Politics of Silence and Resistance

A Critical Study of Noor

Abstract

The traumatic events of 1971 challenged the grand
narrative of Muslim identity in the subcontinent. I call it the second
partition. Humanity suffered both in 1947 and 1971. In 1947, Muslims
were attacked by Non- Muslim population. But in 1917, a predominantly
Muslim army committed atrocities in the West Pakistan in the name of
defending geographical boundaries of the state. In theoretical terms, it
was a contestation between geographies of boundaries and geography of
resistance. Sorayya A Khan, in her preface to Noor, states that not much
is said on this subject in Pakistan. In other words, the state apparatuses in
Pakistan chose to remain silent on the subject that revised the discourse
of national ideology/identity in Pakistan. In my paper, I have analyzed how
the narratives of resistance are silenced to create a simulacrum of state
sponsored national unity. Absence reinforces the presence. In Noor, Ali,
the protagonist brings back Sajida to Pakistan from Bangladesh. He thinks
that it would atone for the sins he had committed in East Pakistan as a
Pakistani soldier. He never reveals Sajida’s Bengali identity to her. And
as a surrogate father, he does everything to give Sajida a decent life. But
the past returns in the persona of Noor, the child born with Down
syndrome. Noor has an exceptional quality to paint. And what she paints
becomes a nightmare to Ali. The paintings bring back the memories of a
traumatic past that Ali had so carefully silenced. The disability challenges
ideological discursivity. My argument is that these paintings serve as a
trope to redefine the geographies of resistance which the discursive
national consciousness tries to silence. Art defines the geographies of
resistance.