Theorizing Collective Trauma and Identity-Threat in Select Stories from Deshbhager Galpa: Tripura

Abstract

Memory is a complex phenomenon that reaches out to far beyond what normally constitutes a historian's archives, for memory is much more than what the mind can remember or what objects can help us document about the past. There are then two aspects to this memory that concern us here: the sentiment of nostalgia and the sense of trauma, and their contradictory relationship to the question of the past. A traumatised memory has a narrative structure which works on a principle opposite to that of any historical narrative. At the same time, however, this memory, in order to be the memory of a trauma, has to place the Event - the cause of the trauma, in this case, Partition of 1947 in the context of Tripura-within a past that gives force to the claim of the victim. This has to be a shared past between the narrator of the traumatic experience and the addressee of the narration. Yet it cannot be a historicist version of the past, one that aims to diffuse the shock of the traumatic by explaining away the element of the unexpected. Hence the introductory segment of the paper might highlight the facts related to Tripura Bengalis, their arrival, and their stories of settlement. However, the purpose is to examine the psychological reactions to a traumatic event that affects an entire society; it does not merely reflect an historical fact, the recollection of a terrible event that happened to a group of people. The aim is to analyse the features of traumatic memories and, thus, how individuals construct and integrate their experiences and struggles through narratives. The chosen text is select stories from Deshbhagger Galpa:Tripura, a collection of short stories focusing on Nostalgia, Identity-crisis and Collective Trauma.