Trauma, Memory, and Female Agency in Amrita Pritam's Partition Literature: A Comparative Analysis of 'Pinjar' and 'Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah nu'

  • Unique Paper ID: 184400
  • PageNo: 1356-1361
  • Abstract:
  • This paper examines how Amrita Pritam, one of the most prominent Punjabi writers of the twentieth century, transforms personal and collective trauma into literary resistance through her seminal works "Pinjar" (1950) and "Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah nu" (1947). Through a comparative analysis utilizing trauma theory, feminist literary criticism, and postcolonial frameworks, this study demonstrates how Pritam employs the female voice to challenge dominant partition narratives while negotiating the complex terrain between victimhood and agency. The research reveals that Pritam's literary techniques—particularly her use of memory as both wound and weapon, her deployment of intertextuality, and her creation of liminal female subjects—constitute a unique form of testimonial literature that bears witness to the gendered dimensions of partition violence. By analyzing the distinct yet complementary ways these works represent trauma across genres, this paper argues that Pritam's partition literature creates counter-narratives that resist official historiography while establishing female agency within structures of displacement and violence.

Copyright & License

Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BibTeX

@article{184400,
        author = {Ramya},
        title = {Trauma, Memory, and Female Agency in Amrita Pritam's Partition Literature: A Comparative Analysis of 'Pinjar' and 'Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah nu'},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {4},
        pages = {1356-1361},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=184400},
        abstract = {This paper examines how Amrita Pritam, one of the most prominent Punjabi writers of the twentieth century, transforms personal and collective trauma into literary resistance through her seminal works "Pinjar" (1950) and "Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah nu" (1947). Through a comparative analysis utilizing trauma theory, feminist literary criticism, and postcolonial frameworks, this study demonstrates how Pritam employs the female voice to challenge dominant partition narratives while negotiating the complex terrain between victimhood and agency. The research reveals that Pritam's literary techniques—particularly her use of memory as both wound and weapon, her deployment of intertextuality, and her creation of liminal female subjects—constitute a unique form of testimonial literature that bears witness to the gendered dimensions of partition violence. By analyzing the distinct yet complementary ways these works represent trauma across genres, this paper argues that Pritam's partition literature creates counter-narratives that resist official historiography while establishing female agency within structures of displacement and violence.},
        keywords = {Partition literature, trauma studies, feminist literary criticism, Amrita Pritam, South Asian women writers, collective memory},
        month = {September},
        }

Cite This Article

Ramya, (2025). Trauma, Memory, and Female Agency in Amrita Pritam's Partition Literature: A Comparative Analysis of 'Pinjar' and 'Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah nu'. International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology (IJIRT), 12(4), 1356–1361.

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