The Nation and Its Others: Pakistani Anglophone Poetry in the Postcolony

What is the place of poetry in a postcolonial state? How does the antagonistic relationship between the postcolonial state and colonial language inform the poetics of anglophone and regional poetry? Starting from these basic questions, this dissertation argues that anglophone poetry and Punjabi poetry offer sites of resilience in the poctcolony called Pakistan. Locating the state of Pakistan in the history of its language politics, I argue that anglophone poets in the country move from “closure” to “anti-closure,” which are productive ways of writing and reading multiple nationalisms and languages in a country where a unified nationalism and a solitary national language have been forcefully imposed on the citizens. Following from this idea, I read a loss in the ontology of Punjabis in Pakistan, which the Punjabi poet in the postcolony addresses through a symbolic expenditure. Thus, I discover a sense of “disclosure” in Pakistani Punjabi poetry where the poets recover a resilience that is integral to Punjabi identity. This dissertation challenges the singular, unitary and isolationist narrative of unquestioned allegiance to ideas of one nationalism and one language. English and Punjabi, therefore, do not pose a threat to Urdu, which is ironically a language with its own colonial baggage. Poetry in Punjabi and English makes it evident that there are many “others” of the idea of the “nation,” and that there is something primal in the art of poetry that marks the potentiality of multiple existences, whether in language or in nationalism. This dissertation performs a recovery of anglophone and translated poetry as neglected art forms which demonstrate the resilience of postcolonial subjects despite the binary politics of postcolonial states. As such, I move beyond ideas of the subaltern citizens’ inability to make their voices heard, and of orientalism as the only way to read the postcolony.2024-08-0