these are the positions which are defining her status as human
being? She is being reminded about her status as a widow to make her realize the horror of her position in
that society which is shaped and designed by Euro-centric relics and cultural conflicts, Do you know
how fortunate are you in our community, widows are thrown away like garbage. If you were a Hindu, in
the old days you would have had to be a good little sati and leap into your husband funeral pyre, be
roasted with him.( Mistry,1996,p.52).
She thinks she has no dignity, no worth except to be used and be the cog in the capitalistic system as a
cog. He keeps reminding her that she is living on his charity and thus she learns sewing from Rustums
auntie Shirin and becomes a tailor and prefers to live that rented flat which Rustum had left him. Here one
more battle starts, the battle of the custody of the flat and her failing eye-sight. With the help of her friend
Zanobia she takes tailoring contract from Mrs. Gupta and fights the rapacious profit based forces of
capitalism. She worked day and night to support her meager self to pay the rent, electricity bills and
kitchen that at mere 42 she started feeling strain on her eyes, Stop the eye-strain or accept blindness,
said the doctor. (Mistry, 1996,p.64).
With the help of Zanobia she got tailoring contract from Mrs. Gupta and it was decided that she should
hire some tailors and supervise them. Her incomplete education was a great hurdle in her getting and
finding some good job even here in tailoring she is not fully skilled and feels frightened to handle the
deal, this is the only profession she is a little comfortable with. Mrs. Gupta consoles saying, All you
have to do is follow is the paper patterns. (Mistry, 1996, p.65).She doesnt want to go to Nuswan
anymore for help and tailoring is the only option.
Mrs. Gupta the true capitalistic voice who holds the string of the purse and consequently can decide the
terms and conditions of work and wages gives Dina sewing contract at very low wages. She is running a
big boutique with American companies and likes to deal with private contractors only to avoid the
troubles of the union workerS, I will keep giving you orders. Much bigger orders, she promised. ; As I
told you earlier, I prefer to deal with private contractors. Union loafers want to work less and get more
money (Mistry,1997,p.73). The Role of the State in Circumscribing the daily lives and struggle for
survival of marginalized woman:
One of the major contributions by the transnational feminist is to include the role of the state in the
oppression and multiple subjectivities of the woman of marginalized class which exposes this important
institution in this complex nexus of power and domination: the nexus of power includes gender,
patriarchy, racial and sexualized sphere, (Mohanty, 2003).
The Novel A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry is a fine example of state introducing such policies and
ideas which are only in the direct interest of the hegemonic block and are crushing the spirit of the
struggle and survival of all the marginalized groups of secular India. This struggle for survival is
especially difficult for the oppressed, silenced voices of woman who are further divided into the category
of working class with age and unskilled capabilities as additional handicaps. State imposes a state of
Emergency on the Nation with the pretext of discipline and regularization of the nation just to hide the
fraud, betrayal, deceit in the nexus of power and domination.
She arranges for the tailors and gets busy with the work given by Mrs. Gupta and feels relaxed about rent
and ration of the house. The poor tailors working diligently with one meal per day formula and happy for
the moment for the work they got. But Emergency disrupts the temporary balance of their lives, Dinabai
what is this Emergency we hear about?, Government Tamashagames played by the people in power. It
doesnt affect ordinary people like us. (Mistry,1997,p.75)
But she was wrong about this havoc of emergency because this was theses very ordinary people who were
going to be affected by this Emergency the most. This emergency introduced city beautification plans and
population planning schemes just to destroy the momentary balance and happiness of these poor,
marginalized groups who were just interested in earning their daily bread. City beautification plans takes
away their shelters and the family planning policies make them de-gendered thus destroying the least
hope for bare survival. Family planning programming takes away their manhood and renders them
beggars who are later on sold on labor camps for free labor. Exploitation and oppression at public sphere:
Dina emerges out to be a new woman, a modern woman, with all demands of independence and
individuality and sovereignty. She resists oppression and keeps holding her head high in the face of all
forces, social, familial and political. Collinis points out that Domination always involves the
objectification of the dominated; all forms of oppression imply the devaluation of the subjectivity of the
oppressed (Collins, 1986,p.18). She becomes other in the eyes of her brother as she rejects to follow the
mythical norms of society; she tries to carve her own niche in life.
She fights for her right, she asserts her will by remaining unmarried, and she chooses her independence
and refuses to live with the autocratic brother who cares more for public opinion than family care with his
pragmatic scientific solution for the alleviation of poverty from the city. She couldnt get agree with his
views ever and decides to live alone in her rented flat. But the power structure of society doesnt allow
her all this; rent collector comes to know the tailors residing with her and starts black-mailing her for the
increase in the rent and the eviction of the flat. Ibrahim the rent collector one more agent of power politics
working against her independence and will to survive in this world of ruthless competition and
segregation, His job now included the uncovering the hidden dirt in the sis building, secret like extra
marital affairs, and he was taught how convert adultery into rent increase--- the guilty parties would never
protest or dare to mention the rent act (Mistry1996, p.86).
So Ibrahim the rent collector becomes the agent of destruction and starts harassing her, She couldnt risk
losing the tailors again. But how firm to stand, how much to bend? Where was the line between
compassion and foolishness, kindness and weakness and that was from her position????????????? From
their it might be a line between mercy and cruelity, consideration and callousness. She could draw it on
the other side, but they might see it on the other side (Mistry, 1996.p.382). She is not ready to succumb
to the unfavorable circumstances and quite adamantly refuses to be black- mailed by Ibrahim. She
introduces the tailors and Maneck the student as her family and informs Ibrahim that, This man, she said,
pointing to I shvar, he is my husband. These two boys are our son ( Mistry, 1996,p.414).
She emerges out to be a heroic soul fighting back to preserve her independence and individuality at every
cost. But her temporary triumph dashes to ground when state policies render the tailors as beggars in the
name of civic beauty and family planning schemes. Not only this land lord sends goondas to get the flat
evicted instantly, we are acting in the place of courts and lawyers. They are a waste of time and money.
These days we can produce faster results.( Mistry, 1996,p.429) they introduced themselves as landlords
agent and not only they broke the whole of the household but also they destroyed all the dresses in the
house leaving her nothing to survive, Finishing with the ripping of the dresses he started on the bolts of
the cloth. (Mistry,1996,p.431).
When she argues that what is the problem with the landlord if she and her tailors sew there in that flat
Ibrahim replies that rent-act does not allow him to charge much and this property is worth the fortune and
so he wants those flats to be evicted from all the tenants. He informs her that Its not you alone, he is
doing the same with other tenants, the ones who are weak and without influence(Mistry,1996,p.433)
These are the weak, poor people victims of multiple subject ivies who are the target of all rapacious profit
seeker.
The crushing net-works of power squeeze the will to live from these peripheral, marginalized souls whole
only crime is their simplicity, honesty, and weak position in money oriented society. Her hopes of rescue
faded with the twilight. As the night deepened, the four sat in silence, attempting to discern face of
tomorrow (Mistry,1996,p.439.
Dina Dalal resists at all levels, she raises her voice like a modern woman for her right; she goes to court
to register a complaint again landlord but what she finds her same exploitation and that too because of her
multiple subjectivity, Then, a hand squeezed her bottom, while another passed neatly over her breast
(Mistry,1996,p.650), This is the place of justice where judiciary sits to provide justice to the people.
Not only her multiple subjectivity causes hurdles at home rather in court too she is regarded Other who
cant speak, who can,t raise a voice. Her hands were shaking and her, and she had to concentrate hard to
place one foot in front of the other without losing her steps. She retreated to a less crowded part of the
compound, at the side of the building (Mistry,1996,p.560), she has to retreat, this is what the opposite
forces do to crush your spirit to resist.After all this is the goonda-raj . So who can blame you for taking
that route? Who would want to enter the solid temple of justice, wherein lies the corpus of justice, slain
by her very guardians? And now her killers make mock of the sacred process, selling replicas of her blind
virtues to the highest bidder (Mistry,1996,p.563).
She faces sexual harassment not only from her brother, from the religious priest but also at the temple of
justice where the dead corpus of justice was lying inside with blind eyes providing justice and facilitating
only to the people in power, What can be expected when judgment has fled to brutish beasts, and the
countrys leader has exchanged wisdom and good governance for cowardice and self-aggrandizement?
Our society is decaying from top downwards. (Mistry, 1996,p.561).

3. Conclusion
How do we recognize the shackles that tradition has placed upon for? For if we recognize them we are
also able to break them (Boas, 1991, p.218). Mistry writes with Marxist consciousness with the
realization of exploitation of the poor, weak at the hands of power politics and suggests amelioration in
the conditions of down trodden with the amendment in existing laws and in the domain of justice.
Mistrys is a humanistic stance and he pleads for the revision of all political and cultural ideologies. A
multi-layered oppression of the marginalized woman exposes all the reciprocal effects of all multilayered
injustice which instead of taking into account the marginalization a crime politicizes it and justifies it in
all forms. This new paradigm in gender studies gives us a true and complete picture of the interconnection
of class, race, ethnic and other factors which make the position and status of the weak woman more
vulnerable and exposes her to oppression.
The general revision of political and patriarchal ideologies 2: The changing world order: accepting change
the only alternate 3: postmodernity and post- ism 4: Globalization: World is becoming a global village,
people belonging to different races and identities are coming closer. Their compartmentalization and
exclusion with the concept of high and low and with the set beliefs and ideas about race and ethnicity are
no more effective. People are becoming more consciousness of their rights and suppression etc.
We will have to give them their due space and freedom. The imposition of totalitarian ideologies is
becoming a thing of past. Every day there are new identities emerging and contesting all essentialism and
asserting themselves with their truth and complete individuality rejecting all stereotypical representation
and given definition of identity. To say that reality and consequently all essentialism is fixed is to deny the
very notion of change and flux itself.
Marxs ideas that all that is solid will melt, made in 1848 are unmistakably becoming relevant; he
believes in social change and the general re-construction of society where justices and order prevails and
people are respected on behalf of their services and their being human. The purpose of this paper is to
highlight the extreme violence which is the part of all societies which are being run by power hungry
sycophants and where crime is politicized only an extreme belief in the importance of an individual can
work. What is the most precious thing in the world? I see that its the knowledge that you are not the part
of injustice. Injustice is stronger than you; it always was and always will be, but let it not be done through
you (Solzhenitsyn,1968).
The art of balance demands to stop classifying people on the bases of group, race, caste and class and let
the difference rule supreme; lets respect diversity, live and let live. What makes Mistrys work a superb
piece of art is the will of the fighting heroic spirit of the protagonist who refuses to yields and accept her
suppression by the hands of the powerful. Its only when the state intervenes and joins hands with the rest
of the forces of opposition that Dian loses her individuality, her independence and her integrity.
Thus we see that very Process of subjectivation of becoming subject has an irremediably ambivalent
political violence, it makes both possible agency and resistance to power as surely as it enfolds the
individual into powers embrace (Alcoff,2000,p.27). It is only possible for breaking all idols of
essentiality and identity formation. Only by accepting diversity and difference can we respect human in
the best suitable way.
Ethnicity in Funny Boy

1. Logic of Gender in Ethno-hetrodoxic families

Throughout Funny Boy the essentialised fixedness of gender boundaries presents itself in several
configurations. For one glorious day of the month, Arjie, his siblings and all his cousins are dropped at
their grandparents house, where they spend the day playing, in locations and activities determined by
gender. If one is male, one plays with the boys playing cricket in the front yard, beyond the fence. Girls
are confined to the territory of the back garden and kitchen porch. Even though Arjie is a boy, he has no
desire for the boys activities: The pleasure the boys had standing for hours on a cricket field under the
sweltering sun, watching the batsman run from crease to crease, was incomprehensible to me (Selvadurai
1994: 3).
He rather enjoys a privileged position of being a leader among the girls, bringing his fantasies to life: a
role he awarded him due to the force of [his] imagination (ibid. 3). Arjie (and as we will later see, his
female cousin Meena) represents an exception in the usually welldelineated gender division.
Not only is Arjie the leader of the group of girls, he has also cast himself into the leading role of his
favourite play, bride-bride. Selvadurai gives a detailed account of Arjiess transition during the bride-bride
game. Arjie feels he leaves the restricted version of himself behind and transforms into a more beautiful
self. This becomes especially interesting when read in the context of Butlers notion of gender drag.
Butler notes that drag reveals the distinctness of those aspects of gendered experience which are falsely
naturalized as a unity through the regulatory fiction of heterosexual coherence. In imitating gender, drag
implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself as well as contingency (Butler 1999: 187).
With the help of the clothes and make-up Arjie transforms into an icon, a graceful, benevolent, perfect
being upon whom the adoring eyes of the world rested (ibid. 5).
Arjie, as well as his younger sister and female cousins, enjoys every spend-theday creating anew their
fantasy play, free of notions of gender appropriateness, until the arrival of a female cousin from abroad,
Tanuja or Her Fatness. She refuses to go along with the blurred gender lines. Until the fourth spend-the-
day Sunday she settles for holding the most boring role in the game, the groom. Driven by jealousy, she
insists A boy cannot be the bride [] A girl must be the bride (11).
Out of frustration that her logic does not catch the understanding of anyone present, she resorts to a
volley of insults: she calls Arjie a pansy, faggot, sissy (11). Only by the force of repetition and her
angered delivery, do they realize that these words are meant as insults. Her Fatness enters the house and
returns with her mother, Kanthi Aunty. Kanthis normative gaze fixes him on the spot: Her gaze fell on
me and her eyes widened for a moment. Then a smile spread across her face. Whats this? she said, the
honey seeping back into her voice (12).
Arjie, eventually unable to disobey her command, finds himself experiencing, for the first time, the
hegemonic look: She looked me up and down for a moment, and then gingerly, as if she were examining
raw meat at the market, turned me around (13). She grabs Arjie by the arm and forces him inside, where
she parades him in front of the adults. Arjie, clothed in a sari and painted with lipstick and kohl, earns
laughs from all present Aunts and Uncles, and the teasing comment of Uncle Cyril towards his father
[] looks like you have a funny one here (14). The ambiguity of the word funny leaves Arjie and the
reader in doubt about the full implication of its meaning. Appa, Arjies father, is silent in his disapproval:
With an inclination of his head, his father indicated his mother to get rid of him (14).
Arjies queerness is unproblematic until it is recognized by the adults and confirmed as abnormal by the
words of his uncle Ey, Chelva, [] looks like you have a funny one here. (14). In Queer laughter:
Shyam Selvadurais Funny Boy and the normative as comic, Mita Banerjee explains: Queerness is
understood as an epithet of derision wielded by a heternormative mainstream distancing itself from the
spectacle of Otherness/sexual difference by the very act of laughter; and as the subversive appropriation
of the term by the gay community itself. It is in this latter sense that the spectacle returns both the
questions and the laughter accompanying it to its sender. (Banerjee 2005: 149)
The laughs and comments serve not only to distinguish the normal from the unusual in this matter. Arjies
father blames his mother as being responsible for their sons lack of masculinity: If he turns out funny
like that Rankotwera boy, if he turns out to be the laughing stock of Colombo, itll be your fault (ibid.
14). The normative gaze of the family transforms Arjie from a godlike icon into a laughingstock, not yet
able to turn tables and turn the audience itself into the spectacle of weirdness: a jettisoning of normative
signification in which the audience is lookedand laughedat in the very act of gazing at difference
(Banerjee 2005: 154).
Things have abruptly changed for Arjie: the world no longer looks upon him with approval, adoration; it
imposes condemnation. The shift from imaginary bliss to harsh normative reality is rendered in visceral
images. The clothes that once bestowed protection and wholeness now give him a feeling of stifling,
suffocation and entrapment. Emptied as a medium of spiritual transformation, the trappings of bride-bride
become a source of uneasiness, where the bridal veil pierces like a crown of thorns: The hairpins, which
held the veil in place, pricked at my scalp (ibid. 13). When Arjie is briefly allowed back into the world of
bride-bride under Her Fatness terms, she wants Arjie to swallow the humiliation of being groom (30).
The girls space marks masculinity as unnecessary and ineffective, a position of no consequence. Here,
femininity holds sway.
There is a substantial atmospheric shift between the childrens acceptance of Arjies feminine role in
bride-bride, and the adults view of Arjies engagement in the game as a threat to masculinity. This notion
of masculinity is imperilled by improper influences, as Arjie father accuses his mother: You are the one
who allows him to come in here while youre dressing and play with your jewelry, (15).
His outrage is rooted in the concept of a unitary and essential rightful masculinity. Such masculinity, in
its rightfulness, assumes a natural manifestation of biological conditions. Nevertheless, Arjies
performance challenges what Butler calls the heterosexual matrix, a term to characterize a hegemonic
discursive/epistemic model of gender intelligibility that assumes that for bodies to cohere and make sense
there must be a stable sex expressed through a stable gender (masculine expresses male, feminine
expresses female) that is oppositionally and hierarchically defined through the compulsory practice of
heterosexuality (Butler 1999: 208). With the help of his protagonist, Selvadurai exposes and questions
the predominance of masculinity ideology in Sri Lanka. Arjies different behaviour challenges not only
masculinity, but also heterosexuality.
Another interesting exception to the heterosexual matrix, Arjies female cousin Meena infringes on
gender boundariesshe plays cricket in the front garden with the boys, and she even spits, yet no one
seems to bother. But is she actually an exception to this normative matrix? Why is no one alarmed that
she is a tomboy, why is the family not reassigning her to the mud-pie making world of the girls? Here, no
one seems alarmed when a girl acts like a boy, but a boy that acts like a girl is unacceptable. The answer
lies in that the images normalised as positive are masculine, where maleness is paramount in the hierarchy
of heteronormativity. Still, we question how alternative sexualities may constitute a powerful challenge to
patriarchal system: The urgent need to trouble and denaturalize the close relationship between
nationalism and heterosexualism (Gopinath 2006: 11).
Meena herself could potentially trouble the nationalistic reproductive values, if her actions translate to a
latent homosexuality, but the family, which reinforces the superiority of masculinity, ignores this. Such
play is accepted because those holding hegemonic power find no difficulty in a lower subject attempting
to gain the very power they claim through essentialism. Masculinity is valued highest, so it remains less
problematic and degrading for females to express masculinity, than males to express femininity. The boys
seem to have no qualms with Meena, maybe also since she reflects and reinforces their gender portrayal
and validates it further.
As Arjie denies the masculine and heterosexual norm he shakes the power balance of their patriarchal
system to the core, thus he embodies a threat. He is a male who not only values the feminine, but wishes
to embody it. The ultimate difference between a queer subject and a heteronormative audience which
looks in spite of itself is broken down by the audiences suspicion that it is being mocked. By the very act
of dressing up, Arjie is seen to laugh in order to scorn heteronormative signification (Banerjee 2005:
153).
When Arjie rescinds patriarchal power to seek a lower social standing, it is unacceptable because it
undermines the very claim of that power. As a result and cure Arjie is banned from the female domain.
He is profoundly hurt by being forbidden from Ammas bedroom, where witnessing her getting dressed
had been an almost religious experience (ibid. 15). Banished from female territories and failing to fit
into the boys world leaves Arjie lonely: I would be caught between the boys and the girls worlds, not
belonging or wanted in either ( 39). Exiles Letter
The grown up Arjie describes the spend-the-days as the remembered innocence of childhood, a time the
narrator associates with the potential for the free play of fantasy (3-5). Nevertheless Arjies nostalgic
remarks are barely carried out before they devolve into a feeling of exile, a turning away from the safe
harbour of childhood towards the precarious waters of adult life (5). This tonal shift cant be separated
from the authors exiled stance, so we are uncertain whether Arjie felt exiled in the moment, or if this is
compounded in hindsight. Using metonymic language, like a ship leaves a port, the separation of body
from biology anticipates the episodes where he fails to reconcile love for his biological family with his
non-reproductive love for Shehan (5).
The fleeting character of incidents, transitioning abruptly from familiar to strange, emphasizes a sense of
things beyond recovery. In his book Imaginary Homelands Salman Rushdie claims that some writers in
exile are haunted by some sense of loss, some urge to reclaim, to look back, even at the risk of being
mutated into pillars of salt (Rushdie 1991: 10).
This element, being between the worlds, not being wholly part of either, is dominant in Funny Boy.
Through physical alienation, naturally profound uncertainties arise. For the expatriate writer, outside
looking back in, Rushdie notes that one is obliged to deal in broken mirrors, some of whose fragments
have been irretrievably lost (11).
A fractured portrait of Sri Lanka through the eyes and ears of Arjie reproduces a largely complex way
picture of how the nation can be imagined. Selvadurai interprets, as Rushdie suggests, through a cracked
lens: Human beings do not perceive things whole; we are not gods but wounded creatures, cracked
lenses, capable only of fractured perceptions. Partial beings, in all the senses of that phrase. Meaning is a
shaky edifice we build out of scraps, dogmas, childhood injuries, newspaper articles, chance remarks, old
films, small victories, people hated, people loved. (Rushdie 1991: 1)
Through this observation Rushdie suggests that the broken mirror may actually be as valuable as the one
which is supposedly unflawed (Rushdie 1991: 12). So we see Funny Boy as highly valuable because it
informs us not only about a moment in the history of Sri Lanka, but because of the richness of its
individual experiences: the way it refracts and catches color at unexpected angles, shedding light on
otherwise undiscovered truths.
Arjie challenges his banishment from the female ground and is instead forced to play with the girls: Why
cant I play with the girls? his mother answers Youre a big boy now. And big boys must play with other
boys (ibid. 20). This glaring enforcement of gender roles shows exactly what is at stake: not happiness,
nor desire, nor fulfilment, but obligation, the comfort of being normal. Facing prohibitions that do not
make sense to him, Arjie wails in anguish. In the midst of this damsel-in-distress behaviour scene, and in
the wake of Appas admonishments, his mother realizes her new is task to refuse Arjie comfort in his
feminine behaviours: I flung myself on the bed [] I waited for her to come to me as she always did
when I cried [] But she didnt heed my weeping any more (ibid. 19).
Amma remains bound to the gender logic that Arjie challenges, even though she cant really explain why.
She admits that reasoning is not necessarily to be found in the world: Life is full of stupid things and
sometimes we just have to do them (p. 20). Arjie uncovers the lack of logic, the pointlessness, suppressed
subsequently via punishment: Her face reddened with anger. She reached down, caught me by the
shoulders, and shook me hard [] how little she actually believed in the justness of her actions (20). It is
Butler who helps us to investigate further in the naturalization of gender logic. Gender is performative, a
negotiation. When we challenge gender categories,
The reality of gender is also put into crisis: it becomes unclear how to distinguish the real from unreal.
And this is the occasion in which we come to understand that what we take to be real, what we invoke
as the naturalized knowledge of gender is, in fact, a changeable and revisable reality. (Butler 1999: xxiv)
So the production of meaning for man (or any specific gender) depends on discourse and language.
Arjies simple question, but why? reveals the illogical and unexplainable nature of Ammas answer, its
revisable nature. Most visible is the inexplicable and constructed gender logic displayed in Funny Boy
when Arjies sister Sonali asks for the reason of Arjie banishment from girls ground. Amma replies,
Why? [] Because the sky is so high and pigs cant fly (23). .......
Here, the why of gender norms is best captured by Sonali, who as a less socialized individual questions
the social myth adults take as the truth. The innocent questions of Arjie and Sonali effectively force
Amma to the face the immature non-logic of her own pronouncement, but being nonlogic, a fairy tale, she
fails to question it, relegating Arjies preference for play to a childhood diversion just as nonsensical and
unimportant as the nursery rhyme. Again, hetero-normative logic overrides the non-logic of desire, of
imagination. Desire cant be bounded within logical parameters, especially those drawn within a matrix of
power.
Throughout this analysis, we argue that Arjies queer subjectivity not only attacks the core of the
normative heterosexual system and demystifies the patriarchal notion of masculinity. In using Butlers
provocative insights we have traced the complexity and ambivalence of gender norms, their production
and enaction. Incongruencies within Arjies family tend to counter the predominant dichotomic concept of
hetero/queer homing, which posits that one finds a biological brand of unity within the home of origin
and must seek queerness or difference in a destination of desire and intent.
Her Fatness (Tanuja), simultaneously a family member and a stranger, is the one who enters Arjies Queer
home and upsets the balance by pointing out difference. Arjie was allowed to cross-dress, to inhabit the
world of the girls, until this extension of the family came into his home and rent his microcosm asunder.
Nevertheless, Arjie does not allow the dominant discourse of gender and belonging to define his identity;
rather, he forms his own.
At this juncture the queer subject converges with that of ethnic difference. The Western mainstream
targeted by Bhabha posits a stable, self-identical subject position and derides hyphenated subjects as
pathological, schizophrenic. The Tamil society represented by Arjies family, on the other hand,
inscribes and requires this same stability in terms of gender performance, or rather, the naturalness of
gender as such (Banerjee 2005: 153). The reality of Arjies difference hits home, so to speak. Not
surprising is the familys incitement to discipline, which Foucault claims is a primary injunction of the
post-industrial heterosexual family apparatus (Foucault 1978). Here, in the case of Arjie, passion and
compassion are used oppositionally: where one is present, the other is taken away. If Arjie is to act out his
passions, he is to receive no compassion from his parents, particularly his mother, as noted in the
aforementioned crying scene.

2. Named into Being: (In)Visibility and the Spatial Configuration of Gender within 'Ethnic Concerns'
The title of the book itself contains a double power of invisibility, subjectifying Arjie as different, and
ambiguously failing to specify the implications of this difference. Further, it reveals an inherent
contradiction: the funniness being referred to is rather its oppositelacking any humor, serious to the
extent that it cannot even be named.
Distinguished from his brother by the title bestowed upon him, Arjie senses the titles intent to convey
shame rather than honor. In her article on queer diaspora, Wesling speaks of a queer reading of Adam and
Eves banishment from Eden as an originary articulation between spatial and sexual prohibition (33).
Here, in similar fashion, we trace how pronouncements from those with hegemonic power enforce the
movements of sexually transgressive subjects, as their non-normative behaviours arguably place them
lower on a scale of power.
At the beginning of the novel, Arjie is forced to quit playing the bride in the wedding game he has created
with his sisters. In a geographical shift determined to shift his own gendered inclinations, he is banished
from the realm of the girls surrounding the house to the outer yard, beyond the fence. In a powerful image
of stark contrast and exile, Arjie runs alone to the seaside, which is blinding in the noonday sun: a setting
that insists that he see a fundamental truth about himself, in the light of day, which paradoxically remains
invisible to him in its overwhelming, blinding intensity and apparentness. Here, alone, at a dramatic
metaphorical boundary of home and the unknown (where stable land meets the ever-shifting ocean) Arjie
acknowledges that, even though he must return before the lunch bell, he will never fully return again: to
what home was, and to what/who he himself was.
The actual migration takes place beyond the narrative, so this project examines the volley of acceptance
and estrangement, the experience of being an outsider within ones native land, the modes of Othering
that occur leading up to the familys flight. The mental landscape that Selvadurai creates shows the no-
mans land of non-belonging, precariously waiting, depending on others for survival. The same themes
explored by Kosnick as constitutive of the migrant apply in similar measure to the pre-exilic or
anticipatory migrant: visibility, invisibility, and contradiction. There is, however, no single logic through
which hierarchies of sexuality and border-crossing migrations intersect with each other. [Kosnick thus
discusses] empirical instances in which antiimmigrant racisms and homophobia are mutually constitutive
to produce different kinds of visibility, invisibility, and contradiction (122). Exactly these sites of racial
and sexual discourse are where we examine (in)visibility and contradiction in novel.
Patterns of silence and naming occur with increasing weight and implication throughout the narrative.
When Arjie is forced to join the boys on the cricket field, he isnt exactly welcomed with joy onto a team.
Sanjay tries to keep Arjie off his team: Why dont you keep the girlie-boy? This blatant admission of
the presence of Otherness, via naming, unexpectedly relieves the tension. Lifting the weight of its own
pronouncement, the joke bestows enough comfort and normalcy for the players to accept Arjie, but with
this caveat: he can be a fielder, but he is not allowed to bat. Though laughter creates the space for
exception in their compulsory masculinity, Arjie is reminded that he remains in a passive position, read
here as feminine. One even notices the slight connotation of catching, slang for anal sex, which in a
heteronormative context is passive and feminized as well.
Arjies banishment from the world of the girls, and his forced entry into proper gender identification, is
figured in spatial terms of geography. The geography of the home, with girls close to the house and boys
out in the field, provides an image of the roughness of masculinity equated to being heathens, out in the
heather. This boys space, outer, wild, beyond the confines of home, is the opposite of refinement, where
physical strength is the dominant virtue, in a dichotomy of bellicose power versus refined cultural tastes.
After all, Appa does cite Arjies habit of constant reading, preferring books to hard play, in his
explanation of Arjies non-normative tendencies.
Selvadurai plays with the construction of power through the act of naming. The stereotypically masculine
boys have the power to name, but the naming misses its intended mark of insult: I should have felt
humiliated and dejected that nobody wanted me on their team, says Arjie, but instead I felt the joy of
relief begin to dance inside me. The escape I had searched for was offering itself without any effort on my
part (25).
Arjie, unfazed, has no time for shame. He is focused solely on his desire to leave the cricket field for the
home space of the girls: If Diggys best team members were threatening to abandon him he would have
no alternative but to let me go. Using the shame and dejection expected of him, Arjie bluffs his cards
well: I looked at my feet so that no one would see the hope in my eyes.
Momentarily, the power of naming lies with those who hold masculine hegemonic power: the power of
being named subjectifies and fixes Arjie there, on the boys field. Orders passed through Ammas
heteronormative structure still wield more power here than the non-logic of queer desire and imagination.
Diggys compliance, his servile laugh to the repeated taunt, balances (or at least attempts to balance) the
demands of the gender compliance and the peers desires for an accurate representation of masculinity as
a condition of entering their world. Ultimately, Arjie escapes when Diggy loses his prized teammate, who
refuses to play on the same team as Arjie. Chasing Arjie off the field, Diggy threatens him to never return:
Dont worry, (Arjie) replied tartly, I never will. And with that, I forever closed any possibility of
entering the boys world again (28).
As with the creation story evoked in Arjies fall from the innocent, not-yet-selfconscious world of bride-
bride, there is a certain silence surrounding Arjies anticipated sexual transgression, the act that has been
alluded to yet not properly named. The passive reluctance of his family to verbalize Arjies behaviors or
tendencies as homosexual actively marks these behaviors as invisible. This invisibility, however, is
precisely the thing that ultimately empowers Arjie to bring his lover into their home, where his sexual
relationship with Shehan is the nameless presence. That (Shehan) Soyza could easily lead you down the
wrong path, Diggy says to Arjie, before leaving his room (ibid. 250). Once again, Diggy doesnt name
the threat, and he makes it a passive thing, something Arjie might unwittingly let happen.
Here, though, the pieces begin to fall into place for Arjie. The meaning of what Diggy had said hit me,
and a realization began to take shape in my mind. Arjie himself recognizes the latent power in his own
difference, where his desire begins to make visible what has failed to clearly present itself to him for so
long: The difference within me that I sometimes felt I had, that had brought me so much confusion,
whatever this difference, it was shared by Shehan. I felt amazed that a normal thing like my friendship
with Shehancould have such powerful and hidden possibilities (250). For the first time, Arjies
difference truly creates an overwhelming, head-spinning sense of finally belonging and understanding.
This time, the strength of invisibility lies with Arjiewho can use these hidden possibilities, hidden
from the others, to move in the direction of his desires, to bring Shehan into his home.

3. Dissonant Tones: the Disconnect between Imagination and Reality in Concern to Ethnic Close-
Sociality
From the beginning of the novel, Arjie finds himself caught in what seems an almost dissociative
experience, where for a time, he is unable to reconcile the sonic and visual dissonances between mind and
matter, expectation and eventuality, imagination and reality. This places him in a kind of rootless non-
belonging not entirely related to theories of the queer migrant, but rather an existential rootlessness where
such mental juxtaposition arguably prepares him for the diasporic condition. The twilight hues of
memory already cast the remembered landscape in a different light, moreover, a memory cannot have the
same ontological properties as a place in which one physically stands. The reader is aware that the author
is recording a memory, across half a globe of space and decades of time, and this narrative dislocation
serves to anticipate the movement of consciousness by which Arjie comes to apprehend his own
difference, and use it as a source of strength.
At the crisis point of where Arjies difference is first brought before judgment, an eery discordance
prevails over the prelapsarian state. His final unspoiled bride-bride performance is surrounded with an air
of foreboding: she gave the signal and the priest and choirboys began to sing: The voice that breathed
on Eeeeden the first and glorious day. Solemnly I made my way down the steps towards the altar that
had been set up at one end of the back garden. When I reached the altar however, I heard the kitchen door
open. I turned to see Her Fatness with Kanthi Aunty. The discordant singing died out (12). Invoking
tones of the biblical Creation story, yet another inheritance from Western colonial hegemony, blissful
innocence collides with a certain fall from grace.
For the first time, Arjies parents are made aware of his difference, and Arjie is made to confront a certain
sense of estrangement from his own identity, self, and familial acceptance. We should hesitate to wash
this scene completely in the light of difference however, or to explain it away in terms of homosexuality
having no place in the home. Rather, the specific ways in which Arjies home space allows for difference,
and the actors within that space who contest his difference, create a more specific understanding of the
complication between home and belonging, and movement and estrangement. One of the first characters
to enter Arjies life and make room for his cross-dressing is his Radha Aunty.
Radha Aunty sat on the dressing-table stool and looked at me with a mischievous glint in her eyes. Then
she picked up a tube of lipstick. Open your mouth, she said. Through the corner of my eye, I watched
Radha Aunty work. She painted my eyelids with blue shadow, put rouge on my cheeks, and even
darkened a birthmark above my lip. When she was done, I grinned at my reflection in the mirror. She
looked at me and laughed. Gosh, she said. You would have made a beautiful girl (48).
Radhas lack of adherence to feminine norms gives Arjie the space and permission to reassert his own
feminine side. She gives him space to be himself. This is one the first instances in which he explores his
desires around an adult, and definitely the first instance in which he is encouraged, rather than
admonished. This is also the only instance, however fleeting, in which reality trumps his imagination:
Radha Aunty had turned out to be different from what I had expected, but better. She was definitely my
favourite aunt (51).
The fundamental disconnection between expectation and reality reigns as a leitmotif for Arjie's dominant
internal tensions in adolescence. Romantic notions almost always fall flat in his lived experience, so much
that flatness is, paradoxically, present and fleshed out: flat-chested Radha; the flattened, drenched and
bedraggled flowers upon the bride-bride altar forgotten in the rain outside. Transitioning from a fullness
built on imagination, to a flatness based in reality, Arjie struggles to imbue his life with contour and
vitality despite a lost innocence or naivet. This basic disconnect between expectation and reality mirrors
the disconnect between the colonial impulse and its lived political realities.
Arjie's ideas of romance and marriage have been formulated by the hegemonic Sinhalese culture, and thus
are inseparable from Sinhala films and Janaki's (Sinhala) love comics (44). Not surprisingly, this
foreshadows the disillusionment wrought by the Sinhalese government, still bolstered by the momentum
of imperially instilled power. Seeking to sexualise Radha within Sinhalese silver screen norms, he further
problematises the gender ideals he had foisted upon her, disappointed with her physique which turns out
to be flat like a boy (45).
Before actually seeing Radha though, he hears her playing chopsticks horribly on the piano inside the
house: As I listened to the music, I felt disoriented. This was not in keeping with my Radha Aunty (44).
His emotions navigate through sonic dissonance, pointing again to the invisibility of imagination, and its
juxtaposition against apprehendable reality. So intensely has he imagined her, his conception has
solidified into a figure who now breaks her own role, her own identity. By the end of the chapter, Arjie
will have reoriented himself, but to disillusionment rather than idealism.
Subtle forms of power and oppression between the Sinhalese and Tamil groups become violent, reaching
proportions of genocide by the end of the novel. Ethnic alignments and racism come to wield inscriptive
power upon bodies and identities. In an argument at the family dinner table, Arjies grandmother
Ammachi slaps Radha Aunty for hanging around with Anil, a young Sinhalese man. This relatively subtle
physical violence is carried to extreme consequences via Ammachis temporary banishment of Radha
Aunty to the city of Jaffna. Radha is attacked during the race riots, and returns with a gash on her
forehead and a look of emptiness in her eyes.
The demarcation of ethnic boundaries, in a single act of domestic violence, becomes written onto her
body and constitutive of her identity. Though she is physically present again in the home, there is a certain
absence of self, an emptiness in her eyes, a loss perhaps never to be regained. Arjie hints at the violence
that has transposed itself: There was a seriousness to her face, a harshness I never knew (Selvadurai:
90).
Not only migration in the larger sense, but movements themselves, particularly forced movements,
inscribe the demarcations of hegemony onto the embodied subjects in their control. Compulsory
movement precedes migration in the effort to theorise how identity itself is predicated on movement or
loss (Ahmed 2000: 80).
Arjie understands the gravity, depth, full meaning of the situation in the theatre, the site of Radhas
courtship with (Sinhalese) Anil, when the last window clicks shut. She metaphorically closes the windows
of opportunity, and is left upon the stage to merely play a part, closed in upon herself in her own insular
world. The image is not one of safety, but confinement. When Radha marries shortly thereafter, it is for
convenience, not love. Rather than the non-logic of desire and romance, the wedding seems an exercise in
the precise logic of obligation. Perfunctory, lacking emotion and magic, the ceremony effaced of meaning
is too much for Arjie to bear. Dismayed, he exits aimlessly, and ends up at the old altar site of bride-bride.
His old world of mud-pies and imagination is irretrievable. From inside the kitchen comes the insistent
sound of the tyranny of the stomach, the monotonous pounding of necessity and duty.
From her arrival in Sri Lanka, to her slow shuffle out of the home via a loveless marriage, Radhas
physical movements, and in turn, her thought processes, were reinstalled into the postcolonial apparatus.
Upon returning to Sri Lanka, she increasingly lost the ability to direct her agency via the politics of the
metropole. Moving from the locus of British imperial power to its residual outliers, we might want to
connect the corruption of power with the supposed savagery of non-Western peoples. The narrative,
however, makes clear the inheritance of savagery from British imperial forces. The hegemonic Sinhalese
derived their superiority, power, and violent methods of control from privilege bestowed by the colonising
force. Just as Radha lost agency, and thus identity, as a result of her movements (from America to Sri
Lanka, and her banishment from the home to Jaffna), Uncle Daryl falls victim to these same unrelenting
forces in his movement from Australia, and then to Jaffna.
The culture of silence surrounding spiritual and sexual transgressions requires us to read between the lines
regarding Ammas encounters with Daryl. Ammas own transgressions remain unnamed, hinted at only in
the tacit acceptance of blackmail by the local police officer. Ammas silence carries the power to save her
family, while resigning the power to follow her heart, seek justice, do what she feels is right. Arjie comes
to realize that by occupying the liminal space of adolescence, and choosing his silences and utterances
with care, he has the awareness and power to orchestrate effective political rebellions within his own
microcosm. We explore this power later in section A Textbook Rebellion: in this instance, Arjie manages
to transcend ethnic and family ties in unexpected ways to forge his path from a fraught sexuality into an
authentic, budding adulthood, opening possibilities for personal freedoms which the rest of his family
have long since closed themselves off from.
Initially, Arjies desires brought to life serve again to juxtapose expectation with the disappointment of
lived experience. Arjie is unable to enjoy his first sexual experience with Shehan; rather, he feels it
disconnects him from his family and marks him as fallen. Referring again to slight biblical undertones,
sexuality ranks primary in the loss of innocence that occurs via partaking in the fruit of the tree of
knowledge. The first thing the transgressors become aware of is their own nakedness, and the need to
clothe the parts of their bodies that have become sexualized through this act of transgression.
In the wake of his own first sexual encounter, Arjies guilt and shame bears the same intensity. He pulls
his clothes back on, and wonders if he must cover up some lingering tell-tale sign of the occurrence: I
felt suddenly afraid at the thought of meeting anyone. I looked down at my trousers to see if the wetness
had seeped through. Except for a small spot, it was not visible. Shehans clothes were wrinkled, and I
glanced anxiously at mine, wondering if they, too, bore signs of what I had just done in the garage (ibid.
254/5).
Only after the consummation of the sexual act has the body itself become sexualized: not overtly or
externally at the verbal linguistic level, from silence to naming, but at the cognitive or existential level, of
internal self-realization and recognition. He acknowledges his desire for Shehan, but simultaneously
wrestles with confused disgust at this desire.

4. Commodified Desires: Neocolonial/Capitalist Management of Sexuality

Homosexuality is written into the local landscape as commodity, acceptable in that it benefits the would-
be neocolonial ruling class, who in turn fail to see oppressions created by the tourism boom, just as they
fail to see their own oppression as an increasingly marginalized ethnic group. We want to explore the
postcolonial condition that the novels characters live inside and experience, and the ways this condition
shapes their identities and lives. Sarah Ahmed describes post-coloniality as a failed historicity: one that
grasps that which has been, as the impossibility of grasping the present (Ahmed 2000: 10). Much as the
past cannot be fully recovered through memory, homosexual desire is a resistant and unassimilable drive,
something that shatters the imperial allegory.
While Arjie eventually does manage to tongue-tie the local imperial forces to a certain extent during the
climactic poetry reading scene, we first encounter instances in the novel where homosexuality is
embedded in the imperial urge itself. In Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power, Stoler notes imperial
expansion itself was derived from the export of male sexual energy (Stoler 44). Taking this observation
to the site of the Chelvaratnam family hotel, we find that the neo-colonizerstourists, using the
socioeconomic advantage of capital and metropolitan wealthmove from the metropole to the exotic
postcolony in the tropics, seeking to fulfil their desires. Here, on a beach in Sri Lanka, homosexual
desires between native boys and tourists are accepted tacitly as a marketable commodity.
In profiting from homosexuality, the Chelvaratnam familyand arguably the local society taken whole
is able to assimilate deviant desires. Once again, Arjies father relies on humour to lighten the homosexual
behaviour he would otherwise prohibit or condemn with certain gravity. Jegan asks if the tourists ever
visit the hotel with the native boys from the beach, essentially using his facilities for prostitution. What
am I to do? They have paid for the rooms. Besides, if I tried to stop it, theyd simply go to another hotel
on the front. But isnt it illegal? (Jegan asks). My father chuckled. I dont see any police out there, do
you? He poured himself another drink. Its not just our luscious beaches that keep the tourist industry
going, you know. We have other natural resources as well (ibid. 167).
In the new capitalist order of things, permissibility is granted for all things that turn a profit. The
fetishised bodies of the native boys put cash directly into Chelvaratnams hotel. Thus Arjie himself
benefits directly from his fathers acceptance of homosexuality in the business arena, despite the fact that
he does not condone Arjies tendencies. Jegan himself does not approve: this seems not an instance of
homophobia, but rather, a burning hatred of the exploitation of young Sri Lankan boys, perhaps Tamils,
like himself. When Arjies father toasts to this business prospect, Jegan does not respond: Instead, he
stared down the beach again, a stern expression on his face (Selvadurai 167). Jegans later description of
a friend alludes to the possibility of his own homoerotic relationship at one timeIn fact, you remind me
of him, he says to Arjie- we wereWe were good friends, he stammers (ibid. 171).
The entire scene illustrates how global capital reroutes queer desire through a complex system of
invisibility and silence, capitalising on the shame of the sex tourist who must travel away from home in
order to fulfil his desires, the tourist who in turn exploits the natives economic need that has largely
resulted from the introduction of Western market practices and development. These relations point to the
fact that the queer subject is not simply affected by, but rather produced through transnational capitalism
(Wesling 32). The sex tourist holds a position of economic power that inscribes the native into a certain
role: Gay tourism in particular upholds a dichotomy between consumer and producer perfectly aligned
with a First World/Third World hierarchy in which the queer fetishized native is the silenced and place-
bound product, which the gay tourist is encouraged to consume. (Wesling 41)
Though the entire process is a complex, multi-directional chain of exploitation across various strata of
race, gender, and national lines, the one who benefits the most at least, in this instanceis the
heteronormative capitalist who observed from a distance with a wry smile. Even the physical position of
their bodies in the scene is telling: Appa Chelvaratnam looks down upon these subjects at the shoreline
from a place of stability and omniscience higher up on land.
While the sexual relationship between Shehan and the head prefect at the Academy is not exactly paid
prostitution, it is effectively a mode of sexual colonization. Shehans body becomes commodified in its
passivity, used within the power structure of the school to the ends of the prefect, who wields coercive
power. Teachers and other authorities in the school turn a blind eye to Shehans long absences from class,
and his return with rumpled hair and clothes. It is precisely the taken-for-granted tolerance that performs
the ideological labor of producing invisibility here (Kosnick 126).
When Diggy finally says that Shehan has sex with the head prefect, Diggy doesnt name the act. He
alludes, but never explicitly illustrates, the meaning of the sex act between two men as anything other
than a sex act. Thus he fails to qualify the act as inherently different than heterosexual sex, while failing
also to illustrate its difference or deviance, its reason to be avoided. He passively fails to illustrate its non-
(hetero)normativity, but inscribes the act with disdain due to its own passivity: Shehan lets the prefect
do things to him.
By portraying the act in simultaneous terms of consentual sex and molestation, where Shehan allows it to
happen, but takes no active part otherwise, Diggy de-masculinizes Shehans sexual transgressions in what
is tantamount to rape-shaming. Such passivity has negative connotations, as if Shehan were not man
enough to stop it from happening, but rather takes it lying down, suggesting further that he gets perhaps
penetrated by the Prefect, where the act of being penetrated is, in turn, normatively assumed to be
feminine.

5. The Best School of All: Colonial Management of Sexuality/Production of Masculinity

Masculinity is a key factor in the production of identity and social conformity in postcolonial Sri Lanka;
here the knowledge apparatus of Victoria Academy binds imperial logic to Arjies social interactions and
self-understanding. We argue that Arjie destabilises the fixed, finality of race, gender, and sexual desire
through his process of identity formation.
Similar to Radhas enforced exile to Jaffna, Arjie is abruptly and unexpectedly dismissed to the Victoria
Academy by his father in an attempt to re-align his wrongly gendered tendencies. Arjie is still
oblivious to this wrongness, however: I stared at him [] Why was I being taken out of St. Gabriels and
sent there? (ibid. 209).
If Arjie is to become a man, he must be educated in an institution that compels its subjects, through
violence and social coercion, into appropriating the normative image of manhood and masculinity. The
academy will force you to become a man, says Appa (210). This statement reveals the compulsory
quality of masculinity within hegemony, and paradoxically reveals its instable nature, its non-
essentialness: one is not simply a man by virtue of biological sex, but must become a man through the
masculine knowledge apparatus. Again, the spatial separation of male and female bodies reinforces
normatively gendered ideals in the attempt to create rigid boundaries. Individuals are expected to strive
for these ideal, institutionalized images of manhood and womanhood.
The first thing Arjie perceives in the Victoria Academy is brutality: Most of the boys were much older
and bigger than I was, and they were playing rugger with a brutality I had never seen at St. Gabriels
(ibid. 214). Arjies brother warns him against showing any signs of weakness: Once you come to the
Queen Victoria Academy you are a man. Either you take it as a man or the other boys will look down on
you (211).
But what is this a priori man that Arjies father and brother talk about? Positing a gender that exists prior
to social constructs is, in this case, a refusal (or denial) to admit to the social role in creating and
interpreting manhood. Judith Butler claims in Gender Trouble that the importance we ascribe to the
bodily/sexual difference is a result of our cultural interpretation. She hence denies the existence of any
essence inherent to the self. During the first chapter of Gender Trouble Butler claims that within the
inherited discourse of the metaphysics of substance, gender proves to be the performative - that is,
constituting the identity it is purported to be (Butler 1999: 34).
According to Butler, it is not that an identity does discourse or language, but rather language and
discourse do gender (Salih 2002: 64). In assuming that there is a determinate status of being a real
man, Arjies father claims that gender identity is fixed and essential.
Language, discourse, and practices (in this case, sending Arjie to a boys-only school) are used to set Arjie
on the right tracks to manhood. Physical appearance, Shehan Soyzas in particular, serves as the initial
site of power and policy making for the school, where the first order of discipline is to crush anything
outside the circumscribed masculinity. Why is effeminacy such a threat though? As Arjie has done
throughout the novel, Shehan challenges the naturalization that states if one is biologically male, one is
expected to show purely male traits and desire for women. His father (who interprets non-
heteronormative gender performances as a threat) feels that these certain tendencies are unnatural,
whereas Butler claims the opposite: gender is unnatural. Sex, by definition, will be shown to have been
gender all along (Butler 1999: 11).
What Butler means is that there is no essential relationship between ones body and ones gender. In this
case it is possible for Arjie to have an evidently male body and yet not to show features usually regarded
as masculine.
In other words, one may be a masculine female (Meena) or a feminine male (Arjie). So what it means
to be or become a (real) man, the way Arjies father and brother mean, turns out to be rather fluffy and
questionable. As Butler suggests in Gender Trouble and Selvadurai in Funny Boy, it is culture with its
practices (Arjies father and the school) that becomes destiny (Butler 1999: 11).
To move towards questioning the compulsory nature of heterosexuality in Arjies spheres of engagement,
we must question why it is so necessary and important that Arjie become a real (heterosexual) man. M.
Jacqui Alexander provides enlightening insights here: Not just (any) body can be a citizen any more, for
some bodies have been marked by the state as non-procreative, in pursuit of sex only for pleasure, a sex
that is non-productive of babies and of no economic gain. (2005: 10).
Reflecting Foucaults emphasis on the intersection of industrialism and the economic importance of the
hetero-nuclear family, we read the homosexual body as a threat to the survival of the nation. The state
function of economic growth is dependent, at its most basic, on reproductive growth. Sex for fun may
create profit in controlled forms mentioned previously (prostitution and sex tourism), but the state-
building project is still better served by procreation. Arjies father, the head of their nuclear family unit,
polices the inscriptions that his own behaviours seek to uphold. Not reproductive enough for the nation,
Arjies erosion of heterosexuality is perceived as a danger and thus needs to be avoided or cured (2005:
23).

5.1. Anxieties of Race and Queerness

When Arjie confronts his big brother Diggy about his re-assignment to Victoria Academy, Diggy avoids
naming the problem explicitly. He doesnt want you turning out funny or anything like that. Though
Diggy is reluctant to name Arjies sexual deviance, he subjugates Arjie using his heteronormative gaze:
Diggy was looking at me, his eyes slightly narrowed. Youre not, are you? Not what? I asked, not
meeting his gaze (ibid. 205).
Diggys look, and Arjies subsequent looking-away, enables both of them to avoid the difficult topic of
Arjies subjective sexuality and desire, and enables Diggy to speak instead of the sexualized colonial
knowledge apparatus of the Victoria Academy, and how it constitutes of power through order. Diggy
explains the punishments that Black Tie, the feared headmaster, deals out to students, and why: One of
the boys had hair that was too long and he wore his top two shirt buttons open. The other blinked too hard
and Black Tie thought he was winking at him. Effeminate long hair and the campiness of a slightly bare
chest portray queerness, where discomfort leads from seductiveness to potential mockery through
winking read as flirting.
Black Ties homophobia is at once is at once the fear of being mocked; a queer mockery which parallels
Bhabhas reading of colonial mimicry. By the act of mimicry, the colonial subject turns himself into an
object which is almost the same but not quite the colonizer himself (Banerjee 155). So Black Ties own
questionable position puts him on the defensive: he is already expecting the students to mock him,
because at some level he realizes what a mockery he is in his performance of a British colonial. At Queen
Victoria Academy the ethnic boundaries are socially policed to a greater extent than Arjie is accustomed
to. When Arjie attempts to enter the classroom, a Sinhalese boy stops him: We dont want you here []
Go to the Tamil class (215). Arjie, who does not know the Tamil language, is confused. At this moment
Arjie meets Shehan Soyza for the first time, who interjects on Arjies behalf. But Salgado, arent you
always saying that Tamils should learn Sinhalese? (p. 216).
Finally, Arjie himself discovers the sense of difference that ethnic identity inscribes upon the individual,
when he falls in love with a Sinhalese boy named Shehan: Shehan was Sinhalese and I was not. This
awareness did not change my feelings for him, it was simply there, like a thin translucent screen through
which I watched him. (302).
The affection he feels for Shehan makes him question the order of things and realize that Right and
wrong, fair and unfair had nothing to do with how things really were. [] For how could loving Shehan
be bad? (273-274). He is conscious of the unequal allocation of power, since the ones who conform to
the heterosexual norm have definite power over those who live their lives differently: If you were
powerful like Black Tie or my father you go to decide what was right and wrong. If you were like Shehan
or me you had no choice but to follow what they said. (274). In this way, Black Tie and Arjies father
represent the traditional heterosexual norm formed by the patriarchal assumption of male dominance.
Even though tensions between Sinhalese and Tamil are manifold throughout the narrative, Arjie and
Shehan refuse to continue the patterns of racism and ethnic separatism. Because of their affection for each
other and the shared experiences of oppression they create a place they can inhabit together. Instead of
being tied to one identity, they break with ethnic and gender conventions and expand the nations
(imagined) boundaries.
His family comes to accept his friendship and perhaps his romantic love with Shehan, as noted when
Shehan comes to visit after the break out of the riots: I shook his hand instead and asked him to follow
me into the side garden, where we could be alone. Diggy, who was in the drawing room, looked like he
was about to follow us, but Amma called out to him to leave us alone. [] Maybe, in the seven months I
have known Shehan, Amma has come to accept him as a friend of mine (ibid. 295).

5.2. The Anxiety of Race

Black Ties desire to maintain the postcolonial apparatus paradoxically reinscribes the very hegemonic
power that threatens to bring him down from his post. As a Tamil, he strives with particular eagerness to
display his belonging to this apparatus: I stared at Black Tie in surprise, because Diggy had failed to
mention a very significant detail of his attire: a sola topee, that white domed hat I had only seen in
photographs from the time the British ruled Sri Lanka. [] He wore a carefully pressed white suit that
also belonged to another era (209). The white suit, traditionally used to reinforce the whiteness, purity,
and cleanliness of the colonizers, seems somewhat ridiculous when worn by Black Tie, in this age. He
clings nonetheless to such markers,in the typical fashion of a subject positioned between colonizer and
colonized: Subjects who [] were unsure where they were at home (Stoler 12).
It is this very uncertainty that incites Black Tie to violence in his attempts at upholding colonial logic. The
regime itself is marked by this lack of conviction, requiring subtle and overt forms of coercion in an
attempt to perform its own belief in itself.
Black Ties injunctions against any display of effeminacy or homosexuality become ironic when it occurs
right there in the school, under his nose, with a prefect no less. Tracing the discrepancies between
prescription and practice turns attention to the changing criteria by which European colonials defined
themselves and to the uncertain racialized regimes of truth that guided their actions (Eng 2001: 6). The
Prefect, as an arbiter of the postcolonial knowledge apparatus, is invested with the task of enforcing the
heteronormative strictures. Instead, he uses his position of power to engage in the very behaviours he is
expected to punish. The discrepancy between prescription and practice paradoxically creates a double-
standard within the institution. This is likely why the boys in class remain silent when Shehan returns
after an overly long break, with rumpled clothes and hair. No one speaks up about it, because here,
breaking the silence will weaken the image of the academy.
To further explore the racial subtext between Shehan and the head prefect would require knowledge of the
head prefects ethnicity, which unfortunately is never disclosed. What we find, however, is the instability
of criteria by which subjects within the Academy define themselves. The compulsory heterosexuality of
the Academy is a joke, and Black Ties colonial clothing effectively makes him a sad parody of himself.
Western modernity, particularly the colonial project and its lingering influence, fails to position itself
securely as dominant, heterosexual, and masculine. Furthermore, Black Tie was saved by such
colonizers, yet he brutally and cruelly reinforces the violent heteronormativity handed down to him by his
patrons. We can read this as a chain of oppression, by which he seems thoroughly brainwashed, and to
which he remains oblivious, even in its failure.

6. A Textbook Rebellion: Queering the Colonial Impulse

Once again, Arjie faces a disconnect between intended meaning and reality in the text of the poems he is
assigned to perform at the prize-giving ceremony: They spoke of a reality I didnt understand. [] It said
that through playing cricket one learned to be honest and brave and patriotic. This was not true at the
Victoria Academy. Cricket, here, consisted of trying to make it on the firsteleven team by any means,
often by cheating or fawning over the cricket master. Cricket was anything but honest. The Best School
of All was no better. (ibid. 227)
The masculine, nationalist, imperial values that should be instilled by the game are as rife with corruption
in this game as in the school on the whole. The whole apparatus is a ruse based on cut-throat domination,
obtained by cheating and flattery.
Having spent so much time under the rod of Black Tie, Arjie recognizes the transitory weakness of
coercive power, and how power is built upon necessity: Without me his speech would fail and his efforts
to save his position would come to nothing. A thought then presented itself to me, so simple I was
surprised it hadnt come to me before. Black Tie needed me, and because he needed me, power had
moved into my hands. I looked at Black Tie and realized that any fear of him had disappeared. (ibid. 270)
As the bodies of his ancestors were chopped up, so Arjie effectively chops up the assigned textual bodies.
This disfigurement hints at the possibility of reconciliation through a simultaneous act of destroying
hegemonic power and refiguring bodies to where one can no longer distinguish between Tamil and
Sinhalese. For Arjie, neither ethnicity exists any longer as a basis for power or for constructing identity
and meaning on the basis of ethnic distinctions. Thus he splices and rewrites the poems, effectively
de-/re-/constructing all distinctions until one fragmented whole is left.
In choosing Arjie as a Tamil representative to recite the poems, and then attempting to disavow Arjies
connection to Tamil values, Black Tie betrays the weakness in his own ethnic alliances, his own
representative subtext. Arjie temporarily escapes this form of ethnic subjectification, in defiance of what
he notices as oppression in both factions. The intentional wrongness of the recital subverts the structure of
the postcolonial power imbedded in the apparatus of the academy. Taking the very meaninglessness of
this postcolonial order as his example, he queers the text, gaining an upper hand against his and
Shehans oppressors:
The plan was simple. Instead of trying to get out of reciting the poems, I would do them. But I would do
them wrong. Confuse them, jumble lines, take entire stanzas from one poem and place them in the other
until the poems were rendered senseless. Black Tie [] would be forced to make a speech that made no
sense. (270)
Banerjee likewise notes that it is in this performance () that Arjie jumbles all differences into a single
performance of non-sense: the difference between the colonial and the postcolonial, as well as that
between queerness and straight sexual orientation (Banerjee 2005: 155 ).
By giving a queer reading of the poems, Arjie forces Black Tie to face, if not to accept, his own
hypocritical performance in the colonial mimicry installed through Victoria Academy. Arjie is neither
lured by Black Ties bait of flimsy power within the postcolonial apparatus, nor does he naively believe
that his efforts fully liberate himself or his loved ones from that apparatus. As Foucault illustrates
throughout History of Sexuality, there is no liberation through sexuality, even transgressive queerness;
rather, seeking liberation through sexuality continues the same discourse that incites us to repress,
confess, and liberate ourselves in this way.
Black Ties best defence is to point out that Arjie has fully shown himself hereby to be part of the ills and
burdens of future Sri Lanka, to remove him from the nationspace to a space of non-belonging. Even the
nervously tittering audience, confused as to what exactly they are laughing at, sees the weakness in Black
Ties desperate attempt at saving face. In refusing the honour of performing the poems correctly, Arjie
transfers dishonour to Black Tie himself. Black Tie seeks to recover his own identity, his own face, as
something distinct from Arjie, a fellow Tamil. He is caught in a bind where saving face costs him the very
expression of prestige he wished to convey.
Unbound by ethnic identity ties, Sunderalingam is able to casually dismiss Arjies performance as an
inadvertent failure: Never mind, Chelvaratnam, you did your best. Black Tie, however, reacts viscerally,
because his identity, an his social position encoded by this identity, is tied to this performance: he looks
down at his hands in shame, and stammers his disapproval to the audience.
Arjie has understood, where Black Tie has failed to understand, that the old structures of government,
power, and control are crumbling. Power inherited through colonial trappings is swiftly being decimated
by neo-colonial, capitalist economic interests. These globalizing forces render Black Ties power
obsolete: in the new order, Black Tie is estranged by and from the archaic values he seeks to uphold. This
points us to a crucial development, the glimmer of hope beyond compulsory heterosexuality. Even Arjies
father accepts gay boys turning tricks, as long as its turning a profit. Though this paradigmatic shift
creates no definitive historical line between post- and neo-colonial structures, the narrative explores
feelings of estrangement and failure through characters from the old garde who seek to hold the former
imperial structures in place.

Implifications
Taking a step back to discuss the broader implications of the themes at work in the novel, we question the
function of its metanarrative: how the act of writing and sharing the story of a non-normative subject,
from the stance of a post-exilic, queer, ethnic minority, theoretically fights against the erasing of such
subjects from postcolonial discourse/history.
Butler addresses in the introduction to her book Gender Trouble the fact, that in Western societies the
individuals are expected to accept their place within the system of different identity categories (Butler
1999: 30-36). By examining the English-speaking novel, we experience how vast the conversation of
nation and (gender) identity can actually be. That the story is told out of a childs perspective emphasises
the constructive character of entities of ethnicity, gender and power hierarchies. Arjie learns how the
world is ordered, who is allowed to marry who, what it means to be a boy or girl, who has the power to
decide; he is not born with internalized knowledge and set of rules. The adults in Arjies environment
mainly do not challenge the constructive characters of the entities anymore, but a child still has the ability
to look beyond the naturalized concepts. Selvadurai does not only suggest the construction of gender and
gendered behaviours, but also the construction of ethnicity.
In Bride-Bride, we locate the site where the heteronormative mainstream distances itself from
Otherness/Difference: the anxiety here is that as much as they want to distance themselves, they cant:
Arjie is part of their family, and yet, unfamiliar. Arjies father blames this on the mother letting him be
present when she is dressing, in an attempt to explain how something like this could happen within the
home. But why would Ammas heteronormative putting on of femininity cause Arjie to want to put it
on as well? It comes from the family, it doesnt come from the familyAppa seems caught in this bind,
and is reduced to silence. With a nod, he dismisses Arjie. On the car ride, he is silent, and doesnt make
eye contact with Amma, to shame her. They cant find the source, and they demand a source, because if
heterosexuality is normal, essential, then homosexuality is abnormal, secondary, developed as a result of
something.
Homosexuality then could be sourced, as having a cause. In refusing to see the constructedness of their
own heterosexuality, they are ashamed at the prospect of being complicit in constructing Arjies
homosexuality. Perhaps the anxiety is that their dress, behaviours, sexuality, are constructed as well,
which shakes the foundations of the compulsory heteronormativity. This is the jettisoning of normative
signification that Banerjee speaks ofAppa himself is made to see the ridiculousness of his own
heteronormativity. In this case, the family itself is the audience that is implicated in the spectacle.
Youre a big boy now. And big boys must play with other boys, Amma says, but she fails to say in what
way. There is no mention of the regulation of play versus embodiment. One would expect that boys, as
they grow older, would be encouraged in relationships with girls, but only where difference is clearly
marked and routed into heteronormative performances, not where either gender takes on qualities of the
other or mirrors them in play. The type of relationships between gendered bodies is strictly policed, yet
ineffectively. In stating that big boys must play with other boys, homoeroticsm is reduced to play, non-
serious, while simultaneously reinforcing that ones gender is learned by mirroring others of the same
gender. This time, it is Amma who is anxious about the constructedness of gender.
During the final chapter, Arjie becomes literally homeless, they return and find their house burned down.
In depicting how the violence destabilizes the individual the reader feels for the protagonist and his
family. With passages such as As I examined the charred things on the floor, I was suddenly aware the
records were not music but plastic, which had now melted into black puddles (p. 297) it is shown that
magic has been taken out of things. The devastation of the home marks the beginning of a changed social
position for the Chelvaratnam family. During the passing of few days, the security of a middle-class life
fades and they find themselves exposed to violence with no help from authorities. As a consequence,
Arjies father decides the family will leave the country, to Arjies relief: Im glad he said that, because I
long to be out of this country. I dont feel at home in Sri Lanka any longer, will never feel safe again
(304).
In the ultimate illustration of Ahmeds contestation of the queer subject who migrates in order to find the
queer home, Arjie longs to leave Sri Lanka because of ethnic strife, not because of his queerness. In
leaving Sri Lanka he will also leave his Queer space of belonging with Shehan. When coming back from
having sex with Shehan the last time he notes [] now I am reluctant even to change my clothes for the
fear that I will lose this final memento [Shehans smell] (309-310).
A key scene, since the final memento revels not only the memory of homoerotic desire but also a Queer
desire that is located at home, in Sri Lanka itself. In this way the novel disrupts the standard (nationalist)
understanding that home is to be hetero. The setting of homosexuality and Queer desire into the nation-
space of Sri Lanka also reverts the common idea that the Queer subject has to leave home, the
underdevelopt country which is marked by oppression, in order to find acceptance the modern West.
Selvadurai disrupts the claim that transgressive gender and/or desire equals a globally mobile citizen.
With the help of Funny Boy we are able to trace and disentangle the processes of decolonialization and
nation-building (Alexander: 25). The heterosexual family is naturalized and seems to have become
essential to Sri Lankas struggle for legitimacy during decolonialization, a process of international
political and economic relations. The theme of denying of existence and full citizenship, not in a legal
sense but primarily in various practices, the tropes of belonging and identity, frustrates Arjie and other
characters of Funny Boy. After British rule, middle-class nationalism left the basic ethnic order intact. The
narrative questions Sri Lankas patriarchal and heteronormative order of gender and sexuality through
awareness of the colonial origin of such practices.
Therefore the work of Jacqui Alexander offers most valuable insight regarding the state interests in
naturalized heterosexuality, views on masculinity and national identity and avoiding non-normative
sexuality in order to maintain power and the status to rule. Black Tie intends to reclaim his own fraught
whiteness by shunting Arjies Queer performance out of the parameters of the Academy as failure.
Importantly, this failure means different things for Sunderalingam and Black Tie respectively. Further,
Black Ties insistence on Arjie as a future ills and burdens points to the intentionality of Arjies failure
which if intended, was not a failure at all. Black Tie is caught in a paradox where he is unable to explain
or understand why Arjie would wilfully disown himself from the Tamil identity that he himself clings so
desperately to.
With Funny Boy, Selvadura brings Altmans statement to life: Most people negotiate numerous models
of identity in everyday life, and what might seem paradoxical or contradictory to the observer is not more
than evidence of the human ability to constantly reshape him- or herself. Sexuality, like other areas of life,
is constantly being remade by the collision of existing practices and mythologies with new technologies
and ideologies (Altman 2001: 36). Arjies situation within female and male entities is not ascribed to one
specific moment nor described with one fixed word.
Perhaps it evolves and is difficult to grasp, just as an identity developing within an oppressed ethnicity
inside the postcolonial apparatus. Occurrences are entangled in various locations and place and hence
cannot be confined by one cultural or ethic label. Selvadurai refuses to adjust his characters identities by
naming in accordance to Western standards for categorizing sexual preferences, therein resisting
heteronormativity. Basically, the author never uses terms such as gay, homosexual or transgender;
phrases which are usually frequently employed to signify sexual tendencies or preferences within Western
framework.
Even when Arjies sexual preferences are quite plain, it remains as an unnamed entity. While Arjie invites
Shehan Soyza, the object of his desire, in the fifth chapter of the book to his home Arjies brother Diggy
says: I cant wait Appa to meet Soyza. Then hell definitely know that youre . (255).
Though he stopped himself, his brother also does not name what Arjie is. By not applying absolute labels,
it seems that the author offers alternative meanings and importance. Arjies situation is thus represented as
beyond the categories of female and male and instead characterized as somewhere in between. His unique
position by being excluded both from boys and girls proposes the existence of a third space.
Selvadurais decision to locate the narrator in an unnamed space between typically differentiated sexual
and gender categories reflects the manifold challenge of the mobile/transgressive individual to find/create
space within cultural boundaries. According to Gopinath, Arjie challenges the gender conformity since he
allows inner space to be something more than a site of gender agreement. By portraying gender as a
matter of play and fantasy the story refigures the gender specialization of the nation of the nation by
revealing how non-heteronormative embodiments, desire, and pleasures surface within even the most
hetero-normative of spaces (170-171).

Conclusion
We began by introducing the concept of Queer theory, home and postcoloniality in relevance to the
narrative. We argue that the protagonist in Funny Boy challenges the fixity and finality of the socially
constructed categories of gender, sexual desire and ethnicity. Through boundary transgression, Arjie
exposes the personal struggle of being (not) governed by social pressure and the conflict of navigating
ones Queer identity in a group. With the help of the analyses and the discussion of certain aspects of the
novel, we aimed to investigate the diverse circumstances and meanings of transgression and its potential
to rethinking identity categories, concepts of home and belonging, specifically in reference to the
postcolonial subject.
At the intersection of sexuality and ethnicity, we conclude with two important findings: that belonging
often does occur within the home of origin for the queer subject, and that the postcolonial apparatus,
however inadvertently, fails to fully regulate and sexualize subjective bodies in its production of ethnicity.
The analysis of the fiction, under applying theoretical works, help to understand Funny Boy within the
social and cultural context that gave it theme and structure.
Imperial forces secured their own powers by (among other things) constituting the subject through their
gaze. The subject is constituted through the gaze, where those in a hegemonic or normative position of
power, wielding the gaze, place the subject in a certain space of inclusion or belonging, albeit outside of
their own privileged group.
Paradoxically, various acts of constituting the subject also unexpectedly opened up different spaces of
belonging for the subject constituted as different or Other. After Arjie no longer belongs in the world of
his sisters, he finds belonging with Aunty Radha, with Uncle Daryl, with Jegan, and eventually with
Shehan.
The increasing disparity between closeness and difference seems to widen in proportion to the fierceness
of Arjies acceptance within, and his own self-identification with, these outside groups he is a part of.
Given the way in which the recognition of strangers operates to produce who we are, we can see that
strangers already fit within the cognitive, moral, or aesthetic map of the world, rather than being, as
Zygmant Bauman argues, the people who do not fit (Ahmed 2000: 4).
In Funny Boy, Selvadurai does not allow for such easy assumptions that would relegate the Other to an
absolute position of non-belonging. We have witnessed how Arjie is remaking the space from within and
how he is not looking for sexual fulfilment somewhere else. Binary oppositions of the self and the
other are discussed in every chapter, often in a form of stereotyping. We have learned that the reduction
of, for instance Sinhalese or Tamils to certain features serves to locate people in categories, and to
maintain a sense of distinction between one self and the other.
We would like to close with this observation: even though we have argued that ethnicity, gender and
sexual desire are constructions, and unstable bases for identity categories, we must nevertheless
acknowledge that the complex cultural, social and political meaning therein have consequences, faced in
this narrative by Arjie, which can be very real. Our reading of Funny Boy provides a detailed picture of
how gender, sexuality, and ethnicity are constructed through and interrelated with structures of power, and
how academics might find new openings for discussing the subversion of hegemonic structures.
Ethhnicity in The Black Album

Abstract
Multiculturalism, which emerged and gained significance as a result of increasing numbers of immigrants
arriving in the Western countries, has been one of the most discussed issues since the second half of the
twentieth century. These first and second generation immigrants have caused certain changes to come into
existence in many aspects of the Western communities. After their arrival, they have often faced serious
problems such as violent attacks, insulting looks and being behaved like outsiders in those lands. As a
Pakistani immigrant who has most probably observed the British citizens discrimination and racism
against the immigrants in the British society, Hanif Kureishi often deals with the problems and whether
the second generation immigrants adaptation to a foreign Western setting like Britain is possible.
The aim of this study is to reveal Kureishis views on the British societys treatment toward the
immigrants and their culture in the light of multiculturalism and its possibility not only in theoretical but
also in practical terms by means of making references to the characters and events in The Black Album.

Keywords: Kureishi, immigration, multiculturalism, discrimination, racism, immigrants

Colonialism altered many facets of the world scenery, reshaping especially its political, social and cultural
boundaries of both the Western and Eastern nations. Lots of native people were forced to abandon their
homeland in order to be made to work as servants or workers in Western metropolitan cities. Apart from
those being forced native servants, there were also others who immigrated to Western cities eagerly in
order to get better jobs and sustain a better life with much better standards than those in their native land.
This kind of movements to Western cities has culminated in a society in which a variety of people from
different races and cultures have wished to maintain their lives, but the principal issue here is whether it is
probable that these newcomers could be welcomed or behaved as intruders. The post-war years were a
period of reconstruction and industrial growth in a Europe that was short of labor after the disastrous
Second World War; therefore, immigrants out of Asia, Africa and Caribbean arrived in order to supply
the needed workforce of Europe and were frequently considered permanent visitors (Triandafyllidou et al.
7).
However, these immigrants have been subject to ethnic and racial discrimination with regards to
economic inequalities, political underrepresentation, social stigmatization or cultural invisibility albeit
these problems were supposed to be obstructed through some precautions with the effect of some
humanist exertions (Kymlicka 36).
Discussing the unequal dissemination of available supplies, prospects and individual or group rights in
multicultural societies, Irish Marion Young acknowledges that To be sure, racialized social processes
usually build on perceived differences in culture language, religion, a sense of common lineage, specific
cosmological beliefs, differing social practices, and so on (81).
Multicultural issues have often been placed at the heart of such matters as the possibility of coexistence of
diverse ethnic groups belonging to a different set of cultures and sustainability of multicultural and multi-
ethnic social formation. These controversies can be seen even at the centre of defining what
multiculturalism exactly is.
Will Kymlicka asserts that multiculturalism is characterized as a feelgood celebration of ethnocultural
diversity, encouraging citizens to acknowledge and embrace the panoply of customs, traditions, music,
and cuisine that exist in a multi-ethnic society (33). Bhikhu Parekh depicts the concept of
multiculturalism as a society that includes two or more cultural communities (6).
The definitions above, however, are on the verge of being refuted by a challenging view that is founded
on the claim that multiculturalism cannot be restricted to such articulations which fail to notice
unfavorable facts and crises perceived in multicultural societies of the West. For instance, as Giuliana B.
Prato opines that, multiculturalism does not break down cultural barriers; it reinforces both these
barriers and the attendant stereotypes, creating suspicion and hostility between minority groups and
between them and members of the majority (16).
In addition, Tariq Modood upholds the idea that The difference in question is typically marked by
various forms of racism and similar forms of ideologies as the migrants coming from societies or groups
that have been historically ruled and/or perceived as inferior by the societies into which they have
settled, underscoring the fact that racial inequality has been a predominant outlook of the Western
population toward the other populations of the Eastern origin (2013, 6).
In 1940s and its aftermath, Britain also had to receive a large number of Muslim immigrants of the
descent of such countries as Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Somalia, which had a remarkable impact on
changing the structure of the British population (Weedon 145). In the last decade (of the twentieth
century), Britain and especially London have been a magnet for all kinds of migrants, many of whom are
Muslims (Modood 2006, 38).
Since the conservative notion in Britain is persistent upon not accepting the British community as a
multicultural one owing to a discriminatory approach and the belief that the cultural or national identity of
the British is superior to that of the immigrants and since the British citizens often contemplate that these
immigrants could defile their pure identity, it seems nearly impossible to witness that Britain will
welcome and like beholding that the immigrants of various races and countries arrive in Britain in large
numbers (Parekh 6).
As a Pakistani-British writer who mainly draws upon the sufferings and crises of the immigrants in
multicultural Britain, Kureishi frequently deals with the issues such as home, homelands, belonging,
inbetweenness, alienation, identity, hybridity, nationalism, racism, sexuality, fundamentalism, migration,
ethnicity and the historical conflicts between East and West (Diler 2).
One is likely to observe that the characters in Kureishis fiction are those who strive to resolve their
identity crisis and dilemma that occur as a result of living in Britain and being torn between their native
culture and the Western culture, those who sharpen their fundamentalist rage against the Western world on
account of being frequently face to face with insulting and racist looks of the Western citizens, and those
who aim to belong to the British culture while experiencing a remarkable degree of alienation from their
native roots; however, one of the most outstanding traits of his immigrant characters is that they cannot
reach a settled identity and are always confused by their quandary about whether they are part of their
native world or the Western setting.
Concerning The Black Album by Kureishi, Chris Weedon conveys the idea that It is a novel about
second generation Pakistanis in London and engages with questions of identity through a radical contrast
of lifestyles ranging from affluent westernized middle-class living, through Muslim fundamentalism to
serious involvement in drug culture (148).
Then, it can be accepted as one of the novels which raise the multicultural issues in Britain where second
generation immigrants of diverse religions, cultures and nations try to maintain their lives in the face of
the Western rage and racist attitudes toward them. Kureishi touches upon the potential problems which
can emerge because of the British discriminatory political and social system in which these immigrants
and their teenagers feel themselves in a state of danger and anxiety. Coming up against the racist and
physical attacks of the British people who cannot stand seeing these immigrants in their land, they try to
hold strength and brotherhood under the fundamentalist views as a sort of shield, thus deepening their
hatred and fight against the spiteful white citizens.
These immigrants arriving in Britain in the middle and after the twentieth century strictly followed their
native patterns of kinship, custom, religion, language, post-imperial nationhood, and so on that granted
them a manifest awareness of an anti-British identity even though they admired the British civilization
(Modood 2005, 458). Their attempt to preserve their own culture and civilization in Britain has caused the
British population to keep a certain distance between themselves and these immigrants, which can be said
to be one of the subject matters that Kureishi wishes to convey.
The experiences and observations of Shahid, the main character of the novel as second generation
Pakistani son, prompt him to think that the wide gap within social networks of blacks and whites or even
between different ethnic groups is evident in the British land as is mentioned by the author in the
following lines: He had noticed, during the days that hed walked around the area, that the races were
divided. The black kids stuck with each other, the Pakistanis went to one anothers houses, the Bengalis
know each other from way back, and the whites too. Even if there were no hostility between groups and
there was plenty, if only implicit (Kureishi 133)
Their social interaction that is confined to merely their own racial group member reveals the fact that
Britain has not been able to embrace other racial communities and immigrants in a smooth way. If these
different ethnic or racial groups were satisfied with entering a close communication with the white
citizens, their social lives would include active relations and intimate dialogues with those British people.
Finding relief and sincerity in their contacts with their own native people, these immigrants of Africa,
India, Bangladesh and Pakistan avoid making friends or other close relationships with the members of the
British race just as the British citizens abstain from approaching those immigrants without bias and
racism. Thus, this kind of clustering in social networks and dialogues in Britain displays the barriers
which seem indissoluble and too difficult to surpass in such a multicultural society.
Underlining the point that ethnic minorities and immigrants in Britain feel resented and distressed by the
lack of being officially recognized and represented and drawing attention to the pressing need to make
improvements in the present political structure, Modood professes that Thus the framework has been and
continues to be modified over time and is at least partly shaped by ethnic minority political mobilization,
and includes efforts to redefine race, ethnicity, racism, discrimination and, ultimately, British citizenship
(2005, 472).
To illustrate, Riaz voices his pleasure and excitement for the fact there is a political figure who can
represent the presence and troubles of the immigrants in Britain by saying that [the] progress, as you will
want to know, with Councillor Mr Rudder of Labour Party, is looking good, looking good and that [he]
understands the position and importance of the minority in this country. He has stated that he will put
his big back right into [their] cause (Kureishi 181). In addition, Hat calls Mr. Rudder Friend of Asia,
and Tariq utters: My sentiments too. This sympathy for our people is as rare as an English virgin
(Kureishi 181).
The responses of these immigrants to the presence of such a politician suggest their need to have political
representatives in the political area and assembly of the British government. For them, political
recognition and representation in the British land can amount to proclaiming their problems and offering
ideas in order to revise their roles in the eyes of the British citizens and government because equality in a
society cannot be separated from the political argument, being one of the markers of being recognized or
regarded as a real citizen and an indivisible part of the society. Just as other sects of the country such as
Right and Left party groups can declare freely and openly their problems and needs, so these Muslim
immigrants or the ones belonging to other religions in the novel have the right to be accepted and
respected by the British nation.
Their lack of political representation is one of the factors which force them to suppose themselves as
being subject to manners and reactions that make them feel that they are not an equally real part of the
society; thus, they can consult to other methods to represent their presence and sufferings such as violent
acts and protests which could broaden the sharp lines between themselves and the white population.
Attempting to allude to the unjust and prejudiced legislation system in Britain and Europe where
immigrants have been deprived of their essential rights for citizenship concerning their lifestyles and
individual priorities, S. Jagdish Gundara articulates that While many metropolitan societies have
constitutionally safeguarded democratic frameworks, there are nevertheless denial of economic, social,
linguistic, religious and legal rights (24). Then, the religious rules and preferences of the
Muslim immigrants in Britain or any other country compose their inevitable and moral rights, which is
one of the major concerns that Kureishi draws upon apparently in the novel. As a Muslim immigrant
woman in the novel, Tahira, for example, points out the troubles and anxiety of the Muslim women due to
their clothes and covering their heads in accordance with their religious principles: But we women go to a
lot of trouble to conceal our allures. Surely youve heard how hard it is to wear the hijab? We are
constantly mocked and reviled, as if we were the dirty ones. Yesterday, a man on the street said, this is
England, not Dubai, and tried to rip my scarf off. (Kureishi 105)
This complaint of Tahira can be thought to symbolize not only the problems of the female Muslim
immigrants but also the general plight of the Muslim immigrants both in Britain and other Western
countries since Tahiras experience discloses the Muslim immigrants vulnerability. Tahira cannot defend
herself by suing this kind of verbal and physical attacks or offensive remarks as there is not any official
rule in the existing law that can provide protection for these Muslim groups against any disturbing
attitudes towards them.
Consequently, the author implicitly criticizes the failure and insufficiency of the current British law in
sheltering both the minority and dominant groups in an objective and unbiased manner. As Peter Jones
brings up the significance of acknowledging the minority groups rights and beliefs as well as the
majority groups: It is not about whether a society should be committed to Christianity or to Islam or,
indeed, to atheism.
Rather all parties to the argument are assumed to accept that members of the society should be able to
hold and to live according to their own beliefs; so the issue amongst them is simply about the way in
which the society should accommodate the diversity of beliefs that they hold Indeed, it now seems
anomalous that its protection should be confined to Christians. If its purpose is to protect from what they
find offensive, why should that protection be extended to some citizens but not to others? That seems
plainly inequitable. (114-118)
The protection under discussion is concerned with each kind of sensibility of a religion, including its
venerated figures, worship, principles, and rituals. If any of these holy things and figures is outraged or
desecrated in a society, the law is obliged to interfere with such disrespectful acts and do what is
necessary for protecting the insulted ones whatever their race and religion are. Nevertheless, as
Muhammad Anwar argues it, ethnic minorities including Muslims are still victims of racial
discrimination. The Race Relations Act 1976 does not fully protect Muslims because religious
discrimination is not unlawful in Britain (40).
The British populations racist attitudes toward the immigrants and violent attacks inflicted upon them are
among the central subject matters which Kureishi focuses on, and internal racism is one of these key
points. In order to grasp the concept of internal racism, it is necessary to cite the definition of external
and internal racism of John McLeod, who maintains that:
Internal racism is directed at those who live within the nation but are not deemed to belong to the
imagined community of the national people due to their perceived race. Internal racism can result in its
most extreme and violent form in the extermination of racialized individuals or the oppression of
racialized groups who are awarded a low position in the social hierarchy (112)
The novel touches upon the racist approaches and violence that the immigrants try to endure throughout
their lives in the British nation even from their childhood. The author, for example, narrates the childhood
memories of Shahid that have to do with the British childrens fierce manners against him in the
following lines: Even when Shahid vomited and defecated with fear before going to school, or when he
returned with cuts, bruises and his bag slashed with knives, she behaved as if so appalling an insult
couldnt exist (Kureishi 73). Also, the novelist portrays the effects of the British peoples racist insults on
Shahids subconscious which can be traced in his efforts to write stories as is mentioned in the novel:
The first effort he copied he created a sandwich of flimsy carbon paper which resulted in two smeared
reproductions was called Paki Wog Fuck Off Hone. It featured the six boys who comprised the back
row of his class at school, who, one day when the teacher had left the room in despair, chanted at Shahid,
Paki, Paki, Paki, Out, Out, Out! He banged the scene into his machine as he relived it, recording the
dismal fear and fury in a jagged, cunt-fuck-kill prose that expressed him, like a soul singer screaming into
a microphone. (Kureishi 72)
The reflections of racism can also be observed in Shahids current life and in particular locations of
London where the black members of the immigrant communities cannot pass through without fear and
anxiety of being beaten and attacked by the white population. To illustrate, Shahid gives an account of his
worries and fear to Riaz:
Everywhere I went I was the only dark-skinned person. How did this make people see me? I began to be
scared of going into certain places. I didnt know what they were thinking. I was convinced they were full
of sneering and disgust and hatred. And if they were pleasant, I imagined they were hypocrites. I became
paranoid. I couldnt get out. I was confused and (Kureishi 10)
Additionally, the writer recounts the presence of some settings which the dark-skinned immigrant
generations have to pass through by running very quickly and sneakily in order not to be caught, even not
to be killed, by the racists; for instance, in the novel it is narrated that This area was notorious for racists.
He began to jog, and then to run, which reflects Shahids effort to escape from any violent attacks of the
white citizens on his way to meet Deedee (Kureishi 100). After meeting Deedee in the office, Shahid
realizes that a boy outside waits and begins to think that this boy could attack him, saying to Deedee that
there are racists outside, waiting for me (Kureishi 101).
The existence of such certain locations in London in which the immigrants cannot live and enter denotes
the existence of deep racist notions against these immigrants who have dark skins. Thus, the novel
underscores the fact that if equality and peace had been dominant in the British society in the last decades
of the twentieth century, each citizen would have been able to walk around freely and comfortably
without any fear of racist attacks and insulting attitudes whatever their skin color was.
The relationship between the British citizens and the black skinned immigrant families or their children in
the eyes of the white British can be perceived from the views of Frantz Fanon as regards the feelings of
abomination and scare which white people display upon seeing black people:
The Negro is an animal, the Negro is bad, the Negro is mean, the Negro is ugly; look, a nigger, its cold,
the nigger is shivering, the nigger is shivering because he is cold, the little boy is trembling because he is
afraid of the nigger, the nigger is shivering with cold, that cold that goes through your bones, the
handsome little boy is trembling because he thinks that the nigger is quivering with rage, the little white
boy throws himself into his mothers arms: Mama, the niggers going to eat me up. (86)
Fanons elucidation of white peoples concerns and uneasiness on seeing black people can be supposed to
endorse the idea that even little white childrens subconscious bears the effects of racism and that this
impact reveals how deep-seated and prevalent the racist thoughts are in the white Western nations.
Despite not committing any obvious crime or not exhibiting any immoral act which deserves to be
condemned and punished, dark skinned immigrants can be interpreted as those who are just the
embodiment and victims of racism and being subject to racist oppression issuing from the white citizens
of the West as is discussed by Fanon above and suggested in the novel as well.
Kureishi also sheds light on the British peoples belief that the immigrants in their country construct
prospective risks in terms of housing, jobs and economic issues by occupying and consuming these
services which the British people think belong to only themselves as the author narrates it in the response
of a woman to Chad and Shahid in the following way: Paki! Paki! Paki! she screamed. Her body had
become an arched limb of hatred with a livid opening at the tip, spewing curses. You stolen our jobs!
Taken our housing! Paki got everything! Give it back and go back home! (139).
Hatred and this spiteful manner of the woman can be said to result from the conception of the native
British people that [if] newcomers who have not contributed to the pool take away the resources, that
will leave less for [their] children (Kymlicka 56).
Therefore, these permanent guests are not wanted in Britain in that the distribution of resources such as
education, employment and accommodation in the country will cause those resources to be allotted to
those guests as well as the native British citizens and their children, and the amount of taking advantage
of the resources for the British ones will decline due to the presence of the immigrants.
Some facts with regard to the educational conditions and employment of the immigrants in the European
countries seem to confirm Kureishis major argument on the discriminatory attitudes against the
immigrants skin colors and religions. For instance, younger generations of the immigrants, especially
Muslims, usually believe that their parents, as well as themselves, have contended with racist and
discriminatory acts of the British community after populating in Britain (Anwar 46).
It is also reported that black people and Muslims are recurrently set aside in their job applications even if
they have notable abilities and qualities for these jobs (Fekete 202).
Consequently, the main criterion in providing any service for any citizen in the British society can be said
to be what their native roots are rather than any justifiable norms. This sort of attitude toward them throws
them into miserable conditions in which they cannot prove their skills and noteworthy intentions for the
welfare of the society.
Instead of assisting these immigrants to exhibit their potential gifts and productive sides, the British
government probably impels them to remain as silent and ineffectual figures that are supposed to continue
their lives in poor conditions or that had better abandon Britain so as to return back to their native land,
thus leading them to maintain their marginal positions and to feel that they cannot be embraced by Britain
without prejudice and inequality. While trying to underline the fact that some improvements were made in
the law several decades ago with the aim of eradicating racism in the country, Chris Allen claims that
as the new racist ideologies target the same communities that were targeted in the pre-legislative period,
so these same South Asian communities in Britain, now because of their Muslim identity, remain in
focus (51).
In other words, the British citizens racist and discriminatory manners and utterances are retained under
some unsustainable pretexts and in the form of attacks on the immigrants religious values. The
government has not achieved anything in putting an end to this discriminatory policies that aim to oppress
the immigrants so far.
In sum, Kureishi is possibly of the opinion that the Pakistani immigrants as second generation members
like their parents can be thought to suffer from the racist behavior of the British community and the racist
policies of the British government because the government does not seek to step in the oppression and
attacks, which are carried out both physically and verbally, directed to the immigrants.
Consequently, multiculturalism in the British land cannot be put into effect due to the presence of
prejudice and insult against these minority people as well as rejecting their crucial rights that they need in
preserving their cultural and religious principles. Being exposed to oppressive behavior and views in this
surrounding of dominantly white skinned and Christian people, these immigrants have not been fully
adopted by the white citizens because of not only their dark skins but also their Islamic beliefs.
The novel discloses the apparent anxiety and fears of these immigrants whenever they go out and meet
the white British people who accept them as potential threats for the society. In such an atmosphere where
even the existence of the immigrants with their otherness through their cultures, identities, religions and
other traits can be disturbing and irritating enough to provoke the British people, the author seems to
believe that multicultural issues are left in the air without any satisfying product.
Ethnicity in Seasons of Flight

Ethnic values of Feminine in Nepal

Introduction
Two anthropologists examine the Maoists claims of radical social transformation in the light of womens
experiences on the ground. Based on fieldwork in several areas, they consider how the intersecting lines
of class, caste, ethnicity, religion, gender and history shape individual womens political consciousness
and motivations for enlisting as guerrilla cadre. Since Nepali Maoist models for womens
empowerment must negotiate between overarching Maoist ideologies and the existing particularities of
gender discrimination in Nepali society, there are noticeable gaps between rhetoric and practice.
Ultimately, the fundamental changes in gender relations that the Maoists assert may not be the intentional
result of their policies, but rather the largely unintended consequences of the conflict that emerge in
relation to womens existing practice.
This position paper is intended to initiate debate on these issues as part of an ongoing process of
documentation and analysis of the gender aspects of the Maoist conflict.

Of victimisation and agency

One of the most reported aspects of the Maoist peoples war in Nepal has been its high levels of female
participation, with some observers estimating that up to 40 percent of all combatant and civilian political
supporters are women. Striking photos of young, gun-toting guerrilla women are prominently displayed
on the official Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) website, and distributed from New York to London
to Peru in materials produced by the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM). These images are
apparently intended to serve as evidence of the movements egalitarianism and empowering effects for
Nepali women. However, other observers, like Manjushree Thapa in Girls in Nepals Maoist War
(Himal June 2003) have recently begun to suggest that Maoist claims of high female participation have
been exaggerated. In addition, the rapidly expanding conflict industry based in Kathmandu seems intent
on constructing a discourse of victimisation which portrays helpless village women at the mercy of bot

the Maoists and the state.

Providing support and rehabilitation for women affected by the conflict is clearly of utmost urgency, but
that does not necessarily merit the portrayal of all such women as lacking agency. Such contrasting
narratives of agency and victimisation are nothing new, and have long been at the centre of feminist
debate. As elsewhere, the reality for Nepali women lies in the specifics of lived experience all along the
continuum between these two extremes. To date, no thorough ethnography of rural womens experiences
in the peoples war exists and what follows here are tentative steps towards filling that gap, informed by
the work of Nepali journalists, human rights workers and activists who have advanced a gendered
perspective on the peoples war. General literature on women combatants is limited, since most
published work on women and war focuses on women as civilian victims.
The available literature points to a lack of recognition of womens active roles during armed conflict,
which frequently leads to a double victimisation during the reintegration phase following conflict. For
example, families and communities may castigate woman combatants for ignoring feminine duties such
as chastity and motherhood during the conflict, while on the other hand, leaders responsible for designing
post-conflict demobilisation and reintegration programmes do not recognise womens contribution during
the guerrilla struggle and do not design gender-inclusive programmes. Such studies as have emerged from
conflict areas suggest that although women are transformed by their experiences of participating in armed
insurgencies, they rarely gain equality through this engagement. They also indicate that the presence of
women does not make the character, culture and hierarchy of militant organisations more feminine.
Although the situation in Nepal must be considered on its own terms, useful analytical frameworks and
comparative insights can be gained from research conducted in other conflict zones. Karen Kampwirths
2002 publication, Women and Guerilla Movements: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, Cuba probes in
depth the political, structural, ideological and personal factors that motivated women to participate in
guerrilla activities. Based on interviews with more than 200 female ex-combatants, Kampwirth suggests
that the factors which lead women to participate as guerrillas include structural changes, such as land
concentration which increased insecurity for rural poor, male migration and the abandonment of families,
and female migration which break traditional ties and make organising more possible; ideological and
organisational changes such as the growth of religious and secular self-help groups and changes in
guerrilla methods such as a shift to mass mobilisation;
political factors including severe repression in response to very moderate oppositional activities causing
many women to join or support guerrilla groups as a means of self defence; and personal factors such as
age, since large numbers of young women joined the armed insurgencies as teenagers, following in their
parents activist footsteps. Kampwirth also notes that some women join armed stru-ggles for a
combination of all or several of these factors. These issues have just begun to be addressed in a Nepal-
specific context. Beyond the reports issued by human rights groups and NGOs, there has been relatively
little in-depth research on the Maoist movement in general. Several publications have recently begun to
take the Maoist movement seriously as an object of analysis. However, much of this work remains
focused on large-scale party dynamics and historical issues, rather than addressing the experiences of
people on the ground.
During the early phases of the conflict, there was a tendency among Kathmandu-based commentators to
cast rural Nepalis who participated in the Maoist movement as victims of a sort of false consciousness,
whose lack of education and general backwardness made them unable to understand Maoist ideology,
and were therefore dismissed as less than full political agents.
What is required, however, for a fuller understanding of female involvement is more detailed examination
of the ideological dimensions of the movement from the perspectives of those who participate in it. The
limited existing literature on women in the war has provided some welcome exceptions to the dominant
pattern of analysis, with a few important articles focusing specifically on womens agency. However,
these have tended to go to opposite extremes by either suggesting that women are fully empowered
through participation in the Maoist movement, or that they do not have any less militant option to
exercise their agency. Perhaps it is prudent to adopt a more nuanced approach, which acknowledges both
womens multiple existing scripts for agency and the constraints within which they exercise it.

Maoist claims and critiques

Ever since Frederick Engels first articulated the link between gender roles and modes of production in his
classic work, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, the relationship between womens
liberation and class revolution has been an important aspect of Marxist ideological debate. Female
communist leaders have taken pains to distance themselves from bourgeois feminists, arguing that the
woman question must be addressed within the overarching framework of class revolution rather than as
a social end in itself. Operating within this historical context, Nepals Maoists must negotiate between
two hegemonic ideologiesMarxist-Leninist-Maoist thought and conservative Hindu cultural normsin
defining an approach to the woman question that is at once consistent with international ideological
expectations and applicable to Nepal-specific social situations.
In the original list of 40 Maoist demands presented to the Nepali government at the commencement of the
peoples war, point number 19 is the only one that refers specifically to women, and this focuses on an
issue specific to Nepali law: Patriarchal exploitation and discrimination against women should be
stopped. Daughters should be allowed access to paternal property. As suggested by the second sentence
here, Nepali law historically prohibited women from inheriting property unless they were unmarried and
over the age of 35. However, this tenet of the civil code was altered in 2001 after long battles by
Kathmandus mainstream feminist organi-sations, at least in theory granting equal property rights to
women. This leaves only the first sentence as a relevant plank in the Maoist platform.
The reference to patriarchal exploitation and discrimination accurately sums up the fact that in the
worlds only officially Hindu state, dominantand often state-supportedideologies towards women are
based upon conservative Hindu concepts of femininity. However, Nepal is also home to over 60 non-
Hindu ethnic groups who speak Tibeto-Burman languages and together constitute a substantial proportion
of the population. The official 2001 government census figures show it to be just over 20 percent, but
most likely this is a gross underestimation. The Nepali scholar, Harka Gurung, for example, puts the
ethnic population at 36.4 percent. It is common knowledge that gender relations among these groups vary
widely from the normative Hindu image, often with more egalitarian kinship and economic structures. We
will return to this point later. Official Maoist pronouncements on gender relations have focused on
overturning gendered hierarchies as part of their larger programme for radical social transformation.
Li Onesto, a journalist for the Revolutionary Worker who made several trips with the Peoples Liberation
Army in western Nepal from 1998 to 2000, appears particularly interested in womens issues, and
presents an entirely positive view of the empowering changes the peoples war has brought to womens
lives. In Red Flag Flying on the Roof of the World, she writes that, When the armed struggle started in
1996, it was like the opening of a prison gatewith thousands of women rushing forward to claim an
equal place in the war. In a rather sentimental turn, she adds that this is something that can bring tears
to your eyes. In 2000, Onesto interviewed the CPN(M) commander-in-chief Prachanda about changes
that the peoples war had wrought in the Maoist base areas four years after the initiation.
Prachanda empha-sises the transformation of gender and family relations: The people were not only
fighting with the police or reactionary, feudal agents, but they were also breaking the feudal chains of
exploitation and oppression and a whole cultural revolution was going on among the people. Questions of
marriage, questions of love, questions of family, questions of relations between people. All of these things
were being turned upside down and changed in the rural areas. Onesto then presses Prachanda to speak
explicitly about womens participation in the movement. He appears reluctant, but finally makes the
following statement: ... our party has tried to develop the leadership of women comrades. There have
been problems in doing this, but now we are, step-by-step, working to solve this problem.
Masses of women have come forward as revolutionary fighters. And we had a plan right from the
beginning that the women and the men comrades should be in the same squad, the same platoon and that
all things should be done in this way. We have worked to make new relations between men and women
new relations, new society, new things. Notably, Prachanda acknowledges the difficulties in developing
women as leaders within the party. He otherwise claims that the peoples war has been responsible for a
radical shift in gender relations in society at large. However, as these are his most prominent published
statements on gender issues, it is surprising that he does not offer more in-depth information or examples
of Maoist successes. In fact, it seems that international Maoists such as Onesto bear greater responsibility
for creating the image of an egalitarian peoples war in Nepal than the Nepali Maoist leadership
themselves.
Comrade Parvati, the pseudonym for a writer who identifies herself as a Central Committee Member and
Head of the Womens Department of CPN (M), speaks openly about the problems in developing
womens leadership to which Prachanda alludes.
Although male cadres military careers continue developing beyond the age of 40, female cadres careers
rarely develop after the age of 25. When the Peoples Liberation Army expanded to the brigade-level,
women started asking questions about their participation in leadership positions. In The Question of
Womens Leadership in Peoples War in Nepal published in The Worker, she argues that female cadres
experience difficulty asserting themselves, and male cadres have difficulty relinquishing the
privileged position bestowed on them by the patriarchal structure. Continuing in the same vein, in
Womens Participation in the Peoples War, she observes that frequently the male leadership relegates
womens issues to women rather than taking them up as central issues, neglects to implement
programmes developed by the womens mass front, are unnecessarily overprotective of female cadres,
and resort to traditional division of labour by monopolising mental work and relegating women to
everyday drudgery work.
Married women who show promise are discouraged from taking up positions that would take them away
from their husbands. Women active in the Maoist movement frequently experience marginalisation when
they have children and many bright aspiring communist women are at risk of being lost in oblivion,
even after getting married to the comrades of their choice. Despite these problems, Parvati also
emphasises the partys successes regarding women. By 2002, there were several women in the Central
Committee of the party, dozens at the regional level and even larger numbers at the district, area and cell
levels. The Peoples Liberation Army boasts many women section commanders, and vice commanders as
well as female-only squads and platoons and local level female cadres.
Parvati also highlights the importance of the All Nepalese Womens Association (Revolutionary)
(ANWA-R) in mobilising women at the community level, as well as serving as an example of effective
mass organisation at the vanguard of the entire movement. With the adoption of a new form of Nepali
Maoism, named Prachanda Path, in February 2002, the question of developing women leaders gained
prominence and a separate department to develop womens potential was created. One example of
womens ambiguous position within the party leadership is the story of Kausila Tamu (Gurung). In mid-
2001 the Maoists set up peoples governments in 21 districts, and while no woman was appointed to chair
a district government, four women were appointed as vice-chairs, including Kausila Tamu in Lamjung
district. Tamu had previously been a commander in a guerrilla squad, as well as a sub-regional committee
member of the party.
According to Parvati, Tamu had denounced and divorced her husband, who had disowned the movement
after being captured. Following the death of the district chairman, she was promoted to this most senior
position, but was killed while laying an ambush against the security forces in May 2002. She is best
known as the author of a letter which became public in 2002, in which she told her family that because
she was close to Baburam Bhattarai she had become a target from those outside his faction and was under
suspicion. Following her death, comments published in the Kathmandu Post quote a colleague of hers as
saying that she was fearless and a good organiser in the region [and] would not have been killed had
the leadership been cautious. What is surprising is the lack of attention paid to Kausila Tamus career
both when she was alive and following her death.
A hill janajati (peoples nationalities) woman, Kausila Tamu was one of a very small group of women
elected to the leadership of the original peoples governments, yet her story has primarily been cited by
the Nepali press for the light it sheds on rivalry between factions headed by the male leaders rather than
for its own value as the story of one the few female leaders from hill janajati backgrounds.
In contrast, the death of Rit Bahadur Khadka, who held an equivalent position in the organisation in
Dolakha district, attracted enormous attention and extended eulogising from the party. While it may be
possible to explain the different degrees of attention paid to these two individuals as being solely due to
their factional affiliations, it remains curious that one of the few janajati women to reach a position of
senior leadership has received such scant attention. Along these lines, there is still a conspicuous absence
of any women at the top. Members of Kathmandu-based feminist organisations of various political
affiliations were particularly unimpressed with the lack of any women on the Maoist negotiating team that
came aboveground following the ceasefire of January 2003.
In an article addressed to the male Maoist leadership, womens health and reproductive rights activist
Aruna Uprety draws attention to womens disillusionment with the divergence between Maoist ideology
and practice by accusing the Maoists of behaving no differently than our men-stream political
parties. We never expected our male-dominated government to involve women in the peace process, but
we thought you were going to be different.

Empowering the universal Nepali woman

Upretys complaint highlights one of the central problematics in Maoist attitudes towards women: in
many ways, the underlying vision of Nepali women upon which Maoist claims of transformation are
premised may be remarkably similar to existing dominant discourses. In her 2002 article, The politics of
developing Nepali women, scholar Seira Tamang clearly shows how the stereotypical image of a
universal Hindu Nepali woman, oppressed and in need of empowerment, is the fictional product of a
development discourse created by and for high-caste Hindus in Kathmandu. As Tamang explains, The
patriarchically oppressed, uniformly disadvantaged and Hindu, Nepali woman as a category did not pre-
exist the development project. She had to be constructed by ignoring the heterogeneous forms of
community, social relations, and gendered realities of the various peoples inhabiting Nepal. These
discourses of empowerment emanating from the development establishment may have had unintended
results.
By emphasising rural womens critical thinking skills, empowerment programmes may have paved the
way for them to engage with Maoist ideology as fully conscious political subjects. In this regard, the
Maoist movement shares similarities with social change projects that have historically operated in Nepal.
Despite their critique of both the Nepali state and foreign-funded development agendas, the Maoists
themselves have arisen out of the same crucible, and in many ways have uncritically appropriated the
terminology and symbolic vocabulary of the entities they claim to work against. The language of
womens empowerment is one such example. Its deployment seems to indicate an implicit acceptance of
the notion of a universally disempowered Nepali woman. This essentialised image stands in stark contrast
to the reality of multiple scripts for agency that have long been available to Nepals ethnically and
religiously diverse women.
Nepals non-Hindu and largely Tibeto-Burman language-speaking ethnic groups, who have come to be
known collectively as janajati, often structure gender and other social relations very differently to those
suggested by the normative Hindu image. There is also considerable diversity among the practices of
Nepals Hindu groups, which this stereotype does not acknowledge. Although the representation of hill
janajati communities as entirely egalitarian is equally extremeas scholar Mary Des Chene has pointed
out, there are many quiet forms of constraints on the freedom of janajati women as wellin many
cases, they do have access to different forms of economic and cultural power than their caste-Hindu
counterparts. In addition, the gendered division of labour in hill janajati communities has traditionally
been more fluid, with men often performing domestic tasks such as cooking and cleaning, and women
engaging in heavy labour such as carrying loads for cash wages.
Such diversity raises important questions about the Maoist claim to have transformed social relations, as
well as the commonly cited reasons for womens attraction to the Maoist movement. In a widely-
circulated article, Where There Are No Men: Women in The Maoist Insurgency in Nepal that affirms
the Maoist discourse of empowerment for women, Shobha Gautam, Amrita Banskota and Rita
Manchanda claim that the majority of Maoist women are from janajati backgrounds. On the one hand,
they suggest, janajati women are culturally less oppressed than Hindu upper-caste Aryan women and
suffer from fewer religio-cultural restrictions. Yet on the other hand, they are predisposed to join the
Maoist movement because, the tribal socialisation of women from the oppressed ethnic groups,
especially their experience of communal sharing in women work groups [sic], makes them particularly
responsive to collective action.
Indeed, if, as the authors suggest, janajati women are already relatively empowered, then why should they
be attracted to a rhetoric of transformation based on a reified notion of an oppressed universal Nepali
Hindu woman? Conversely, if janajati women are the main female protagonists in the peoples war,
why should Gautam et al later be so concerned about what it means for Hindu women to take up arms?
If it is indeed Hindu women who are taking up arms, why all the interpretive emphasis on janajati
women? The supposition that janajati women make up the majority of Maoist women remains
unsubstantiated. In addition, the suggestion that they are more inclined to take up the Maoist cause
because they have greater freedoms is contradictory, and also reminiscent of the traditional attitudes of
internal colonialism emanating from the Hindu elite at the centre towards the non-Hindu groups in the
periphery.
Such explanations for womens participation seem to accept without question existing stereotypes of non-
Hindu groups as egalitarian, martial races, who are essentially predisposed to taking up arms. They also
do not adequately explore the motivations of the many caste-Hindu women participating in the
movement.
In a similar vein, the anti-alcohol campaign of the ANWA(R) has been one of the most publicised aspects
of womens participation in Maoist-associated action. However, there has been little attempt to
understand in-depth how the anti-alcohol movement has different implications for various cultural groups.
In fact, it may well be the case that such strident alcohol bans alienate rather than attract, and even
infringe upon the existing freedoms of women from hill janajati groups for whom alcohol consumption
and exchange hold important symbolic power in cultural and religious life. The structure and
achievements of the ANWA(R) as a mass organisation deserve further ethnographic attention, but from a
perspective aware of the diverse meanings the organisations campaigns may hold for women from
different backgrounds. Comrade Parvati takes a slightly more nuanced approach by suggesting that the
effects of Maoist movement have been different for women from each group, depending upon their
existing relative freedoms.
She writes that the revolution has assisted Hindu women to break the feudal patriarchal restrictive life
imposed by the puritanical Hindu religion, by unleashing their repressed energy. On the other hand it has
given meaningful lives to Tibeto-Burman and other women who are already relatively free and have
greater decision-making rights, by giving them challenging work to do. She suggests that the peoples
war has had a particularly important impact on those from the most exploited dalit communities by
unleashing their hatred against the state. These statements seem at odds with Maoist claims of social
transformation premised upon the assumption that rural women are universally oppressed and in need of
empowermentif they already possess such agency, why must they become Maoists to find meaning?
Despite these disjunctures, however, the Maoist platform is clearly compelling to many rural women,
both Hindu and otherwise.
The following two brief ethnographic montages demonstrate some of the contradictions that are evident
in practice, which we return to analyse in the conclusion.

Division of labour
Among a group of 450 Maoist combatants encountered by Pettigrew in the Nepali midhills,
approximately 25-30 percent were women between 16 and 25 years old. Of the seven-member section
with whom she talked in depth, two were women. While a man led, one of the senior members was a 19-
year-old dalit woman who gave orders to her junior colleagues. Both the dalit woman and her younger
female colleague, a 16-year-old chettri, were responsible for cleaning their own guns, maintaining their
equipment, washing their clothes and participating in sentry duty. They did not help in preparing food nor
in repairing uniforms, both of which jobs were carried out by men. After the food was cooked, the four
members of the section not involved in sentry duty received a plate of meat to share. Pettigrew watched as
the multi-ethnic group consisting of bahun, chettri, dalit, and magar (hill ethnic) men and women
abandoned the usual caste and gender conventions and hungrily ate together from the same plate.
The 16-year-old chettri woman spent much of the morning cleaning her gun. Shortly after beginning, the
cork she inserted to clean the barrel became stuck. She tried several physically demanding methods to
dislodge it by herself, which involved using her body in ways which would have been unacceptable for a
woman within most other social contexts. After several attempts she realised that she needed someone
with greater physical strength to help. Only then did she request assistance from her male colleagues.
They did not seem to consider her exertions as anything out of the ordinary and paid no attention to them.
While these images match with the Maoist portrayal of politically engaged and liberated women,
participating equally with men in combat-related activities, this is a partial picture. An ex-Maoist woman
interviewed by Pettigrew, the widow of a senior local-level cadre, complained bitterly of the gap between
ideology and practice.
While she spent every day doing propaganda work aimed at educating village women about Maoist ideals
of gender equality, she did not enjoy equal relationships with her male colleagues. She complained in
particular that she returned home at night to an unchanging situation in which her husband and other male
relatives active in the Maoist movement expected her to take full responsibility for domestic activities
such as cooking, cleaning, running the house and looking after the animals. She concluded that she,
wished to join a womens party as that is the only place where I can fight for womens rights. Tragically,
weeks after this interview she was killed by the security forces as a Maoist woman. Some of the social
shifts occurring among non-affiliated civilian women are not prescribed by Maoist ideology, but rather
created by the circumstances of war.
In many areas of mid- and far-western Nepal, so many men have left to join the Maoists or flee the
situation, that women are left to provide for their families alone, and therefore take on roles which they
would not have considered doing in normal life. In many areas, women are reported to be ploughing
fields, running forestry groups, and administering schools and other institutions. Gautam et al interpret
such changes as an assertion of capability by village women, but the overwhelming emphasis on
women taking over mens jobs begs the question of why non-affiliated village men are not also taking
over womens jobs if there are indeed such a high number of female combatants. Furthermore, it appears
that some of these perceived changes are logical extensions of pre-existing practice rather than new
departures. This may be particularly so in janajati communities, where men have long been engaged in
outside activities.
Although the immediate cause may now be the peoples war rather than Gurkha/Gorkha recruitment, the
salt-grain trade, or labour migration, this is not the first time that village women have had to make do
alone and take on stereotypically male gendered roles. Pettigrews research on the division of labour
among the Gurung ethnic group before the conflict highlights notable flexibility. While given a list of
tasks deemed to be gender- specific by both women and men, she subsequently witnessed women
performing every male reserved task except ploughing, house construction, and the slaughter of
medium to large animals. At the time of her research, she concluded that given the right circumstances
women would also plough. The insurgency has now provided those circumstances, but by accident rather
than design.
Rather than successes of the Maoist movement, then, these shifts in practice might be seen as instances of
the unexpected dynamics and spaces of ambivalence that anthropologist Andrew Kipnis identifies as
central to the formation of putatively Maoist states.

Marriage and family

It has generally been observed that most female Maoist cadre in rural areas are very young, usually under
the age of 20. This suggests that the majority of Maoist women are unmarried at the time that they join
the movement. According to Comrade Parvati, however, they soon face internal party pressure to get
married covertly or overtly as unmarried women draw lots of suspicion from men as well as women for
their unmarried status. This results in marriages against their wishes or before they are ready to get
married. By focusing their recruitment efforts on unmarried women, the party may control marriage
choices to a large extent, and also manipulate marriage alliances for political purposes. The leadership
may view marriage as a means of controlling female cadres and making it more difficult for them to leave
the party, whereas women with existing marital ties and children are seen as more likely to have
conflicting allegiances.
The disparate treatment of women depending on their marital status suggests that not all women are equal
in Maoist eyes, and we must look closely at age and marital status, in addition to ethnicity and religion, as
important factors in shaping womens experiences of the conflict. In Shneidermans research area, also in
midhill Nepal and which has a predominantly non-Hindu ethnic population, the Maoists have actively
recruited at secondary schools since 1999, targeting both male and female students between the ages of
14-18. They also recruited married men in their 20s and 30s by paying repeated visits to their houses and
exerting pressure on them to leave their families and join the Maoists, and/or to work as non-combatant
political supporters within the village. However, married womenincluding those within the 18-30 age
range who could make able-bodied fighterswere never targeted for recruitment.
A 25-year old janajati married mother of two sons, who had completed her secondary education and was
well-respected as a capable community member by both men and women, told Shneiderman that she was
in fact offended by the visiting Maoists treatment of her as an uneducated, traditional woman: They only
want to talk to my husband. They rarely discuss their ideological positions directly with me, even though
I understand what they are saying and want to learn more. They order me around in a way my own
husband and in-laws would never dare do. She confirmed that several of her peers felt similarly
disillusioned that the Maoists promises of gender equality were not only belied by their attitudes towards
married women, but even provided negative role models for local men. On a practical level, conservative
attitudes towards married women may be reinforced by the logistical demands of the current phase of the
peoples war.
Prior to the state of emergency declared in November 2001 the Maoists maintained independent camps in
forested areas and made only occasional visits to villages, but after the declaration of emergency, they
were unable to sustain the camps and began to subsist almost entirely on food and lodging provided by
village households. In this situation, Maoist cadres are dependent on established householders to support
them, and recruiting married women in addition to men would weaken their own network of providers.
The cadres reliance on householders reinscribes traditional divisions of labour, often making the
boundaries between domestic and public space much sharper than in normal life. Both authors
interviewed village women who complained of being unable to carry on routine work outside the house
while Maoists were staying with them, another way in which womens existing practice may be further
circumscribed by the war.
All of this suggests strongly that despite the rhetoric of social change at the top, in practice at the
grassroots, many Maoist cadres maintain traditional notions about marriage. While some women
experienced these biases negatively as the imposition of a gender-based discrimination that they had
otherwise rarely felt, like the young woman quoted above, other women and their families have learned to
manipulate this inconsistency between Maoist ideology and practice for their own protection. Pettigrew
interviewed a number of unmarried householder women who falsely told the Maoists that they were in
fact married in order to secure gentler treatment in their homes by suggesting that they were under the
protection of men capable of taking revenge. We have also documented a return to child marriagesa
past practice largely abandoned due to state-sanctioned development campaigns against itto protect
younger girls from recruitment.
This unintended consequence of the war provides an ironic counterpoint to the wide claims of
empowerment through the equally unintended appropriation of male jobs by women. There is less
information available about Maoist attitudes towards birth and childcare. The scanty existing material
suggests that children remain largely the responsibility of women, and in fact often count against women
in terms of their status within party hierarchies. Writing in 1998, Onesto observes that: ...the women still
have primary responsibility for taking care of the children. But this is starting to change slowly. I have
met many women comrades with small children, and other people are always taking turns caring for the
childrenin the revolutionary community, everyone is considered an auntie and uncle to the kid.
There is not yet organised collective childcare.
This statement ignores the fact that so-called collective childcare has always been a fact of Nepali
village life, complete with the frequent use of kinship terms such as uncle and auntie to refer to any
adult who does not already have another specific kinship designation. In Pettigrews research area,
collective childcare was institutionalised with the opening of a day care centre in 1999 through a local
project unaffiliated with the Maoists. It seems that not much had changed several years later, when
Comrade Parvati describes the situation for party members who are also mothers as follows: With the
birth of every child she sinks deeper into domestic slavery. In fact many women who have been active in
peoples war in Nepal are found to complain that having babies is like being under disciplinary action,
because they are cut off from the Party activities for a long period.
While an experienced Maoist section commander in the field told Pettigrew that, if a female cadre
becomes pregnant she does not have to fight and after birth also she does not have to fight, rather she can
do other support activities, this ideal may not often be achieved in reality. In Pettigrews field area,
informants report seeing pregnant female Maoists amongst groups of combatants. While it is possible that
they do not take part in organised attacks, the fact that they remain with the fighting force puts them in
vulnerable situations. Some pregnant or post-partum women are unable to keep up with their group and
other situations are arranged. Petti-grew documented the story of a village woman who was forced to hide
and support for a month an unwell combatant woman who had just given birth. She has also collected
several stories of Maoist women giving birth in the forest. Such babies often died despite efforts to keep
them alive, or were abandoned, due to lack of food or harsh living conditions.
Other Maoist women are known to have left their infants in the care of extended family members while
they returned to the battlefield. This can create difficulties for the family, who may be targeted by state
forces if such children become known, and the children themselves carry an unavoidable stigma. This
suggests some of the ways in which it may be difficult for Maoist women to return to normal life if they
choose to leave the party. While Shneiderman has observed male ex-Maoists returning to their villages
and resuming their responsibilities as if they had never left, women Maoists may be shunned by their
families upon their return. Hisila Yami, one of the few women on the Central Committee of the party, who
also happens to be married to Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhattarai, highlights this problem in a 1997
interview:
Sons will be welcomed back with open arms, but for the daughters, can there be a return? When they
become guerrillas, the women set themselves free from patriarchal bonds. How can they go back? (as
cited in Gautam et al). Yami may be correct that women, and particularly caste-Hindu women, who
become party members distance themselves from expected social norms in the village, but it seems that in
choosing to join the Maoists they subscribe to another set of hierarchical social relations. On one level,
this choice is no different from the many others that rural women make every day. It is an option chosen
consciously from a range of many possibilities, constrained by specific conditions of ethnicity, religion,
economics, individual history and so forth. Yet on another level, it is an irreversible decision. Once a
woman becomes known as a Maoist, even if she leaves the party, she may continue to be targeted by state
forces and risks imprisonment, torture and death.

Motivations
So why do women make such dangerous choices to join, particularly janajati women, who it would
appear have more to lose? Seira Tamang suggests that arenas of agency for janajati women have been
circumscribed by the closely intertwined processes of state-building and development at work in Nepal
since the 1950s, and that the specific form of traditional Hindu patriarchy that exists in Nepal today is
actually quite modern, traceable via legal and developmental activities to the attempts by the male,
Hindu, Panchayat elites to construct unifying national narratives with which to legitimate their rule over a
heterogeneous populace. The result has been that modernity for younger generations of janajati
women may in many respects mean a more limited set of choices than their mothers and grandmothers
had in the past.
Anecdotal evidence from the community in which Shneiderman worked also bears out the hypothesis that
marriage practices have become more restrictive, and notions about womanhood more Hindu-influenced
over the past two generations. Pettigrews research with Gurung women shows that acquisition of Nepali
language skills over the last two generations has brought women more into the sphere of Hindu influence,
creating additional restrictions on their movement and increasing scrutiny of their behaviour. But in spite
of widely expressed normative ideas, there continue to be multiple scripts for agency, of which becoming
a Maoist is just one. Instead of seeing janajati womens attraction to the Maoists purely as a result of a
gender gap, it may in fact be useful to look at it as more of a generation gap that motivates both young
women and men to participate in a movement which provides a means for them to challenge the legacy of
the past generation:
an increasingly dysfunctional state in practical terms, but with paradoxically increasing ideological
influence that constrains their lives in ways unknown by their parents or grandparents.
As Pettigrew has previously argued, Participation in the Maoist movement enables village youth to
realign themselves in relation to the discourse of modernity, which up until now has entirely focused on
the town. For many rural individuals who see themselves as marginal to the good and proper life, as
scholar Ernestine McHugh has described it, enjoyed by those with the money to re-locate to urban areas,
the Maoists expressions of complex ideological notions in local idiom are compelling, as are other
localised strategies which do not assume previous political knowledge, or even literacy. In this regard,
becoming a Maoist may provide a powerful alternative national identity within a modern Nepal for
those who have otherwise felt excluded from such national imaginings. Along these lines, Mandira
Sharma and Dinesh Prasain suggest in Gendered Dimensions of the Peoples War:
Some Reflections on the Experiences of Rural Women, that the CPN(M)s focus on local knowledge and
action is one of the keys to their success. This argument signals an important interpretive shift away from
trying to identify ethnicity and gender as isolated motivating factors and instead dwells on locality, which
may mirror more closely Maoist recruitment strategies. In our analysis, women are likely to join the
Maoists for similarly diverse reasons as men within their own communities. The notion that women and
men join revolutionary movements for similar reasons is supported by the literature on female combatants
in Central America. Karen Kampwirth states that in almost all cases women joined for the same reasons
as men from their own community. Disparities between urban and rural standards of living, lack of
opportunities and frustration with class and caste-based discrimination may be more pertinent than
gender-specific grievances.
This insight provides an alternative to approaches that overemphasise essentialised gender or ethnic
identities as factors in womens participation, a move which obscures the actual power of Maoist ideology
and both womens and mens real attraction to it. It is important to recall that in traditional Marxist
formulations, the woman question is always secondary to class liberation, and many women who
support the Maoist ideological platform are likely to cite class issues as their primary motivation. Political
and personal factors clearly interact in complex and individualised ways to motivate womens action. It is
widely recognised that excessive violence by the security forces has prompted many to take up arms.
Intimidation by the Maoists and forced recruitment are other important dynamics at play. For some
women, membership in political mass organisations has led to violent police repression, leading them in
turn to join the CPN(M)s military wing.
Two female cadres interviewed by Pettigrew reported that membership in Maoist student organisations
prompted their arrest, and their subsequent torture in custody led them to join the Peoples Liberation
Army. The role of female torture in prompting women to become militants within the context of the
peoples war needs further investigation. Literature from Latin America and elsewhere shows that
torture is often gender-specific, with the torture of women systematically directed at their female sexual
identity through rape and other forms of sexual harassment. Revenge can also be an important motivating
factor for women whose kin have been killed by state security forces.

Conclusions
The observations in this article are preliminary. Further ethnographic work on all aspects of the situation
is required, and should include research on: the diverse experiences and motivations of women at
different levels and positions within the Maoist movement; party structure and gender policy; the
psychological impact of militarisation on civilian women; the experience of military service for guerrilla
women and the anxieties and fears of the wives and family members of the security forces. Future
research can be enhanced by incorporating comparative perspectives that draw on the existing body of
work on other insurgencies in Southasia as well as in other parts of the world. Overall, the emerging
picture of Maoist attitudes towards gender relations is contradictory. Despite an ideological commitment
to gender equality, there is a clear gap between rhetoric and practice.
The positions of the male leadership on womens issues remain largely unstated, and their commitment to
bettering womens positions unclear. While senior Maoist women acknowledge some successes, they
remain critical of their partys record. It appears that womens liberation is subsumed by the overriding
Maoist goal of class struggle, and that in their devotion to this goal, the Maoists in some ways continue to
replicate hegemonic Hindu attitudes towards women. Despite claims to have transformed such institutions
as marriage, there are widespread intimations that marriage is used as a means of controlling female
cadres. Conversely, the lack of attention given to recruiting married women can be considered a
reinscription of traditional divisions of labour, as Maoists require householder women to provide a
village-based support network.
While some women state that they joined the movement in search of more egalitarian gender relations,
Maoist women face a complex set of struggles within a party whose understanding of their past, and
commitment to their future, is incomplete and ambivalent. The peoples war has certainly precipitated
new experiences for Nepali women of all backgrounds, whether in learning to use guns for combatant
women, or negotiating the fine line of safety between state forces and the Maoists for civilian women.
While such shifts cannot be claimed entirely as the intentional achievements of Maoist policy, it is clear
that on the individual level of embodied practice they have introduced women to potentially
transformative possibilities.
Identity Perspectives
Seasons of Flight is a haunting tale of misplaced identities, and at the same time, an expression of
solitude. The novel opens with a feminine experience of "being Nepali" in the US.
Its protagonist, Prema, a Nepali woman from a rural hill-town, wins a green card in a US government
lottery and immigrates to Los Angeles, who is overwhelmed by her environment at every juncture of her
life. She has been disembedded from her Nepali language, cuisine, homeland and Hindu religion. She
does not find any constants or signposts as she navigates the territory of Los Angeles which she could call
her own. A very simple question, "Where are you from?" (1) and the chain of conversation that follows,
compels her to think about her national identity.
Migrating people have been disembedded from their indigenous homelands and are relocated elsewhere.
The effect has been the creation of permanently shifting 'ethnoscapes', to use Arjun Appadurai's term,
characterized by an ongoing dynamism of cultural renegotiation and radical challenges to the tradition of
both indigenous ethnic communities and modern nation state (32). Prema tries to safeguard her
indigenous identity in her new location by defining to everyone who asks her where she is from. She is
frequently asked if she was from India. But she says she is from Nepal, the country of Mt. Everest. More
commonly the Americans would say 'Naples' as if it was a part of Rome. Prema heard a lady saying: "My
husband and I went to Rome for our honeymoon, but we never made it to Naples (1)."
Prema, all the time, negotiates her identity by trying to locate herself to her hill-village, to the Shiva-
Parvati temple, the ammonite given by her mother, Nepali Language and food on the one hand and she
wants to be real Amercan through her physical and mental attachment with her Latino-American
boyfriend Luis on the other.
Johann Gottfried Herder, an eighteenth century philosopher, argues " the foundation of construction of
identity rests on the perceived 'wholeness' of a community derived from the totality of its expressions
language, customs, dress, architecture, religion (qtd. in Kerr 362)." Prema has broken her ties with her
family back at home and the Nepali community in Los Angeles in an attempt to assimilate her identity
into a vague pluralism of American multiculturalism. Identities are increasingly liminal and hybrid as
capital, commodities, information, technologies, images and ideologies circulate across the borders due to
"ethnoscapes, technoscapes, financescaps, ideoscapes and mediascapes" (Appadurai 31).
It engenders the growth of new local identities. She as a subject engages to channel existential fears and
feelings of loss and despair. It is at such times of homelessness and alienation she tries to reinterpret and
redefine her national identity in a foreign land.Cultural identity depends on some degree of continuity
with the past the geography, culture and location. It has its own history which is constructed on the
binary of self and other. Daniel Boyarin and Jonathan Boyarin argue: "Group identity has been
constructed traditionally in two ways. It has been figured on the one hand as the product of a common
genealogical origin and on the other, as produced by common geographical origins" (86). Though, Prema
tries to assimilate her identity into a vague pluralism of American multiculturalism, she can never find
any link to either genealogical or geographical origin.
One way for the Nepalese immigrants' generation like Prema to deal with its identity crisis is to
reestablish connections with its past through nostalgia. There are various ways of connecting with the
past, but the most important is remembering. Remembering is the material objects and photographs on
display or people we encounter that are tangible links to the past. Prema's encounter with Mata Sylvia in
Los Angeles, a preacher of Hindu religion, reciting lines from Bhagavad Gita, The Mahabharat, The
Ramayan, and the books about Osho, Krishnamurti, Vivekananda, Ram Das, Sai Baba takes her back to
"Nepali home" away from her "present home". It is a kind of place where Prema could find refuse and
claim to be real and yet not real enough to feel authentic.
Prema is confused when she listens to Mata Sylvia reciting lines from Hindu religious book. It could not
assuage her: Prema did not feel any love. She felt, instead the wounds of her childhood. She recalled her
mother's bedroom shrine, crowded with the gods: Krishna, Parvati, Shiva, Lakshmi, the avatar of Vishnu
in a fossil. She saw her mother with blankets drawn over her, a coal-fire by her bedside. Unconscious.
(155)
An encounter with her mother in "Nepali home" through memory is a space where she could find a trace
of identity and completeness which is too fragile to call her own. The construction and reconstruction of
her indigenous identity through historical symbols and religion supply her alternative identity to everyday
insecurity. It conveys her a trace of security though elusive of a 'home' safe from intruders. Prema, a
drifting woman, is always in search of her fixed cultural identity.
Stuart Hall in Cultural Identity and Diaspora states, "'cultural identity' can be thought in terms of one,
shared culture, a sort of collective 'one true self', hiding inside the many other, more superficial or
artificially imposed 'selves' which people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common" (234). The
"oneness" underlying all the other, is the truth, the essence, of Nepalipan she is trying to discover,
excavate and bring to light. Though she is physically located in Los Angeles, she is occupied by the
memory of genealogical and geographical links to her village. The narrator in her novel says:
Some days her village felt centuries away, and the other days it was too close; she could not get far
enough away from it. Her family home was sturdy, two-storied, of stone. It had felt sheltering, and safe,
when she used to run through the bamboo groove past the Shiva-Parvati temple that bordered the terraced
rice fields, to school. (2)
At the center of this nostalgia is a concern for meaning and cultural identity newly problematized by the
conditions of contemporary life. Who am I? What am I doing here? These questions continually make her
ponder. Under these conditions nostalgia becomes a means of identity construction. Nostalgia connects
her to her past, compels her to articulate her generational experience in narratives, and contrasts the
present, increasingly dominated by economic, geographic and genealogical inequality and instrumental
rationality, with the past which she could call her own.
The global changes have meant that an increasing number of people now lack the protective cocoon of
relational ties that shielded community members and groups in the past.
In this wider sense, Giddens in Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in the late Modern Age
says:Globalization tends to break down the protective framework of the small community and of tradition
replacing these with many larger, impersonal organizations. The individual feels bereft and alone in a
world in which she or he lacks the psychological support and the sense of security provided by more
traditional settings. (33)
Absence is understandable in the cosmopolitan city like Los Angeles. Prema frequently dwindles between
absence and presence. Prema, in the company of Luis, feels the presence as she finds herself assimilated
to American multiculturalism but the moment she idealizes her lost realm of culture, geography,
innocence, purity and happiness; she is overwhelmed by absence. Her search for presence continues
throughout the novel.
Prema seeks nostalgically to recapture her "happy days" of childhood past in her imagination, in turn,
often associated with fond memories of food and festive meals: reminiscences of those culinary delights
that brought her such warm feelings of pleasure, security, and even love as a child. When Luis, her boy
friend in Los Angeles, says: "Hey Prema, know what I had for dinner last night?" "Dull-bath. A kind of
Nepalese, I mean, Nepali food (61)," she is very happy and says she cooks it often but "just the
ingredients. I don't know where to buy them (61)."
When Luis says:'There was also tur-curry?' 'Tarkaari. Vegetables.''It was great. Really great.''That is
nice, ' she said.'Yeah.' (61)
The moment she discusses about the Nepali cuisine, she feels like eating them and being very near to her
'home', a secured place. This individual case of oral regression experienced at a personal level find a
larger parallel in the immigrant Nepalese in Los Angeles.
Nostalgia emerges as a form of cultural resistance. At its center is a concern for meaning and identity
newly problematized by changing conditions of Nepalese way of life in Los Angeles. Nostalgia can help
to maintain and construct cultural identities by connecting the present to the past, by articulating past
experiences and their meanings, at present.
When Prema visits Neeru-didi and sushil-bhinaju, she is very happy to see them offering Nepali food. She
exclaimed with joy when she finds two plates of hot dumplings before them: "Momos! Can you believe?
Momos in America (171)!" We see how a rhetoric of nostalgia a rhetoric saturated with gastronomic
images of food, feasting, and festive dining is used as a plea for Nepalese to resist being ushered into an
adulthood of western-style capitalist modernity. Juxtaposing the concerns of the stomach to those of the
head or heart, Manjushree Thapa has used food and eating in her Seasons of Flight as an 'identity markers'
to reflect, a means of security for the immigrants.
When home as a category of security is lost as a result of immigration and rapid socioeconomic
changes, then new avenues or a new home a new identity for ontological security are sought.
Homesteading is a strategy for coping with homelessness. Homesteading as a strategy means making and
shaping a political space for oneself in order to surpass the life of contradictions and anxieties of
homelessness. This may simply involve becoming a member of an exile community, by finding common
places of assembly such as gurdwaras, mosques, or meditating place as of Mata Sylvia. Gyatri
Chakravorty Spivak says "In the field of rational analysis, a feeling of recognized kinship is more
desirable than nationalism" (773). Prema, like other immigrant Nepalese, takes part in the Bhajan and
enjoys the privilege of kinship. The wails of harmonium and the tiny ching-ching of cymbals touch her
heart.
She claps when she hears: "Jaya Krishna, jaya Krishna, Radhe swami jaya jaya. Jaya Krishna, jaya
Krishna, Radhe swami jaya jaya. Jaya Krishna, jaya Krishna, Radhe swami jaya jaya" (157). With her
involuntary clapping she feels secure in this desolate land.
Prema time and again steals away to "the sleepy, elm-lined neighborhood of low, cream-colored
houses. Little Nepal (167)." She speaks in to Nepali: "Neeru-didi hunuhuncha (169)?" When Neeru-didi
and Prema meet they feel secured in the company of each other and promises to meet again. The
recognized kinship provide them a sense of security.They hug each other in American style. Neeru says:
"There's only one Nepali restaurant in LA, it's called Kathmandu Kitchen" (170). So she in her restaurant,
The Shangri-La, offers Nepali food: dal-bhat, momos. In cases of rapid domestic change and real or
perceived geographical and genealogical inequality, Prema involves joining a local identity-based group
that seems to provide her answers and security.
Prema does this because she is afraid of losing her cultural identity against her will as Sigel has noted in
his Political learning in adulthood, "There exists in humans a powerful drive to maintain the sense of
one's identity, a sense of continuity that allays fear of changing too fast or being changed against one's
will by outside forces" ( 459). Those people who find themselves both structurally marginalized and
ontologically insecure often give rise to a politics of resistance and the growth of local identities. Prema
teaches Luis to speak Nepali. She thinks by teaching Nepali, she could establish a linguistic link and
possess him whole heartedly. She says:'Ka, Khha, ga, gha, nga.''Come again?''The first five letters of the
alphabets. Ka, Khha, ga, gha, nga.''Um.' He said, 'Ka, ka, ka, ka, ka.'She laughed. (135)
She laughs at his inability to pronounce Nepali alphabets. She corrects all the Nepali words when they are
mispronounced. When Luis asked if she was a Nepalese, she says it is not 'Nepalese', it is 'Nepali'. Luis
wants to go to see the mountains of Nepal. He says: "'I'd love to go to the Himmel-aa-yas.' 'Himal' Prema
said. 'Sorry?' 'Himaals. Himaalayas' (36)." She does not like Luis pronouncing her name 'Pray-muh.'
Prema seeks ontological security taking recourse to language as she is afraid of losing her identity.
Those who engage in resistance politics tend to feel a genuine sense of loss as expressed in the recreation
of a real or imagined past, or through the distant and often romanticized memory of a home. In the
process of identity mobilization, these are all likely to become political weapons. As Nandy has noted in
relation to expatriate South Asians;
 In recent years many expatriate South Asians in the West have become more aggressively traditional, and
more culturally exclusive and chauvinistic. As their cherished world becomes more difficult to sustain, as
they and their children begin to show symptoms of integration into their adopted land, they become more
protective about what they think are their faiths and cultures. (158)
The feelings described by Nandy are evidence of the destabilizing effects of the global-local nexus.
Prema, towards the end of the novel, renews her relation and reconnects with her national roots by
visiting Nepali people in Los Angeles and by taking a trip back home. Her effort to reconnect with
previous relations revives the ties that had become numb while updating and renewing her cultural
identity. As she feels increasingly uncertain about her daily life, the search for cultural identity takes on
ontological and existential dimensions.
Prema, the abstract character of modem society, with her implicit anonymity and alienation in Los
Angeles, has made her life ever-changing and mobile as she is uprooted from her original social milieu.
The result, according to Berger, has been increasing attempts to "de-modernize" in order to seek "reversal
of the modern trend that has left the individual 'alienated' and beset with the threats of meaninglessness"
(qtd. in Kinvall 744). Going back to an imagined past by using reconstructed symbols and cultural
reference points is, in other words, a response to the destabilizing effects of changing patterns of global
mobility and migration. Prema brings in the images of Hindu religion, Nepali language and food Momo
as imaginary coherence on the experience of dispersal and fragmentation. It is her attempt to recreate a
lost sense of cultural identity.
To sum up, Manjushree Thapa's Seasons of Flight is a compelling tale of alienation and homelessness.
Away from 'home' Nepal, in the foreign land Los Angeles, Prema is disembedded from her root and
she lacks the protective cocoons of home. Identity is newly problematized by changing conditions of
Nepalese way of life in Los Angeles. Identities are increasingly liminal and she feels insecure in the
foreign land. To overcome existential fears and feelings of loss and despair, she visits new Nepal in Los
Angeles, eats Nepali food, visits Mata-Sylvia and recites Nepali bhajan. She joins a local identity-based
group that seems to provide her answers and stability. Prema, an immigrant in Los Angeles desperately
tries to recapture, excavate and bring to light the traces of indigenous homelands which is constructed and
reconstructed in the face of globalization and cosmopolitanism through culture, language, culinary
nostalgia, community and love.
In the conclusion the paper suggests that the alternative identity sought out by Prema could be real and
yet not real enough to feel authentic. It only gives her a fragile sense of belonging. This individual case of
insecurity and homelessness experienced at a personal level find a larger parallel to the immigrant
Nepalese in Los Angeles.
Ethnicity in The Kiterunner

1. Character Analysis on Ethnocultural basis

In Writing Themes about Literature (1977) by Edgar. V. Robert, it is mentioned that analyzing character is
one of the analyses that are very popular and interesting in discussing novel. It is almost certain that a
novel speaks about the characters, how the characters react towards event. Thereby the characters
presence is vitally something that in novel.
In The Kite Runner, ?the issue of cultural identity? is done by the main characters, Amir and Hassan.
These two main characters have very important role in development of the story because these two
characters are presented with conflicts and actions that build the novel and it's implicit presentation in
regard to Ethnographic display itself...

1. Amir
Amir is a main character of the story; he has an important role in developing the story. In the beginning of
the story, Khaled Hosseini introduces his first character as a man named Amir who records his own life
story from the winter 1975 in Kabul come. He remembers about his past with Hassan when he does not
help Hassan, his servant get a sexual harassment that has changed his life. Mine was Baba His was Amir.
My name. Looking back it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975-and all
that followed-was already laid in those first words. (Hosseini 2003, 10)
Amir is an Afghan man that lives in Wazir Akbar Khan in Kabul. He comes from a rich family. His father
is Baba (Persian for father) who becomes one of the richest merchant in Kabul. His mother Sofia Akrami,
died after giving birth to him. She is a highly educated woman and an English Literature teacher.
Everyone agreed that my father, my Baba, had built the most beautiful house in the Wazir Akbar Khan
district, a new and affluent neighborhood in the northern part of Kabul. Some thought it was the prettiest
house in Kabul. (Hosseini 2003, 4)
After his mother died, Amir lives with his father, Baba. Amir likes to be a man that loved by Baba (farther
for Persian), but Amir also hates Baba inclined wish to be his father without seeing Amir?s potential.
Amir is raised by Baba with the forming of Afghanistan character such as asking Amir to play soccer and
hunting. In this case, Amir hates Baba who forces him to be a real man like the Afghan boys who likes
playing soccer and kite, hunting and fighting. Amir likes his mother?s hobbies such as reading poetry and
story that makes Baba does not appreciate with his first story.
Baba shrugged and stood up. He looked relieved, as if he too had been rescued by Rahim Khan. ?Yes,
give it to Kaka Rahim Khan. I?m going upstairs to get ready, ?And with that, he left the room. Most days
I worshipped Baba with an intensity approaching the religious. But right then, I wished I could open my
veins and drain his cursed blood from my body. (Hosseini 2003, 27)
Because his father does not appreciate Amir?s story, Amir always compares himself with Hassan. In this
case, Amir feels jealous when he sees Baba that gives his servant, Hassan present in Hassan?s birthday
and asks Hassan to go out with them. Itmakes their relationship inharmonious. In one side, he loves
Hassan, as his loyal friend and his servant that are very kind and obedient. However, he hates Hassan,
because Hassan steals Baba?s attention and affection to him.
In this case, Hassan is not his friend but just his Hazara servant that gets Baba?s attention more than
Amir, his son. It is caused by the similarity of their character and hobbies. I remember the day before the
orphanage opened, Baba took me to Gargha Lake, a few miles north of Kabul. He asked me to fetch
Hassan too, but I lied and told him Hassan had the runs. I wanted Baba all to myself. And besides, one
time at Gargha Lake, Hassan and I were skimming stones and Hassan made his stone skip eight times.
The most I managed was five. Baba was there, watching, and he patted Hassan on the back. Even put his
arm around his shoulder. (Hosseini 2003, 12)
The climax of conflict in Amir happens after watching the sexual of harassment that is undergone by
Hassan in the kite tournament in the winter, 1975. Amir just watches this incident from long distance
without giving help. Although, Hassan run the last kite to be given to Amir, to his victory. Inshaallah, we?
ll celebrate later. Right now, I?m going to run that blue kite for you,? he [Hassan] said. He dropped the
spool and took off running, the hem of his green chapan dragging in the snow behind him. (Hosseini
2003, 58-59)
Amir does not help Hassan because he an agreement with his friend who hates Hazaras and an agent of
sexual harassment that nothing is free in the world. So that, there is someone to be sacrificed to fulfill
Amir?s willingness. Hassan is sacrificed by Amir. However, Amir feels this contrary with his heart and
his ambition. Hassan?s attention, loyalty and affection toward Amir makes he feels guilty because he
letsHassan became a victim of sexual harassment. The accumulation of his guilt make Amir decides to
wipe Hassan off his life by accusing Hassan of stealing his watch and money in his birthday. Amir wants
Hassan to go far away from him. He takes its solution comes from Baba?s principle that a thief is the one
unforgivable sin, the common denominator of all sins. (Hosseini 2003, 92).
By this way, Amir can wipe Hassan off his life. Then I took a couple of the envelopes of cash from the
pile of gifts and my watch, and tiptoed out. I paused before Baba?s study and listened in. He?d been in
there all morning, making phone calls. He was walking to someone now, about a shipment of rugs due to
arrive next week. I went downstairs, crossed the yard, and entered Ali and Hassan?s living quarters by the
loquat tree. I lifted Hasan?s mattress and planted my new watch and a handful of Afghani bills under it.?
(Hosseini 2003, 90)
When the Russian invade Afghanistan in 1980s, Amir and Baba flee to America. In America, Amir still
remembers about his memories and his guilt toward Hassan in the past. The feeling over of Amir?s guilt
makes him always fastens upon anything with his mistakes that he has ever done in the past. For example,
when Soraya (Amir?s wife) does not get pregnant although they endure various fertility program. Amir
has opinion that it is God punishment to him. (Hosseini 2003, 164). They have chosen to adopt a baby to
be their breed later, but adoption process is not an easy matter for Amir and his wife that come from
Afghanistan. For Afghan society, if they want to adopt a baby with unknowing breed clearly, it will evoke
a problem in the future. Because in society tradition of Afghan race, background and somebody?s
offspring is very important to detect from which they come and fromwhich ethnic breed they are given.
In addition, in Islam law, Shari?a, does not permit adoption even the more moderate Muslim nations. This
quotation shows his guilt that influences his thinking for not adopting a baby as his breed: We all had our
reasons for not adopting. Soraya had hers, the general his, and I had this: that perhaps something,
someone, somewhere, had decided to deny my fatherfood for the things I had done. May be this was my
punishment, and perhaps justly so, I wasn?t meant to be, Khala Jamila (Soraya?s mother) had said. Or,
maybe, it was meant to be. (Hosseini 2003, 164)
Amir?s conflict and guilt cannot be over because he is not able to tell about the past26 honestly with the
other people, even his wife, Soraya. Amir can accept and understand about Soraya?s mistake in the past,
she ran away with the Afghan boy when she was eighteen at the time. (Hosseini 2003, 143). However, he
cannot do what she was done toward him. Amir compares himself with his wife who can tell the past
bravely before their married. I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with. I opened my mouth
and almost told her how I?d betrayed Hassan, lied, driven him out, and destroyed a forty-year relationship
between Baba and Ali. But I didn?t. I suspected there were many ways in which Soraya Taheri was a
better person than me. Courage was just one of them. (Hosseini 2003,144)
Finally, Amir can solve his problem by departing for Afghanistan. He departs for Afghanistan with the
situation is dangerous, because of many foreign countries and militants enter to Afghanistan. (Hosseini
2003, 213). He wants to bring a son of Hassan in the orphanage in Afghanistan. His return to Afghanistan
which the dangerous condition shows that Amir has internal conflict deeply, so that, he wants to sacrifice
himself to escape from his problems.
For Amir, Afghanistan is like two sides of a coin, namely hating and missing. Those matters melt to
become one, namely his willingness to atone his sin and wipe off his guilt. His trip to Afghanistan is to
take a part from himself remained and to wipe off all bad memories with a kindness, with rescue a half-
nephew, Sohrab. I looked at the round face in the Polaroid again, the way the sun fell on it. My brother?s
face. Hassan had loved me once, loved me in a way that no one ever had or ever would again. He was
gone now, but a little part of him lived on. It was in Kabul. Waiting. (Hossein 2003, 199) That?s quotation
imply his effort to penetrate all memories and betrayal ever Amir did towards his playfellow and all at
once his half-brother, Hassan. He hopes by meeting Sohrab, Hassan can forgive himself and Amir can be
human better.
From the description above, the writer concludes that Amir is protagonist character. He gets the conflict
from his father and other character, Assef who hates Hassan and makes him to be evil with Hassan. Amir
is presented with the internal conflict: when Baba wants him to follow his willing like playing soccer but
he prefers to read novel, when Baba gives attention and affection toward Hassan, the servant boy more
than Amir, he envies toward Hassan, and when Hassan becomes a victim of discrimination and sexual
harassment, he cannot help so that Amir felt guilty and sin.
This character also can be categorized as round and dynamic character, because Amir undergoes changes
in his attitude; his envious toward Hassan makes Amir let Hassanto be a sexual harassment and want to
put Hassan away from his house. However, his guilt and his sin toward Hassan makes Amir wants to
sacrifice himself to come back to Afghanistan with the dangerous situation to bring Sohrab, son of
Hassan, to live with Amir in America and to atone his sin and his guilt. Besides, Amir does not want to do
second mistake.

2. Hassan
In the story, Amir has a servant and also a loyal friend, his name is Hassan. Hassan is one of the important
characters in the novel. Hassan?s presence also presented a Hazara character in the novel. A Hazara is a
minority ethnic group in Afghanistan. Amir has conflict with Hassan in the novel that has important role
in developing story.
For the first time, Amir describes Hassan?s character in physical appearance. When they were children,
Amir sees Hassan?s physical appearance hidden. We took turns with the mirror as we ate mulberries,
pelted each other with them, giggling, laughing. I can still see Hassan up on that tree, sunlight flickering
through the leaves on his almost perfectly round face, a face like a Chinese doll chiseled from hardwood:
his flat, broad nose and slanting, narrow eyes like bamboo leaves, eyes that looked, depending on the
light, gold, green, even sapphire. I can still see his tiny low-set ears and that pointed stub of a chin, a
meaty appendage that looked like it was added as amere afterthought. (Hosseini 2003, 3)
As Amir describes, Hassan has round face, broad nose and slanting. His eyes are narrow and looks like
gold, green, sapphire, besides, his ears is tiny and his chinis pointed stub. Amir mentions Hassan?s
character because Hassan is very different with other people in Afghanistan. Usually, people call Hassan ?
flat-nosed? because Hassan has characteristic as Hazara Mongoloid features. (Hosseini 2003, 8). The
Hazaras are Mogul descendant and look a little like Chinese people. Amir also mentions that Hassan was
born in the cold winter day, 1964 by his mother, Sanaubar who run off with a clan of traveling singers and
dancers. One year after Amir?s mother died. It was in the small shack that Hassan?s mother, Sanaubar,
gave birth to him one cold winter day in 1964. while my mother hemorrhaged to death during childbirth,
Hassan lost his less than a week after he was born..(Hosseini 2003, 6)
Hassan never knows his mother, because his mother left him after giving birth. So, Hassan never talked
about his mother as if she?d never existed. Besides, he never knows what she looks like, and where she
was. Hassan lives with his father, Ali, a man who had memorized the Koran. According to Amir, Ali is his
father?s playmates when they are kids until polio crippled Ali?s leg, who has adopted by my grandfather
into his own household. (Hosseini 2003, 21). After that, Baba never refers Ali as his friend in Baba?s
stories.
Hassan grows up illiterate like his father, Ali. Despite his illiteracy, Hassan can understand the mystery of
words if Amir reads poems and stories to him. Because of that Amir can write his first story in thirty
minutes. Sitting cross-legged, sunlight and shadows of pomegranate leaves dancing on his face, Hassan
absently plucked blades of grass from the ground as I read him stories he couldn?t read for himself. That
Hassan would grow up illiteratelike Ali and most Hazaras had been decided the minute he had born,
perhaps even the moment he had been conceived in Sanaubar?s unwelcoming wombafter all? (Hosseini
2003, 24)
Amir and Hassan always play together when they were kids such in the grass with reading story and
Hassan hears the story from Amir because he can?t write and read. One day, Amir pretended reading story
from the book with a scramble of codes, indecipherable and mysterious. Although, that is Amir?s words,
but, Hassan understands what Amir said. Hassan also likes his story because that is the best story Amir
has read to him in a long time. It makes Amir happy and makes this as his first story. (Hosseini 2003, 26).
For Amir, Hassan is the perfect audience in many ways, totally immersed in the tale, his face shifting with
the changing tones in the story and Hassan says that Amir will be a great writer and famous. Besides,
Amir mentions that his father ?Baba? Like Hassan, because Hassan has the same characteristics and
hobbies with Baba such as playing a kite, soccer, hunting and fighting. Hassan is a man. He always
protects and helps Amir. Self-defense has nothing to do with meanness. You know what always happens
when the neighborhood boys tease him? Hassan steps in and fends them off. ?I?ve seen it with my own
eyes... (Hosseini 2003, 20)
Hassan has self defense in him, he againsts the people who disturb him and Amir. For example, Hassan
also can fight against Assef (antagonist character), a sociopath bully known for his brass knuckles and his
rancor towards Hazaras when Hassan and Amir are walking through Afghanistan. However, in the kite
tournament,1975, Hassan can?t defense himself toward the other boy who wants to revenge him, when
Hassan goes to fetch the last cut kite, a great trophy. Hassan tries to protect Amir's kite, but Assef beats
Hassan and sodomizes him. Assef knelt behind Hassan, put his hands on Hassan?s hips and lifted his bare
buttocks. He kept one hand on Hassan?s back and undid his own belt buckle with his free hand. He
unzipped his jeans. Dropped his underwear. He positioned himself behind Hassan. Hassan didn?t struggle.
Didn?t even whimper. He moved his head slightly and I caught a glimpse of his face. (Hosseini 2003, 66)
However, Hassan cannot against the other boy who sodomized him because Hassan wants to keep the kite
for Amir. He does not want the kite will be taken by the other boy. Hassan wants Amir to be happy with
Baba, so that Hassan sacrifices himself for his friend, Amir. He also admits that he steals Amir?s watch
and money
(as being told in this paper in Amir?s part p. 22). In this quotation shows how Hassan recognizes that he is
a thief and sacrifices him self just for her boss, a Pashtun. Baba came right out and asked. ?Did you steal
that money? Did you steal Amir?s watch, Hassan?? Hassan?s reply was a single word, delivered in a thin,
raspy voice: ?yes.? I flinched, like I?d been slapped. My heart sank and I almost blurted out the truth.
Then I understood: This was Hassan?s final sacrifices for me. If he?d said no, Baba would have believed
him because we all knew Hassan never lied. And if Baba believed him, then I?d the accused; I would
have to explain and I would be revealed for what I really was. Baba would never, ever forgive me.
(Hossein 2003, 91)
However, Hassan and Ali are not permitted to go out from his house, because they are part of Baba?s
family. They lived together with Baba when they were kids. After that, Hassan and Ali live in the only
house in the village that had a walledgarden in Bamiyan. Hassan has been a man in 1986 in Bamiyan with
his wife, Farjana jan from a Hazara. So, one day I fueled up the Buick and drove up to Hazarajat. I
remember that, after Ali dismissed himself from the house, your father told me he and Hassan had moved
to a small village just outside Bamiyan? (Hosseini 2003, 179-180)
Then, Hassan moves to live in Baba?s house in Kabul when Rahim Khan (Baba?s friend) asks him to live
in there. According to Rahim Khan, Hassan is a son of Baba with Sanaubar, his mother, but Hassan
doesn?t know about it. Hassan just knows that he wants to keep Baba?s house because no one stays in
Baba?s house after Baba and Amir flew to America. When they live in Baba?s house, Hassan has a son,
Sohrab and Sanaubar, his mother comes to him. (Hosseini 2003, 185). Sohrab become the center of their
existence. Hassan teaches him to read and write for not growing up illiterate like Hassan. Hassan loves his
son a lot. In 1998, the Taliban massacre the Hazara in Mazara-i-Sharif. (Hosseini 2003, 187)
Hassan and his family live alone in Wazir Akbar Khan. So, a pair of Taliban officials come to investigate
and interrogated Hassan. They want to claim the house. Hassan always protests, but, the Talibs take him
to the street and shot Hassan and his wife, Farzana jan. Hassan tries to struggle the Taliban to maintain
that house. But, the Taliban don?t believe that they live in the big house. Because the Taliban think that
Hassan as Hazara is a liar, a thief. So, the Taliban shot them. This is a final sacrifice from Hassan to Amir
A pair of Talib officials came to investigate and interrogated Hassan. They accused him of lying when
Hassan told them he was living with me even though many of the neighbors, including the one who called
me, supported Hassan?s story. The Talibs said he was a liar and a thief like all Hazaras and ordered him to
get his family out of the house by sundown. Hassan protested. But my neighbor said the Talibs were
looking at the big house like-how did he say it?-yes, like ?wolves looking at a flock of sheep.? They told
Hassan they would be moving in to supposedly keep it safe until I return. Hassan protested again. So they
took him to the street-?. (Hosseini 2003, 192)
From the description above, the writer concludes that Hassan is the protagonist character. He is a hero for
Amir, such as accompanying Amir to play in the backyard when Amir is alone, hearing Amir?s first story
when Baba dislikes it, protecting Amir when Assef disturbs him, running the last cut kite for Amir?s
victory and it makes Hassan becomes a victim of sexual harassment, recognizing that Hassan steals Amir?
s watch and money toward Baba and it makes Hassan to leave Amir?s house, and protecting Amir?s
house from the Talibans and it makes Hassan and his family died. Besides, this character is presented with
a flat character; Hassan undergoes no change or development in his attitude and tends to stay the same
throughout a story. Hassan always protects helps and cares with Amir, for his happiness in whatever
situation.
2. The Issue of ethnoCultural Identity
The issue of cultural identity in this story happened in both of the two main characters, Amir and Hassan.
Their cultural identities come from histories in Afghanistan where Afghanistan is ethnically a very diverse
country, namely Pashtun,Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimaq, Turkmen, Baluch, and other small group.27 The
culture of Afghanistan reflects its ancient roots and position as a crossroads for invading ethnic groups
and traditions.28 The writer analyzes their cultural identities because they have conflict based on cultural
identity eventhough they come from the same country, Afghanistan. However, they come from different
ethnics. In this analyzing the issue of cultural identity, the writer uses the concept of Cultural Identity by
Stuart Hall.
Cultural Identity is in terms of one, shared culture, a sort of collective ?one true self?, hiding inside the
many other, more superficial o artificial imposed ?selves?, which people with a shared history and
ancestry hold in common. It is called as identity as being.
This definition explains that Amir and Hassan?s characters reflect their common historical experiences
and shared cultural that show them as one people as the Afghan; however they have different cultural
identity in ethnic. Many cultures that they have as the Afghan even they have different ethnics, namely:

1. Language
The Afghans which lived in Kabul speak with Dari (Afghan Farsi) as their language to communicate to
others. Amir and Hassan live in one house in Amir house because Amir is a boss of Hassan. They usually
speak with the language of Afghan Farsi as the official language to communicate in both of them even
they come from different ethnic. In this case that Language being use as one of the sign to describe them
as one people (Afghanistan). a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: ?sociopath.?
(Hosseini 2003, 34)

2. Literature
Although literacy levels are very low, classic Persian poetry plays a very important role in Afghan culture.
Poetry has always been one of the major educational pillars in both Iran and Afghanistan, to the level that
it has integrated itself into culture. In this case, Amir and Hassan like the poetry and the other literature
work such as the epic Persian heroes at the tenth-century ?Shahnamah? and Rostam and Sohrab?. Amir
usually tells the story to Hassan because Hassan is illiterate that cannot read. However, Hassan
understands what Amir tells to Hassan. For Amir, Hassan is the perfect audience that can understand his
first story and makes Amir can write his first story in thirty minutes. (Hosseini 2003, 29)

3. Traditions
Amir and Hassan have tradition according to Islam. In tenth day of Dhul- Hijjah, the last month of the
Muslim calendar, and the first of three days of Eid Al- Adha, or Eid-e-Qorban, as Afghans call it-a day to
celebrate how the prophet Ibrahim almost sacrificed his own son for God. Usually Amir, Hassan and their
fathers stand in the backyard to see this ritual every year. Besides, there are some customs in Eid Al-Adha
such as divide the meat in thirds, one for the family, one for friends, and one for the poor. Then, the other
custom is to not let the sheep see the knife and feed the animal a cube of sugar to make death sweeter.
(Hosseini 2003, 67).
Besides on Eid, three days of celebration after the holy month of Ramadhan, Kabuli dressed in their best
and newest clothes and visted their families. People hugged and kissed and greeted each other with ?Eid
Mubarak.? Happy Eid. Children opened gifts and played with dyed hard-boiled eggs. In this moment,
Hassan gets the gifts from Baba and he plays together with Amir. (Hosseini 2003, 38).
In Afghanistan, yelda is the first night of the month of Jadi, the first night of winter, and the longest night
of the year. As was the tradition, Amir and Hassan used to stay up late, their feet tucked under the kursi,
while Ali (Hassan?s father) tossed apple skin into the stove and told them ancient tales of sultans and
thieves to pass that longest of nights. Besides, if the people ate watermelon in the night of yelda, they
wouldn?t get thirsty the coming summer. In addition, yelda was the starless night tormented lovers kept
vigil, enduring the endless dark, waiting for the sun to rise andbring with it their loved one. (Hosseini
2003, 125)

4. Traditional Games
In Afghanistan, Buzkashi is a national sport that is similar to polo and played by the horsemen into two
teams, each trying to grab and hold of a goat carcass. It takes place on the first day of spring, New Year?s
Day. In this moment, Baba ever took Amir to watch Buzkashi from the upper bleacher. Buzkashi was, and
still is, Afghanistan?s national passion.? (Hosseini 2003, 18)
Besides, when they were children, they usually play the traditional games of Afghanistan such as chasing
each other between tangles of trees in Baba?s yard, playing hide-and-seek, cops and robbers, cowboys
and Indian, insect torture, flying kite and running the kite. Before the kite tournament, they sat under the
kursi and played panjpar as wind-rattled tree branches tapped on the window. In this case, Amir never
thinks about Hassan?s cultural identity that comes from a Hazara.
The kite-fighting tournament is an old winter tradition in Afghanistan. It is started early in the morning on
the day of the contest and does not end until only the winning kite fly in the sky. In this moment, all of the
boys from different ethnic come gather on sidewalks and roofs to cheer for them who follow competition.
The streets are filled with kite fighters, jerking and tugging on their lines, squinting up to the sky, trying
to gain position to cut the opponent?s line. Besides, every kite fighter had assistant. In this case, Hassan is
Amir?s assistant who held the spool and the fed line. It shows that Hassan is inferior character that
accepts everything for his boss, Amir.
For Amir, Hassan is the greatest kite runner in Afghanistan that always gets the spot the kite would land
before the kite does, as if he had some sort of inner compass. EVERY WINTER, districts in Kabul held a
kite-fighting tournament. and if you were a boy living in Kabul, the day of the tournament was
undeniably the highlight of the cold season. (Hosseini 2003, 43-44)
However, in the winter of 1975, the internal conflict which Amir envies toward Hassan happens in both of
them that makes their cultural identity is different (superior and inferior). Amir comes from the superior
ethnic who always does everything to wipe Hassan off his life like letting Hassan to become a victim of
sexual harassment and accusing Hassan of stealing his watch and money. Besides, Hassan comes from the
inferior ethnic who always accept everything from the superior ethnic, Amir.
Baba came right out and asked. ?Did you steal that money? Did you steal Amir?s watch, Hassan??
Hassan?s reply was a single word, delivered in a thin, raspy voice: ?yes.? I flinched, like I?d been
slapped. My heart sank and I almost blurted out the truth. Then I understood: This was Hassan?s final
sacrifices for me. If he?d said no, Baba would have believed him because we all knew Hassan never lied.
And if Baba believed him, then I?d the accused; I would have to explain and I would be revealed for what
I really was. Baba would never, ever forgive me. (Hossein 2003, 91) Their cultural identity is very strong
that cannot be changed by anything. It can be seen when Hassan always gets the cruelty from superior
ethnic, especially from Amir. He cannot against what Amir does toward him. Hassan only accepts it and
Hassan also recognizes that he is just a Hazara. He is a minority ethnic group in Afghanistan.
Hassan identity is like his father, Ali, as a Hazara and Shi?a Moslem. The Hazara kinship is organized in
lineages; descent is traced through the male line. The male in specific area consider themselves
descendants of common ancestor.29 A Hazara has physical appearances that are very different with a true
Afghan, the Pashtun. I can still see Hassan up on that tree, sunlight flickering through the leaves on his
almost perfectly round face, a face like a Chinese doll chiseled from hardwood: his flat, broad nose and
slanting, narrow eyes like bamboo leaves, eyes that looked, depending on the light, gold, green, even
sapphire? (Hosseini 2003, 3)
Hassan has a round face, a face like a Chinese people. He has broad nose and slanting, narrow eyes like
bamboo leaves, eyes that looked, depending on the light, gold, green, even sapphire and tiny low-set ears.
His characteristics are Mogul descendants. The Hazara are thought to have several affinities with the
Mongols, including physical appearance, language, and kinship system. In addition, the term Hazara? is a
Mongol-Persian blend.30
Besides, the Hazaras has attribute completely negative, like: low social, poor, low class, has defect in
body such as Hassan has harelip and Ali has leg polio, and only move in low job area likes waitress,
beggar, and servant like Ali and Hassan as servants. In addition, most Hazaras is illiterate like Hassan and
Ali that cannot read the books. Because they do not have money to attend school. So, most Hazaras had
been decided to illiterate the minute he had born. From that?s description, the people have stereotype for
the Hazara ?Poor and illiterate?. Because Hassan has negative attribute, the other boys have epithet name
to Hassan such as Flat-Nose, A loyal Hazara. Loyal as a dog. In this case shows that Hassan is inferior
that always accepts everything from the other.
And on days when he felt particularly inspired, he spiced up his baddering a little, Hey, you flat-nosed
Babalu, who did you eat today? Tell us, you slanted-eyed donkey. (Hosseini 2003, 34) Besides, Amir is a
Pashtun boy and Sunni Moslem. His identity is inherited by his father as Patriarchy. Never mind any of
those things. Because history isn?t easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end I [Amir] was a
Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I [Amir] was Sunni and he was Shi?a, and nothing was ever going to
change that. Nothing. (Hosseini 2003, 22)
Amir recognizes his identity as a Pashtun and Sunni Muslim. His identity cannot be changed by anything,
because history is not easy to overcome. Amir as a Pashtun is different with the other boys especially his
servant, Hassan, a Hazara in physical appearances, religion, ethnicity and personality. The differences
make him as superior, better class in Afghanistan. Besides, it can be seen from the different in his physical
appearances with the other as in this quotation: Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that a
boy with a thin-boned frame, a shaved head, and low-set ears, a boy with a Chinese doll face perpetually
lit by hare lipped. (Hosseini 2003, 22)
Amir has a thin-boned frame, a shave head, and low set ears. His face shows that he is a true Afghan. The
most of the Pashtun is the richest people and successful man that has respected job, such as Amir can
attend school and his father ?Baba? who is the famous businessperson in Kabul such as building carpet
exporting business, two pharmacies, and a restaurant and building an orphanage in Kabul. So Baba
proved them all wrong by not only running his own business but becoming one of the richest merchants
in Kabul. Baba and Rahim Khan built a wildly successful carpet-exporting business, two pharmacies, and
a restaurant. (Hosseini 2003, 13)
Amir has the same vision to sweep the Hazaras from his homeland with the other Pashtun, because the
Hazaras are considered to have dirty blood. The similarity makes him one true self and show that they are
Pashtun. They recognize that they are the true Afghan because Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns, not the
flat-nose like Hassan.
Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns. It always has been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure
Afghan, not this Flat-Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They dirty our blood. ?He
made a sweeping, grandiose gesture with his hand. ?Afghanistan for Pashtuns, I say. That?s my vision.?
(Hosseini 2003, 35)
The term "Afghanistan," meaning the "Land of Afghans," was mentioned by the sixteenth century Mughal
Emperor Babur in his memoirs, referring to the territories south of Kabul that were inhabited by Pashtuns
(called "Afghans" by Babur)31.
What they are done is like in the book written by an Iranian, Khorami tells that there is repression toward
the Hazara that done by the Pashtuns in the nineteen century. The Pashtun had persecuted and oppressed
the Hazara. And the Pashtuns had killed the Hazaras, driven them from their lands, burned their homes,
and sold their women. The reason of Pashtuns had oppressed the Hazaras that Pashtun is Sunni Muslims,
while Hazaras is Shi?a. (Hosseini 2003, 8). It shows that the Pashtun has stereotyped as ?bellicose?
eventhough he has done that intentionally.
Moreover, Amir intends to bury his memory with Hassan and his sin toward Hassan that comes is over.
So, he wants to start a new life with his father, Baba in America when Russian invades to Afghanistan and
to get his future as the famous writer. For me [Amir], America was a place to bury his [Hassan]
memories. (Hosseini 2003, 112)
Besides, Hassan always becomes the target of the Pashtun ethnic who is dominant group in Afghanistan.
It makes Hassan?s life frightened. He cannot live free. Where he lives, he always undergoes
discrimination such as from Amir, Assef and the Taliban which follow a radical Islam but this is also
Pashtun-dominated. For example in 1998, the Taliban massacred the Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif. Talibans
who come from the Pashtun ethnic do the cruelty toward the Afghans that break the law or shari?a law
that their made. The Hazara become a target of the Taliban who hate the Hazara ethnic.
A few weeks later, the Taliban banned the kite fighting. And two years later, in 1998, they massacred the
Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif. (Hosseini 2003, 187) These internal conflicts also represent the ethnics and
inter-religion conflict. These conflicts appear in both of them that are based in ethnic and inter-religion. In
this story, the inter-religion conflict has relation with the ethnic conflict, namely the Pashtun is Sunni
Moslem and the Hazara is Shi?a Moslem.
The reason of Pashtuns had oppressed the Hazaras that Pashtun is Sunni Muslims, while Hazaras is Shi?a.
(Hosseini 2003, 8) It also can be seen that the Pashtun is dominant in Afghanistan and as majority group
because Afghanistan is the land of Pashtun. Besides, the Hazaras is minorities group that always get
discrimination from the Pashtuns. So, the civil war happened in both of them and symbolizes the two
opposite struggles in Afghanistan, one by the Pashtuns, and the second by the Hazara, minority?s ethnic
group in Afghanistan. When Russian invades to Afghanistan, most of the Pashtuns, especially Amir and
Baba flee to America to save them from several invasions from foreign countries.
It shows that the Pashtun is the richest ethnic. It is very different with Hassan just lives in Afghanistan
with the dangerous situation that lives in small village in Afghanistan. For Amir, He flew to America to
bury his past memories and to start a new life in America. In America, Amir lives in California where the
Afghans immigrants live there. Amir and Baba still keeps their tradition and their habits as the Pashtun
ethnic. They wants their culture still exist although they are in America. It issuitable with the Diaspora
defines by a conception of ?identity? are those which are constantly producing and reproducing
themselves a new, through transformation and difference. It means when they are at the other country they
still stick with their culture and try to develop through transformation constantly. It appears conflict in
both of them when they wants stick their culture identities as the Pashtuns but they face new culture and
habit in there, such as they have to adopt the habits and American cultue.
It happens, when Baba confronts on difference payment between Afghanistan and America in grocery
store until Baba gets conflict with the owner store in California. It turned out that Baba had had no cash
on him for the oranges. He?d written Mr. Nguyen a check and Mr. Nguyen had asked for an ID. He wants
to see my license, ?Baba bellowed in Farsi. ?Almost two years we?ve bought his damn fruits and put
money in his pocket and the son of a dog wants to see my license!? (Hosseini 2003, 111)
The owner store asks for Baba?s ID card because they do not believe to Baba?s check. This matter is
common in America, but Baba feels offended with the owner store. In Kabul, if the Afghan wants to buy
something, they just take the wooden stick as credit card to the owner store and he carves notches on their
stick with his knife. At the end of month, they pay him for the number of notches on the stick. No ID. In
this case, Baba never had undergone it in Kabul where all of the people recognize and know him. Baba
can get anything easily because inAfghanistan, the Pashtuns is the richest ethnic group in Afghanistan.
This situation makes Baba missed Afghanistan.
Besides, Diaspora also happens when Amir wants to marry Soraya, he uses the Afghan?s wedding, and
Amir does not adopt a son. In this case, Amir and Baba still keep and use their cultural identity as the
Pashtun, Sunni Moslem. Their identity is stable and unchanging. When Amir likes the woman, Soraya
from a Pashtun ethnic group. Baba reminds Amir not embarrass Baba, because Soraya?s father is a
Pashtun to the root that has tenets, nang and namoos, honor and pride, especially when it comes to the
chastity of a wife or a daughter. Remember this, ?Baba said, pointing at me, ?The man is a Pashtun to the
root. He has nang and namoos,? Nang. Namoos. Honor and Pride. The tenets of Pashtun men. Especially
when it came to the chastity of a wife. Or a daughter. (Hosseini 2003, 126-127)
In this point, Amir wants to chastity Soraya to avoid the gossip material. He also does not want to
embarrass Baba from his attitude. Amir and Soraya are the Pashtuns that have mistake in the past. Amir
can accept the mistake of Soraya in the past when he ran away with the Afghan boy in Virginia but he
cannot tell the truth about his mistake toward Hassan to Soraya. In this case, Amir marries Soraya and
wants to raise her honor as a Pashtun because many Afghan, especially those from reputable families,
were fickle creatures. A whisper here, an insinuation there, and they fled like startled bird after know the
past of Soraya. Therefore, wedding hadcome and gone and no one had sung ahesta boro for Soraya, no
one had painted her palms with henna, no one had held a Koran over her headdress.
In addition, Amir uses his tradition wedding ceremony to marry with Soraya such as lafz ?giving word?,
nika (the swearing ceremony) and Ayena Mashaf. According to Afghan tradition, the Soraya?s family
should held ?Shirini-Khori? or Eating of the Sweets? ceremony (the engagement party), but their families
forgo the Shirini-khori. It is caused by Baba does not have months to live. (Hosseini 2003, 147- 148)
In ?lafz?, Amir and his father come to Soraya house. In this moment, Soraya does not present when ?lafz?
goes on. Soraya also wear a dress in a stunning winecolored traditional Afghan dress with long sleeves
and gold trimmings. Besides, in nika (the swearing ceremony) Amir and Soraya signed the certificates.
Then they do Ayena Masshaf, where their families give them a mirror and threw a veil over their heads,
so they had be alone to gaze at each other. Besides, Amir uses the tradition of Afghanistan where his
father, Baba passed away. The people dress in dark suits, the women clad in black dresses and their head
covered with traditional white hijabs.(Hosseini 2003, 152)
When Amir?s wife does not get pregnant, Amir feels that this is punishment for him, so that he does not
have a child. Amir betrayed Hassan for a long time. He wants to adopt a child who is not his offspring but
he cannot do that. He gets resistance from his father-in-law. For Afghan society, especially for the
Pashtuns, ifthey want to adopt a baby with unknowing breed clearly, it will evoke a problem in the future.
Besides, according to society tradition of Afghan race, background and somebody?s offspring is very
important to detect from which they come and from ethnic breed, they are given.
Blood is powerful thing. In addition, Islam law, Shari?a, does not permit adoption even the more
moderate Muslim nations For one thing, they grow up and want to know who their natural parents are,?
he said. ?Nor can you blame them. Sometimes, they leave the home in which you labored for years to
provide for them so they can find the people who gave them life. Blood is powerful thing, bachem, never
forget that.? (Hosseini 2003, 163)
It still may not permit this adoption. In fact, even the more moderate Muslim nations nations are hesistant
with adoptions because in many of those countries, Islamic law, shari?a, doesn?t recognize adoption.
(Hosseini 2003, 294)
According to Soraya?s father, Amir?s father-in-law that it contraries with American culture, adopt is not
matter. Americans marry for love; family name and ancestry never even come into the equation. They
adopt that excessively, as long as the baby is healthy, everyone is happy. But, Amir is an Afghan. In this
case, Amir still keeps and uses their tradition of Afghans. He cannot assimilate all American culture,
eventhough his life in not perfect. He does not have a child.
However, He can adopt a son of Hassan. Sohrab is a half-nephew of Amir because in the past, Baba slept
with his Hassan mother. Amir departs for Afghanistan to bring a son of Hassan that lives in orphanage in
Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, Amir feels difficult to get his new identity because many foreign countries
enter to Afghanistan. Besides, the situation in Afghanistan is very dangerous. Many peopledied in the
street because the Talibans massacre the minorities? ethnic group in Afghanistan especially communist.
The Taliban is the students of Islamic knowledge movement ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001.
They came to power during Afghanistan's long civil war. Although they managed to hold 90% of the
country's territory, their policies?including their treatment of women and support of terrorists?ostracized
them from the world community.32 The Taliban has mission such as stoning adulterers, raping children,
flogging women for wearing high heels, and massacring Hazaras. What mission is that?? I heard my
self. ?Stoning adulterers? Raping children? Flogging women for wearing high heels? Massacring
Hazaras? All in the name of Islam?? The words spilled suddenly and unexpectedly, came out before I
could yank the leash. I wished I could take them back. (Hosseini 2003, 248)
The character who represents as the Taliban is Assef, antagonist character. Assef does ethnic cleansing as
his mission. According to Assef, Afghanistan is like a beautiful mansion littered with garbage, and
someone has to take out the garbage. Assef does that toward Hassan by massacring Hassan?s family in
Kabul. Besides, Sohrab, son of Hassan also becomes a victim of cruelty of Assef. Assef asked Sohrab to
wear woman dress and dance for him.
After Amir fights Assef, Amir can bring Sohrab to America to live with Amir and his wife. He does not
choose to live in Afghanistan because the situation in Afghanistan is very dangerous and wants to lift
Sohrab from certainty of turmoil. Besides, he has everything that special in America such as a wife, a
family and a carrier as famous writer. According to Amir there are no discrimination and racialism in
America. , a life in a country [America] where no one cared that he was a Hazara, where most people
didn?t even know what Hazara was. Maybe not. (Hosseini 2003, 198)
And so it was that, about a week later, we crossed a strip of warm, black tarmac and I brought Hassan?s
son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil
of uncertainty. (Hosseini 2003, 311)
In this case, Amir also adopts Sohrab as his son. Nevertheless, his father-inlaw disagrees with adoption.
However, this matter is very different with he wants to adopt a son without knowing breed clearly. He
adopts Sohrab because Sohrab is his family. His wife also agrees with Amir that he wants to bring Sohrab
and adopt Sohrab as his son. Amir, he?s your qaom, your family, so he?s my qaom too. Of course I?m
sure. You can?t leave him to the streets.? There was a short pause. (Hosseini 2003, 284)
When Sohrab lives with Amir in America, Amir always tells about the kindness of Hassan to his son?s
Sohrab and for Amir, Hassan is the greatest kite runner. (Hosseini 2003, 321).
The title of novel, The Kite Runner means someone who runs to catch a kite. The kite is the source of
struggle among Amir and Hassan as a trophy of honor. It is a symbol of victory for the Afghan boys in
Afghanistan. When they succeed to cut the last kite that fly in the air, their victory is incomplete
yetbecause they have to run and get the last kite. In this story, the boy who can run and get the last kite is
Hassan. For Amir, Hassan is the best runner in every kite tournament. (Hosseini 2003, 46)
CONCLUSION
The Kite Runner is a novel written by Khaled Hosseini, one of famous Afghanistan American authors.
The situation of Afghanistan American inspired him to write The Kite Runner. It tells about someone who
runs to catch a kite. The kite is struggle source among Amir, Hassan and Assef as a trophy of honor. It is a
symbol of victory for the Afghan boys in Afghanistan. When they succeed to cut the last kite that fly in
the air, their victory is incomplete yet because they have to run and get the last kite. In this story, the boy
who can run and get the last kite is Hassan. For Amir, Hassan is the best runner in every kite tournament
The first thing, the writer analyzes in this research is the two main characters in the novel, Amir and
Hassan. Their character have important role in development of the story, because they are performed with
the conflict through their dialogues and actions that build the story in this novel.
Besides, the writer also analyzes their cultural identity because they have different cultural identity even
they come from the same country, Afghanistan. It has the purpose to find out the issue of cultural identity
in both of them. Their culturalidentities influence their life that creates many conflicts such as internal
conflict, ethnic conflict and inter-religion conflict.
The first character is Amir. Amir comes from the richest family and the reputable family in Kabul. He is a
pashtun and Sunni Moslem. A Pashtun is majority ethnic group and superior ethnic in Afghanistan that
always does cruelty toward the minority ethnic group. His father is successful man. Besides, his mother is
literature lecturer. However, Amir lives with his father and Baba?s friend, Rahim Khan because his
mother died after giving birth him. When Hassan becomes a victim of racialism and discrimination that
happen in Afghanistan, Amir could not defend him. It makes Amir undergoes an insomniac and feel guilty
until he lives in America and becomes a great writer. When Amir does not get a baby, Amir thinks that
this is his punishment to him from his mistake in the past toward Hassan.
The second character is Hassan. He is a Hazara and Shi?a Moslem. His identity has stereotype as ?poor?
and illiterate. Hassan comes from poor family because his half-father, Ali, is a servant in Amir?s house.
Then, he grows up illiterate and harelips. The Hazaras in Afghanistan have negative attribute from the
other ethnics group such as low job, poor, defect in body such as Hassan. His identity make him always
becomes a victim of discrimination and racialism from the Pashtun and the Taliban. So, the Hazara is
inferior ethnic in Afghanistan.
Amir and Hassan have the cultural identity that is stable and cannot be changed by anything. Hassan
always accepts anything from the Pashtun. Then Amirstill sticks his cultural identity even Amir lives in
America. He undergoes Diaspora like he wants to marry. He chooses a woman that comes from the
Pashtun. He wants to keep alive his ancient standard of pride and honor. Then he uses the Afghan
wedding and he does not adopt a son from other breed.
Ethnicity in A Golden Age

introductory perspective
What sense did it make to have a country in two halves, poised on either side of India like a pair of
horns?

When I first picked up A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam, it struck me that I knew next to nothing about
the history of Bangladesh. Being a British-born Pakistani, the partitioning of India and Pakistan is a
subject that is never far from discussion in the Pakistani community, whether by your own family or on
TV or even in literature. Of course I knew that Bangladesh, sitting on the other side of India, was once
called East Pakistan, but I realised I had never looked into the partitioning of East and West Pakistan
because no one ever seems to talk about it. I was shocked to discover, after reading The Golden Age, that
East Pakistan fought a war of independence and that is was such a brutal and shameful affair. Perhaps that
is why it is never talked about much.
Correct me if Im wrong, but I believe this is the first novel to be written about the subject in the English
language, which I think is quite telling about the subject matter. I have to admit, reading A Golden Age
made me extremely uncomfortable; its not easy to be shown the darker side of your own people,
especially when they have for so long been the victims of oppression themselves. As the story progressed,
I understood that it isnt a story about ethnicity its about power and the fight between the oppressed and
the oppressor, the poor against the wealthy, freedom against dictatorship.
A Golden Age is the first book in a trilogy telling the history of Bangladesh from the war on
independence onwards. Although the story is not completely based on true-life events, Anam was inspired
by her grandmothers story who housed freedom fighters in her house during the war. Anams father and
uncle were also freedom fighters in the same war.
Rehana, the protagonist of this novel, is an Urdu-speaking woman born in West Pakistan who married and
moved to East Pakistan where she was widowed and left with a son and daughter. The story opens with
Rehana standing at her husbands grave informing him that she lost the custody of her children to her
brother-in-law and his wife, who take the children back to West Pakistan with them. The sense of loss and
division that Rehana feels and the determination to claim justice pervades the story and becomes
metaphorical of the state of East Pakistan.
Rehana succeeds in winning her children back, but as they grow up the tensions between the divided
country mounts. When her son Sohail and daughter Maya become involved with politics, Rehana
becomes caught between wanting to give her children everything they could ever want and wanting to
keep them home where its safe. She realises that she cannot stop them from joining the war efforts and
accepts that the only way to keep them close to her is by helping them. Sohail becomes a freedom fighter,
whilst Maya perseveres with her political activism through journalism. Rehana finds herself heavily
involved with the war when Sohail asks her to hide artillery supplies for the guerrilla movement in her
house. When Sohail brings home the Major who is wounded in battle, begging his mother to nurse him
back to health, Rehanas life changes in a way she hadnt expected.
A Golden Age is a moving story, and quite an eye-opening one for me. The characterisation in this story is
good: although Sohail and Maya fight the war in their own ways, the real hero of the story is definitely
Rehana; her unconditional love for her children and her bravery allow her children the success they
deserve. Both Sohail and Maya are passionate about fighting for freedom, but emotionally Sohail is the
weaker of the two, demonstrated by his unwavering love for not only his mother, but especially by his
love for his childhood friend Silvi. Maya is a less likeable character than Sohail her relationship with
Rehana is tense and she seems very much like a repressed teenager. But as the novel progresses and Maya
finds her way, the reader learns that Maya is frustrated that she cannot fight for her country in the same
way that her brothers does and must find her own way to fight for her country. Although most loose ends
are tied up by the close of the novel, we never find out what becomes of the Major.
I enjoyed Anams writing its fluid and at times almost poetical. If I was to judge this novel alone rather
than as part of a trilogy, I find it quite unconvincing that, unlike her friends and neighbours, Rehana
suffers no real loss during the war. This might, of course, be because their tests are to come in the next
instalment of the story. A Golden Age is very much a celebration of victory over oppression. The story
does, nevertheless, end on a slightly unsure note, preparing the reader for the aftermath of the war in the
next part of the trilogy, A Good Muslim.

Tahmima Anum on Ethnobangladesh foundation stone

On 10 January 1972, my father came home to his country for the first time. It was three weeks after the
end of the Bangladesh war, and he was making his way back from India, where he had enlisted with the
newly formed Bangladesh army. When I think about that day, I always wonder what country my father
thought he was returning to. Surely it was a thing of his imagination, born out of the years marching
against the Pakistani occupation, the months touring India to gain support for the war, the gruelling
training at the officers' camp in West Bengal. I can picture the shock that he and his fellow freedom
fighters must have felt when they finally did cross that border, seeing their imagined country and their
real country meet for the first time.
The Bengali phrase desh-prem means "love for the country". Like many expatriate Bangladeshis, my
desh-prem makes me believe there will come a day when I pack my bags and leave London for good. My
desh-prem is a long-distance affair, full of passion and misunderstanding; often, my heart is broken. Many
Bangladeshis never actually return home; it is more of an idea, something to turn over in our hearts before
we go to sleep, but for me the prospect of returning is real. In 1990, after 14 years abroad, my parents left
their jobs with the United Nations and moved back to Bangladesh. So many of their friends told them
they were foolish to return to a country that had so little to offer, but in the latter months of that year,
Hossain Mohammad Ershad's military dictatorship was toppled by massive public action of a kind not
seen since the days of the independence movement.
So the country my family returned to was bathed in hope, and, almost two decades after the birth of
Bangladesh, we finally seemed on the brink of becoming a functioning democracy.
Sixteen years after Ershad's dramatic fall, Bangladesh is a very different place. We have had three
national elections, and our two main political parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the
Awami League, have handed power back and forth to each other like a baton in a relay, each election
becoming successively more bitter, and each five-year term bringing dramatic increases in corruption and
partisan politics. Amazingly, when the Awami League was in power, the BNP refused to attend
parliament; when the BNP was in power, the Awami League refused to attend. As a result, the people we
mandated to represent us in government failed to discharge their responsibilities, instead taking to the
streets and announcing that their defeat was engineered and not willed by the voting public.
In Bangladesh, elections come hand in hand with claims of vote-rigging. Where there is an election and a
transfer of power, there will inevitably be rumours of conspiracy, of stolen ballot boxes and hijacked
polling stations. Whether and to what degree these rumours are true is almost less important than the
assumption that a sitting government cannot hold a fair election. Therefore, in 1995, the constitution was
amended to include a peculiar and rather clever system of handing power to a caretaker government that
is responsible for holding a fair election. According to the constitution, the last retired chief justice of the
Bangladesh Supreme Court becomes chief adviser to the caretaker government. He has the authority of a
prime minister, and is given the responsibility of appointing a cabinet, together with which he will govern
the country for no more than 90 days.
During this time his main tasks will be to oversee fair and non-partisan elections and to hand over power
to the newly elected government.
So far, so good. But as plans go, this one is not foolproof. Although the arrangement worked on the first
two occasions, this time around the BNP felt it could not afford to lose the election. All the signs indicated
that if the election was free and fair, the BNP would be defeated by the Awami League. After five years of
alleged corruption, theft and autocracy, it was faced with the possibility that it would actually have to be
accountable for the crimes it had committed during its tenure. The excesses of previous regimes were
mild compared with those perpetrated during those five years, which saw an alliance between the BNP
and the most powerful of the Islamic parties, the Jamaat-e-Islami. The BNP formed this strategic
partnership in 2001, and over the past five years the Jamaat's influence has spread throughout the
bureaucracy and district governments, enabling the party to build grass-roots support and gain crucial
political and public recognition.
As well as giving power and legitimacy to the Islamic right, the BNP alliance committed severe abuses of
power. It politicised the police force and formed the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a special branch that
was responsible for hundreds of killings in the name of "law and order". This force signed contracts for
bridges that were never built, bought television channels, appointed biased judges, jailed and harassed the
opposition, and placed RAB people into every post that might influence the election. The alliance
invented 14 million false voters. By the same stroke, it wiped most Bangladeshis from a religious or
ethnic minority from the electoral register.
Popular opposition to the BNP's blatant attempts at manipulating the election has made it terrified of
losing power, and so, instead of allowing the caretaker government to fall into the hands of a neutral chief
adviser, it encouraged the BNP-appointed president, Iajuddin Ahmed, to take the post. When we first saw
the ageing Iajuddin taking the oath to become chief adviser, he appeared harmless enough. People,
including the opposition, decided to give him a chance to show his neutrality - his desh-prem. But he
proved to be easily manipulated, and after a few weeks he became a hated figure.
In the meantime, the beleaguered Awami League has committed its fair share of mistakes. In order to
press its demands it called an indefinite series of strikes, bringing the economy to a halt while it
conducted its campaigns of civil disobedience. No one went to work; the classrooms emptied out, the
ships were marooned at Chittagong port, and the price of dhal tripled in a matter of months. But by far the
most un forgivable blunder it committed was to sign a deal with the far-right Khilafat-e-Majlish. The
Awami League has long claimed an ideological advantage over the BNP, branding itself the more secular,
progressive party, so for those of us who believed there was a significant difference between the two
parties, this was a cynical and heartbreaking manoeuvre. Under the terms of the deal, the Awami League
will assist the Khilafat-e-Majlish in legalising fatwas and challenging any laws that contradict "Koranic
values".
Whether the Islamic right will really gain a foothold in mainstream politics - and the hearts of the public -
in Bangladesh remains to be seen; however, that both parties believe they cannot win an election without
the endorsement of the right is sign enough that Bangladesh's identity as a moderate Muslim country is
under threat.
When I landed in Dhaka a few days ago, the city looked as it so often does in January. The fog was low
and woolly on the ground; people were huddled under their shawls; the smell of oranges and roasted
peanuts lingered in the air. But, of course, I knew that all was not as it seemed. In these past few months
my desh-prem has been under siege, and this time, I arrived in Dhaka in bitter spirits. I had planned this
trip so that I would be able to vote; I had spent months looking forward to returning to Bangladesh to
exercise my democratic right. Yet as the day drew near, I realised I wouldn't be going home to vote, but
rather to witness a sham election. With the Awami League boycotting the elections, and talk of a
constitutional crisis, we all began to worry that this year could mark the death of democracy in
Bangladesh. The mood was sombre and people seemed resigned; it appeared there was nothing anyone
could do to prevent this political charade from going ahead.
But then, just as it appeared there was no solution in sight, the president suddenly declared a state of
emergency and postponed the elections indefinitely. He resigned as chief adviser and dissolved the
caretaker cabinet. The exact reasons for his about-face are still opaque, but we do know that it happened
through a combination of international pressure and army intervention. To what degree the army is now
running things is unclear; vague and ominous ordinances have been proposed, some of which hint at
restrictions on personal freedom and on the media.
Walter Benjamin famously said that a state of emergency is also always a state of emergence. Can we take
this literally in Bangladesh? Will the emergency see us through to a fair election, or will the army
consolidate its power and wrest democracy from us indefinitely? And what would happen to my desh-
prem then? Could it survive another onslaught?
Whenever I imagine returning to Bangladesh for good, I wonder what kind of country I want to return to.
I want, more than anything, to have that feeling of protean possibility that my father must have had when
he crossed the border into his new country. I want a country where my gender does not preclude me from
being an equal citizen. Where corruption has not touched every facet of public life. Where the children
don't sell popcorn on street corners or work in matchstick factories. I want to know that I'm going to show
up on polling day and see my name on the voter registration list. I want to stand in a queue, press my
thumb into a pad of ink, and put my mark wherever I like. I want my politicians to stop courting the
Islamic right. I want the water table to stop rising. I want the government to stop driving the Hindus and
the Chakmas and the Santals out of this country. I want someone to count my vote. I want a halt to the
steady erosion of civil liberties.
I want a country where the army cannot arrest anyone without a warrant. I want our political parties to be
democratic, transparent and accountable. I want fair and neutral judges. I want the right to vote. I want
there to be no such thing as a legal fatwa. I want the war criminals of the 1971 genocide to be tried,
condemned and jailed. I want to vote. I want a country worthy of my desh-prem. I want a country.
Exclusion Perspective
TahmimaAnam raised in Paris, New York city and Bangkok, born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1975 , is
grand-daughter of a renowned satirist Abul Mansur Ahmed. She studied at Holyoke College and Harvard
University and the earned a Ph.d in Social Anthropology. Her debute Novel, A Golden Age was short
listed for the Guardian First Book Award and the Costa First Novel Prize and is the winner of the
Commonwealth Prize for the writers, for the best first novel in 2008. Being her first work, this novel has
been translated into about 22 languages. She is a Londoner at present and her writings are published in
The Newyork Times (Granta) and in the Guardian. By this paper work I intend to analyze the impact
of social and political exclusion on human as a part of society. A Golden Age means as a testimony.
Anam, using her familys experiences as inspiration for her debut novel, tells the story of the Indian
subcontinents other partitionthe nine-month war that ended in 1971, that separates West and East
Pakistan into Pakistan and Bangladesh. Anam, an expatriate Bangladeshi and an anthropologist by
training, is a keen, sympathetic witness for her heroine, RehanaHaque, a widow living in a middle-class
enclave of Dhaka. The objectives of the present paper work is to find out the measures to minimize or
possibly eradicate the cause of destitution (the extreme poverty and hunger) to minimise bonded labour
and starvation death, and the most global problem War and to study on the factors responsible for the
crime against excluded communities.
It is important to elevate from narrow conceptualizations of social exclusion in terms of factors like
gender, caste and economy rather it should render focusing at the actual requirement of the individual and
the mass in Indian society. Liberal Indian economy have prevailed social inclusion and exclusion
circulating cycle of poverty and inequality and hence compiles to develop a deeper understanding in
complex social political procession and of our economic policy in contemporary India. To build India a
Nation of power, first thing is to understand the Indian subalterns and work on the policy implemented
economical propaganda. The changing contemporary social composition of economical strata is to be
recognized and then to find an economical source through Man Power which should command over
castes and sustain over the equilibrium of Gender, ethnicity, language and religion.
The present paper work deals with the Dynamics of Social Exclusion and the role of Human Resource
Development in the country of diversity India and South Asia; the Dynamics of Social Exclusion policy.
For the incredible India, it is important for the man and woman of the country to be proactive for their
own individual existence as an individual, for social being and for the Nation. Professional education to
women should be promoted with incidence of utter destitution and prostitution; women forced into sexual
exploitation from socially and economically excluded community. However, the chief objectives of the
work are as follows:

? To discuss the theoretical framework of the Dynamics of Social Exclusion South Asian Literature of
Human Resource Development and South Asian Exclusion,in reference to Anams A Golden Age.
? To analyze the present Social Scenario in present time in this context, and
? To anatomize the comprehensive view to develop and improve the life of common people.

A Golden Age is the story of passion and revolution, hope,faith and heroism. It is about the human chaos
and conflict and political and social exclusion. RehanaHaque suddenly realizes one morning in the month
of March and is feeling happy to throw a party for her son Sohail. The setting of the novel is East
Pakistan in 1971, a country at the brink of war. It is set against the backdrop of Bangladesh war of
Independence. Her house is built in the garden, the roses are blooming in her garden and that is the
symbol of her children growing-up and at the same time the city is buzzing with excitement after the
recent election. Political air is at the rapid change when she is striving hard for the safeguard of her
children.
Dynamism of Exclusion can be well explained for the inner conflict of Rehana as she loses the control
over her children after her husbands death.The character RehanaHaque is based on the real character, the
authors grandmother, who helped the freedom fighter during the Bangaldesh liberation War.
The creation of multiple Perspectives within the text, a rendering visible and accessible of the dynamics
of human struggle. To interpret Markandeyas novel in purely sociological terms, is not only to deny their
formal complexity; it is also to mis-interpret their meanings. As Eagleton commenting on Lukacs,
argument against crude attempts to raid literary works for their ideological content, puts it: . the true
bearers of ideology in art are the very forms rather than the obstacles content of the work itself. We find
the impress of History in the literary work precisely as literary not as some superior form of social
documentation. (Introduction to Markandeya- p26)
Pankaj Mishra praised A Golden Age as a startingly accomplished and gripping novel that described not
only the tumult of a great historical eventbut also small but heroic struggle of individual living in the
shadow of the revolution and war?.
Her second Novel The Good Muslim sequel to A Golden Age is an epic story about faith, family and
the long shadow of war. During the days of the civil war, SohailHaque stumble upon abandoned building
where he finds a young woman of the destitute destiny whose story is unforgettable for lifetime for him
and is haunting. Maya returns home after a long time after transformation of her brother. Sohail has
adopted his old life to become a religious leader having developed in a religious fundamentalism, he
decides sending his son to madrasa while Maya with her revolutionary ideals comes to a conflict with him
and then to a devastating climax.
Rehana is one of the millions of ordinary people caught up in the Bangladeshi independence movement,
in this case through the activism of her college-aged children, Sohail and Maya. Most of the novels
action takes place within Rehanas home and an adjoining house, called Shona, which swiftly becomes
the center of her world, as Sohail and his friends turn it into a guerrilla headquarters. Anams eye for
historical detail is sharp: When Shonas tenants abandon the house,Rehana wraps their plates in censored
newspapers, with advertisements for Tibet soap and Brylcreem framing empty spaces.? Yet in addition to
the inevitable cataclysms of violence, A Golden Age captures smaller moments. As Rehana flees Dhaka,
she thinks, So she had locked up the two houses and draped sheets over the furnitureshe had seen her
father do the same, a long time ago, when they had lost Wellington Square. She wondered if it made her a
refugee, this train, this distance, the sheets on the furniture.?
Dynamism in Social Exclusion can make a group or community very powerful if we see, if taken implied
positively. Education plays an incessant role in stratum of economical inclusion exclusion where we find
working class learners excluded from participation in higher education caused by their financial weakness
or low esteemed vision of the education institutions towards them. Inclusion in education should put
values into action in practices and provisions. Within the framework of this ideology the subaltern studies
enterprise has to focus upon the status of subalterns and socially excluded as all economically backward,
minorities , women and disabled children.
For Rene Lenoir(1974), excluded means a tenth of the French population mentally and physically
handicapped, suicidal people, aged invalids, substance abusers, delinquents, single parents, abused
children, multi-problem households, marginal, asocial persons and other social misfits. (Rene Lenoir a
French social activist used the terms exclusion inclusion for the first time.)
Hardly any work in this regard is carried on the Dynamics of Social Exclusion in Ministry of Human
Resource Development, South Asian Exclusion: Nevertheless, some reviews and articles on Ministry of
Human Resource Development, Social Exclusion, Inclusion have been listed in the Bibliography. It is not
feasible to capture the whole of human psyche to understand their least natural requirement. The selected
areas in the subject matter will comprehend the resolutions regarding the question of the subject matter of
the present work, Dynamics of Social Exclusion in A Golden Age: A Novel By TahmimaAnam in
reference to the human resource development, I feel Anam can be compared to Kamala Markandeya
having written social documentation of the society.
The work of Exclusion is one of the contemporary demands of the time in India and abroad and stands at
the place of the National-Global responsibility, playing the of a role-model of a huge body system, a
leading power so called Leviathan in the terms of Thomas Hobbes.
The selected area of the work The Dynamics Of Social Exclusion in the Human Resource development,
is to understand the Dynamics of Social Exclusion and to help to understand the human requirements
channelized up to the apex of the National welfare, and South Asian Literature. For the present
workentitled The Dynamics of social Exclusion A Golden Age: A Novel, in South Asian Exclusion, in
TahmimaAnams A Golden Age, I have used the analytical method is for the present paper work. In
anticipation to the present work which is to comprehend the statement, The essence of Education is
service to Humanity?, on the selected topic.
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