Using cultural trauma: G andhi's assassination, partition and secular nationalism in post‐independence I ndia

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.