https://hjll.uog.edu.pk/index.php/HJLL <p>Hayatian Journal of Linguistics and Literature (HJLL) is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal published annually by the Department of English, University of Gujrat, Pakistan. The journal, with its wider scope, covers variety of areas in linguistics and literature with an aim to promote the current debates and the emerging trends in these fields of inquiry, internationally. HJLL is a premier source of the exchange of information, experiences, and ideas in linguistics and literature. HJLL encourages the original submissions of the research that meets the standards of academic excellence and significantly adds to our understanding of the current theoretical, empirical and practical issues. </p> University of Gujrat en-US Hayatian Journal of Linguistics and Literature 2521-568X https://hjll.uog.edu.pk/index.php/HJLL/article/view/114 <p>The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017) is a political novel written with a realist impulse to present a more holistic view of Indian history. It is trapped in the enervating temporal structure, which repeats&nbsp;itself compulsively. It articulates the personal traumatic experiences of different characters involved as witnesses or victims of&nbsp;the recurring communal riots. The study focuses on the representation of communal trauma in the novel as a compulsive repetition of a traumatic past. It analyzes modern communalism in the novel as an aftermath of a larger historical force shaping the experiences of different characters reflecting the postcolonial interests of the native bourgeoisie. It explores these multifarious traumatic experiences of multiple characters with different<br>backgrounds leading to the erosion of national consciousness causing disintegration and fragmentation. Caruth’s (1996) idea of enervating the structure of trauma as a compulsive repetition has been coupled with Fanon’s (1963) “pitfalls of national consciousness” to study India’s post-partition journey from a secular national ideology to a Hindu nationalist state. Fanon (1963) describes that the native bourgeoisie in post-independence states continues their dominance and surveillance over the lumpenproletariat by re-joining the colonial bourgeoisie and re-establishing the leader and the led relationship as the colonizer and colonized. Caruth (1996) provides a psychoanalytic framework for the study of the native bourgeoisie’s reliance on the colonial bourgeoisie through the concept of the traumatic past that pervades into present history through its compulsive performance.</p> Malik Hassan Raza Dr. Ajmal Khan Copyright (c) 2025 adminhjll adminhjll https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2025-06-29 2025-06-29 8 1