Dr. Smaranjit Singha
Volume-XIV, Issue-I, October 2025
Volume-XIV, Issue-I, October 2025 | ||
Received: 20.10.2025 | Accepted: 22.10.2025 | |||
Published Online: 31.10.2025 | Page No: 52-61 | |||
DOI: 10.64031/pratidhwanitheecho.vol.14.issue.01W.030 | ||||
Problematics of “Home” and Diasporic Identity: The
Manipuri Community of Bangladesh in N. Kunjamohan Singh’s Short Story “Liching”
Dr. Smaranjit Singha, Assistant
Professor, Department of English, Ramkrishna Nagar College, Ramkrishna Nagar,
Sribhumi, Assam | |
The
Manipuris or Meeteis/Meiteis are one of the ethnic minorities in Bangladesh who
trace their origins to the north-eastern Indian state of Manipur. Whereas the
challenges of living as a religious and linguistic minority have come to shape
their day-to-day political consciousness, the collective folk memories of the
beloved land of the early ancestors continue to sustain their sense of
self-identity. This idea finds expression in the short story “Liching” from the
Sahitya Akademy Award winning book of Manipuri short stories, Ilisha Amagi Mahao (The Taste of an Hilsa) (1973) written by N. Kunjamohan Singh. In
the story, Kunjamohan deftly touches upon the issues of homeland and diaspora
by setting his Manipuri characters against the backdrop of the 1964 East
Pakistan Riots. Situated in its specific historical context, the story reveals
a rather complex problem faced by these diasporic Manipuris: the sufferings
associated with dual forced migration, first from Manipur to the eastern part
of Bengal in the eighteenth and the early nineteenth century and again from
East Pakistan to India in 1964. In the light of this observation, the present
paper seeks to analyse Kunjamohan’s short story “Liching” through the lenses of
diaspora studies and cultural studies. The study will try to delve into the
problematics of locating the diasporan’s home in the ancestral homeland
(Tölölyan 2011) and discuss the role of identity politics in shaping the
contours of diasporic experience. | |
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