Negotiating Nationhood: Postcolonial Nationalism And The Politics Of Belonging In Selected Novels Of Tahmima Anam And Amitav Ghosh

Abstract

The enduring legacies of colonialism, partition, and the liberation war of Bangladesh continues to shape postcolonial nationalism in contemporary South Asia, thereby making the process of nationhood as an evolving process of cultural negotiation. This work analyzes the prominent works of Tahmima Anam, namely, The Golden Age and The Good Muslim, in comparison with Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines and The Glass Palace to explore how both novels interweave the concepts of historical memory, border and politics of belonging to negotiate nationhood. The study adopts a qualitative comparative literary methodology with close textual analysis drawing on the complementary frameworks of Postcolonial Nationalism, Politics of Belonging and Memory Studies. The results show that Anam foregrounds the ethical and emotional aspects of nation building through domestic memory and the Bangladesh Liberation War while Ghosh critiques territorial nationalism by highlighting colonial mobility, Partition, and transnational identities. Collectively, the choices of the novel, taken together suggest a problematic conception of nationhood as a process of memory, historical violence, and relational belonging rather than territorial sovereignty. By collectively placing Bangladeshi and Indian literary traditions within a common analytical framework, this article contributes to the conceptualization of negotiated nationhood as a productive model for rethinking postcolonial identity and belonging in contemporary South Asian studies.