Gandhian Doctrine of Ahimsa, Communalism and Nationality in Manohar Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges

Abstract

Manohar Malgonkar’s political novel A Bend in the Ganges (1964) presents a coherent version of the extant milieu of Indian civic and national life from the time of the Civil Disobedience Movement of the 1930s to the threshold of declaration of Independence in August, 1947 and the accompanied partition and its aftermath on the socio-cultural life of Indian people. The novelist, like a genuine and impartial historian poignantly outlines the troubled transformation of the colonized sub-continent, its bifurcation along the religious lines and to what extent the existing politico-religious scenario affects the perception of freedom and nationality of the novel’s central protagonists, namely Debi Dayal and Shafi Usman, and Gian Talwar amid the confusion and catastrophe before, during, and after the partition. Besides, offering a critique of the Gandhian doctrine of absolute non-violence (ahimsa) as the soul pathway for achieving liberation from the British, the narrative also focuses on the communal violence that jeopardised the otherwise secular and tolerant idea of mutual trust and harmonious cohabitation among the countrymen prior to the declaration of Independence. The present essay attempts an analysis of this complex political situation as incorporated by Malgonkar in this novel and explores the effectiveness of the ideology of non-violence, religious extremism in determining national loyalties at the time of the infamous partition of the British Indian subcontinent in 1947.