American Research Journal of English and Literature

This research study tries to analyze the nature of violence represented in About Daddy (2000 AD) by Meeena Arora Nayak and Looking Through Glass (1995 AD) by MukulKesavan in terms of Priya Kumar’s book Limiting Secularism and the locus of the study is based primarily on the critique of partition historiography posited by Gynendra Pandey. Moreover, it tries to explicate what the postcolonial critique of partition historiography reveals the absence of the trauma of the violence and the subaltern perspective of the events. This study keeps into consideration all those critiques as it reads the secular discourse of violence in recent two novels of the partition violence of 1947-About Daddy and Looking Through Glass. By criticizing all kinds of identity markers (nationality, religion, gender…) created through nationalist discourse in history, the paper contends that the representation of Indian partition violence is painted by a secular rather than a communal standpoint in the novels.