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Using cultural trauma: G andhi's assassination, partition and secular nationalism in post‐independence I ndia
Author(s) -
Debs Mira
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
nations and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.655
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1469-8129
pISSN - 1354-5078
DOI - 10.1111/nana.12038
Subject(s) - nationalism , narrative , ideology , sociology , independence (probability theory) , partition (number theory) , national identity , gender studies , political science , law , art , literature , politics , statistics , mathematics , combinatorics
Nationalism theorists have noted the link between traumatic events and national identity, and cultural trauma theory presents a framework for understanding how these events become trauma narratives. I argue for greater consideration of how these narratives are strategically linked to ideological frames of national identity. A case study of post‐ I ndependence I ndia considering the assassination of M ahatma G andhi and the P artition of I ndia and P akistan demonstrates how two very different events were promoted as cultural traumas by various carrier groups in order to promote a secular vision of the Indian nation. Adapting A rmstrong and C rage (2006), I suggest that the success of these trauma narratives depend on several criteria: the ease of narrating the event, how it is linked to underlying cultural meanings/frames and how the event interacts with historical contingencies.