Disappearance, Delusion and Disappointment: Salma, a Victim of Conflict in Shafi Ahmad’s The Half Widow

Abstract

The unresolved age-old Jammu & Kashmir conflict has resulted in bloodshed, killings, beatings, disappearances and other untold atrocities and miseries, of the people including the misfortune that befell the women whose husbands have disappeared without a trace. The conflict has produced many ‘half-widows’ whose husbands have disappeared but are not declared deceased. Since their husbands are not confirmed dead, they are officially not considered widows. Instead, they are seen as "half-widows". Thousands of husbands in Kashmir disappeared during the conflict leaving their wives in miserable conditions. Though the wives of these husbands leave no stone unturned in locating their husband but often the pursuit ends in hopelessness and they return without any clue. Their existence becomes meaningless and purposeless. They face the hardships which they never imagined in the wildest of their dreams. The conflict tears their life apart .They lose their dignity and identity. Many novels have depicted the plight of these women and their struggle to cope with life. But Shafi Ahmad in his novel The Half Widow (2012) has dealt with the issue in a realistic and unique way depicting how these women survive and in the search for their missing better -halves how they are consumed by the social taboos and trauma.

The present study shows how Salma is devoured and victimised pushed into the quagmire of miseries, representing the other thousands of women facing the same fate in the conflict- torn land.