(Re)Constructing the Bengali: Propaganda and Resistance in Immediate Post-1971 Pakistani Fiction

During the war of 1971 and for a considerable amount time afterward, manipulation media reports military propaganda in Pakistan contributed to cultural stereotypes Bengalis as ‘others’. This paper analyses two immediate Pakistani fictional responses published 1973: “Bingo” by Tariq Rahman “Hearth Home” Parveen Sarwar. It considers relationship between literature medium rigid structure religious nationalist loyalties state propaganda, probing dynamics imaginative fiction top-down approach statist historiography. draws attention heterogeneity literary strategies employed authors their divergent engagements with formulaic images Bengali ‘other’, which turn shape construction national identity narratives. Along focusing on role ‘shattering silence’, it aims foreground played maintaining stereotypical, archetypal, antagonistic inter-ethnic relations.