![]() ![]() Unknowingly betraying Ayah by revealing her position to Ice-Candy-Man and watching her fall victim to the ethnic violence of the Partition caused her to become a “passive spectator of violence” (Basu 18). ![]() Through Lenny’s voyeurism, we see her absorbing all aspects of Ayah’s sexual encounters, including the abduction scene. ![]() She enjoys watching Ayah get attention for being a “beautiful Hindu woman” (Basu 12) she lives vicariously through her because she cannot do so herself due to her age, disease, and class. Throughout this first part of the novel, Lenny sexually develops through her nanny, Ayah. Sidhwa’s novel is told by Lenny, a child affected with polio, about her family and Shanta, her Ayah in Lahore before the Partition. As well as the brewing complexity of violence that slowly develops the “us” versus “them” mentality generationally persevered between Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus. Sidhwa ventures into these androcentric ideals in Cracking India by exploring the different ways women, especially lower-class women, experienced sexual and class oppression during and after the Partition. ![]() Even in the case of women being abducted and raped by Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh fanatics during the Partition of 1947, the governments involved still held women responsible or simply forgot about them. Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India demonstrates women’s representation during the Partition when bureaucracy only valued women as a source for reproduction and servitude A body made for the males uncontrollable “appetite for sex” (Das 27). ![]()
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