A Study of Transgenerational Trauma with Reference to the Select Exile Narratives of Kashiri Pandit Authors

Abstract

The trauma of any unpleasant experience can be more scarring than the incident itself. It can leave a long-lasting and debilitating impact on an individual’s psyche. Professor and pioneer of trauma studies, Cathy Caruth in her work Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History shed special light on this regard. She says that trauma can be repetitive and its memory can be more damaging than the actual incident that had perpetrated the trauma. When trauma is suffered at a collective level by an entire community or a group, it is referred to as collective trauma. And collective trauma can be even more scarring as the entire fabric of the community can be affected by it. In cases of collective trauma, the trauma becomes deeply ingrained within the collective memory of the community. Collective trauma has the potential to pass on from one generation to another through memories and stories. This passing on of trauma from one generation to another through stories and fear prevalent in the pre-existing trauma is known as transgenerational trauma, also known as intergenerational trauma. The exodus of the Kashmiri Pandit community also led to transgenerational trauma in their subsequent generations who didn’t witness exodus or violence in person but only heard stories from their parents and grandparents.

During their mass exodus, the whole community suffered collective trauma due to violence (both sexual and nonsexual) and their eventual exile from their homeland. And after three decades of their exile, the trauma continues to dwell in the minds of future generations of the community who, despite having never experienced the traumatic exodus on their own, live it through their ancestors. And the ignorance of their plight by the entire nation and unresolved justice has only deepened their scars further. While the entire community still awaits justice, some of them have found refuge in expressing their pain and trauma through writing. Their writings not only narrate the untold story of their genocide but are also critical texts to preserve their rich heritage and history. These texts also narrate how exile has reshared their values at a collective level. This paper aims to examine these texts to find references to the expression of transgenerational trauma in the exile narratives written by the Kashmiri Pandit authors.