THE DICHOTOMY OF HOMELAND AND NATION IN YASHPAL’S THIS IS NOT THAT DAWN

Abstract

The novel This Is Not That Dawn is a committed craft of Yashpal where he tends to bring out the clear cut forced dichotomy between homeland and nation. though the two terms seem to be used commonly interchangeably, yet in the novel it is depicted as two separated space due to partition of India. the first part of the novel prepares the readers to accept the transition which was not voluntary but forced by the new policies of the two-nation theory. The novel presents the clearcut dichotomy between the two terms where the issue of identity and attachment is raised with evident historical facts leading to this split. The idea of nationhood and motherland becomes opposed due to new territorial boundaries established after the departure of the British. The effect of colonisation and the progress of the nation to establish its identity is dominant but the cost is also the separation of India on communal lines.This gulf is evident and foretells of the future which is blurred and distinct from what the leaders of the nations had imagined. It is far from the imagined and closer to the devastated deserted mass of separated land dominated by violence and bloodshed as the aftermath of this separation. The paper focusses on the first part of the novel entitled Homeland and Nation and delves on the initial disruptions in Lahore which becomes the epicentre of the massive traumatic event where people are displaced and their identities lost forever, turning them to be refugees in their own new nation.