Abstract

This article examines how the memory of the 1947 Partition persists in contemporary Hindi fiction through a close reading of two short stories by Jyoti Chawla. Drawing on Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, and engaging with trauma theory, narratology, and gender studies, the essay argues that Partition in these texts operates not as a completed historical event but as an ongoing condition that shapes subjectivity across generations. The analysis shows how memory is transmitted through objects, bodies, and narrative form, producing distinct gendered patterns of inheritance. By comparing material and spatial memory in “Cābī, ghar aur aṁdherā” with embodied and relational memory in “Lājo”, the article demonstrates how Chawla’s fiction reconfigures Partition as a persistent and unresolved structure within the contemporary present. This article contributes to current debates on postmemory and Partition literature by showing how gender and narrative form reshape the transmission of historical trauma across generations. The reactivation of violence in contemporary contexts—whether through communal unrest or gendered aggression—reveals the structural persistence of historical trauma.

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