Critiquing ‘Nation’ as an Ideological Construct in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide

Introduction

Deterministic theories of nationalism, which allow the factors of their likings to be the ultimate source of nationalist movements, have rarely sanctioned intellectual understanding of nation-building as an ideological construct. The classic debates in nationalism theory between modernists, primordialists and ethno-symbolists understand nationalist phenomena causally as well as universally. This article aims to move past the examination of the rise of nationalism as a single deterministic ideal and to interpret nationalist phenomena as ideological constructs. By keeping the concept of ideology as the central analytical reference point, an investigation of the ideas of nation and nationalism in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide (2004) through the prism of discourse theory will be made. Modernist and primordialist theories offer limited insights into contemporary nationalism as propagated by states, party demagogues and movements. Their understanding of the construction of nationhood in contemporary times falls short of the theoretical vigour. Post-Marxist or Post-structuralist discourse theory, on the other hand, is well equipped to deal with nationalism as an ideological construction. While dealing with discourse theory, it is important to remember that Laclau and Mouffe’s concept incorporates more of ideology than Foucault’s definition of discourse.

Developed in an ongoing dialogue with Marxist, Feminist and Post-structuralist political philosophy since the 1980s, the founding principle of discourse theory has been to reject essentialism and reified concepts like ‘society’, ‘economy’ and ‘democracy’. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe have developed theoretical perspectives of discourse theory in their seminal work Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (1985). For this school, society does not develop or exist as a closed totality with its own internal logic. Instead, the meaning of all political concepts is based on their relation to other signifiers (moments) within more or less coherent systems of meaning (discourses). All such discourses are necessarily contingent in so far as their existence cannot be attributed to any innate development. According to Laclau, social reality ‘acquires its meaning through the practice of articulation in which moments are positioned relationally and differentially within a systematized totality called a discourse’ (Farkas & Schou, 2018, p. 301). This article will investigate the ideas of nation and nationalism in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide (2004) through the prism of discourse theory in general and ideology in particular. Discourse theory provides valuable theoretical tools to understand ‘how the ideological construction of the nation aims to achieve a hegemonic rearticulation of the national “nodal point’” (Sutherland, 2005, p. 185).

A Historical Account of Marichjhapi: Nation, Migration and Massacre in the Post-Partition Era

The present study has the Marichjhapi massacre of 1979 as its historical context. The massacre resulted in thousands of deaths. According to some estimates, between 5,000 and 10,000 people died on the island. The influx of the refugees to the parts of West Bengal had been there since 1947. The numbers increased after 1971 and 1975. This migration of refugees to West Bengal took place in phases with certain peculiarities of its own. During the first wave of migration, right after the Partition of India in 1947, people who migrated to India from the erstwhile East Pakistan were mainly professionals belonging to the urban middle class, along with a smaller number of agriculturalists and artisans. These people, with the help of their friends, relatives, caste members and other influential social networks, found a temporary foothold in West Bengal, particularly in and around Calcutta. The 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and 1975 military coup led to a renewed flooding of refugees into West Bengal. The Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971 resulted in a significant exodus of Dalit Hindus from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to India. This mass migration was driven by widespread violence, religious persecution and socio-political instability. Dalit Hindus, already marginalized within the socio-religious hierarchy, faced intensified threats and atrocities, prompting them to seek refuge in India. The exodus was not merely a matter of seeking physical safety but also an attempt to preserve their cultural and social identity amidst the turmoil. The exodus of Dalit Hindus during this period is significant for several reasons. First, it highlighted the humanitarian crisis and the need for immediate relief and rehabilitation measures. Second, the migration had profound social and political implications for both Bangladesh and India. In Bangladesh, the departure of Dalit communities altered the demographic and socio-cultural fabric, while in India, their influx necessitated policies and frameworks for integration and support. Additionally, the exodus underscored the enduring struggle of Dalit communities for recognition, rights and socio-economic stability. Their displacement brought to the forefront issues of caste-based discrimination and the need for protective legislation and policies. In response to the influx of refugees, the Congress-led government implemented several settlement policies to address the immediate and long-term needs of the displaced Dalit Hindus. These policies included establishing refugee camps and providing essential services such as food, shelter and medical aid, allocating land for resettlement, particularly in states like West Bengal, and initiatives aimed at integrating refugees into the local economy through vocational training, employment opportunities and support for small-scale industries. However, these settlement policies were often fraught with challenges, including inadequate resources, bureaucratic hurdles and resistance from local populations. However, this time, the refugees mainly consisted of agriculturalists, belonging to untouchable castes, called Namasudras. Considering the demographic changes, affecting both social as well as political spheres, policies of accommodating them within the state began to change. Not only were the refugees small in number, they also had no friends, family and caste connections, making them solely dependent on the government for survival. On the pretext of having no vacant land, the government, very cunningly, proposed to disperse the untouchable refugees to other states, with the clear intention of weakening and dismembering ‘the Namasudra Movement’. The Namasudra movement, which gained momentum in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was a crucial socio-political mobilization aimed at resisting caste oppression and advocating for land rights and social equality. Leaders like Harichand Thakur and Guruchand Thakur played pivotal roles in galvanizing the Namasudra community, fostering a sense of identity and collective resistance. The significance of the Namasudra movement extends to its influence on the broader Dalit struggle for rights and representation. This historical movement laid the groundwork for the ideation of a Dalit nation, which materialized more concretely during the mass mobilization in Marichjhapi. The Marichjhapi incident in 1979, where Dalit refugees, primarily from the Namasudra community, attempted to resettle in the Sundarbans, symbolizes the enduring struggle for dignity, land and autonomy. It reflects the continuation of the socio-political aspirations ignited by the early Namasudra movement.

This dispersing of the untouchables meant that the Bangla upper caste would have the authority in cultural as well as socio-political spheres. Consequently, the Namasudra refugees had to settle in Dandakaranya, semi-arid, rocky and inhospitable lands, in the present-day state of Chhattisgarh. The agricultural skills, through which these people earned their livelihood, were not of much use in this region. Also, local tribals found these refugees as intruders in their region and picked fights with them. This manifestly made the survival of the refugees increasingly arduous and distressing. In addition, they also experienced cultural, physical and emotional ‘up-rootedness’.

After independence in 1947, the Indian National Congress formed the government in India as well as in West Bengal, while an alliance of left parties, who called themselves the Left Front, was in opposition in the state of West Bengal. In the initial phase of refugee migration in 1947–1948, the Left Front acted as the champions of refugees’ cause, calling into question the government’s policy of casting these refugees away. Thus, the Left Front created a strong electoral base among the refugees in the early post-Partition days. In the post 1975 refugee migration, the Left Front found yet another possibility of increasing their vote bank. The Left Front leaders demanded that the refugees should be settled within West Bengal, instead of being dispersed to neighbouring states. These leaders argued that the refugees were not entitled to the affirmative action programmes as their castes were not recognized in the places where they were made to settle. The leftist opposition, very tactfully, took the benefit of this situation and formed a strong political base among the refugees of the untouchable caste. The leftist leaders lured them to settle in West Bengal, especially on one of the islands in Sundarbans, called Marichjhapi. The leaders of the opposition promised the refugees a prosperous life and greater possibility of access to resources. Finding it impossible to turn down the offer, the refugees sold everything they had to make a journey possible to the ‘promised’ land.

In 1977, Indian politics witnessed the most decisive political change. It was the victory of the Left Front in West Bengal in the 1977 elections. After coming to power, the Left Front leaders did not stand their ground. Policies regarding refugee settlement began to be revised. Now, for the new government, refugees and their settlement became a liability and a political issue. It had started appearing that the new government was not ready to shoulder the responsibility of refugee resettlement. Surprisingly, government agencies started stopping the refugees from reaching the island, considering them as intruders on limited state resources. Even after the ruthless use of police force in order to stop the refugees from reaching Marichjhapi, some of them, nevertheless, escaped and managed to reach the destination. By 1978, the Left Front’s resistance to the refugee resettlement was in full swing. The refugees, despite facing strong resistance, exhibited such remarkable efficacy in resettling themselves on the island of Marichjhapi that it became a historical milestone in refugee settlement. Over the course of the next few months, these migrated people set up a viable fishing industry, salt pans, schools and health centres. They managed to do all this, on an uninhabited island, without a trace of government support.

By the beginning of 1979, the government started an economic blockade, together with the promulgation of the Forest Preservation Act. The government did this in order to snap refugees’ access to food, water and other basic requirements. The refugees, who went to nearby islands for help, were either killed by the police forces or remained missing. When the economic blockade failed to dislodge the refugees, a violent eviction policy was put in place. Orders were issued for the explicit use of firearms during the period from 14th to 16th May 1979. This resulted in the massacre of thousands of refugees. Everything that the refugees had built during their settlement was annihilated and burned to the ashes. Dead bodies were thrown away into the rivers. This made it difficult to count the number of people killed, as there was no one to list the dead bodies downstream. Sources claim that ‘hired’ gangs assisted the police in this massacre. Around 14,000 families had started their journey to resettle on the island of Marichjhapi from Dandakaranya and about 10,000 managed to return back to their previous settlement. Many of them had to live in shanties and on railway tracks in and around Calcutta and very few of them settled in other parts of the region in a state of utter destitution. An estimated 4,000 families were massacred. However, the state government has staunchly refuted any claims of a massacre, asserting that no gunfire occurred whatsoever. Furthermore, this alleged massacre remained largely obscure and forgotten, fading from the collective memory of the people for over two decades.

The West Bengal government’s move to keep even journalists out of the Marichjhapi island speaks volumes about the destructive role that it played to evict and systematically kill the refugee settlers. Radio, TV and newspapers were thus dictated to only spread a positive image of the government. Gupta (1980) terms this a ‘well-planned human slaughter’ in the article of the same name that appeared in the Indian Express on 13 June 1980. It is interesting to see that even the Congress government at the centre sent its MPs to report on the eviction of the refugees. Chief Minister Jyoti Basu’s statement that ‘the press should come out in support of their eviction in the national interest’ (Mallick, 1999, p. 108) sounds hollow as nations are created by people of all denominations and castes.

In his various interviews with the survivors, the journalist Deep Halder in his book Blood Island: An Oral History of the Marichjhapi Massacre (2019) exposes the then Communist Party’s role in the disappearance of a dense population of Hindu Dalit refugees. Ross Mallick attempts to answer why the Left Front government remained passive.

The government deemed the settlement of refugees as threatening and obnoxious to the fragile ecology of the island. Moreover, it did not want its vote share to dwindle. One of the survivors Bose Pukur maintains in his interview with Deep Halder that ‘humanity died on that island in 1979’ (Halder, 2019, p. 69). Capturing the irony in Annu Jalais’ article “‘Dwelling on Morichjhanpi: When tigers became “citizens”, refugees “tiger-food”’, it is really shocking to see how the marginalized were again displaced and massacred. This incident was seen by the ‘islanders as a betrayal not only of refugees and of the poor and the marginalized in general, but also of Bengali backward caste identity’ (Jalais, 2005, p. 1757).

In addition, the government of West Bengal planned to disperse the refugee settlers to other parts of the state and asked the central government for financial aids to do so. However, the central government did not offer any financial help and left refugees at the mercy of the state government. It could be argued that the state was also unwilling to be burdened with the expenses of settling Dalit refugees in other parts of the state. Had there been the issue of the Bhadralok settlement, the state government would have done its best to include them in the mainland. Given that the majority of these refugee settlers were Dalits, integrating them into the broader socio-political realms could have potentially reinvigorated ‘the Namasudra Movement’. Hence, the state government, primarily comprised of Bhadralok, sought to avoid any potential challenges to their cultural and socio-political dominance. Ultimately, the Marichjhapi inhabitants were let down by the very state that had promised to safeguard them.

The government, which initially pledged to safeguard these refugees for electoral advantages during the early stages of their settlement, began to grow apprehensive about the refugee presence in the Sundarbans islands. The refugee influx into West Bengal was not inherently problematic. Instead, it was the identity of these refugee settlers that became a contentious issue and posed a potential threat to the state’s Bhadralok community. The Namasudra group had a history of challenging Bhadralok dominance in the state, and their perceived menacing presence on the island perplexed the Left Front government. This can be cited as one of the reasons why, when the Left Front came to power in West Bengal in 1977, there was not a single Dalit minister in Jyoti Basu’s cabinet.

In addition, the establishment suspected potential political disruption and resistance in the refugees’ settlement and their organizing themselves along the community–caste axis. This strong apprehension on the part of the government added to the complexities of Marichjhapi settlement as a political issue. They harboured a considerable degree of certainty that the request for settlement of Dalit refugees on Marichjhapi island could potentially evolve into a demand for secession, potentially inflaming sentiments that could spread to other regions of the country. Seeing this as a failure of their governance, the Left Front tried to snub the slightest possibility of any such political resistance and disruption in the state. They were apprehensive that any political demand that challenged Bhadralok dominance and carried the potential for secession from the state of West Bengal would not only jeopardize the political legitimacy of the Left Front government that had replaced the Congress in the state but could also undermine the hegemony of the discourse surrounding the Indian nation-state. This became yet another reason for the state to betray the very people they were entrusted to protect.

It is noteworthy that the newly established government of West Bengal diligently implemented various measures to contain the escalation of the Marichjhapi massacre into a national issue. These measures included stringent control over media outlets and an explicit denial of the killings that transpired on the island. Nonetheless, individuals who either bore witness to or gained knowledge of the grim realities of the massacre vehemently disseminated their accounts through spoken and written narratives. For instance, in 1982, the monthly journal titled The Oppressed Indian featured two articles addressing the Marichjhapi massacre. One of these articles, authored by R. K. Sikdar, bore the title ‘Marichjhapi massacre’, while the other, penned by Atharobaki Biswas, was titled ‘Why Dandakaranya a failure, why mass exodus, where solution?’ In subsequent years, additional significant literary works emerged on the subject, including S. K. Gupta’s ‘Kichu Smriti, Kichu Katha’ (A Few Memories, A Few Stories) (1994), Ross Mallick’s ‘Refugee resettlement in forest reserves: West Bengal policy reversal and the Marichjhapi massacre’ (1999), Jagadish Chandra Mondal’s ‘Marichjhapi: Naishabder Antaraley: Gonohotyar Ek Kalo Itihaash’ (2002) and ‘Marichjhapi: Udbastu Kara Ebong Keno?’ (2005), as well as Sibnath Chaudhuri’s ‘Marichjhapir Kanna’ (2004). However, it is crucial to acknowledge that a significant portion of these written accounts was penned in Bengali, rendering them inaccessible to a broader audience, particularly those who did not possess proficiency in the Bangla language. Therefore, the incident in the Sundarbans failed to firmly embed itself within the collective memory of the populace and gradually receded into the recesses of forgotten history. It was Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Hungry Tide (2004) that played a significant role in reviving the historical account of Marichjhapi, an event that ‘had been largely forgotten beyond the Sundarbans’ (Fletcher, 2011, p. 5). Some critics contend that it was Ghosh’s fictionalized portrayal of the event that preserved the fading memories of the massacre.

At this juncture, it becomes crucial to examine the deliberate denialism or the effacement of textual traces of the historical realities of the Marichjhapi massacre. The survival and the erasure of the textual traces are not innocent acts of simple preservation and effacement (Montrose, 1989, p. 20). Rather, these processes are deeply entangled in socio-political complexities. History and its spatiotemporal confines impose and dictate certain underlying conditions of accepted truths. This, in turn, contributes to the discursive construction of what is deemed truthful and what enters the field of discursivity. This process of discursive formation delineates the boundaries of what is considered normal and abnormal, defines what aligns with national interests or deviates from them, and consequently, shapes the criteria for determining what deserves preservation and what is consigned to the realm of oblivion. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the Marichjhapi tragedy, which witnessed the massacre of thousands of men, women and children, has been largely effaced from the annals of history.

Ross Mallick finds the roots of the 1979 massacre in the East Bengal ‘Namasudra Movement’ in colonial times and straightforwardly implicates the West Bengal government. Mallick contends that the administration of West Bengal was subject to the sway of the Kolkata bhadralok, a segment characterized by affluence and erudition, and failed to fulfil its commitment to the reestablishment and reintegration of destitute refugees within the state, potentially considering resettlement on the islands situated within the Sundarbans region. Contrarily, the government resorted to a notably harsh eviction of these individuals from the previously promised land, invoking alleged violations of the Forest Act as justification. Although Ross Mallick’s argument is based on historical findings, it would be naïve to reduce the complex matter to a simple causal one by arguing that hostility and animosity between nimnobarno lok [low-caste people] and bhadralok led to the 1979 Marichjhapi tragedy. The present analysis endeavours to assert that Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Hungry Tide, rather than adhering to a conventional causal interpretation of the Marichjhapi massacre, situates it within the compelling realm of nationalist phenomena as ideological constructs. This article posits that the refugees who fell victim to the 1979 massacre were harbouring secessionist aspirations or separatist sentiments that were incongruent with the tenets of nationalist discourse. The dominance of a nationalist discourse within a particular nation exerts such a pervasive influence that it seeks to suppress the emergence of alternative discourses, particularly those representing minority perspectives. This is why Claire Sutherland has alluded to the ‘nationalist ideology as Grand Discourse’ (Sutherland, 2005, p. 193).

Nation as an Ideological Construct in The Hungry Tide

At the start of textual analysis, it is pertinent to underscore that while this study draws on Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide to explore themes and narratives relevant to the socio-political context of Marichjhapi, it does not attempt to validate fiction as a direct historical articulation. Instead, the aim is to use the novel as a literary lens to highlight the lived experiences and ideological currents that might have influenced the political imagination of the Dalit refugees. Omendra Kumar Singh contends that a closer examination of The Hungry Tide reveals that the refugee settlers of the island Marichjhapi were imagining to build a ‘Dalit nation’ for themselves (Singh, 2017, p. 244). Amitav Ghosh adeptly crafts the political aspirations of these settlers within the novel. Sir Daniel Hamilton, a Scotsman, had bought 10,000 acres of land in tide country with a vision to ‘build a new society, a new kind of country’ (Ghosh, 2006, p. 45). In this new utopian world, people dreamt of a society without any social stratification, where people would refrain from exploiting each other. They dreamt of equality prevailing (Ghosh, 2006, p. 44–45). And even ‘the bourgeoisie all agreed … that this place could be a model for all of India; it could be a new kind of country’ (Ghosh, 2006, p. 45). However, this vision of an idealized society failed to materialize and remained unfinished. Now the Marichjhapi refugee settlers try to redeem the lost vision of Sir Daniel Hamilton but with a difference: ‘between what was happening at Morichjhapi and what Hamilton had done there was one vital aspect of difference: this was not one man’s vision. This dream had been dreamt by the very people who were trying to make it real’ (Ghosh, 2006, p. 141). Nirmal, who takes the post of the headmaster at a school at Lusibari, originally found by Hamilton, understands this settlement as a social experiment ‘imagined not by those with learning and power, but by those without power’ (Ghosh, 2006, p. 141). Indeed, this appears to him as something that could potentially serve as a model for the entirety of India. These differences bring to the fore the inherent strengths and weaknesses of the movement. Most of the refugees on the island are ‘Hindu Dalits’ who have migrated from Bangladesh. This commonality of caste and a shared past of suffering because of migration cohere them into a unified whole. On the Marichjhapi island, it becomes manifest that the refugees organized themselves along the community lines and to a greater extent ‘class consciousness’. In addition, they display their willingness to make use of certain institutional processes which include press, public opinion and negotiation processes. In addition, the refugees display strong class consciousness as a group of the dispossessed when they confront police incursion. They, as a community, face the police without any fear and cry out ‘Amra kara? Bastuhara’ in Bangla, which means ‘Who are we? We are the dispossessed’ (Ghosh, 2006, p. 254). Furthermore, they strongly assert that they will ‘not leave Morichjhapi’ (Ghosh, 2006, p. 254).

Refugee settlers’ urge to build a homeland for themselves is well reflected in the spirit of an old refugee woman who says that the only way for them to survive on the island is not only to fight the natural hardships but also to support each other in their settlement. This commitment to build a homeland for themselves reinforces itself with the refugees’ awareness that they ‘shared blood ties and geographical roots with the island settlers around Morichjhapi’ (Singh, 2017, p. 244). Unequivocally, the shared geographical background and common blood ties are some of the relevant markers in a nation-building, making people fight for their cause as a community charged with sentimentality. Kusum, a resident of the neighbouring island, aligns herself with the refugee settlement cause due to a profound sense of solidarity and kinship that she perceives between them. She articulates that ‘these were my own people, how could I stand apart? We shared the same tongue, we were joined in our bones; the dreams they had dreamt were no different from my own’ (Ghosh, 2006, p. 165).

To strengthen the argument that the Marichjhapi incident represents a claim for a ‘Dalit nation’, it is imperative to situate this event within the broader context of Dalit movements across the Indian subcontinent. The struggle at Marichjhapi is not an isolated incident but part of a continuum of Dalit assertions for autonomy and self-determination. Significant movements—such as the Mahad Satyagraha of 1927, where Dr B. R. Ambedkar led Dalits in a protest to assert their right to access public water tanks, the radical activism of the Dalit Panthers in the 1970s, which sought to combat caste-based oppression through political mobilization and cultural assertion and the broader Ambedkarite movement advocating for Dalit rights and the establishment of separate electorates—provide a critical backdrop for understanding Marichjhapi. Scholars like B. R. Ambedkar, with his extensive writings on caste and social justice, Gail Omvedt, who has analysed Dalit mobilization and its impact on Indian society, and Kancha Ilaiah, who explores Dalit identity and the socio-political structures that perpetuate caste inequalities, offer valuable theoretical and historical insights. By comparing these movements, we can identify recurring themes such as the quest for dignity, socio-political equality and resistance to systemic oppression. This comparative framework not only highlights the unique aspects of the Marichjhapi struggle but also situates it within the larger Dalit movement, reflecting a persistent fight against socio-economic marginalization. In addition, there are scholarly works that Dalit movements and claims for separate identities or autonomy. Notably, Dalit Assertion and the Unfinished Democratic Revolution: The Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh (2002) by Sudha Pai and Dalit Movement in India and Its Leaders (2017) by R. K. Kshirsagar are some of the best-known works that discuss various other Dalit movements and claims for separate identities or autonomy. These works provide valuable insights into the broader patterns of Dalit mobilization, identity formation and the quest for socio-political autonomy, allowing the contextualization of the Marichjhapi struggle within a larger framework of Dalit aspirations and resistance.

Ernest Renan, in his famous essay ‘What is a nation?’, contends that ‘race, language, material interest, religious affinities, geography, and military necessity’ alone are insufficient to constitute a nation (Renan, 1990, p. 19). Renan posits that a robust nation is founded upon two spiritual principles: one rooted in historical legacy and the other in contemporary shared experiences (Renan, 1990, p. 19). Renan elaborates:

One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present-day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in undivided form… The nation, like the individual, is the culmination of a long past of endeavours, sacrifice, and devotion … To have common glories in the past and to have a common will in the present; to have performed great deeds together, to wish to perform still more – these are the essential conditions for being a people. One loves in proportion to the sacrifices to which one has consented, and in proportion to the ills that one has suffered. (Renan, 1990, p. 19)

Renan fervently asserts that a robust nation is forged through the shared experiences of ‘having suffered, enjoyed, and hoped together’ (Renan, 1990, p. 19), and the willingness to continue this shared journey into the future generates a potent nationalist sentiment among the populace. He places particular emphasis on the notion of ‘having suffered together’, noting that such common hardships have a more unifying effect than shared triumphs. Renan posits that ‘suffering in common unifies more than joy does … griefs are of more value than triumphs, for they impose duties, and require a common effort’ (Renan, 1990, p. 19). In the case of the refugee settlers on the Marichjhapi island, their common experiences are primarily characterized by suffering and adversity. Their willingness to endure the collective hardships even in the present comes to the fore when they imagine the island as their homeland and are ready to make any necessary sacrifice. They establish socio-political and economic systems of their own without any aid from government agencies. However, when the state government demands their eviction, these refugee settlers endure the worst atrocities. They withstand harassment by state police, imposition of section 144 of the Indian Penal Code and economic blockade. Despite these challenges, their determination to create a homeland for themselves remains undiminished. However, the hegemony of the Indian nation-state could not tolerate such opposition. Consequently, the state employs brutal force to forcibly remove the refugee settlers from the island, resulting in the tragic massacre of thousands of people.

In the context of nationalism theory, the categorization of the nation as a discourse comes from the understanding that reality is not a natural given but a construct and therefore contingent by nature. As a result, the conceptual framework of discourse theory applies to nationalist ideologies, which antagonistically struggle for the alternative national construct, manifested in the hegemonic discourse of ‘nation-states’:

[Ideology] effects a decontestation of the political concepts it employs … The external manifestation of this thought practice is a unique conceptual configuration that completes over its legitimacy with other conceptual configurations. (Freeden, 2000, p. 307)

In The Hungry Tide, there emerges an antagonistic nationalist ideology, challenging the hegemony of the discourse of the Indian nation-state, when the refugee settlers begin to build a ‘Dalit nation’ for themselves. To probe into these arbitrary ideas more, we must refer to Michael Billing’s (1985) study of banal nationalism where he illustrates that ‘well-established national construct is not thereby unproblematic or somehow exempt from study as nationalistic’ (Sutherland, 2005, p. 193). Banal nationalism is the symbolic identification of people with a ‘nation-state’. The symbolic markers of national identification are in plenty: the national flag, singing of the national anthem, a common enemy historically as well as in the present, national sport, use of the adjective ‘national’ to describe the state of affairs of the nation-state. Sutherland has argued that the term banal nationalism ‘is shorthand for expressing the idea of nationalism as Grand Discourse; our everyday “social reality” is always discursively constructed around a concept of the nation which is taken for granted’ (Sutherland, 2005, p. 193). In addition, the successful linking of nation to state encapsulates robust nationalist mobilization. Consequently, symbolic markers of national identification, institutions and rhetoric have not only been willingly accepted but internalized to the extent that they become commonsensical. Producing this common sense among the populace is the ultimate goal of any ideology pursuing nationalist projects. It is the minority nationalism that poses a challenge to this common sense and vociferously argues for the need for an alternative national construct to one which is in place (Ozkirimli, 2000, p. 229).

It is not surprising that the concept of nation that the nation can be defined and appealed to in various ways, yet it remains a ‘sedimented’ focus of national mobilization. In discourse theory, nation is a nodal point of a nationalist discourse, a ‘privileged’ discursive point of partial fixation of meaning (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985, p. 112). Greenfeld (1993) argued that ‘[Nationalism] is determined not by the character of its elements, but by a certain organizing principle which makes these elements into a unity and imparts to them a special significance’ (Greenfeld, 1993, p. 7). According to discourse theory, there are competing discourses trying to hegemonize the principles that orient and organize a given society and its systems. Therefore, in the arena of nation and nationalism, there are political ideologies constantly driven towards articulating their respective discourses, with the ambition of ‘hegemonic interventions’ (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985, p. 282). Sutherland contends that:

In a world of omnipresent nationalist ideology, the ‘nation-state’ is the hegemonic nationalist construct. The more entrenched this discourse is, the harder it will be to impose an alternative project as hegemony. (Sutherland, 2005, p.194)

It is at this moment that discourse theory puts into perspective the role of minority nationalist moments. Minority movements work with the re-articulation of the social realities, aiming to produce an alternative national construct.

In The Hungry Tide, a new nation is, indeed, emerging on the island of Morichjhapi. The idea of an ‘imagined homeland’ on the island readies these settlers to establish certain orders, putting in place socio-economic systems of their own. The refugee settlers, without a trace of government aid, create saltpans, plant tube wells, dam water for the rearing of fish, start up a bakery, set up boat-building workshops, and found pottery and ironsmith’s shop. Marketplaces emerge where all kinds of goods are sold. Nirmal, who has been actively involved in the Marichjhapi revolution from the outset, is elated by these recent developments. For him and the individuals who envisioned Marichjhapi island as their homeland, it is nothing short of realizing Hamilton’s dream. Amitav Ghosh succinctly captures this sentiment in the novel when one of the characters, Nirmal, perceives that people are ‘watching the birth of something new, something hitherto unseen’ (Ghosh, 2006, p. 171). It appears as if an entire civilization has sprung into existence all of a sudden (Ghosh, 2006, p. 191). The experience of witnessing the emergence of a new civilization and the recognition of the birth of something unprecedented underscore the nuanced process of the formation of a nascent nation.

Navigating the sphere of nationalism reveals that there exist just as many ‘conservative (nation-state) ideologies as antagonistic, revolutionary ones’ (Sutherland, 2005, p. 194). Mannheim (1940) delineates these two concepts as ideologies and utopias, respectively (Sutherland, 2005, p. 195). He characterizes ideology as a set of ideas that challenge the prevailing nationalist ideology by proposing an alternative that can be pursued within the existing societal framework. In contrast, a utopia challenges the prevailing national ideology by inherently disrupting the existing order if implemented. Without a doubt, the ‘Dalit nation’ envisioned by the refugees for the island is a utopian concept. Omendra Kumar Singh, in a literal sense, draws a connection between this emerging nation on the island and Thomas More’s Utopia. Singh argues:

In this understated and highly suggestive Utopian synecdoche, Ghosh indicates the secessionist process in the making which originates precisely from this category of totality that presides over the form of utopian realization of the nation in all its radical and unacceptable difference from the established order. Just as Utopia is described as a response to Old World politics and seems to be a desirable alternative to More’s England, the Morichjhapi refugee project can be glimpsed to be staging itself as a desirable alternative to Indian Union for the refugee settlers at some point of time in the future. (Singh, 2017, p. 248)

Such utopian aspirations exhibit dissatisfaction with the existing order of national ideology or what Vieira and Marder call dissatisfaction with the ‘naturalized political ontology’ (quoted in Singh, 2017, p. 249). This ‘naturalized political ontology’ serves as a basis for governance, and any attempt to disrupt it would unsettle the established political order in the country. The emerging order of a new nation on Marichjhapi poses a genuine threat of disruption and destabilization. Such apprehensions are not without foundation, especially when considered in the context of recent Indian history. The partition of India into two countries had occurred just three decades prior, and the Indian state had not yet fully recovered from the trauma it had endured. The partition had resulted in horrific violence, loss of life and extensive human displacement, both physical and psychological. All of these memories were still vivid in the minds of Indians.

Furthermore, the 1971 India–Pakistan war had occurred just a few years earlier, igniting strong nationalist sentiments among Indians. Hence, it is not surprising that the Marichjhapi refugees garnered popular support for the reasons mentioned above. The desire to establish a new nation, specifically a ‘Dalit nation’, within the geopolitical boundaries of the Indian nation-state would have constituted a political secession, a reality that does not align with the nationalist discourse of the nation. In a nation-state, people possess constitutional rights to assert their identities and political demands within legal frameworks. It is not that the demands to secede have never been made and countries have not been formed after secession. In the last 30 years alone, there have been glaring examples of secession and the establishment of new nations. For instance, South Sudan seceded from Sudan on 9 July 2011; Kosovo declared secession from Serbia on 17 February 2008; The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste successfully seceded from Indonesia on 20 May 2002; and Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia on 25 May 1993 (Rosenberg, 2020). These are just a few examples. However, it is essential to acknowledge that many of these secessions resulted in violent conflicts and civil wars. Some geopolitical issues stemming from secession remain unresolved to this day, leading to continued violence. Additionally, it cannot be overlooked that hundreds of secessionist movements have been suppressed to preserve national integrity and sovereignty. The hegemonic intervention of a nationalist discourse prevents antagonist discourses from succeeding. Christopher Heath Welman in his book A Theory of Secession: The Case for Political Self-Determination (2005) has pointed out that ‘any group has a moral right to secede as long as its political divorce will leave it and the remainder state in a position to perform the requisite political function’ (quoted in Bansal, 2022, p. 135). Many secessions, based on religion, race and communities have resulted in terrible phases of socio-political upheavals, violent confrontations, deaths and hostilities between the two nations. This leads to dysfunctional political systems mired in hatred and destructiveness. Bansal (2022), writing on the political assertion of Naga Tribes, rightly asserts that:

cultural identity and political rights of the Nagas are inextricable. However, political activism accompanied with militant secessionist voices shakes the foundations of an otherwise peaceful nation. While cultural assertion and political resistance to achieve a few demands within one nation state are a must for a dignified life, the voice for the creation of separate homelands for different ethnic, tribal groups would surely undermine the national integrity. (Bansal, 2022, p. 139)

In the wake of these arguments, it is imperative to remember that antagonisms will emerge from the field of discursivity, especially in a country like India where people of diverse identities live in diverse unities. The emergence of such conflicts is vital for the political evolution and refinement of the nationalist discourse in a nation-state. Antagonisms serve as a reminder to the nation-state and its ideological framework that there are still more segments of society that require inclusion, and their political and social demands must be acknowledged and negotiated. This ongoing struggle against hegemony keeps the principle of inclusivity alive, a principle without which democracies may start backsliding.

The portrayal of ‘a Dalit nation’ in the novel harks back to pre-independence socio-political debates surrounding the ‘untouchables’. M. K. Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar, despite their shared objectives, held starkly contrasting views on social and political reforms for the depressed classes. One such divergence became apparent when reforms for Dalits and the oppressed classes remained largely unfulfilled and inadequately addressed. Socially, they continued to be labelled as ‘untouchables’, and their political participation was largely unwelcome. M. K. Gandhi ‘declared that swaraj would not come for a hundred years if untouchability was not eliminated’ and strongly believed in social reformation (Uppal, 2007, p. 43). As a result, he ‘organized satyagraha to secure them entry into temples, and access to public wells, tanks, roads and schools’ (Uppal, 2007, p. 44). Mahatma Gandhi sought to change the hearts of the upper-caste Hindus and encourage them to ‘give up “the sin of untouchability’” (Uppal, 2007, p. 44). In contrast, B. R. Ambedkar leaned towards political solutions to the problems faced by Dalits. Dalit leaders pressed for their political demands, including reservations in educational institutions, during the early stages of their activism. It was Ambedkar ‘who organized the Dalits into the Depressed Classes Association in 1930, clashed with Mahatma Gandhi at the second Round Table Conference by demanding separate electorates for dalits’ (Uppal, 2007, p. 44). Gandhi could not fathom the prospect of separate electorates for Dalits in his vision of the ‘India of his dreams’ and undertook a fast-unto-death when the British government considered Ambedkar’s proposal. Mahatma Gandhi ‘believed that separate electorates for Dalits would slow down the process of their integration into society’ (Uppal, 2007, p. 44). Another aspect that likely factored into Gandhi’s reasoning was the potential for such political separatism to fuel the sentiments of various minority groups seeking separation. In a worst-case scenario, these separatist sentiments could evolve into secessionist movements, making it impossible to integrate them into society.

Ambedkar’s political stance should not be misconstrued as an appeal for Indian disunity. Such a simplistic interpretation would be misguided. It is essential to recognize that the various measures taken to address the social malaise of untouchability and caste discrimination did not yield the desired results. The practice of untouchability persisted and in various parts of the country still continues. This exasperated Ambedkar. Moreover, a few upper-caste elites continued to dominate not only policy formation but also the responsibility of liberating the country from foreign rule. The acceptance of Dalits in political gatherings and public offices remained a distant aspiration. As a public office bearer, Ambedkar himself had to face dehumanizing discrimination based on his caste. It is in the light of these distressing circumstances the Indian nationalist discourse had to, in some sense, legitimize the claims of Ambedkar when the Poona Pact of September 1932 ‘gave the depressed classes (later to be known as the Schedule Castes) reserved seats in provincial and central legislative councils’ (Uppal, 2007, p. 44). Furthermore, when the Constitution of India guarantees the Right to Equality (Articles 14–18), ensuring that everyone is treated equally before the law, it reflects the nationalist discourse’s commitment to inclusivity. Instead of excluding antagonistic elements entirely, the nationalist discourse addressed and negotiated the socio-political demands of the depressed classes. This inclusivity prevented a threat to the hegemonic influence of the nationalist discourse of India as a nation-state, further solidifying its foundation.

Ania Loomba also provides valuable insights and reflections on the formation of nations and the phenomenon of nationalism. She astutely contends that merely establishing bonds and affiliations among groups of people is insufficient to construct a nation. She further asserts that it is equally crucial to disrupt and dismantle certain alliances and unions, emphasizing the importance of ‘fracturing and dividing’ in the nation-building process (Loomba, 1998, p. 202). In the context of the Marichjhapi, her perspective resonates strongly. The actions taken by the West Bengal government, including the economic blockade and the use of force against the refugees, reflect a deliberate effort to fracture and dismantle the settlement. These actions were driven by the desire to suppress the Marichjhapi initiative and solidify the dominance of Indian nationalist ideology. The account provided by Ross Mallick highlights the severe measures taken by the authorities during the Marichjhapi incident. Refugees were not only denied access to important supplies, including fresh water, but also ‘the community was tear-gassed, huts were razed, and fisheries and tube wells were destroyed, in an attempt to deprive refugees of food and water’ (Mallick, 1999, p. 108). In Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Hungry Tide, Nirmal, upon learning of the police blockade, makes a deliberate decision to visit the island in question. Upon his arrival on the island, accompanied by his friend Horen, he bears witness to a situation in which police speedboats prevent even the rudimentary rowing boats used by the settlers from departing the island. When these initial efforts to enforce the blockade prove ineffective, a coercive eviction of the defiant refugees ensues, resulting in a tragic loss of life, with thousands perishing, their mortal remains disposed of in the Ganges river. Subsequently, in the aftermath of the eviction, the government of West Bengal asserts that the eviction was a necessary ecological measure. It is noteworthy that the entirety of the events associated with this massacre became subject to either repression or collective amnesia, remaining concealed from public consciousness for a protracted period.

Rabindranath Tagore, originating from West Bengal, would likely have been profoundly dismayed had he been alive to witness such a grievous atrocity. In his work Nationalism published in 1917, Tagore argued that ‘it is my conviction that my countrymen will gain truly their India by fighting against that education which teaches them that a country is greater than the ideals of humanity’ (Tagore, 1917, p. 106). On the island of Marichjhapi, faith in the inherent goodness of humanity was eroded, and an atmosphere of animosity prevailed, leading to a regrettable disregard for moral principles and the concept of ‘spiritual unity’. Consequently, the innate benevolence within individuals yielded to the brutality that culminated in a politically motivated massacre. Rabindranath Tagore, an advocate of the ‘moral power of love’ and the ‘vision of spiritual unity’, would undoubtedly have been disheartened to witness individuals engaging in acts of violence against one another for certain socio-political motivations. He firmly asserted:

I have no hesitation in saying that those who are gifted with the moral power of love and vision of spiritual unity, who have the least feeling of enmity against aliens, and the sympathetic insight to place themselves in the position of others will be the fittest to take their permanent place in the age that is lying before us, and those who are constantly developing their instinct of fight and intolerance of aliens will be eliminated. (Tagore, 1917, p. 101)

Tagore would have unequivocally rejected any form of nationalist discourse in India that failed to uphold moral ideals and the concept of spiritual unity. For him, the ultimate ideal of humanity transcended national integration and rejected any actions involving the fragmentation and dissolution of alliances and unions in the name of nationalism. In Tagore’s vision of a nation, ‘There is only one history – the history of man. All national histories are merely chapters in the larger one’ (Tagore, 1917, p. 99). Therefore, his perspective emphasized the imperative of labouring collectively for the universal well-being of all.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is imperative to draw upon the familiar notions from Critical Discourse Theory, as proposed by Laclau and Mouffe. As previously argued, the assertion of the possibility of a full, total and closed identity within discourse would inherently negate the contingency that underlies discourse itself. However, within the context of nationalist ideologies, the absence of such completeness would precipitate an identity crisis, a vulnerability it cannot afford. Consequently, nationalist ideologies endeavour to foster identification with their discourse while concealing its inherent impermanence, asserting that no credible alternative exists. Laclau and Mouffe recognize this autonomy of nationalist ideologies as a constructed political space, resulting from hegemonic articulation: ‘Some unusual discursive formations may tend to be organized around a single and relatively stable nodal point – such as a nationalist discourse that has achieved an unusual degree of predominance and stability’ (Smith, 1998, p. 98). Nation targets a specific constituency while bringing together other moments of a certain nationalist ideology to establish a world-view. As W. Connor posits, ‘nation-building’ is the nationalist project of the states with the ambition to sediment their conceptual hegemony over the ‘nation’ as a nodal point (Connor, 1994, p. 40).