• Dr. Vandana Sharma

Amitav Ghosh in his novel “The Shadow Lines” explores the ideas if nationhood and it’s involvement in social life of individual belonging to the same or different communities. The novel deals with the theme of partition and it’s consequences on individual lives. The theme of national identity vs individual identity is prevalent in the novel. It presents the prevailing incertitude between narrow nationalism and the ideology of globalization in the pretext of a country where the ideals of “Vasudhev Kutumbakam” exists. The genocide and mass killing in the wave of nationalism and problems of immigrants are highlighted in the novel. The novel questions our identity as a nation and its acclaimed supremacy over our social and individual identity. And are we ready to loose our identity as an individual or our identity as a family for the sake of our nation? Or for the fear of being called an anti-national or a traitor to the motherland? Amitav Ghosh has made an appreciable attempt to examine the loss of social identity leading to identical crisis in his novel “The Shadow Lines”(1988) . The novel narrated through the lines of nostalgia questions our identity as a nation or a nationalist.

Nationhood, Freedom, Geo-political boundaries, Social-identity, Post-colonialism, Contemporary.

"The ideology of “ Vasudhev Kutumbakam” vs. Nationalism in the novel “The Shadow Lines” by Amitav Ghosh", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.7, Issue 5, page no.624-627, May 2020, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2005398.pdf

"The ideology of “ Vasudhev Kutumbakam” vs. Nationalism in the novel “The Shadow Lines” by Amitav Ghosh", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.7, Issue 5, page no. pp624-627, May 2020, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2005398.pdf