FROM SILENCE TO SLOGAN: COLONIAL VIOLENCE, CULTURAL RESISTANCE,AND THE SUBALTERN VOICE IN SIRAJ'S ECHO IS THE CALL

Abstract

This research paper offers a postcolonial analysis of Sirajul Haq Memon's (Siraj's) historical novel Echo Is the Call (original Sindhi: Parro so ee Sadd, 1970; English translation by Dr. Amjad Siraj Memon, 2015) in terms of its depiction of colonial violence and indigenous Sindhi resistance to the Arghun and Tarkhan regimes in 16th century Sindh. Using Catherine Belsey's (2013) qualitative textual analysis and postcolonial theories of Fanon (1961), Galtung (1969), Bhabha (1994), Spivak (1988) and Memmi (1965), the paper argues that Echo Is the Call is a foundational text of anti-colonial literary consciousness in the Sindhi literary tradition. By analysing the novel's central episodes, the physical violence of the Tarkhan regime, the economic exploitation of Sindhi farmers, the linguistic imposition of Persian and the forms of indigenous armed, intellectual and cultural resistance; the paper shows that Siraj maps all three of Galtung's categories of colonial violence onto the Arghun-Tarkhan colonial apparatus, and builds a typology of anti-colonial resistance through the protagonist Sodhal, his brother Sanghaar, the martyred scholar Akhund Saleh and the child Sanwal. The paper adds to the field of postcolonial literary studies by recognising Echo Is the Call as a major text that should be included in the world canon of anti-colonial novels alongside Achebe, Ngugi and Fanon.