The Significance of the Body: Uses of the Body in Postcolonial Indian Literature

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BODY IN IDENTITY CREATION: USES OF THE
BODY IN POSTCOLONIAL INDIAN LITERATURE
__________
A Thesis
Presented to
The Faculty of the Department of English
Sam Houston State University
__________
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts
__________
by
David E. Clarke
December, 2009

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BODY IN IDENTITY CREATION: USES OF THE
BODY IN POSTCOLONIAL INDIAN LITERATURE
by
David E. Clarke
_______________________________________
APPROVED:
___________________________________
Dr. April Shemak
Thesis Director
___________________________________
Dr. Lee Bebout
___________________________________
Dr. Robert Donahoo
Approved:
____________________________________
John de Castro, Dean
College of Humanities and Social Science

iv
DEDICATION
For
KRISTINA NUNGARAY
to thank her for all her help and support during this journey
APRIL SHEMAK & SHIRIN EDWIN
to thank them for introducing me to postcolonial studies & Indian culture and literature
and to
GANESH
to thank him for providing his blessing for me to complete this endeavor

v
ABSTRACT
Clarke, David E., The significance of the body in identity creation: Uses of the body in
postcolonial Indian literature. Master of Arts (English), December, 2009, Sam Houston
State University, Huntsville, Texas.
This thesis explores the use of body in two different postcolonial works from India.
It charts how the authors, each from a different decade, use the body to serve as a
representation of identity. Additionally, it notes how each author uses representations of
the body differently, while achieving similar goals of identity formation and creation. The
first piece that is explored is Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, in which, the
narrator, Saleem Sinai’s body represents national identity in postcolonial India. Manjula
Padmanabhan’s play Harvest is the second piece discussed. I analyze how Padmanabhan
depicts the effects of globalization on Third World bodies through the issue of organ
harvesting.
I draw on Michel Foucault’s theories of the body and Homi K. Bhabha’s and Ernst
Renan’s theories of the Nation to support the arguments made.
KEY WORDS: Postcolonial, Body, Salman Rushdie, Manjula Padmanabhan, Midnight’s
Children, Harvest
Approved:
_______________________________
Dr. April Shemak
Thesis Director

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the loving abundance of support
that my amazing and beautiful wife showered upon me. Anytime I needed help clarifying
my ideas, finding research, or just needed another set of eyes to tell me how to correct
stylistic fragments, she was always there and willing to lend a helping hand. She also
helped keep me sane every step of the way. Each and every little thing she did to help me
improve my thesis or every chore she took care of to give me more time to work on my
project is still greatly respected.
I’d also like to acknowledge the generous amounts of direction and assistance that
Dr. Shemak provided me with. Most importantly, she helped me through the grueling
process of turning my convoluted thoughts into something that made sense on paper.
Seeing each draft of every chapter had to be severely taxing, especially when reading my
earlier drafts. However, she was always willing to read yet another draft. Thank you. I am
also grateful for her insight and advice on theorists and critics that I should look at to
better support my own arguments. Her simple suggestions were always useful, especially
since she would only show me the various paths I could take without ever choosing one
for me.
I would also like to thank Dr. Bebout and Dr. Donahoo for all the help and support
they provided me with on this extensive, arduous journey. While I did not show them my
drafts as often as I thought I would, every suggestion they offered was beneficial and well
received. I truly feel they both helped me in more ways than any of us are aware of,
especially since I took the comments on essays I wrote for their classes to heart, applying
them to this project. Furthermore, Dr. Bebout’s constant reminders about how few drafts

vii
he had seen kept me pressured to keep producing, even if he did not see many of the
drafts he burdened me to produce.
When I started the English Master’s program at Sam Houston State University, I
already knew that I wanted to do my thesis on postcolonial Indian literature. I began this
journey with little knowledge of India, postcolonial literatures, and the studies that
surround them. Despite this, I was met with the unparalleled dedication and commitment
of the professors within the English department. Whether they know it or not, I feel that
Dr. Tayebi, Dr. Child, Dr. Halmari, Dr. Morphew, Dr. Bridges, Dr. Hall, Dr. Dowdey,
Ann Theodori, Dawn Caplinger and others aided in the creation and writing of my thesis.
Sitting in their classes or simply hearing their words of encouragement, gave me
additional insight(s) or the push I needed to write and re-revise additional sentences,
paragraphs, and pages.
Lastly, I would like to acknowledge my family and friends. They encouraged me to
complete this project by always reminding me that many of them are interested in reading
my writing. Moreover, I am indebted to the family members and friends who read drafts
and aided me in editing. The revision process has been more demanding than I ever
thought, but your aid is greatly valued. I am also thankful for the honest feedback I
received from these readers regarding how (in)comprehensible my esoteric writing and
field of study are. Hearing your compliments for parts that actually made sense and your
complaints about the parts that did not make sense was priceless in helping me better my
own work.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
DEDICATION................................................................................................................... iv
ABSTRACT.........................................................................................................................v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................... vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................................................. viii
CHAPTER
I THE BODY IN POSTCOLONIAL INDIAN LITERATURE......................................1
An Abbreviated History of India .................................................................................3
The Significance of Body in Postcolonial Indian Texts ..............................................9
Representations of the Postcolonial Indian Body......................................................15
The Significance of Representations of the Indian Body ..........................................20
II RUSHDIE’S SALEEM: USING THE BODY AS A REPRESENTATION OF
NATIONAL IDENTITY ...........................................................................................22
Nationalism, Epic & the Body...................................................................................25
Midnight’s Children: A Postmodern Epic .................................................................32
Saleem as Epic Hero; or, The importance of Saleem’s Body....................................35
Saleem’s Body as a Representation of the Indian Nation..........................................42
III PADMANABHAN’S HARVEST: USING BODY TO CREATE IDENTITY IN A
GLOBALIZED WORLD .........................................................................................53
Identity Creation for the Third World Body..............................................................60
The Docile Third World Body: Using Foucault to Interpret Padmanabhan..............65
Removing Ma From Reality ......................................................................................69
Om; or, The Extremities of Commodification...........................................................71
Refusing to be Commodified; or, How Jeetu Controls His Own Body.....................74

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Jaya: A Viable Identity for Third World Inhabitants.................................................80
IV THE VALUE OF THE POSTCOLONIAL INDIAN BODY ..................................86
NOTES...............................................................................................................................91
WORKS CITED ................................................................................................................93
WORKS CONSULTED ....................................................................................................98
VITA..................................................................................................................................99

1
CHAPTER I
THE BODY IN POSTCOLONIAL INDIAN LITERATURE
In postcolonial Indian literature, the body plays an important role in identity
formation. The construction of identity begins with the body, making it and its
representation crucial in the development of identity. In part, this can be seen as a
response to the colonial subjugation of colonized bodies. It was not unusual for the
colonizers to subjugate and criticize the colonized body, feeling that it had little or no
worth. Thomas Macaulay, in his famous “Minute on Indian Education, February 2,
1835,” calls for a Western-educated class in India that are “Indian in blood and colour,
but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect” (130). He is denouncing the
Indian body, due to its pigmentation and its blood, as inferior to the Western or British
body. Likewise, Macaulay castigates the Eastern mind as something less. Macaulay also
states that the native Indians “represent their education as an injury,” and he notes that the
natives also felt that this “injury for which the stipends paid to them during the infliction
[was] a very inadequate compensation” (127). He further elaborates this notion by
stating, “They have wasted the best years of their life in learning what procures for them
neither bread nor respect. Surely we might, with advantage, have saved the cost of
making these persons useless and miserable” (127). Macaulay, as a voice for the British
administration in India, refers to the native population as useless and miserable,
inscribing values upon their physical bodies.
During British colonization, attitudes of the British towards the Indian body
appear highly negative. The British air of superiority dominated the land. Now, after
sixty-two years of independence, the richness and diversity of India is captured within the

2
literature being produced in the country. Moreover, postcolonial Indian literature’s
representation of the body as the nation and/or global identity provides insight into how
Indians have reclaimed their bodies from British castigation. In the two works chosen for
this study, Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie and Harvest by Manjula
Padmanabhan, the body is an important feature at the forefront of each piece. Each author
portrays the body differently, but both achieve similar effects, showing the figurative
reclamation of identity through representations of the body. Each author creates a unique
understanding of identity through the depiction of the body; thus, I posit that the body is a
metaphor for the postcolonial reclaiming of Indian identity in each of the two works.
Each author uses the body to construct an identity that reflects a particular time in
postcolonial India. Rushdie uses the body to represent the nation of India itself, and
Padmanabhan explores how Indians are situated within the larger, global world through
her depiction of the body. Thus, the body “is a crucial site for inscription” (Ashcroft,
Griffiths and Tiffin 183), which makes the representations of it important for the
development of identity. After achieving independence, the natives of India had to carve
out a new identity for themselves. They had to decide whether they were inferior, equal,
or superior to the withdrawn colonizers. They had to rediscover their own customs and
choose what Western ideals they would keep and which ones would be whittled away.
Like a piece of already sculpted sandstone, Indians had to literally reclaim their bodies to
forge new identities, reforming and reshaping perceptions of them while creating a new
identity inside of and outside of their nation. Rushdie and Padmanabhan, through their
individual representations of the body, stand for this task figuratively within the selected
works. After many generations of colonization, authors within India began using

3
literature to represent the postcolonial era. Rushdie’s representation uses the body to
exemplify the nation. Padmanabhan uses representations of the body to reveal the effects
of globalization on Indian identity. Thus, each text uses a different representation of the
body that reflects the time and political situation of the period in which the text was
written.
Literature performs cultural work, providing a space that allows postcolonial
people to create unique and individual identities while using language to respond to
colonization. Therefore, for the postcolonial Indian, literature becomes a valuable source
for charting a progression of ideas, while finding explanations and implications of
identity in postcolonial India, or India after the temporal transition beyond colonization—
which signifies the easiest definition of the “post” in postcoloniality. Furthermore, this
postcolonial moment is significant in a myriad of ways because, after independence is
achieved, the people of India’s responses to colonization aid in the formation of an
independent identity.1
The pieces selected for this thesis critique colonization in their
own unique way. Many postcolonial literary works deal with the creation and
establishment of a new identity, but the two pieces selected for this study each use the
body to write, establish, and understand identity for postcolonial Indians.
An Abbreviated History of India
Colonization had a significant impact on portrayals of the body of Indians,
making it necessary to explore the history of colonialism in India when studying
postcolonial Indian literature. The foundation for European colonization of India began
when Europeans made their initial contacts with India between 1498 and 1757. The
Portuguese were the first group of Europeans to arrive in India, which allowed for a

4
Portuguese monopoly upon Asia-Europe maritime trade (SarDesai 207), giving “almost
complete maritime supremacy over the west coast [of India] and some limited control
over the east coast and the Bay of Bengal” (210). However, British interest in India
quickly began to grow when the Portuguese ceded Bombay (SarDesai 215).2
By 1735,
the British-controlled East India Company (EIC) dominated the people of India by
misusing the established ruling classes within the country, relying on bribery, extortion,
political exploitation of native chieftains, and the various disconnects and lacks of unity
between the various kingdoms (218-23). In 1757, the English emerged as the dominant
European power within India (217), and completely subjugated India to British colonial
rule by 1764 (220). Between 1772 and 1773, the EIC lost its private commercial status
because the British government absorbed it, giving the British government even more
control over India. Conditions did not improve as a result of this change (223-4). The
British government did not trust the Indians and denied them access to most functions of
the government inside India (225-8). Furthermore, the British military overpowered the
indigenous powers (223).
During the colonial period, two schools of thought divided the British officials in
India, but both schools had a common goal, furthering “‘British greatness [which] must
be founded upon India’s happiness,’ but not necessarily on [the] Indian tradition of
institutions” (SarDesai 233). In general, the British Liberals thought that the British
administration in India should be established upon whatever had already been successful
in India. They became familiar with Indian law and customs. They showed respect and
appreciation for the indigenous ways of thought and opposed forcing English ideas and
institutions upon India. This group had also begun to plan a time when England would

5
withdraw itself from India (233). The other school of thought felt that the British had a
duty to expose Indians to Western ideals (234). This attitude was derived from the belief
that the Western ideas were superior to their Eastern counterparts (235).3
The natives of India were colonized culturally, making the struggle for identity
after colonization immensely difficult. By the early 1800s, the British government pushed
for Indian education in English, which was given state support by the British in 1835
(SarDesai 235-6), showcasing the belief that Western literature and thoughts were better
than Eastern. Western models and influences of the novel, short story, essay, and drama
seemingly began to take root in India. Additionally, in 1835, the Indian law system began
being conducted in English, so the British created a new class of people, Indian babus, or
clerks, who could run the lower level administration because they were educated in
English and Western ideals of democracy, individual freedom, and equality (236).
Eventually, Indians began fighting against British rule in a unified and collective
way. An Indian Nationalist movement began around 1850 (SarDesai 249). The year 1857
marked the beginning of The Great Uprising (239), which is considered to be India’s first
war of independence (240). 4
It was caused by displeasure for the reforms that the British
mandated, Governor-General Dalhousie’s modernization of India,5
and lies about greased
rifle cartridges (241-3).6
After The Great Uprising, nationalism within India grew
stronger. This was caused in part by the founding of the Indian National Congress (INC)
in 1885. Finally, the Act of 1935 was drafted, which stated that all power would be
transferred to India and Pakistan, meaning that the countries and their providences would
receive full autonomy. The act also stated that the provincial governments would be
responsible for electing their own government officials with the exception of a few

6
“safeguards” named in the act. The British Parliament approved The Act of 1935 in 1947
(294). Pakistan became a country on August 14, 1947 (311), and India become
independent at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947 (313).
The generation of children born on August 15, 1947 was fathered by a historical
change, one that they, along with the previous and subsequent generations, would have to
claim and make for themselves. Thus, they have to claim and make their own identity
through whatever form(s) they choose. This new identity is both historically and mentally
postcolonial, meaning they begin to respond to and critique colonization. Yet, the people
of India have used the language and other cultural aspects gained from British rule to
respond to their colonization; thus, the Indian people are facing the effects of colonization
through their society and culture.
Moreover, postcolonial India is extremely varied, causing the country’s national
identity to be multifaceted and hard to define. As of 2006, India was the second most
populated country in the world, with an estimated population of 1.3 billion. Additionally,
within India there are many variances in officially recognized languages and the language
used within the country. The Indian Constitution of 1950 recognized fourteen languages,
declaring Hindi as the official language within India (11). The Indian Constitution of
1950 also recognized English as an additional official language. In 1965, South Indian
riots against the exclusive use of Hindi prompted English to be declared the “‘associate
official language’ until such a time that a ‘duly appointed’ committee decides on a full-
scale transition to Hindi” (11). The combination of all of these elements allows for the
possibility for many Indian identities, causing the formation of identity within the country
and the discussion of identity for Postcolonial India, to present a problem for scholars.

7
Additionally, the partition of India is just as important for postcolonial discourse
as Indian independence. Language and religion contribute to the multiplicity of Indian
identity, but the mandated splitting of India in to two separate countries also plays a vital
role in postcolonial Indian identity creation. As early as 1883, British officials feared that
leaving Hindus and Muslims combined in one country would eventually cause the
demolition of both religions and of India itself (SarDesai 281). The Muslims formed the
Indian Muslim League (IML) in 1906, reinforcing these sentiments (282).
The British administration in India continued to drive these communities further
apart in 1927 by forming an all-white commission to review India’s progress, upsetting
the INC. Ultimately, the British secretary to India decreed that the Indians were not
capable of agreeing upon a practical solution for dealing with the Hindu/Muslim
problem. The Indians strongly opposed this decision, creating the All Parties Conference,
which included Muslims, and created their own report in 1928 (SarDesai 285-6).
Furthermore, India experienced large amounts of infighting between the Muslims and
Hindus (SarDesai 288-91; 297-300). On March 23, 1940, the IML asked for the creation
of Pakistan, but the details within the resolution were muddled. The resolution seemed to
indicate that the IML would be happy to remain part of India as long as Muslims were
given parity and adequate voice in the government (302-3). However, Ali Jinnah, the
head of the IML demanded that Pakistan become its own state based solely upon religion.
These demands also appeared politically sensible because the Hindu majority in India
trumped the Muslim minority (309-12).
India is officially a Hindu nation, and identity for Indians typically starts with
religion. Even though Muslims live in India, India does not have an official Muslim

8
nationalism. Therefore, India’s official national identity is not Muslim. The partition, the
forced migration, and the ramifications of these acts are stunning, especially when
portrayed through the eyes of Bapsi Sidhwa, who deals with Partition in her novel,
Cracking India. Lenny, a young, handicapped Parsee girl, coming of age in Lahore,
narrates Cracking India, showcasing the brutality that Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus
committed against each other, the division of people based on religion, and the
development of a new, Pakistani identity. Complicating the novel in addition to Lenny’s
body serving as a representation of the formation of Pakistani identity, Lenny’s bodily
handicap is corrected, as Pakistan becomes its own country. Sidhwa writes:
wave upon scruffy wave of Muslim refugees flood Lahore—and the
Punjab west of Lahore. Within three months seven million Muslims and
five million Hindus and Sikhs are uprooted in the largest and most terrible
exchange of population known to history. The Punjab has been divided by
the icy card-sharks dealing out the land village by village, city by city,
wheeling and dealing out favors. (169)
Everything for the people of India changed. British colonization left a permanent mark of
its presence through language, government, politics, and even aided in breaking the
country into two distinct countries. During colonization, the citizens of India had to
adjust and change according to the rules of colonization. As the colonial powers
withdrew, the Indians had to modify themselves according to the rules of partition. These
alterations were made to their identities, which are inscribed on the body. Therefore,
colonialism impacted the formation of identity, and in doing so impacted the individual
body as well.

9
The Significance of Body in Postcolonial Indian Texts
Rushdie and Padmanabhan have developed their representations of the body
differently across genre and time periods. Furthermore, Padmanabhan’s representation of
the body progresses a step beyond Rushdie’s, even if there is no substantial proof that
these authors read and responded to each other. Midnight’s Children, first published in
1981, depicts the slow disintegration of Saleem’s body as a symbol for Indian
nationalism and the nation itself. Rushdie’s novel relied on the specifics of national
identity and the creation of a postcolonial national identity for India. More recently, the
widespread use of the Internet and ease in which ideas and cultures and money pass over
borders shifted people all over the world into one large, global community. This shift in
global attitudes towards a globalized world allows Padmanabhan’s play to chart the
creation of a globalized identity, moving beyond the necessary borders of a strictly
national identity. The creation of a global community also carries social and economic
weight by demonstrating and reinforcing global power structures (Ashcroft, Griffiths and
Tiffin, 112). This global power structure allows for the global superpowers to “play a
decisive role through international monetary bodies,” creating a new form of
colonialism—neo-colonialism—that is menacing, not easy to identify, and tough for
developing countries to defend themselves against (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin 162-3).
Therefore, Manjula Padmanabhan’s 1997 play Harvest examines the body through the
lens of globalization and neo-colonialism, exploring the exploitation and
commodification of the Third World through the representation of the body as a product
available for purchase by the world’s wealthy. Thus, Padmanabhan situates the
postcolonial Indian in the global community through her representation of the body. It is

10
apparent that the body takes on different functions in these postcolonial works.
Noticeably, the different time periods allow a comparison of nationalism to globalism in
the representations, allowing me to explore the socio-historical aspects to these
representations of the body as well.
My argument focuses on the body as a representation of a new postcolonial
identity for the nation and its people through examining how each author portrays the
body in their work. Exploring the use of the body as a representation of the nation as a
whole in Midnight’s Children, I concentrate on the central issue of Saleem’s body, which
serves as a representation of the nation and Indian nationalism. Additionally, this
approach seems relatively overlooked in the critical, scholarly publications on Rushdie.
My argument also addresses the use of the body to represent identity in the global
community in Padmanabhan’s Harvest. This line of reasoning hopes to illustrate how the
representation of the body in postcolonial Indian literature has shifted over time.
Since, according to Ashcroft, Griffith and Tiffin, the body is where identity is
written when exploring the effects of colonialism in a postcolonial society (183), one
must acknowledge that the body and opinions of the body are important for determining
identity in any society, especially since the body and how it is perceived serves as the
basis for identity formation. So when the body becomes historically postcolonial at the
moment of independence, postcolonial people develop the initial mental aspects of
postcoloniality,7
responding to evaluating colonialism through any medium they choose. I
draw upon the foundational theories of Michel Foucault to analyze bodies in these
postcolonial works. In his essay “The body of the Condemned” he states that the body is
something that the individual owns and that if the power structure “intervenes upon it to

11
imprison it, or to make it work, it is in order to deprive the individual of a liberty that is
regarded both as a right and as a property” (11). Foucault claims that when institutions
cause one bodily discomfort is a form of punishment, meaning that the individual body is
made uncomfortable in an effort to heal the wound the criminal has made upon the social
body. In dealing with punishment, Foucault observes how society has moved away from
public displays of physical and psychological torture and now attempts to rehabilitate the
criminal’s individualized bodies by changing them into something that can work
differently within society’s social body. Punishment is now a way to break the criminal
of bad habits by instilling an acceptable work ethic, breaking down the old identity, and
replacing it with a new one so the criminal is improved. Additionally, since one owns and
controls his body, it has a political worth, meaning that for the social body to properly
function, the individual body must be inscribed to perform in a way that is acceptable
according to the politics and government of the society. This epitomizes the notion that
the body is both a social and political field and situates it within a set of power relations.
Therefore, the punishment for a crime—which is an attack against the social body—must,
according to Foucault scholar Todd May, restore the “proper imbalance of power” to the
government, taking this power away from the criminal (70). This means that criminals
must be forced to experience their punishment in the same place that they attacked the
social body, hence the government, through the penal system, must deprive the criminal
in the same way that the criminal deprived the society in committing their crime. Initially,
governments relied on public executions and torture as a spectacle to demonstrate power.
However, modern governments recognize that criminals actually deprive the government
of time and capital; therefore, the punishment for committing a crime shifted away from

12
brutal public displays to confinement in solitary, secluded cells. This deprives the
criminal of work, reducing their individual capital while the government capitalizes on
their time through the course of punishment (Foucault 8-11). Thus, the more modern and
humane form of punishment is not physically painful. Instead, it demonstrates the
superiority and strength of the governing agency, while providing a punishment,
consisting of a loss, such as the loss of time through imprisonment, that outweigh the
gains that one receives from committing crime. By doing this, punishment is designed to
deter criminal action. As crime is deterred, the people are also less likely to be displeased
with the government (9-12).
In addition to theorizing the birth of the prison, Foucault also observes and
comments on places outside of the prison that also discipline the body. Additionally, he
uses discipline, which is emblazoned on the body in schools, military training, and
hospitals to mean “the body’s optimization, for turning the body into a well regulated
machine by means of breaking down its movements into their smallest elements and then
building them back into a maximally efficient whole” (May 73). Thus, Foucault observes
that disciplining bodies is a more subtle and covert form of punishment (Foucault 136-8).
For Foucault, this discipline is also applied to the space between relationships with other
humans, making each individual work in proper time with others to make the whole as
efficient as possible (143). This efficiency relies upon the docility and submission of the
body so that “power relations [may] have an immediate hold upon [the body]” (25). Then
“[government agencies] invest [in the body], mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry
out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs” (25). Therefore, the body is an agent that,
when docile, submits to the cultural norms and ideas pushed upon it by the government

13
system that the body resides within. Thus, the dominant class subjugates the body. It is
suppressed and held down by the dominant class’ power, meaning “the [colonized/non-
dominant] body is constantly coerced and transformed to make it productive” (Restrepo
252).
Applying these ideas to postcolonial bodies, one can view the colonial body as
being punished and disciplined by colonial power. Thus, in “Docile Bodies” Foucault
explains that all institutions, including education, teach the body the discipline of
docility—subaission—to the knowledge of the dominant class (156-9). Foucault presents
the body as a tool that is manipulated by the dominant class, for its own good. Here,
Foucault’s description of the dominant class echoes the ideas of colonial forces,
providing a way to apply his theory to postcolonial literature. The dominant class, or
colonizers, uses the bodies of the colonized to exert their power, whether it is through
punishment and discipline or the colonized peoples’ docility.
Foucault’s theories create a foundation that allows for the exploration of the body
by examining the body and its relationship to the colonizer. As a representation of India,
Saleem’s body allows him to connect with the other children of midnight through
telepathy as a child. As an adult, the government punishes Saleem’s body. He is rendered
infertile and impotent during The Emergency. Saleem’s body is surrendered to his
government and eventually dismantles into millions of pieces. Saleem’s submittal to his
government and the falling apart of Saleem’s body serves to represent the Indian nation
because each speck of Saleem’s body represents one Indian within India. Yet in Harvest,
the body of the poor begins docile and is more or less stolen by the dominant class. It
exists as a commodity used for consumption by elites in the First World. In the end, it

14
remains suppressed and dominated, reflecting the ideas of the docile body as observed by
Foucault.
The significance of the body in all literature can be traced through its
representations and by understanding the ramifications of these sociohistorical
representations. Mary Douglas explains that scholars must be “prepared to see in the
body a symbol of society, and to see the powers and dangers credited to social structure
reproduced in small on the human body” (116), meaning that one body can represent
many larger ideas, such as a nation or even global identity. Thus scholars must be
prepared to explore the importance of the body and its representations within works.
Furthermore, uses of the human body within literature can easily be seen as
representations of identity or identity formation. Both identity and identity formation are
responses to and are inscribed upon the body by one’s government, language, values,
morals, religion, and beliefs. This exemplifies bodies having meanings attached to them,
which come from social and political institutions. Thus social structures also serve as the
site for the formation of identity. Furthermore, Anthony George Purdy states that the
body is becoming more and more pronounced in modern literary criticism. This
movement towards theorizing the body stems from theorists who “decentre or disrupt the
mind/body hierarchy,” want to base their criticism in something local, historical, and
concrete, and to discuss resistance and transgression that modifies the body (5). More
importantly, he also asserts that the study of the body allows scholars to tackle problems
with identity (6), lending a basis for my own discussions on the creation and
establishment of identity through representations of the body. Finally, Carol E.
Henderson explains, “the corporeal body has continually served as an emblem for the

15
conceptualizations of national identities” (3). This is the very point that this argument
wishes to map out across the discussion of the selected works. Whether it is through the
dissolution of the body or the dehumanization of the body, each of the authors discussed
use their unique representations of the body to conceptualize their vision of Indian
identity in national and global terms.
Representations of the Postcolonial Indian Body
Both Rushdie and Padmanabhan illustrate that identity is created by the body
though their have different approaches to the representation of the body. Salman Rushdie
attempts the impossible with his nationalistic epic, Midnight’s Children by having one
character, his narrator, serve as a representation of the entirety of postcolonial India. This
proves challenging because India is very diverse in a myriad of ways, with language
being one of the most dissimilar aspects of the nation, in addition to India’s sundry
landscapes (Harrison 399). The body of Rushdie’s character Saleem Sinai, a child born at
the stroke of independence and the narrator of the novel, becomes a representation of the
whole nation of India. Saleem narrates the novel from his deathbed in a pickle factory to
Padma, a woman who serves as both the pickle factory’s guard and as Saleem’s
constantly interested and sometimes demanding audience. He tells of his lineage, then his
birth, his childhood, the connection he had to the other children born within the first hour
of August 15, 1947, conflicts with Pakistan, and more. Most importantly, Saleem states
that he is breaking into “six hundred million specks of dust” (Rushdie Midnight’s
Children 441). Saleem tells his audience that he is the physical representation of every
person in India because he has been “so-many too-many persons” in his life (533). This

16
symbol and everything Saleem experiences is a culmination of the identity of the new
nation, making Rushdie’s narrative not only epic in scope, but also epic in function.
Many critics note the epic scope of Midnight’s Children. They tend to discuss
Rushdie’s use of nationalism, noting that Saleem Sinai and the Indian nation “go through
the pangs of birth, the tantrums of childhood, the traumas of adolescence and the anomie
of adulthood” together (Mohammed 738). Other scholars note that Saleem’s own life is a
dismal equivalent for Rushdie’s own feelings about the sinister history of “politically
modern India” (Mossman 73), but they do not seem to highlight or discuss Saleem’s body
as a representation of the Indian nation itself. Considering the destruction of Saleem’s
body and Rushdie’s “construct[ion of] a heroic lineage of the nation” (290, author’s
emphasis), this subject seems surprisingly overlooked.
Additionally, the novel is upheld as a nationalistic work because of Rushdie’s use
of epic conventions. Conner analyzes Rushdie’s use of epic conventions, following
Bakhtin’s model. He cites Bakhtin as saying that the genre of epic must have “its subject
[as] ‘a national epic past’; its source [as a] ‘national tradition (not personal experience
and the free thought that grows out of it)’; and, ‘an absolute distance [that] separates the
epic world from contemporary reality’” (Conner 289-90). Therefore, the use of epic
conventions allows for Saleem’s body to represent the Indian nation. Moreover, the
critical evaluation of the novel in my chapter on Midnight’s Children as an epic will be
utilized to situate Saleem in a position that allows his the body to be viewed as a symbol
representing nationalism.
Padmanabhan uses the body as a way to examine the value of life in the global
world, meaning that her play assesses the value of the Third World body as a product that

17
can be purchased by an elite First World consumer. In this play, the central plot element
deals with global organ trading as a metaphor for examining one’s identity in the
globalized, modern world. The play tells the story of a poor Indian family living in the
slums of Bombay. Om, who has been laid off from his job, decides to enroll in a
program, which on the surface appears to be utopian because it allows him to live and
work at home. Om, his wife, Jaya, his mother, and his younger brother, Jeetu, will be fed
and well taken care of by the organ-harvesting corporation, and Om is told he may never
even have to lose an organ. Jaya sees through the gimmicks immediately, and Jeetu
refuses to live in the apartment after the corporation has installed all the monitoring and
interactive technology required for the business aspects of the deal. Jaya misses Jeetu and
risks everything that Om thinks he is providing—the technological upgrades within their
dwelling, health care, and food provisions from the corporation—to meet Jeetu. Jeetu is
outside the apartment, and most importantly, he is covered in dirt and germs. Jeetu serves
as a representation of everything that can destroy the safety of Om’s soon-to-be harvested
organs. Despite this, Jeetu, injured, returns to the apartment. Eventually, Om’s organs are
needed, but he hides and the company’s employees take Jeetu instead. Om eventually
goes to the company to tell the company about its mistake. Jaya is left alone because her
mother-in-law, who lives with them, ordered a device reminiscent of a sarcophagus,
which will allow her to enjoy television programming, relaxing in a recumbent position,
while hooked up to a machine that will recycle her bodily excretions for her own
nourishment. While Jaya is alone, the American who received Jeetu’s skin and other
organs appears to Jaya as a hologram. Jaya tells the American that she wishes him to risk

18
his skin, to risk everything, if he wishes to have any type of relationship with her. She is
displeased with the isolation that the new technology forces upon society.
Padmanabhan uses her text to raise issues of personal value as well as the value of
one’s identity and how it hinges on one’s geographic location in the First or Third World.
The play “demonstrates that a modern trade in body parts can be understood only within
the context of gross material inequities between the First and Third Worlds” (Gilbert,
“Manjula Padmanabhan” 215). Thus, the Third World bodies become disposable, not
unlike the bodies of the colonized under colonial rule. The audience then witnesses how
the worth of the body and the dehumanization caused by harvesting organs shapes
identity. Therefore, the commodification of the body controls how the characters
formulate their identities in the play. Padmanabhan’s text demonstrates that identity is
formed through the body’s worth—commodification. Thus, capital produces both bodies
and identities, which is complicated by the blurring of the physiological boundaries
between people that is caused by organ harvesting and transplantation. However, the
boundaries between the First and Third World are reinscribed through economics.
Additionally, the play questions what defines identity. Is it the skin and organ operations
of the body that give us identity or is it that which cannot be replaced? In the final scene
of the play, Jaya, the play’s heroine, sees how Jeetu has been used for harvest. She is able
to see his physical body, but his voice and thoughts are that of Virgil, the American
recipient of his harvested organs. Padmanabhan does not seem to answer how much of
the body is needed for identity or what the body does for identity for her audience.
However, Jaya exclaims that “there is no closeness without risk” and that if the body of

19
Jeetu, inhabited by Virgil, wants her physically, or even sexually, that “[Virgil] must risk
[his] skin for [her]” (Padmanabhan 247-8). “I want you to risk it,” Jaya reiterates (248).
There appears to be little critical scholarship that has been done on Harvest.
Dharwadker notes that Padmanabhan’s play belongs to a “city-oriented” theoretical
category, meaning that the play’s argument and areas of opposition center around the idea
of the modern, contemporary city. Furthermore, he states that her play follows the textual
model of the modern, post-independence Indian city play drama (68). Despite the city-
oriented classification, Ayesha Ramachandran explores the use of utopian ideals in
regards to postcolonial readings of the work. Ramachandran also exposes the organ
trading in the play as an attempt to show neo-colonialism, meaning she discusses the
representation of trafficking in human bodies in the play as an exemplification of the
contemporary economical and cultural subjugation of the Third World. Suchitra Mathur
explains that, within the play, the First World is only interested in the physical Third
World body when the Third World body can benefit the First World in some way (128).
Therefore, as Ramachandran and Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin point out, Mathur
highlights that the commodified body is the site of inscription for neo-colonialism.
Building upon theses ideas, it is clear that Padmanabhan’s work utilizes the
representation of the body to explore the commodification of the contemporary Third
World body as a product for the wealthy First World. Padmanabhan situates her Third
World inhabitants’ identity in a similar position as the dominated class discussed by
Foucault.

20
The Significance of Representations of the Indian Body
Rushdie’s novel and Padmanabhan’s play work together because they use
representations of the body in a unique way to showcase the creation of postcolonial
Indian identity; moreover, Padmanabhan’s play appears to further elaborate upon
Rushdie’s own the representation of the body, moving it from a national representation to
a global one. These well-respected pieces are crucial for the exploration of the
representation of the body in postcolonial Indian literature. Rushdie allows the
representation of the body to be a stand-in for a national identity. Padmanabhan uses the
representation of the body to explore Indian identity within the globalized world.
Additionally, the body can have a stronger presence in drama than in novels
because drama allows for the visual representation of the body when one sees the play in
performance. I have chosen to look at Padmanabhan’s piece as it appears in its textual
format. This is not to say that I am ignoring the theatrical aspects of the body in the play,
but to say that Rushdie’s use of the body carries enough presence in his novel to be
juxtaposed with the written uses of the body by Padmanabhan. Since I have chosen not to
discuss performances of Harvest, I will rely solely upon the writing within the text and
put it on a level playing field with a novel.
Moreover, I have chosen these pieces because they each are more widely known
and appreciated within postcolonial studies. Salman Rushdie has made a name for
himself with his writings, and “there is an entire generation of novelists from India who
feel the weight of Rushdie’s influence as enabling (or disabling) their own talents”
(Dingwaney 317). Jon Mee even names Rushdie as the “messiah” of the Indian novel in
English during the 1980s (318). Additionally, Harvest won the first Onassis Prize for

21
Theatre in 1997 (Gilbert, “Manjula Padmanabhan” 214), earning recognition for the play
and Padmanabhan as a writer. She also had a career as a political cartoonist and had
written other plays on social issues before Harvest gained her notoriety (214). The pieces
and authors chosen are all well respected, meaning the authors have won awards for their
work, been anthologized, been invited to give lectures, edit volumes of others’ works,
edit volumes of their own works, and even been offered/taken faculty positions at
universities.8
The second chapter will discuss Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and his use of the
body to represent the nation, as a whole. Thus, the chapter explores Rushdie’s use of the
body as a representation of the Indian nation. This chapter will include published
criticism from books and journals that supplement my discussion of Rushdie’s work.
Moreover, elements of nationalism as a foundation for identity are discussed.
Furthermore, the third chapter, including the criticism that supplements my arguments,
will explore Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest and her representation of the body as a
commodified product and how that disrupts the formation of identity for the Third World.
This discussion will emphasize the identity of postcolonial Indians in the global world.
Lastly, the project’s conclusion pulls elements from the discussions of both works
together, creating a comparison of the works.

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CHAPTER II
RUSHDIE’S SALEEM: USING THE BODY AS A REPRESENTATION OF
NATIONAL IDENTITY
In Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie sets out to accomplish the impractical;
he uses the representation of his narrator’s sole body to represent the immeasurable
diversity of India. Through his representation of the body, Rushdie links the body to the
narrative through Saleem Sinai, who recounts the tale of himself, his family, and the first
generation of people after India’s independence from British rule in addition to
representing the Indian nation. As Saleem writes his narrative, his body, physically and
literally, writes the narrative of postcolonial India’s first generation. This causes Saleem’s
body to truly be a site of inscription for Indian national identity, meaning that Saleem and
his narrative capture the various aspects of Indian national identity in one long,
sometimes convoluted narrative. Saleem also incorporates epic narrative elements such as
starting in medias res and using long, epic digressions, which further allow him to tackle
the diversity of India. Furthermore, his journeys and experiences allow him to interact
with a multitude of languages, locations, and people both inside and outside of India.
Saleem’s body becomes a metaphor for the Indian nation as he experiences the
innumerable diversities through his body, forging a semblance of unity for the
subcontinent. Thus, Rushdie uses Saleem’s body as a metaphor for India by compiling all
the major events for the first generation of independent Indians into one life. He
incorporates as much of the subcontinent’s variations in people, languages, and
geographies, creating a new mythic vision of India.

23
The novel opens with Saleem Sinai, nearing his thirty-first birthday and fearing
his imminent death. Saleem is reciting his life story to Padma, his companion who serves
as a patient and often-skeptical audience to his tale. He begins by noting his birthday, the
stroke of midnight on August 15,1947. This is also the date of India’s independence from
British colonial rule. However, he decides starting at this moment is not sufficient for
telling his own story and the story of India, so he takes his audience back in time to
Kashmir. Beginning thirty-two years before his birth, Saleem then traces the story of his
grandfather, Doctor Aadam Aziz. Saleem focuses on Dr. Aziz, as he visits his Kashmiri
patients, and on one particular patient, Naseem, who will eventually become Saleem’s
grandmother.
Dr. Aziz treats Naseem for three years, and eventually the two marry and move to
Agra. In Agra, the couple have five children: Alia, Mumtaz, Emerald, Mustapha and
Hanif. Dr. Aziz also falls in with Mian Abdullah and his anti-Partition stance. Later,
Mumtaz reluctantly agrees to marry a man named Ahmed Sinai and changes her name to
Amina. She moves to Delhi with her new husband. While pregnant, she visits a
fortuneteller, who cryptically tells her that her unborn son will never be older or younger
than his country. Shortly after this, Amina and Ahmed move into an estate that they
purchase from a departing Englishman, William Methwold. Wee Willie Winkie used to
entertain people at Methwold’s estate and is married to Vanita, who is pregnant from her
secret affair with William Methwold. At the stroke of midnight, on the morning of India’s
independence, both of the pregnant women deliver baby boys. Mary Pereira, a midwife,
switches the babies, giving the poor child, Saleem, a life of opportunity and privilege and
giving the rich baby, Shiva, a poverty stricken life.

24
Saleem’s birth is seen as significant by the Indian press because it happened at the
stroke of midnight (Rushdie Midnight’s Children 133). Despite being biologically related
to William Methwold and Vanita, Saleem is born with a large nose and blue eyes, like his
grandfather Dr. Aziz. As a child, Saleem is ridiculed because of his nose. To escape
being picked on, Saleem hides in a washing chest. One day, while hiding, Saleem sees his
mother’s naked body. This causes him to accidently suck a pajama string up his nose. His
mother, who punishes him to a day of silence, discovers him in the chest (184). During
the silence, Saleem intently listens for the first time and discovers his telepathic abilities
(185). In addition to hearing the personal thoughts of everyone around him, he learns that
he can also hear the other children born within the first hour of India’s independence.
Ahmed’s alcoholism eventually becomes more pronounced and he becomes violent,
which causes Amina to move to Pakistan to live with Emerald and her husband, a general
in the Pakistani army. She takes Saleem with her. While in Pakistan, Saleem is
telepathically cut off from India and the other children of midnight.
After four years pass, Amina and Saleem move back to Bombay. Saleem’s
perpetually congested sinuses are operated on. The surgery causes him to completely lose
his telepathic abilities. After India looses a war with China, Saleem and his family move
back to Pakistan. Then Pakistan and India go to war against each other. During an air
raid, Saleem loses his whole family, and he is hit on his head by his Grandfather’s
spittoon, which causes him to completely loose his memory.
Saleem finds himself conscripted into the Pakistani army as a tracker, due to the
excellent sense of smell he acquired after his sinus operation. While in the army, the
atrocities that he witnesses cause him and three of his companions to flee into the jungle.

25
In the jungle, Saleem regains his memory, but is still unaware of his name. After leaving
the jungle, Saleem meets Parvati-the-witch, one of the children of midnight, and she
helps him remember his name. She also helps Saleem escape back into India.
Despite her help, Saleem chooses not to marry Parvati-the-witch, so she has an
affair with Shiva. However, her relationship with Shiva does not last long, causing her to
return to Saleem, pregnant and still unmarried. Saleem agrees to marry her, and Indira
Gandhi, the prime minister of India, begins her sterilization campaign—the Emergency.
Shiva captures Saleem and takes him to a sterilization camp, where he is forced to
divulge the names of the other children of midnight. One by one, the children of midnight
are rounded up and sterilized. When Indira Gandhi loses her first election, the children of
midnight are all freed. After being released, Saleem searches for Parvati-the-witch’s son,
Aadam, and finds him. Together they journey to Bombay, where they find Mary Pereira’s
chutney factory, with Padma guarding the gate. This brings Saleem’s story full circle.
Finally, on Saleem’s thirty-first birthday, he disintegrates into millions of specks of dust.
Nationalism, Epic & the Body
Midnight’s Children employs Saleem’s body to represent Rushdie’s idea of the
postcolonial Indian nation and its identity. National identity lends itself to nationalism,
which rises from a unity of ideas concerning the creation, establishment, and longevity of
a nation. The people of the nation subscribe to nationalism, in an effort to uphold the
many things common across all people within the nation. The commonalities can be
derived from race, religion, language, geographic borders, and more. However, Ernest
Renan, a seminal figure in theorizing nation and nationalism who wrote at the end of the
nineteenth century, states the most important commonality for creating a nation is the

26
shared “heroic past, great men, [and] glory” (19). He says that these elements are “the
social capital upon which one bases a national idea” (19). Rushdie’s novel explores this
idea during its first section, when the narrator is recounting events before his birth. This
opening narration by Saleem tells of postcolonial India’s heroic past, great men, glory,
which, in Rushdie’s vision, includes Saleem’s grandfather, Dr. Aadam Aziz and Mian
Abdullah. According to Saleem’s narrative, Dr. Aziz studied medicine in Germany and is
distrusted by the traditional Kashmiri population, who see his European education as a
fall from being a “pure” Indian (Rushdie, Midnight’s Children 5). Furthermore, after
moving to Agra, Dr. Aziz also falls in with Mian Abdullah and his anti-Partition
movement (44-6). Ultimately, Mian Abdullah is assassinated for his beliefs (48-9). The
men that Saleem writes about in the novel’s first section are the ones he feels the Indian
nation should revere and reference in their history, creating a shared heroic past for the
new postcolonial nation. Thus, Rushdie creates nationalism according to Renan’s theory
because he describes what the people of the Indian nation have in common (10), creating
something that the people of the nation can all believe in.
When dealing with notions of nation in postcolonial texts, it is crucial to
understand that nations must be distinct and separate, even if they are not organic. These
concepts of the nation are stated within Renan’s theory. Even if he is not specifically a
postcolonial critic, Renan aids postcolonial studies by offering a visual level by
explaining that nations are “the crucial pieces on a chequerboard whose squares will
forever vary in importance and size but will never be wholly confused with each other”
(9). Therefore, nations are something distinct and separate from other nations because of
their “individual historic units” (9). They may rise, fall, grow, and shrink, but they will

27
always be identified by what unites the people within their borders and what separates
them from the people outside their borders. Later, he elaborates that “the essence of a
nation is that all individuals have many things in common, and also that they have
forgotten many things” (11), which lends itself to the idea of a united culture and
customs. Through collective forgetting, the nation determines what it ignores to make the
collective whole cohesive, determining identity for the nation and establishing a sense of
nationalism and nationalistic pride. Forgetting is key to unifying the nation under one
idea of nationalism. Yet, Renan emphasizes that there is a part of a nation that is far more
important than common customs, borders (both geographic and non-geographic),
strategies, language, and race. The most valuable part of a nation is “the fact of sharing,
in the past, a glorious heritage and regrets, and of having, in the future, [a shared]
programme to put into effect, or the fact of having suffered, enjoyed, and hoped together”
(19). Renan’s idea of the nation can be seen in epics, classic and modern. A nation has a
common past that everyone within the nation should relate to, even if it means forgetting
something. Therefore, nations are constructed, not natural entities, and the story, or
narrative, of the past is central to the development of the nation. Problems arise when the
nation excludes certain narratives, or histories, in favor of another narrative because
doing so can exclude a whole group of people and the identity of that community from
the nation. Rushdie, in his postcolonial narrative, challenges constricted forms of Indian
nationalism that emphasize only certain religions or languages. His vision includes
Muslim characters and a Muslim narrator. At the same time, Rushdie incorporates
traditional Hinduism by naming characters after Hindu deities, such as Shiva and Parvati,
and even having Saleem describe his gigantic nose as being similar to the elephant-

28
headed Hindu deity Ganesh’s trunk (Midnight’s Children 176). Most importantly,
Rushdie, intentionally or not, utilizes Renan’s idea of a nation in his representation of
Saleem’s body as the Indian nation.
The epic form elaborates on a nation’s heroic past, which is important for
establishing nationalism. In the first section of the novel, Saleem delves into his family’s
and India’s recent, yet heroic, past. Furthermore, the text demonstrates Saleem’s unique
and problematic lineage in addition to giving the past Saleem describes an Eden-like
quality. Saleem carefully describes Kashmir as being “new again” and that the land “had
hardly changed since the Mughal Empire” (Rushdie 4-5). Saleem even notes that
Kashmir was free from the “black blister” of a radio mast, “endless snakes of
camouflaged [military] trucks and jeeps,” and danger for tourists who came to admire
Kashmir’s natural beauty (5). Not everyone in India can trace one’s heritage to Kashmir
as Saleem does, but it is significant that Saleem can. As evidenced by the above stated
examples, one can notice that the impact of modernization brought on by colonialism was
less pronounced in Kashmir. This indicates that Kashmir was able to better protect and
preserve its native Indian culture against the encroaching Western attitudes of the
colonizers. Whether one’s family can be traced back to Kashmir or not, all Indians during
colonization experienced Renan’s notion of shared suffering through the influence of the
European forces and the replacement of the traditional with the modern. The shared
experience of the intrusion of European ideals, whether through Dr. Aziz’s schooling in
Germany or through British colonialism, is what Renan explains as, the social principal
upon which Saleem bases his national idea. Thus, Saleem’s heritage represents the
common, heroic past of the Indian people. Just as Homer’s Odysseus and Achilles

29
represented Greece’s heroic past and Virgil’s Aeneas served as a representation of
Rome’s heroic past, Saleem’s own family, even in Kashmir, is utilized to represent the
heroic past for the postcolonial Indian. Saleem is forging a notion of the nation in
accordance with Renan’s theories in addition to partially adhering to epic form, meaning
that Rushdie plays with the classical epic form, providing his own post-modern twist to
the genre.
Midnight’s Children continues to create an idea of postcolonial Indian nation as
the audience sees India come to life, breathing, and accepting its status as an independent
nation. This is represented by Saleem’s body, which is only made more important
because of its relation to the heroic, glorious past of India. Saleem is, as Homi K.
Bhabha, states, “the nation’s ‘coming into being’” (1). Saleem’s body is tied to the
history of independent India, and he experiences the same growth pains and struggles the
nation does through telepathy, sterilization, and disintegration. Bhabha, however, reminds
his audience that nations are not naturally created, that they are constructed; therefore, the
nation is not an organic entity. Additionally, the idea of nation is powerful because the
nation is informed by its society’s morals, codes, conventions, “common purpose, and
substantive end” (2). Furthermore, according to Bhabha the nation exists as
“‘totalization’ of national culture” and requires the normative ideas, meanings, and
symbols of the nation to be as widespread as possible within the nation’s boundaries. In
accordance with Bhabha’s theory of the nation, in Midnight’s Children, Saleem’s body
serves as a representation of the nation’s “cultural signification” by cracking into pieces,
meaning that his body serves as a representation as the creation of India’s postcolonial
social knowledge and social life (Bhabha 1-2). Saleem’s body becomes a visual for the

30
nation’s “profoundly unstable formations, [which are] always likely to collapse back into
sub-divisions of clan, ‘tribe’, language or religious group” (Ashcroft, Griffiths, Tiffin
149-50). His body, through Rushdie’s post-modern use of epic conventions, becomes an
epic form. Thus, each piece of Saleem represents a different religion, race, language,
dialect, and genetic variation within India, just as the catalogue of ships in Homer’s The
Iliad serve as a significant testament of all the different families, tribes, and communities
that made up ancient Greece (Crossett 241). However, as Renan writes “nations are not
something eternal. They had their beginnings and they will end” (20). Therefore, Saleem,
as a representation of one square on the global chequerboard, says:
I have begun to crack all over like an old jug—that my poor body, singular
unlovely, buffeted by too much history…has started coming apart at the
seams. In short, I am literally disintegrating, slowly for the moment,
although there are signs of acceleration. I ask you only to accept (as I have
accepted) that I shall crumble into (approximately) six hundred and thirty
million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious, dust. (Rushdie,
Midnight’s Children 36)
Saleem’s own body is a physical representation of the new nation of India. He is actively
subdividing into as many particles as there are Indians (529; 533) because he represents
the “cultural temporality of the nation” and has been inscribed with its own “social
reality” (Bhabha 1). By representing the nation itself and having its social reality written
upon his body, Saleem is able to stand as a full representation of the postcolonial Indian
nation. Saleem will not forever be able to represent the nation because the nation will and
does change. However, his body is the representative of the first generation of

31
postcolonial India. Saleem represents his contemporary form of the nation by not staying
in one solid piece; instead, in an epic move his body becomes a catalogue for every
Indian inside India. Furthermore, he represents the social problems and divisions of India.
He is at once a representation of the unified Indian nation and the division of Indian
states, differences in religion, race, class, and so on.
Before and during independence, the people of India collectively realized that the
nation was already beginning to sub-divide based on language and religion. Muslims
mostly inhabit Pakistan because many Hindus and Sikhs were forced by the British to
leave the area once partition was imminent (SarDesai 281-2). The partition of Pakistan
from India serves as the most noticeable barrier to creating a unified Hindu and Muslim
India; therefore, partition forces a select group of people—Muslims—from their own
motherland into a new nation constructed just for them. Despite this forced exile of
Muslims, Saleem fully represents the new idea of the Indian nation. Saleem is separated
from Pakistan and even experiences a loss of himself—his telepathic abilities—when he
is forced to visit the nation (Rushdie Midnight’s Children 325). This is a literary
representation of the fissure that divides the two countries. The crack that has served the
land is irreparable, and Pakistan is no longer a nationalistic part of India. Saleem, as a
representation of the Indian nation, can no longer channel the voices and thoughts of
Indian people when he is outside of the country.
Saleem further represents the new Indian nation when he admits that his history
will eventually be “reduc[ed]…to specks of voiceless dust” (Rushdie, Midnight’s
Children 533). He acknowledges that this same fate will be bestowed upon his son, his
son’s son, and so on (533). This is not in an attempt to be bleak; it is a sobering

32
acknowledgement that as time goes on and population changes, change is inevitable and
one’s voice can only carry for so long after their death. Once the nation and its sense of
nationalism change, Saleem’s narrative may be no longer applicable to ideals of the
Indian nation, which reflects Bhabha’s observation that when one studies a nation
through its narrative that the nation’s narrative “attempts to alter the conceptual object
itself” (3). Therefore, according to Bhabha’s theory, Saleem’s body must undergo
changes as the nation changes, such as being sterilized during the Emergency (484), if it
is to serve as an adequate representation of the nation. Saleem’s narrative must also
change the nation to fit the narrative his body creates as well, which is exemplified by
Saleem’s admission that Gandhi will die on the wrong day in Saleem’s India (190).
Furthermore, the narrative of a nation’s genesis is only applicable when the people in the
nation accept it. Thus, the people of the nation have the power to alter the nation’s
narrative and their national beliefs, morals, and goals. Therefore, the narrative is not
permanent, and there is a possibility for change as other circumstances may affect the
national ideals of morality, culture, and common goals. Furthermore, nation, or national
identity, is constantly under question. It changes from generation to generation. It is never
stable. Saleem and the destruction of his body simply echoes this sentiment.
Midnight’s Children: A Postmodern Epic
As I have discussed, the epic form has often served as a national narrative,
meaning that classical epics were often used to help their audiences understand the
beliefs, goals, and morals of their nation. These epics all explored the heroic past and
glorious men that their nations were founded upon. Greeks listening to Homer recite The
Odyssey and The Iliad were participants in the dissemination of their national narrative

33
and participants in the creation of their now ancient nationalism and national identity.
Likewise, Midnight’s Children incorporates several conventions of the classical epic
genre into its narrative, which aids its audiences to approach it as a national narrative for
India. The conventions it incorporates are important for creating an idea of the Indian
nation within the text. Also, they allow the significance of Rushdie’s representation of
Saleem’s body to be fully manifested. Epic conventions include, but are not limited to,
beginning the story in medias res, a statement of theme, the use of epithets to rename and
describe characters or things, catalogues of things and characters, epic digressions, and
vast settings (Thalmann xiii-xvii). Furthermore, epic heroes follow certain conventions as
well. In fact, they typically have bizarre conditions that encase their birth, must overcome
obstacles, including enemies, during their journeys, deal with the temptation of women,
complete a final task on their own, and finally return home to be a leader for their people
(Campbell 36-40).
It is important to note that Rushdie’s novel does adhere to many of the epic
conventions. For example, the story begins towards the end of the narrator’s plot, which
the plot of the novel begins almost thirty-one years after India’s independence, with
Saleem on his deathbed (Rushdie, Midnight’s Children 3). Through the narration of
Saleem, the audience is exposed to a slew of characters as well, which consists of “a
named cast of more than seventy” (Harrison 399). This can be justified as a catalogue,
even if it takes the novel’s unfolding to be acquainted with them all. The catalogue of
characters is epic in scope as Rushdie tries to incorporate all of the children of midnight
to give a sense of India’s vast and diverse population. In other words, telling the story of
postcolonial India requires an epic scope and an epic number of named characters.

34
Rushdie, however, does not use all conventions of epic, causing John Su to
castigate his novel as “an epic of failure” (546, author’s emphasis). Su also states,
“Rushdie rejects the heroic myth as the basis for an epic of India” (548) and feels that
Rushdie uses Saleem to “self-consciously assert [his narrative’s] own epic status” and
that form for Rushdie is “a dangerous desire for consistency, coherence, and meaning that
can efface the cultural diversity of the Indian peoples” (546). While the narrator is not
humble in Rushdie’s novel because he is the epic’s hero, he in no way asserts that his
own work is epic. The narrator serves the function of telling the story and giving the
necessary details, along with digressions that can be lengthy and distracting. Rushdie and
his narrator adhere to the chosen form.
When dealing with the epic nature of Rushdie’s novel, Marc Conner is more
lenient than Su. He exonerates Rushdie for the novel’s first section by stating, “It does
not attempt to recapitulate the past (i.e., lived events) as content. Rather it constructs a
heroic lineage of the nation” (Conner 290). It is because of this lineage that Saleem is
able to be the hero and begin a heroic myth as the basis of Rushdie’s Indian epic. Conner
also analyzes the novel as epic, following Bakhtin’s ideas of epic (289-90). Bakhtin states
that the genre of epic must have the “national epic [or heroic] past” as it subject (13).
Likewise, its source must come from “national tradition (not personal experience and the
free thought that grows out of it)” and “an absolute distance [that] separates the epic
world from contemporary reality” (13). The audience sees Saleem’s heritage as the epic
and heroic past for postcolonial India, Saleem’s generation is the representation of India’s
new, postcolonial national tradition. Moreover, Rushdie’s novel was first published in
1981, which separates it approximately thirty-four years from Indian independence and

35
approximately three years from Saleem’s death. Neither of these time periods of
separation are especially large; however, Rushdie’s novel is separated a full generation
from independence. Therefore, Saleem himself can serve as a figure from India’s heroic
past. Despite how contemporary Rushdie’s novel is to the time it is published, it
celebrates India’s recent but glorious past by exhibiting the four generations that existed
before the novel’s publication.
Additionally, Rushdie’s creative alterations to the traditional epic conventions do
not subvert the idea of epic, especially when one takes into account the use of historical
narratives. The historical accuracy of the Trojan War is still debated, but there is no doubt
that Homer uses it much like the history presented by Rushdie. Literature is often seen as
a tool to play with forms and classical ideas, so one can justly claim that the novel is an
epic in addition to being an experiment in form. To tell the story of India, a land so
diverse in culture and landscape, audiences can expect a change in traditions. It is hard to
fit so much diversity within preconceived notions. It is safe to say that Rushdie creates a
new form of epic.
Saleem as Epic Hero; or, The Importance of Saleem’s Body
Saleem position as the narrative’s hero allows for his body to represent the Indian
nation within the novel. Despite his mild misrepresentations of a few historical events,
Saleem’s heroic task is to provide his memory—his unique vision—of postcolonial India
to his narrative. He takes on this task by stating, “I spend my time at the great work of
preserving. Memory…is being saved from the corruption of the clocks” (37). Thus, in
addition to Saleem’s experiences, which he shares with the first generation of post-
independence India, he is doing his best to preserve and share his experiences with

36
others, even if his facts are not always exactly accurate. Saleem creates a narrative of
India, determining what is used, forgotten, or changed, based on his own individual
experiences. These experiences include attending Bollywood films and visiting Pakistan
after Partition. In his narrative, he discusses his antecedents in one long digression,
stating, “I must commence the business of remaking my life from the point at which it
really began, some thirty-two years before anything as obvious, as present, as my clock-
ridden, crime-stained birth” (Rushdie Midnight’s Children 4, author’s emphasis). His
Anglo-Indian lineage and experiences develop Saleem as the epic hero, which gives
unquestionable importance to Rushdie’s representation of his body as the nation.
As the novel unfolds, Saleem’s epic body undergoes various different
manifestations. The medias res first aspect of his heroism comes from the idea of his
worthy lineage. However, genealogy is not tied to blood in this novel; it is more an
osmosis of ideas and character traits. Because of this deviation from traditional epic
narrative’s reliance upon bloodlines, Saleem is able to perfectly straddle the identity of
the new postcolonial Indian nation because of his lack of biological heritage. After all, he
is the son of General Methwold and Vanita. This makes him Anglo-Indian, but a “pure,”
native Indian family raises him to be a pure, native Indian citizen. Therefore, Saleem’s
body represents the postcolonial condition, which is a product of British Colonialism and
native Indians, raised—or formulated—by native Indians. Additionally, despite his lack
of genealogical ties to the family that raises him, Saleem narrates their story. Yet, at the
very end of the first section of the novel, Saleem finally reveals that the family who
raised him was not his biological family. Instead, he was switched at birth with another
baby (Rushdie, Midnight’s Children 130-1). Similarly, the child that Saleem raises is “the

37
child of a father who was not his father” (482). Here, Saleem emphasizes that the notion
that his lineage is based on the almost invisible transmission of characteristics because
the lineage of Saleem and his own son, Aadam Sinai, is not grounded in bloodlines.
Despite any similarities they may have to their families in regards to physical features
and ideas, there is not a blood connection. Thus, in Rushdie’s epic, the cycle of life is
what is passed on, not necessarily blood. Aadam Sinai, like Saleem, is born at the
beginning of a new era in India. Aadam is born “at the precise instant of India’s arrival at
Emergency” on June 25, 1975 (482). Like Telemachos before him, Aadam Sinai seems to
be continuing the heroic cycle that his father started, showing the possibility for a
continuation of the nation. Yet, Rushdie makes Aadam’s birth very relevant and clearly
important. The Emergency was a time of mass sterilization in India;1
therefore, Aadam’s
birth represents the hope that a new generation will be able to continue the narrative of
India.
Furthermore, as the narrative progresses, Saleem introduces the audience to
another manifestation of his heroic body when he describes his useless nose as being as
“elephantine as the trunk of Ganesh” (176). Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, is a
prominent Hindu deity, and is often prayed to when one needs help completing a large
task (Wilkins 324). He also serves as the Hindu god of wisdom and memory (Jansen
123). Rushdie’s connection of Saleem and Ganesh further complicates Rushdie’s view of
the Indian nation because Saleem’s Muslim body serves as a representation of India.
Thus, Saleem’s elephantine nose is the visual aspect of his appearance that he has
inherited from the family that he has no blood relation to. Dr. Aadam Aziz, Saleem’s
grandfather, had a “colossal apparatus,” which was “[Saleem’s] birthright” (8). Dr.

38
Aziz’s nose is also said to be comparable to Ganesh’s trunk and “established
incontrovertibly [Dr. Aziz’s] right to be a patriarch” (8). However, Saleem claims Aadam
Sinai, who has a normal nose but abnormally large ears, is like “the elephant-headed
[god] Ganesh” because of his biological heritage as the son of Shiva, Saleem’s enemy,
and Parvati (483). This grounds all of the characters in the dominant Hindu religion of
India, despite the fact that most are Muslim characters. These characters are further
accentuated as heroes for their respective generations through being reminiscent of, or
even seeming like human representations of, the Hindu deity Ganesh.
Moreover, throughout Saleem’s narrative, the audience is able to see other epic
traits, which bridge the genetic gaps, that Saleem and his non-biological family share.
Saleem as an infant never blinks, causing him to learn his first life lesson: “nobody can
face the world with eyes open all the time” (142), meaning that no one can observe the
whole world, including its problems, with no rest. Similarly, Aadam Sinai’s large ears
cause him to hear everything, making him “a child who heard too much, and as a result
never spoke, rendered dumb by a surfeit of sound” (483). Without blood relation, each
generation that Saleem highlights is connected through similar, magical experiences.
Finally, in other dreamlike occurrences, Dr. Aadam Aziz sees three drops of his own
blood and tears turn into precious jewels right before his eyes (Rushdie, Midnight’s
Children 4), Saleem is enchanted with telepathy (192), Saleem is born at the moment of
Indian independence (3) and his son is born at the moment that India arrived Emergency
(482), and his son’s first words are “Abracadabra” (529). Each generation of the
Aziz/Sinai family experiences magical episodes, showing that even if the bloodlines are
disjointed, fantastical events bind the family together through a intangible, mysterious

39
heredity. Thus, as Saleem moves through the thirty-two years of his family history and
his own thirty-one year narrative, he must highlight different bodily manifestations of
surreal experiences to better establish his genealogy. For example, Ahmed Sinai’s
testicles physically freeze, rendering him impotent (154). This occurs because he is
tangibly affected by the freezing of his financial assets (153). Ahmed’s frozen testicles
are similar to Saleem’s telepathic connection to the children of midnight, allowing for
Saleem to be well connected to the voices of the new nation. Both of these characters are
affected by events in their lives, causing their bodies to be manipulated in some way.
Likewise, the precise timing of his birth causes, according to Jean M. Kane, “Saleem [to
act] as the vehicle of Indian nationality because of the miraculous conjunction of
biological and political nativity” (95). Thus, Saleem presents a story of magical
experiences, which may involve blood but not bloodlines, as a unifying structure.
Rushdie further emphasizes Saleem’s body as most of these magical instances revolve
around physical human bodies.
In addition to Saleem’s status as an epic hero being supported through the
representation of his body, Saleem also fulfills the epic conventions of having abnormal
circumstances surrounding his birth, having enemies, and facing tempestuous women.
Each of these elements is generally agreed upon as being important in grounding a
character as the epic’s hero. Saleem was born at the stroke of Indian independence and
switched with another infant at birth. Even after it is discovered that Saleem was
switched at birth, Saleem states “it made no difference! [He] was still their son: they
remained [his] parents. In a kind of collective failure of imagination, [they all] learned
that [they] simply could not think [their] way out of [their] pasts” (Rushdie, Midnight’s

40
Children 131, author’s emphasis). Of course, the fateful switch engenders an enemy for
Saleem as well. The child, Shiva, who he was switched with is forever resentful of their
switch, and serves as the antagonist throughout the text. Shiva begrudges their switch
because it gave “the poor baby a life of privilege and condemn[ed] the rich-born child to
accordions and poverty” (130). Throughout the novel, Shiva remains jealous of Saleem
for monetary reasons. He appears several times throughout the text and finally is able to
defeat Saleem by causing Saleem’s sterilization and impotence, as well as impregnating
Saleem’s wife, Parvati.
Furthermore, adhering to traditional epic conventions, Saleem is tempted by
women during the narrative. As a child, Saleem is tempted by Evie Burns. Evie Burns is
a young, American girl who appears briefly in the novel before Saleem’s tenth birthday.
Evie is a tough girl, who “confirm[s] her sovereignty over [Saleem and his peers]” (208)
because of how easily she impresses the children on the Methwold estate. Saleem quickly
falls in love with Evie, who “had only been with [them] a matter of weeks, and already
[Saleem] was being sucked into a grotesque mimicry of European literature” (212). Thus,
Saleem’s own life imitates the values and ideals put forth by the nineteenth century
British politician Thomas Macaulay in his “Minute on Indian Education.” Saleem is
being taught to see “the intrinsic superiority of the Western literature” (Macaulay 123)
that Evie shows him. As a hero and a representation of the postcolonial Indian nation,
Saleem is wrestling with the continued education of Indians in English and the Western
traditions of literature. He also exemplifies Renan’s ideas about shared sufferings and
experiences. At this moment, Saleem is a tangible representation of the crisis for every
Indian’s identity regarding the education system in English and in their decision to follow

41
the Western prescriptions for literature. Saleem is not only being tempted by a female
that he has a school boy crush on, he is tempted by a whole culture.
Likewise, he tells Padma that he married Parvati-the-witch because “[he has]
always been at the mercy of the so called (erroneously, in [Saleem’s] opinion!) gentler
sex” (Rushdie Midnight’s Children 465). Finally, it is important to note that only one
person is responsible for Saleem finishing his task. That one person is a woman—Padma.
Padma can be seen as a temptress because she is consistently “urging him on” (222),
wanting him to complete his narrative. Even though Saleem’s body is falling apart,
Padma is the sole person who drives, or tempts, Saleem forward, fearing his body will not
allow him to finish his narrative. Finally, after fulfilling Padma’s commands by
completing a large portion of his narrative, Saleem does state he loves her and decides to
marry her after she proposes marriage to him (512).
Ultimately, in a break from epic conventions for heroes, Saleem does not finish
his final task alone. It is only because Padma, fearing that the complete dissolution of his
body will end the narrative prematurely, aids him and urges him to finish his narrative
that Saleem does so. This disruption of epic conventions, whether it is through the
convulsion of bloodlines or allowing Saleem to be aided in completing his final task, is a
signal for the postmodern play with form at work in the novel. Rushdie experiments with
the classical conventions of the epic tradition. However, his refashioning of the
conventions does not detract from his work as an epic or from his hero as an epic hero.
Instead, they recreate the definition of epic in a way that suits the text and its purpose. It
is through Rushdie and Saleem’s version of epic that Saleem becomes a heroic figure,
which is significant because it allows for Saleem’s body to be a representation of the

42
postcolonial Indian nation. Additionally, Saleem is not a failed hero, which adds more
significance to his body. As a hero, he is very successful for he is a living representation
of India through the description of his body breaking into as many pieces as there are
Indians in India, even if it has to be argued that his breaking apart is a sign of failure and
symbolic of the death of the Indian nation (Kane 96).
Saleem’s Body as a Representation of the Indian Nation
By representing India, Saleem’s body must represent every individual boundary,
barrier, and border within India. The borders, whether visible, tangible, or imaginary,
allow people to understand and define who and what they are. The borders within the
Indian nation reduce Saleem to specks of dust. Therefore, Saleem’s disintegration shows
“the wide dissemination through which we construct the field of meanings and symbols
associated with national life” (Bhabha 3). This means that the cracks and fissures in
Saleem’s body represent, as Kane states, “the nationalist conception of the new country
as an essential totality” (95). Therefore, Saleem’s singular body is a physical
manifestation of every symbol, race, idea, religion, and language within India’s native,
nationalistic structure. Saleem has yoked his own autobiography to India’s history,
making “the subcontinent with his own skin,” meaning “Saleem is the new nation” (Kane
98, author’s emphasis).
Rushdie’s narrative redefines what nationalism and the nation look like. Saleem
represents the unity of the nation through its disunity. “To construct a modern idea of a
nation-state” is to “subsum[e] and legitimiz[e]” everything that makes a nation into
“‘natural’ expressions of a unified national history and culture” (Ashcroft, Griffiths,
Tiffin 150). The diversity of India, as displayed through Saleem, temporarily destroys

43
this concept of total unity. For India to have a national identity, multiple religions and
languages must be undertaken and understood. A Parsee must accept that India is not a
solidified unity of Parsees. India includes Parsees along with Hindus and Muslims.
Someone who speaks Punjabi must be willing to admit that India consists of many other
languages, such as Tamil, Gujarati, and Hindustani. Language is a little more easily
defined in India, as most Indians recognize Hindi as the principle language of the country
with Urdu, Hindustani, and English being other significant languages (“India”). There is
not one, singular idea of India, but Saleem, because of his telepathy and as the leader of
the Midnight’s Children Council, gets the chance to experience many different versions
of India, including different languages and ideas from all of India’s regions. Therefore,
Saleem is “so-many too-many persons” (Rushdie, Midnight’s Children 533), which is
why his body serves as a representation of the postcolonial Indian nation.
Saleem heroically ties Indian national identity and Indian nationalism into himself
so that he represents the nation in everyway. As he cracks, he tells the story of every
Indian language, religion, and his breaking apart is a visual rendering of the partitions
inside India. His body is legitimately a representation of India after independence. His
initiation into the crumbling hero began when he was a child and connected, through
telepathy, to the other Indian children born during India’s first hour of independence.
Using this skill, Saleem channels India as a child, experiencing different languages and
religions. Before long “the inner monologues of all the so-called teeming millions, of
masses and classes alike, jostled for space within [Saleem’s] head” (192). These very
voices spoke in all of India’s languages and dialects. The “fish-market cacophony” of
voices within Saleem’s head forces him to adjust to his newfound gift (192). With

44
practice, he begins to channel it (192). As a child, he uses this skill to cheat in class,
which he hopes will improve his parents’ opinions about him (195-6). Eventually,
Saleem’s own guilt and desire to escape hearing the secrets of all the people he knows
causes him to mentally eavesdrop on the public affairs of India and Indian politicians
(197). At this moment, Saleem enters into a position of importance. He is now privy to
the innermost, intrinsic workings of the new nation’s politics. Saleem begins to come into
his own with his abilities. With complete pride he states, “I can find out any damn thing”
and “there isn't a thing I cannot know” (199). Yet, Saleem is denied his own identity until
he telepathically meets with the other children born between midnight and one o’clock in
the morning on the day India became independent (229). It is only when he realizes that
his mind is able to bring together “one thousand and one possibilities” that he notes that
he and these children are “the last throw of everything antiquated and retrogressive” in
India, while being “the true hope for freedom” in the face of the modernizing nation and
the “twentieth-century economy” (230).
Saleem’s telepathy allows him to hear all of the conflicting languages, religions,
and ideas of nationality within India, but it also grants him a tool to conduct the
Midnight’s Children Conferences (MCC), which are the telepathic meetings Saleem
holds within his head with all the other children born during the first hour of India’s
independence, because he is able to “act as a national network” or “a kind of forum in
which [the children of midnight] could talk to one another” (Rushdie, Midnight’s
Children 259). Saleem is granted access to all the partitions within his own country as
early as age nine, but he also serves as a tool that can connect the people of the nation.

45
Even if his body falls apart, Saleem’s body is still a visual representation of the
connection that all Indians share—their nationalism. All of this is compounded when
Saleem loses his ability to communicate with the children of midnight because he is
forced to move to Pakistan. Saleem tells his audience, “exiled…from my home, I was
also exiled from the gift which was my truest birthright: the gift of the midnight children”
(325). Saleem’s ability disappears once he crosses the border into another country.
Leaving India, his nation and home, removes him from Indian nationalism until he
returns to his native country. Upon returning to India, Saleem is reconnected with the
children of midnight until he receives a sinus operation to drain his inflamed sinuses
(348). Saleem’s connection to the children of midnight, caused by inhaling a pajama
string up his nose, requires his sinuses to be inflamed, meaning there is a bodily
connection to Saleem’s powers. However, once Saleem’s sinuses are altered so is his
telepathic ability. The literal emendation of Saleem’s body through surgery does not
disconnect his body from Indian history and the nation itself; it simply revises the
correlation between his body and the nation.
Saleem’s body is altered by history, not only at his birth, but towards the end of
his life as well. All of the children of midnight are sterilized through testectomy and
hysterectomy to ensure that they cannot bring children into the world (Rushdie,
Midnight’s Children 505). Saleem’s sterilization is also a change from the traditional
epic. Classical epic strategy incorporates the idea of a continuation of a bloodline;
however, Rushdie deals with the passing of family legacy in a different way, as already
discussed. Yet, Saleem, as a representative of India, must experience everything Indian,
including irrational political decisions, which the novel demonstrates regarding the State

46
of Emergency. Rege explains, “[Saleem] falls victim, like so many others, to ‘The
Widow’s’ 1975 State of Emergency, in which he is tortured and made to reveal the names
and addresses of all the surviving children of midnight” (355). Saleem is forced to aid the
government in their sterilization efforts, inadvertently helping end his own era and
generation. In this sense, Saleem and his peers are punished in a similar fashion to what
Foucault has observed. The corruption of Indian politics renders Saleem and his peers
impotent and docile, which like the inevitable march of history, can be seen as a way to
forget the past. The power within India definitely shifted disproportionally to the
government, reflecting Foucault’s observations on the power of government and its
function. According to Foucault, this imbalance of power in favor of the government is
how the government is able to control the people and reduce crime. Likewise, this power
is gained through a painful punishment that asserts the unassailable power of the
government (48). Therefore, the sterilization and forced impotency of Saleem and the
other children of midnight illustrates Indira Gandhi’s supreme power over the Indian
nation. However, the sterilization of the Indian adult body also sterilizes the mind,
meaning it erases the different memories of the past and writes a new, unified memory
and narrative that all should agree too. Ultimately, the power shifting to the government
and away from the people seems irrational. Thus, Saleem’s narrative is important because
it ensures that the memory of the past is not forever erased and that his generation can
maintain a sense of nationalism through the preservation of their voice. Furthermore, in
his essay “Dynasty,” Rushdie says, “The Emergency represented the triumph of cynicism
in Indian public life; and it would be difficult to say that that triumph has been reversed”
(52). By succumbing to this horrible blow, the first generation of India lost their vitality.

47
Rushdie also asserts that the true crisis of the Emergency period was cynicism’s ultimate
victory, which was brought on by Indira Gandhi’s reduction of democracy within India
(52). Losing freedom is tantamount to sterilization, and can spell the end of a country.
However, for Rushdie and Saleem, this does not mean that the nation itself is over;
luckily, the nation has another generation on the rise, which can be lead by Aadam Sinai.
Thus, Saleem’s body reflects the first thirty-one years of postcolonial history. He
experiences isolation from all that is India while in Pakistan, he experiences the
“Emergency,” like his fellow children of midnight, and his skin cracks causing his body
falls apart. Through the destruction of Saleem’s body, he is finally is able to serve as a
complete representation of the postcolonial Indian nation, which is undeniably tied to
Saleem’s body through his “frequently asserted metaphoric equivalence of his life story
to that of India” (Harrison 401). According to Ireland, “Saleem must be accepted ‘faute
de mieux’ by the reader, since narratorial authority goes unchallenged” (338). Saleem is
the sole narrative voice in his unified vision of India. When this idea is paired with the
image of his fissuring and cracking body, then it becomes apparent that Saleem is a
living, breathing representation of India’s multi-faceted yet unified, post-independence
nationalism. As his body matches his voice, for this text, there is no research greater than
Saleem’s because he has experienced the first generation of India himself.
Saleem’s heroism and experiences certainly are enough to justify the
representation of his body as a representation of the Indian nation, yet “when Saleem
declares that the children of midnight, born at the birth of India’s independence, were
‘fathered…by history’ (118), he suggests his own allegorical potential, blending the
colonial, Hindu and Muslim races” (Ireland 340). Being a child made of history and

The Significance of the Body: Uses of the Body in Postcolonial Indian Literature

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