ECHOES OF DISPLACEMENT: RE-PRESENTATION AND POLYPHONY IN INTEZAR HUSSAIN’S BASTI

Abstract

This article examines Basti (2012) by Intisar Hussain through the theoretical lenses of Stuart Hall’s concept of re-presentation and Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of polyphony. Set against the socio-political upheavals of 1947, 1965, and 1971, Basti re-presents national trauma and fractured identities through a narrative saturated with memory, mythology, and multiplicity of voices. By analyzing how language, myth, and memory converge in the novel’s structure, this paper argues that Hussain constructs a literary space where the boundaries of history and fiction collapse. The polyphonic narrative resists linear temporality and monologic nationalism, instead revealing the instability of meaning and identity in post-Partition South Asia. Through a close reading of key episodes and symbols, this study highlights the power of literature to mediate between personal memory and collective history. Ultimately, Basti emerges as a critical site for interrogating dominant cultural representations and imagining plural futures.