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Unit 4: Amitav Ghosh: Shadow Lines: Detailed Study of Part -III (Critical Appreciation)

If people think that they can divide the people by dividing the territory then they are sadly Notes
mistaken. The lines are only a mirage. No body can ever divide a memory or experience. The
happenings in Kashmir on the eve of disappearance of the hair relic clearly demonstrated the
same and benevolent nature of man. The villages on the Indian borders are more close to each
other than the relatives on the either side. They still cross over without fear and get their daughters
and sons married in the families across the border. These lines cannot set people free, had it been
so Tridib’s death would have set Roby free.
However, despite the weaknesses of these borders they also have their strengths which The Shadow
Lines blithely ignores and no matter how much we may dislike them they would continue to exist
and have their weightage. These lines, which mark the borders and distinguish one piece of land
from the other, are certainly not warranted but even if these lines were not drawn the differences
would persist. Then the culture, the origin, the customs and the influence of the areas would
become the natural boundaries. We may do away with the lines that we sketch with the pencils on
the map and by barbed wires or trenches on the land, the whole humanity is hard to be put under
one umbrella. This is what suggests at the present. To say that earth is but one country and
mankind its citizens will be rhetorical. A line has got to be drawn somewhere. To talk in practical
terms even a large family gets cracked up and divisions take place like in the case of Tha’mma’s
joint family where the walls were erected to mark the separation. Then what can be said about the
nations housing millions of people some times divided by the lines of caste, religion, origin,
customs etc and about the world housing the nations? Good fence make good neigbhours. Fences
are the touchstone of sanity, to take in practical terms. Distance separates but it also goes without
says that it makes the hearts go fonder. One has to respect the other in order to keep the good
relationship and good neighborliness and this comes only if each maintains certain distance.
The narrator gives an incident of Jammu and Kashmir when Mu-i-Mubarak believed to have been
the heir of prophet Mohammad himself was lost. In Kashmir the riots did not breaks out. The
situations though was very tense and volatile, did not have any effect on the health of the people.
People expressed their anger; and violence irrupted but it had a difference. It was not directed
against other religious communities but against all the properties identified with the Government
and Police. It happened this way because situation was not exploited by the so-called self-appointed
guardians of humanity and religious communities. The sanity prevailed. The emotions of the
people were not played with. The credit also goes to Maulana Masudi— an authentic leader,
forgotten and unsung today who persuaded the first demonstrators to march with black flag
instead of green and there by drew various communities of Kashmir together in a collective
display of mourning.
Similarly, when it was discovered and restored to its place there was a lot of rejoicing. People
came out on the street, danced together, and distributed the sweets though Pakistan was provoking
the local populace. People were chanting ‘central intelligence Jindabad’ while on the other side a
procession protesting against the displacement of the relic turned violent and many people were
killed and injured. Thus it depends upon how you take up a situation. What surprised the narrator
was that even after so many killings, looting and arson, riots are transient in public and
Government’s memory. The newspapers talked about the test match at Madras, which happened
during the same time, and about the congress and other political news, the riots were never
discussed. When they were happening the newspapers gave the details and details after details of
accurate description. But once they were over there was nothing left to describe and they never
spoke of it again. The Shadow Lines has thus an escapist tendency here as the narrator states, “But
for those other things we can only use words of description when they happen and then fall silent.

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