Le roman indien et pakistanais de langue anglaise est habité par le trauma de la Partition à travers des tropes de l’esthétique moderniste comme la fragmentation et l’ellipse. Il est aussi structuré par des métaphores de mutilation, de déracinement, d’exil, ainsi que par la figure symbolique du réfugié. Non exploré jusqu’ici, le trope visuel et poétique des ombres inscrit en creux dans la fiction la violence inexprimable de la Partition. Signes prémonitoires de la rupture cataclysmique de 1947, dans le roman Twilight in Delhi (1940), les ombres dramatisent les conséquences dévastatrices de la modernité coloniale sur la haute culture musulmane de l’Inde. Dans quatre romans publiés après la fracture du sous-continent – Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961), Clear Light of Day (1980), The Shadow Lines (1988), Burnt Shadows (2009) –, les ombres sont les traces-mémoires indélébiles, poreuses, et instables qui imprègnent la cartographie régionale et les psychés individuelles. Associée aux tropes ambivalents du fantôme et du miroir, l’ombre subvertit l’historiographie officielle en ouvrant un espace mémoriel dans lequel les souvenirs d’individus et de familles subalternes, transmis sur plusieurs générations, lient la Partition à d’autres traumas internationaux à travers des nœuds de mémoire multidirectionnelle. Par sa dimension visuelle, l’ombre produit une mémoire corporelle qui implique le lecteur dans une sémiotique empathique et réflexive du regard. / Partition inhabits the Indian and the Pakistani novel in English through modernist tropes such as ellipsis and fragmentation, metaphors of mutilation, dislocation and exile, and the symbolic figure of the refugee. The unspeakable violence of this trauma is also embedded within the narrative through the visual and poetic trope of the shadows, which has not been examined yet. In the novel Twilight in Delhi (1940), the shadows are premonitions of the cataclysm of 1947 as they stage the devastating impacts of colonial modernity on the high Muslim culture of India. In four novels published after the division of the subcontinent – Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961), Clear Light of Day (1980), The Shadow Lines (1988), Burnt Shadows (2009) –, the shadows are indelible, porous and unstable memory-traces that permeate the regional cartography and individual psyches. Together with the dual motives of the ghost and the mirror, these shadows subvert the official historiography and open up a discursive space in which the memories of subaltern individuals and families, transmitted over several generations, connect Partition to other international traumas via knots of multidirectional memory. Through their visual dimension, the shadows shape a body memory which involves the reader in an empathic and reflexive semiotics of the gaze.

This thesis concentrates on literature during India's battle for independence from the British Empire. These publications look at the outcomes of Europe's intent to colonize and its impact on the marginalized, colonial subjects down to the personal level. Delving into the tragic reality of colonialism and investigating its impact as portrayed in the novels selected, this thesis argues that the selected texts operate as resistance literature subverting the colonial discourse in retrieving South Asian culture and history. This project explores specific forms of resistance within the tropes of memory, history, and gender to pose a larger question of decolonial futures in the postcolonial aftermath. The explorations of Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi, Rabindranath Tagore's The Home and the World, and R.K. Narayan's Waiting for the Mahatma all represent multiple ways of studying the independence movement in their resistance frame. Analyzing these works through a postcolonial perspective unveils underrepresented voices and the intricacies of the Independence landscape. Ahmed Ali incorporates nostalgia as an argument for abolition and articulates Muslim identity in India's rapidly transforming environment. Tagore writes from his real experiences, recounting the confusion and disarray that plagued the Independence movement as disputes erupted on how to fight for India's sovereignty. R.K. Narayan embraces the ‘Quit India' protest and Gandhi's pacifist ideals while worrying about the future after the Mahatma's death. These writers decolonize readers' minds, and campaign for India's independence against the Empire Such literature gives the colonized a voice as they actively resist the British colonization in every aspect of existence.