Marginalized Minority Voice in the Partition of India: A Study of Bapsi Sidhwa's Ice-Candy-Man

Abstract

The popular history and the grand narratives of the partition of India are constructed mainly around the communal riots, violence, and the deeply rooted animosity between Hindus and Muslims. This animosity is seen as one of the main reasons for the partition. The popular history and the grand narratives of the partition mainly constructed to serve the nationalistic purposes of the two countries, India and Pakistan. Therefore, it is evident that the popular history and the narratives are serving the purpose of the majority population of the respective counties, Hindus and Muslims. But in British India, besides these two major religious communities, there were also other religious and ethnic minority communities. The voice of these communities is muted and marginalized in the state-endorsed official history and the grand narratives of the partition. The Sikhs and the Parsis are two such communities along with many others. Bapsi Sidhwa, in her novel Ice-Candy-Man (1988), has tried to project the voice and anguishes of these two religious minority communities. In light of Ice-Candy-Man, this paper examines the involvement of the Parsi and the Sikh communities in the dynamics of the partition, and how their voice is disregarded and marginalized in the partition process.