Socio-cultural aspects and their impact on partition novels with special reference to Amitav Ghosh

Abstract

The Partition of India in 1947 was not merely a political event but a socio-cultural rupture that reshaped identities, histories, and geographies across the subcontinent. Partition novels, as literary responses to this trauma, reflect the profound impact of socio-cultural factors such as religion, nationalism, migration, memory, and communalism. This paper explores how these elements influence the thematic and narrative structure of Partition literature, with a special focus on Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines. Although not a conventional Partition novel, Ghosh’s work offers a complex examination of the lingering effects of Partition through personal memory, transnational identity, and the illusion of borders. The novel critiques the artificiality of national divisions and highlights how communal violence, displacement, and cultural memory continue to shape individual and collective consciousness. Through the lens of socio-cultural analysis, The Shadow Lines emerges as a powerful narrative that interrogates the legacy of Partition and redefines the boundaries of historical fiction.