Angles

New Perspectives on the Anglophone World

14 | 2022
Angles on Naya/New Pakistan

Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in

Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography
Madhurima Sen

Electronic version
URL: https://journals.openedition.org/angles/5209
DOI: 10.4000/angles.5209
ISSN: 2274-2042

Publisher
Société des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur

Printed version
Date of publication: 1 April 2022

Electronic reference
Madhurima Sen, “Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography”,
Angles [Online], 14 | 2022, Online since 01 April 2022, connection on 29 May 2022. URL: http://
journals.openedition.org/angles/5209 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.5209

This text was automatically generated on 29 May 2022.

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International.
 Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography 1

Collective Amnesia and

Generational Memory in Kamila
Shamsie’s Kartography
Madhurima Sen

Between our birth in 1947 and 1995, dead bang

between our beginning and our present, is 1971,
of which I know next to nothing except that there
was a war and East Pakistan became Bangladesh,
and what terrible things we must have done then
to remain silent about it. Is it shame at losing the
war, or guilt about what we did to try to win that
mutes us?
Kamila Shamsie, Kartography (2019: 270)
1 The military conflict of 1971, glorified as the ‘Liberation War’ in Bangladesh, is
remembered as the ‘Civil War’ in Pakistan. While 1971 is largely understood as a
moment of freedom from internal colonisation in Bangladesh, it signifies the collapse
of the dream of Pakistan. 16 December 1971, the moment of victory for Bangladesh is
for Pakistan a mark of ignominious defeat not only at the hands of rebellious ‘un-
Islamic’ ‘effeminate’1 Bengalis, but also its ‘arch-enemy’, India. Unlike Bangladesh,
where references to the war form a part of popular political rhetoric to this day, in
Pakistan, a shroud of uncomfortable silence surrounds the war. In Bangladesh,
references to the war percolate through every aspect of popular media, films and
advertisements as well as the political sphere.2 Contrariwise, in Pakistan, narratives
about the war are relatively scarce in terms of both official and literary narratives. 3 It is
only recently that a new generation of Pakistani fiction writers have engaged with the
complex entanglements of the war. Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke (2000), Sorayya Khan’s
Noor (2004), Moni Mohsin’s The End of Innocence (2006), and Kamila Shamsie’s
Kartography (2001) are some contemporary novels that focus on the events of 1971. Even
though they are few, I would like to argue that such fictional narratives which refer to
the war decades later allow more space for alternative readings and fill in the

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 Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography 2

discursive vacuum by representing marginalized experiences. In the absence of

adequate historical and official narratives, analysing fiction can pave the way to
decoding generational memory and collective amnesia.
2 This article undertakes a close reading of one of the few novels from Pakistan that uses
the 1971 war as its backdrop, Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography. The novel spans from 1970
to the mid-1990s, and the plot is largely shaped by the continuing ripples of the war of
1971. The initial chapters open in 1986 in a Karachi torn apart by ethnic violence and
political battles between Muhajirs and Sindhis.4 The novel revolves around the young
generation’s response towards the incomprehensible events of the war, a generation
whose parents’ lives had undergone a drastic transformation during the war. Raheen
and Karim, young teenagers from elite families, are intimate companions whose
mothers had swapped fiancés back in 1971. Karim’s mother, Maheen, had been engaged
to Raheen’s father, Zafar; and Raheen’s mother, Yasmin, was betrothed to Karim’s
father, Ali. The novel circles around the ambiguity and mystery around the fiancé
swap, the reason for which is revealed only towards the end. Raheen learns to her
horror that her father, Zafar, whom she always looked up to for his impeccable
principles and ideals, had fallen prey to the ethnic bias that percolated through society
in 1971. He had found it too onerous to be engaged to a Bengali in the West Pakistan of
1971 amidst racial tensions. The novel draws several parallels between the two time
periods and traces the cycle of violence through generations. The title of the novel
refers to Karim’s dream of becoming a cartographer of Karachi and draws attention to
the novel’s focus on claims over territory by various groups and on events that result in
the redrawing of maps and borders.
3 Kartography has received academic attention for its portrayal of the urban cityscape of
Karachi and its representation of the ethnic clashes between Sindhi and Muhajir
communities. Veena Lydia Lobo (2020) and Priya Kumar (2016) specifically focus on the
examination of Muhajirs as a diasporic community in the novel. Shamsie’s innovative
use of English interspersed with local Urdu words has been elaborated upon by Naeem
Khan Jadoon (2017). Cara Cilano (2011) draws parallels between Kartography and Mohsin
Hamid’s Moth Smoke (2000) to focus attention on the cycle of corruption that runs
through the nation along with persisting ethnic and class tensions. There remains
another very significant strand in the novel that is yet to receive adequate scholarly
focus: the cultural narrative about 1971.
4 This article examines Shamsie’s novel to bring out the paradoxical relationship
between generational memory and collective amnesia that characterizes the
remembering of the war in Pakistan. It analyses Kartography in opposition to the
dominant narratives of war in Pakistan and explores the novel’s attempt to create an
alternate form of history. It studies the representation of history as a narrative and
emphasizes the role of literary narratives in retelling history. Next, it considers how
the author creates a parallel between governmental secrecy about 1971 and denial at a
more personal level through a study of the novel’s representation of guilt and amnesia
in national and individual memory. Delving into the relationship between class and
ethnicity, the article delineates the role of narrative in forging national identity and
facilitating ‘othering’. It proceeds to an analysis of literary strategies used in the novel
to drive home a sense of uncertainty and inconclusiveness and delves into apology as a
genre and attempts to locate the novel in the context of proliferating international
apologies for historical injustices. Using Marianne Hirsch’s concept of post-memory

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 Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography 3

(1996) and Michael Rothberg’s concept of implicated subjectivity (2019), it attempts to

understand the experiences of later generations who did not experience the war but
grew up in the shadow of its mediated memory.
5 Soon after the war ended, on 26 December 1971, the new President of Pakistan, Benazir
Bhutto, formed the Hamoodur Rehman Commission “to inquire into the circumstances
under which the Eastern Command surrendered” (Government of Pakistan 2000: 11).
However, the Commission’s report was not declassified until 2000 after it was leaked by
an Indian media house. Cara Cilano has observed how even this report fails to provide
definitive answers and leaves a “narrative vacuum at the national level” (Cilano 2011:
2). Qutubuddin Aziz’s Blood and Tears (1974) presents itself as a journalistic record of the
events of 1971, dedicated to the “hundreds of thousands of innocent” Pakistanis
“slaughtered” by the “militants” of Awami League during their “reign of terror”, and
can act as a good example of the mainstream representation of the 1971 war in
Pakistan. Sarmila Bose’s Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War (2016),
which claims that the Pakistani army’s actions have been monstrously exaggerated and
fabricated in “the winning side’s narrative” (11) and which accuses Bangladesh of the
“persistent cultivation of a ‘victim culture’” (183) has, by the author’s own admission,
received a far greater degree of acceptance in Pakistan than elsewhere (12). Tendencies
to circumvent the shame of loss and the guilt of war crimes have made the hegemonic
narrative of the 1971 war disturbingly distorted. The peculiar nature of public memory
characterized by silences, omissions and denial that spreads through generations is
worth delving into. For a long time, Pakistani literary narratives have been silent about
the war that broke the dream of unified Pakistan. However, in recent years, a young
generation of writers have attempted to address the alternate forms of history. Along
with Mohsin Hamid, Moni Mohsin, and Sorayya Khan, Kamila Shamsie is one of the
foremost representatives of this group who all represent different aspects of the
diaspora.
6 Shamsie, in an interview with Cilano, talks about history as a narrative constantly
being written by those in power: “When you grow up under a military dictator with a
lot of censorship, how else are you going to think about it? We used to open the
morning newspaper and see how ‘official histories’ are being written, but you know
they’re fiction.” Thus, her novel attempts to provide “alternate forms of narrative”
(Cilano 2017: 151), unlike the majority of earlier accounts which “conforms to the
nation’s general insensitivity to the Bengali demands” (Memon 1983: 108). Kartography
is at variance with dominant narratives as it demonstrates the ordeals of being a
Bengali in West Pakistan during the war, instead of dismissing Bengali claims as an
insubordinate mutiny. The novel engages with the dominant identities manifested
through these mainstream narratives and demonstrates the dangers of exclusive
nationalism and human susceptibility to such ‘othering’ ideologies. It complicates the
binary of victim and perpetrator and brings in the notion of the ‘implicated subject’
(Rothberg 2019).
7 Karim and Raheen grow up in their affluent families, staying well protected from the
ethnic strife that ravages their city. Their parents conceal the true reason behind their
swap as fiancés and provide a sanitized version of their past. They evade their
children’s understandable curiosity using the rehearsed imagery of waltzing couples
swapping partners because the “music changed” (Shamsie 2019: 48). The elite circle of
Karachi serves as a microcosm for the nation at large: their attempt to silence and

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 Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography 4

avoid the past is the author’s way of representing the distortion of events in national
historiography. Stifling the voice of the inquisitive Raheen is consistent with the
suppression of the Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report by the government. Just as
the “holes of unreliability in the government-controlled narratives inadvertently
signalled to the Pakistani people that other narratives of the events of 1971 were
waiting to be told” (Cilano 2011: 18), Raheen’s curiosity is inflamed by her parents’
attempt at concealment. The sanitized version of history keeps self-examination at bay
at the level of family as well as the nation. Discovering that one’s father had found
being engaged to a Bengali too much of a burden, or that one’s mother married her best
friend’s fiancé despite his jingoist outburst might jeopardize the palatable rendering of
the past that has been painstakingly put together for the later generations. “A
standard, repetitive, false, spurious and monotonous description of the break-up of
Pakistan appears in every textbook”, observes K.K. Aziz (1993: 154). Zafar’s attempt to
provide an agreeable version of the past to his daughter is a representation of the
Pakistani nation’s endeavour to write an acceptable version of national history where
its own actions can be justified: “Everything he promised he wouldn’t do — like keep
quiet about what he’d done, like turn his back on ’71 — he did because he was afraid of
the consequences of telling you the truth” (Shamsie 2019: 281).
8 The themes of guilt, shame, acknowledgement, and forgiveness run through the entire
novel, all of which are masterfully connected to the pervading violence in Pakistan. 5
The desire to forget the ignominious loss of half of the country and the dishonourable
actions of the West Pakistani army is connected with the desire to overlook how
individuals gave themselves away to ethnic hatred and xenophobia, and condoned the
brutality of the army, as can be seen in Ali’s alarmed observation:
This country’s turned rabid-the soldiers are raping the women, Zaf, raping them, all
over East Pakistan, and in drawing rooms around Karachi people applaud their
attempt to improve the genes of the Bengalis.6 (Shamsie 2019: 198)
9 This is reflected by how Zafar’s shameful action towards Maheen and his subsequent
marriage to Yasmin are approved by everyone in the community because everyone was
“so frantically busy trying to put the war and everything associated with it behind
them” (Shamsie 2019: 189). Focusing too much attention on the deplorable nature of
Zafar’s action would also incriminate others for having shunned the company of
Maheen during the war, for having subjected her to casual as well as virulent ethnic
bigotry. Thus, when Aunty Laila justifies her actions by saying, “Darling, if you hold
everyone accountable for what they said and did in ’71 hardly anyone escapes
whipping”, Raheen cannot but see through the convenient “comfort of collective guilt”
(Shamsie 2019: 278). “Where all are guilty, nobody is”, argues Arendt (1987: 43). Such an
attitude of deliberate collective amnesia and denial of “collective responsibility”
(Arendt 1987: 43) confirms the elite crowd’s position as “implicated subjects” 7 who
“help propagate the legacies of historical violence and prop up the structures of
inequality that mar the present” (Rothberg 2019: 1).
10 Kamila Shamsie observes that language has always been used to justify one barbaric act
after another, be it the dropping of atomic bombs or the atrocities in East Pakistan:
“That’s language being used at its worst, when it’s being used simply to justify, to ease a
conscience. It’s very effective. You really can convince yourself and many people
around you of pretty much anything” (Cilano 2017: 161). In this context, it is interesting
to note how characters in Kartography refer to the armed conflict of 1971 as ‘Civil War,’
unlike Bangladeshi writings which almost always prefer to use the term ‘Liberation

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 Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography 5

War’. A particular conversation in 1971 between Maheen and Asif, a wealthy Sindhi
landowner, draws attention to the significance of the choice of words to reveal one’s
political leanings. When Maheen observes that the Bengalis will not remain ‘enslaved’
for too long, Asif trivializes her concerns by saying, “And come on, Maheen, isn’t
enslaved a little too dramatic a word?” (Shamsie 2019: 182). Asif’s comfortable
justification of Pakistani belligerence through the coupling of adjectives such as “sane”,
“rational” and “cheerful” (Shamsie 2019: 182) with war is striking in its semantic
manipulation. Through Asif’s comments, Shamsie demonstrates how language is
distorted to explain away military aggression and provide a rationale for political
inequality.
11 By situating the novel in the uppermost echelons of Karachi society, Shamsie brings
together the issue of class and ethnicity. Does class position save people from being
affected by ethnic troubles? This is a question that runs throughout the novel. A
specific episode in the novel highlights how Raheen and the class she belongs to are
implicated in the ongoing violence in Karachi. Ambushed by a car thief, Raheen and her
friends are surprised to hear themselves being referred to as ‘Burgers’, the English-
speaking elite of Karachi. The car thief is a Muhajir, like Raheen’s family. However,
belonging to high society ensures that the infamous quota system 8 reserving education
and jobs for Sindhis does not impact Raheen’s protected life:
Privilege erased the day-to-day struggles of ethnic politics, and however Karim
might want me to feel about the matter I couldn’t pretend I was sorry that I had
been born on ‘this side of Clifton Bridge’ where class bound everyone together in an
enveloping embrace, with ethnicity only a secondary or even tertiary concern.
(Shamsie 2019: 175)
12 However, the novel illustrates that, no matter how secure one’s class position is, there
might arise historical moments when one’s ethnic identity becomes more of a deciding
factor. Maheen, out with her friends for an upscale dinner during the war, has to
witness Asif roaring at a Bengali waiter, “Halfwit Bingo! Go back to your jungle”
(Shamsie 2019: 183). This episode in which Maheen locks eyes with the humiliated
waiter for a moment exhibits that class cannot always eclipse subnational identities:
“for a moment the barriers of class and gender became porous and something passed
between them that Zafar couldn’t quite identify. Maheen’s hand slipped out of Zafar’s”
(Shamsie 2019: 184). The novel uses parallelism between the two timeframes to
demonstrate the resemblance between Zafar’s attitude of turning his eyes away from
violence unless it is at his door, and Raheen’s unapologetic confidence in the security
guaranteed by her class position. The plot follows Raheen’s character arc as she
gradually comes to terms with the implicated subject positions of her parents as well as
herself. Concluding the novel with the protagonist’s newly acquired self-awareness is
an invitation for national self-examination: “The stress on rethinking historical and
political responsibility as implication highlights the need to hold implicated subjects
accountable in both moral and political registers” (Rothberg 2019: 200).
13 When a disgruntled impoverished Muhajir, who is directly affected by the political
upheavals in 1990s Karachi, asks the adult Karim, “We didn’t learn anything, did we?
From ’71”, Karim observes, “We learned to forget” (Shamsie 2019: 176). However, the
novel demonstrates how collective amnesia worsens the problems of history and how a
refusal to acknowledge collective responsibility results in a cycle of violence:
Bangladesh. It made us see what we were capable of. No one should ever know what
they are capable of. But worse, even worse, is to see it and then pretend you didn’t.

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 Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography 6

The truths we conceal don’t disappear, Raheen, they appear in different forms.
(Shamsie 2019: 305)
14 The retrospective narrative structure of the novel demonstrates how the past cannot
be suppressed into oblivion. The overwhelming question that runs through the novel is
one written by a bewildered Raheen: “What does 1971 have to do with now?” (Shamsie
2019: 269). The novel alternates between two timeframes: 1971, and the period between
the 1980s and the mid-1990s. The fact that the narrative keeps circling back to the
events of 1971 demonstrates the failure of the attempts of Zafar’s generation to keep
the violence of the war under covers:
What happens when you work so hard to forget a horror that you also forget that you have
forgotten it? It doesn’t disappear — the canker turns inwards and mutates into something
else […] this country has seen what it is capable of but hasn’t yet paused to take account.
(Shamsie 2019: 305)
15 Instead of proceeding in a straight line, the plot of the novel meanders through almost
three decades. The reason behind the fiancé swap is at the core of the novel, and the
narrative keeps returning to the event, retelling the story from different perspectives.
The emphasis on this time frame draws attention to the continuing repercussions of
the war. The story needs to be retold not just for Karim and Raheen who have been
kept in dark about the ignoble past; it needs reiteration for the Pakistani nation at large
who have been shielded from the happenings of the war by the national
historiography. David Scott observes the tendency to propagate romanticized versions
of history in postcolonial historiography (2004: 7). Such modes of history writing evade
the disappointments and disillusionments after decolonization and serve to emphasize
the apparent distinction between the colonial and post-colonial nation. Cilano argues
that novels like Kartography act as a divergence from the romantic public narrative of
postcolonial nations and offer a different kind of narrative — that of tragedy (2011: 97).
Such novels open the possibility for the acknowledgement of the failure of the Pakistan
dream and address the issue of collective amnesia and state of denial. The desire to
obliterate the memory of the war is illustrated by Shamsie through an evocative
metaphor:
The finger squeezing the trigger becomes a thing apart from the bullet that speeds across the
sands, which becomes a thing apart from the child looking down at his blood pumping out of
his heart. And that child, that bullet, that finger, they become things way, way apart from
our lives, here, in rooms where we look upon our own sleeping children. (Shamsie 2019:
313)
16 A key incident of the novel, around which the rest of the plot revolves, is a scene in
1972 where Zafar is accosted by his frenzied, raving neighbour, Shafiq, whose brother
died at the hands of the Mukti Bahini in East Pakistan. Asked by Shafiq how he can
bring himself to marry a Bengali, Zafar comments: “How can I marry one of them? How
can I let one of them bear my children? Think of it as a civic duty. I’ll be diluting her
Bengali blood line.” (Shamsie 2019: 232) However, the novel provides no definitive
answers as to why the otherwise liberal Zafar demonstrates such ethnocentrism at that
specific moment despite being aware of Maheen’s silent presence behind him. It
remains unclear whether he spouted venom against Bengalis to appease the distraught
Shafiq, whether he said what Shafiq wanted to hear to dissuade him from possible
violence in case Maheen’s presence in the house came to his knowledge, or if he
succumbed to ethnocentric hatred in the face of Shafiq’s anguish. The question of
whether Zafar spoke impulsively, or whether he was trying to protect himself and

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 Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography 7

Maheen, or whether he was in essence a discriminatory hypocrite remains unsettled.

Zafar himself suggests the possibility that he was perhaps unconsciously hoping for
Maheen to overhear his comment and terminate the relationship since he was too weak
to do it himself. He knew “what to say, so unforgivable, to make Maheen leave him”
(Shamsie 2019: 335). He acknowledges to his daughter: “But which thought was it,
which of the two thoughts, that made him say what he said?... He doesn’t know. He’ll
never know” (Shamsie 2019: 335). It is this very “possibility of being complicit”
(Shamsie 2019: 93) instead of any kind of certain black and white categorisation that
the novel brings to the fore.
17 Narrative ambivalence and a pervading sense of inconclusiveness are major
components of the novel which create an atmosphere riddled with unanswered
questions and lack of certainty. Sometimes it appears that the novel is written in
fragments, events being narrated from various perspectives so that readers can place
the various pieces together and find the most convincing explanation for themselves.
The novel resists the impulse of closure and ends in a deeply ambiguous moment. The
protagonist, Raheen, recognizes the ever-present reality and proximity of ethnic
conflicts but the novel leaves open the possible consequences of her newfound
understanding. The inconclusive ending of the novel reinforces the idea that there is
no easy resolution for the problems that arose from the events of 1971: “to pretend the
matter can be easily discussed and resolved is to deny how deep in our marrow consequences are
lodged.” (Shamsie 2019: 332) There is no panacea to resolve the complications at either a
personal or national level. Uncertainty runs through the novel, with the narrator,
Raheen, often relinquishing direct narratorial control to make space for letters, maps
and academic dissertations. At various moments, her narrative breaks down and she
questions whether her narrative style and content are influenced by the benefit of
hindsight.
18 Rhoda E. Howard-Hassman and Mark Gibney have termed the recent phenomena of
nations coming to terms with their unjust actions towards other nations as “the age of
apology”: “There seems to be almost universal recognition that a society will not be
able to successfully pass into the future until it somehow deals with its demons from
the past.” (2008: 1) The 1990s have seen a surge in international apologies for historical
injustices. Pervez Musharraf, who was the President of Pakistan from 2001 to 2008,
expressed his regret for the events of 1971 during his visit to Dhaka in 2002. 9 Cilano
observes,
Musharraf’s expression of regret, which fits into a broader phenomenon of political
apologies, raises questions about the meaning of the past, particularly for those for
whom he made this gesture, as much as it signals the closing of an historical
chapter. (Cilano 2011: 2)
19 Jane Yamazaki contrasts the rhetorical genre of apology with the genre of apologia. She
writes,
Apologia may include an apology—that is, an admission of responsibility and regret
—but it may also include denial, justification, and counterattack. What is essential is
the defensive nature of the rhetoric, in response to accusations of wrongdoing or
attack on reputation. […] Unlike other apologia strategies, apology is self-
denigrating and does not attempt to deny or mitigate responsibility. (Yamazaki
2006: 2)
20 Zafar’s long letter of apology to Maheen years after 1971 is in keeping with this
understanding of apology and is also representative of the moral and regenerative

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 Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography 8

values that sociologist Nicholas Tavuchis (1991) associates with the genre of apology
because it leads to his transformation into the principled man that his daughter,
Raheen, grows up admiring.
21 The novel presents the acknowledgement of responsibility and apologies as the first
step towards healing relationships, at both personal and international levels. In fact,
international relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh have improved since
President Musharraf’s apology in the same way as Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi
Murayama’s apology in 1995 for atrocities committed during the Japanese Occupation
paved the way for repairing the country’s strained relationship with neighbouring
countries (Murayama 1995). According to Tavuchis, “To apologise is to declare one has
no excuse, defense, justification or explanation, for an action (or non-action) that has
insulted, failed or injured another” (1991: 17). Yamazaki observes that there are three
general motives in historical apologies: repair of relationship, learning from history/
self-reflection and affirmation of moral principle (2006: 127). It is interesting to locate
Shamsie’s novel amidst the discourse of political apologies and examine what it aspires
to accomplish in the complex domain of global communication.
22 Lack of recognition of historical wrongdoings by the previous generation enables
similar scenarios to be repeated in a cycle of violence continuing for decades. The novel
emphasises the need for acknowledgement of past mistakes through parallelism in its
plotline. Cilano argues that the pattern of recurrence of ethnic violence “suggests that
Pakistani history consistently moves toward an exclusivity, a closing of the ranks”
(2011: 96). Karim and Raheen’s relationship falls apart in the 1990s because Karim
blames Zafar for his insensitivity and racial prejudice towards his mother. Raheen’s
attitude of indifference towards the ethnic clashes of Karachi in the 1990s reminds
Karim of her father’s attitude towards the war of 1971: “You really are your father’s
daughter.” (Shamsie 2019: 142) Karim’s apprehension is that, just like 1971 had done to
Zafar, the tumultuous national politics of the 1990s would compel Raheen to disclose
her “narrow-mindedness and cowardice and rage” (Shamsie 2019: 297). In his
understanding, her attitude of indifferent lack of concern towards the poorer Muhajirs
is echoed by Zafar’s lack of sympathy for the cause of the Bengalis in 1971:
He thought he could pretend the war and everything going on had nothing to do
with him […] until one day it was at his door and things inside him that he never
acknowledged, never tried to deal with, came out. […]
You’re the same, Raheen. The city is falling apart and you’re the same. (Shamsie
2019: 244)
23 The juxtaposition of the past and the present reinforces the notion that the past is alive
in the present through its unforeseen repercussions.
24 Hirsch observes that ‘postmemory’
characterizes the experiences of those who grow up dominated by narratives that
preceded their birth, whose own belated stories are evacuated by the stories of
previous generations shaped by traumatic events that can neither be understood
nor recreated. (Hirsch 1996: 662)
25 Young Karim’s identification of himself as a half-Bengali earns him blows from his
friend, Zia, in school who cannot accept that his friend has Bengali blood in him: “Tell
him not to lie […] He’s not Bengali, he’s not. He’s my friend” (Shamsie 2019: 42).
Parental intervention later reveals that Zia had learnt, possibly from his ayah, that
‘Bengali’ was a bad word. Zia’s desire to dismiss Karim’s Bengali bloodline is uncannily

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 Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography 9

similar to Raheen’s mother, Yasmin’s, attempt to deny Maheen’s Bengali ethnicity in

1971:
‘God’s sake, Asif, she’s lived all her life in Karachi’, Yasmin said. ‘She’s not…’
‘Not what?’ Maheen turned to her friend, ‘One of them?’ (Shamsie 2019: 183)
26 This incident demonstrates that even though the 1971 war was treated as “a long-
distant memory that had nothing to do with our present lives” (Shamsie 2019: 44), the
xenophobic stereotypes still radiated through society in the same way and haunted the
lives of later generations.
27 Throughout the novel, characters strive to attain a sense of self-identity, trying to
determine the relationship between themselves and the community or the nation.
Thus, the adult Karim’s conscious choice to identify himself as a Bengali by ethnicity is
of crucial significance and illustrates how his identity has been shaped by the memory
of a war that he has not personally experienced. Karim, who grew up in the shadow of
the injustice suffered by his mother during the war, cannot bring himself to forgive
Zafar even when his mother manages to do so. The novel advocates the necessity of
forgiveness as much as it emphasizes the need for apology by demonstrating the
impact of Karim’s failure to forgive on his personal life. The ultimate message of the
novel may be summed up in Maier’s words: “To live rightly a people needed both to
remember and to forget” (1993: 140).
28 Cilano studies the representation of Muhajirs in literature to argue that “the muhajir
figure patently disrupts nationalist efforts at identity consolidation” (2011: 36). What is
intriguing about Kartography is the author’s choice to give the most hurtful and
prejudiced lines in the entire novel to an otherwise thoughtful character like Zafar, a
Muhajir in Karachi, towards whom readers would likely be sympathetic. His awareness
of his own diasporic position motivates his desperate desire to be integrated into a
unified national identity and to be accepted as a ‘true Pakistani’ by discarding the
stigma of being an outsider. Hounded by his social group for being a “treasonous”
(Shamsie 2019: 198) “Bingo lover” (191), he tries to disassociate himself from empathy
with the cause of the Bengalis and feels the need to reiterate his loyalty and
nationalism:
"[“]Of course I’m not happy. We’ve lost half the country and most of our soul. What
the hell is there to be happy about? [… ]’
‘Oh, come on, Zaf. You cheered a little when the Indian forces entered the war on
the side of those Bengali bastards, didn’t you?’ (Shamsie 2019: 190-1)
29 Thus, the failed military offence takes the form of verbal and even physical aggression
against the ‘Bingo lover’, who is considered to be worse than the ‘Bingo’. 10 Maheen’s
Bengali ethnicity is determined by her birth but wartime jingoism cannot come to
terms with Zafar’s love for her and he is thus branded as a turncoat and a traitor.
30 The novel draws attention to the tendency of ethnic bigotry to contaminate all aspects
of life during turbulent times through the example of Zafar. The prejudice of characters
like Asif and Laila does not come as a surprise because readers have already
encountered them spouting venom about Muhajirs:
Coming across the border thinking we should be grateful for their presence. […] Do
you hear the way people like Zafar and Yasmin talk about ‘their Karachi’? My family
lived there for generations. Who the hell are these Muhajirs to pretend it’s their
city! (Shamsie 2019: 41)

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 Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography 10

31 However, the contagious nature of jingoism infects even Zafar, who is understood by
everyone as a principled man with high morals, and who himself has been at the
receiving end of ethnic bias. He catches himself thinking of Karachi as home for himself
but enemy territory for his fiancé, Maheen: “But this was her home, too. How could he
have forgotten that? But he had. Not for a second, or an hour, but for days, for weeks
[…] How insidiously this madness spread.” (Shamsie 2019: 187) Maheen had been openly
subjected to ethnic hatred by strangers as well as the elite company she kept. However,
it is when she overhears her fiancé, Zafar, belittling her for her ethnicity that she fully
comprehends the contagious nature of exclusionist nationalism.
32 The experience of Muhajirs as well as Bengalis demonstrates the hollowness of upper-
class camaraderie which very easily slips into the folds of othering and ethnic hatred.
As soon as Zafar argues against the quota system that discriminates against Muhajirs,
his ethnic identity is attacked by his friend, Laila: “You really pretend to have an
objective view of things, Zafar; but scratch the surface and that’s one hundred per cent
Muhajir blood that pours out, isn’t it?” (Shamsie 2019: 224) Yet the novel interestingly
undercuts the parallels that it draws between the Bengalis and the Muhajirs through
Yasmin’s acknowledgement that Muhajirs comparing their situation in the 1990s to
Bengalis is a deliberate disregard of their own position as implicated subjects in “a
system that perpetuated marginalization and intolerance of the Bengalis.” (Shamsie
2019: 319) In a novel that explores various forms of denial, this is the novelist’s
acknowledgement that history “is never obliging enough to replay itself in all details.”
(Shamsie 2019: 319)
33 Kartography belongs to a new category of Pakistani novels that engage with the memory
of the 1971 war after decades. Investigating the history of the war through such
cultural productions elucidates the effects of the war in the memory and emotional life
of the nations. Through an exploration of the issues left unresolved by the redrawing of
political borders, contemporary readers can remember the war as well as reconcile
with it and move on. Such cultural productions help in imagining possible ways of
healing and public narratives in Pakistan ameliorate the gruesome history of violence
and trauma. Kartography breaks new ground because it compels contemporary readers
to confront the censored and manipulated memory of the war.
34 This article illustrated the continuing legacies of the 1971 war in Pakistani national
identity despite active attempts to distort and neglect the memory of the war. Through
a close reading of Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography, it has attempted to locate the novel in
the context of belated apologies and highlight the paradoxical relationship between
collective amnesia and generational memory. The elite circle that forms the centre of
the novel serves as a microcosm for the Pakistani nation at large. The recurring theme
of guilt and forgiveness in the novel is an effective tool to exhort readers to engage in
personal and national self-examination. A careful reading of Kartography offers
rewarding insights into the role of literary narratives in problematizing clear-cut
boundaries between victims, perpetrators, and implicated subjects.

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 Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography 11

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Cilano, Cara. “‘In a World of Consequences’: An Interview with Kamila Shamsie.” Kunapipi 29 (1)
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Memon, Mohammad Umar. “Pakistani Urdu Creative Writing on National Disintegration: The
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Mohsin, Hamid. Moth Smoke. New York: Picador, 2000.

Mohsin, Moni. The End of Innocence. Gurgaon, India: Penguin Books, 2014.

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Mookherjee, Nayanika. Spectral Wound: Sexual Violence, Public Memories, and the Bangladesh War of
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Murayama, Tomiichi. “Statement on the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war”. August 15,
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Tavuchis, Nicholas. Mea Culpa: A Sociology of Apology and Reconciliation. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1991.

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NOTES
1. Mookherjee writes, “The west Pakistani army apparently saw these Kafers as small-boned,
short […], dark, lazy, effeminate, bheto (rice-and fish- eating and cowardly), half-Muslim Bengalis
of the river plains, in contrast to themselves, supposedly broad-boned, tall, fair, wheat-eating,
warrior-like, resilient, manly, brave Muslims of the rough topography of Pakistan” (2015: 164).
2. Niaz Zaman and Asif Farrukhi (2008) agree that the war “has exerted a greater and much more
profound influence on creativity” on Bangladesh” (xix). They add that “famous and not so-
famous writers, senior and fledgling writers, all have contributed their share to create a vast
body of work that has been inspired by 1971 in all genres” (xx).
3. Memon observes, “the discussion on this important event — which struck at the roots of
national ideology, divided the country, and caused a phenomenal number of Pakistani soldiers to
be thrown into Indian prison camps — has been, surprisingly, both sparse and casual in the field
of literature. Pakistani men of letters, otherwise known for their strident espousal of social and
political issues at home and abroad, have been less than forthcoming on the meaning and
consequences of their own national disintegration” (1983: 107).
4. The Partition of 1947 transformed the demography of Sindh. There was a huge influx of Urdu-
speaking migrants from India who moved to Pakistan after Partition and mostly settled down in
Karachi, thereby bringing about unforeseen changes in the economy and society of Sindh. Often
being more qualified than the Sindhis, the Muhajirs bagged important jobs and positions, giving
birth to considerable resentment from the existing population. Many local Sindhis looked upon
the Muhajirs as unwanted outsiders bringing about undesirable transformations in the culture,
language, and religious practices of Sindh. The politicization of Sindhis and Muhajirs into two
groups have led to political turmoil as well as armed conflict since the 1980s, and their dispute
remains unresolved.
5. For more on contemporary ethno-political violence in Pakistan, see Verkaaik (2004).
6. Tariq Ali uses very similar words to describe the Pakistani army’s justification of rape as an
attempt to “improve the genes of the Bengali people” (1983: 91).

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7. “An implicated subject is neither a victim nor a perpetrator, but rather a participant in
histories and social formations that generate the positions of victim and perpetrator, and yet in
which most people do not occupy such clear-cut roles. Less ‘actively’ involved than perpetrators,
implicated subjects do not fit the mold of the ‘passive’ bystander, either. Although indirect or
belated, their actions and inactions help produce and reproduce the positions of victims and
perpetrators.” (Rothberg 2019: 1)
8. In the 1970s, Pakistan saw the introduction of a quota system that took away the educational
and professional advantage once enjoyed by Urdu-speaking Muhajirs in Sindh. This caused
further deterioration in the relationship between the Sindhi and Muhajir communities.
9. “My brothers and sisters in Pakistan share with their fellow brothers and sisters in Bangladesh
profound grief over the parameters of the events of 1971. As a result of this tragedy a family
having common religious and cultural heritage and united by a joint struggle for independence
and a shared vision of the future, was torn apart. We feel sorry for this tragedy, and the pain it
caused to both our peoples.” (Habib 2002)
10. Interestingly, the first Pakistani English language fiction to deal with the 1971 War, a short
story by Tariq Rahman, is called “Bingo” (Cilano 2011: 6).

ABSTRACTS
The war of 1971 has been widely represented in all forms of media in Bangladesh. However,
Pakistani literature offers a stark contrast, as references to the war are sparse. The
representation of the war in Pakistani official discourse is also understandably contradictory to
that of Bangladesh. Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography (2001) is one of the few Pakistani novels setting
the 1971 war as its backdrop. This article attempts to understand the role of literary narratives to
offer a perspective which diverges from the nationalist public narrative. It endeavours to locate
the novel in a world of proliferating international apologies for historical misdeeds. It delineates
the cyclical nature of violence and hatred as demonstrated in the novel by drawing connections
between various historical events and their memories, as it attempts to understand how the
relationship between personal and political shapes individual and national identity. This article
demonstrates through a close reading of the novel how narratives are used to forge collective
amnesia and collective denial of responsibility, interrogating generational guilt and national self-
examination as illustrated in Kartography.

La guerre de 1971 a été largement représentée sous différentes formes au Bangladesh.

Cependant, la littérature pakistanaise offre un contraste frappant, les références à la guerre étant
rares. La représentation de la guerre dans le discours officiel pakistanais est également à l’opposé
de celle du Bangladesh. Kartography (2001) de Kamila Shamsie est l'un des rares romans
pakistanais qui a pour toile de fond la guerre de 1971. Cet article étudie ce roman dans le but de
comprendre le rôle des récits littéraires pour offrir une perspective alternative au récit
nationaliste. Il s'efforce de situer le roman dans un monde où prolifèrent les excuses
internationales pour les méfaits de l'histoire. Il décrit la nature cyclique de la violence et de la
haine telle qu’elle est démontrée dans le roman en établissant des liens entre divers événements
historiques et leurs souvenirs afin de comprendre comment la relation entre l’intime et le
politique façonne l'identité individuelle et nationale. Cet article démontre, par une lecture
attentive du roman, comment les récits sont utilisés pour forger une amnésie collective et un

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 Collective Amnesia and Generational Memory in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography 14

déni collectif de responsabilité en interrogeant la culpabilité générationnelle et l'examen de

conscience national tels qu'ils sont illustrés dans Kartography.

INDEX
Keywords: Pakistan, war, violence, amnesia, memory, nationalism, Shamsie Kamila, literature,
Bangladesh
Mots-clés: Pakistan, guerre, violence, amnésie, mémoire, nationalisme, Shamsie Kamila,
littérature, Bangladesh

AUTHOR
MADHURIMA SEN
Madhurima Sen is a postgraduate research student at the University of Oxford, studying for a
DPhil in English. Her research is on literature related to and inspired by the 1971 Bangladesh
War. She has recently completed her MPhil from University of Delhi. Her aim is to bring into
conversation war writings from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. A major part of her research
involves translating Bengali and urdu texts to English. Her primary fields of work are conflict
studies and postcolonial literature. Contact: emailmadhurimasen [at] gmail.com

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