Negotiating the Ruins: Female Identity, Violence, and Resistance in Taslima Nasreen's Shame
Abstract: Taslima Nasreen's Shame (Lajja, 1993) deals with the impact of community violence on minority identity, family connections, women's life, and the sense of belonging to one's nation. The story takes set in the context of communal tension following the demolition of Babri Masjid in December 1992 and recounts the experiences of dread, discrimination, destruction, kidnapping and displacement of the Dutta family. The story is about the Hindu minority in Bangladesh, but its portrayal of women points to a wider issue of gender and identity. Maya's kidnapping, Kiranmayee's sacrifices and the constraints imposed on the cultural and personal choices of women indicate the extent to which the communal struggle penetrates the private domain. Women are particularly vulnerable as their bodies and identities are viewed as symbols of community honour. At the same time, through Nasreen women are shown as negotiating violence, familial obligation, memory, and displacement. The link of shame to communal violence, patriarchal control and loss of personal freedom is forged through Maya, Kiranmayee and other female characters. This paper claims that Nasreen's work depicts female identity as fragile and vulnerable to community and patriarchal forces. It also reveals the modes of resistance via survival, emotional endurance, humanism and rejection of forced identities. Migration is finally conceived as a hard debate between attachment to hometown and need for safety in the novel.
Keywords: Taslima Nasreen, Shame, female identity, communal violence, patriarchy, minority identity, displacement, resistance, humanism
How to Cite?: G. Bhuvanamanohari, Dr. A. Saridha, "Negotiating the Ruins: Female Identity, Violence, and Resistance in Taslima Nasreen's Shame", Volume 15 Issue 10, October 2026, International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), Pages: 259-261, https://www.ijsr.net/getabstract.php?paperid=SR261001202720, DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.21275/SR261001202720