Overlapping Identities and Allegiances in Qurratulain Hyder's Fireflies in the Mist: Cultural Memory, Nationalism, and the Fragmentation of Bengal

Abstract

Qurratulain Hyder's Fireflies in the Mist occupies a significant position in South Asian literature because of its nuanced portrayal of Bengal's social, cultural, and political transformation during the final decades of British colonial rule and the aftermath of Partition. Unlike conventional Partition narratives that primarily focus on violence and displacement, Hyder examines the historical processes that gradually fragmented Bengal's composite culture. Through an intricate network of Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Anglo-Indian characters, the novel explores the intersections of class, religion, nationalism, gender, and political ideology. This article investigates the representation of overlapping identities and competing allegiances in Fireflies in the Mist through the theoretical frameworks of Benedict Anderson's concept of imagined communities, Maurice Halbwachs' theory of collective memory, Jan Assmann's notion of cultural memory, and Homi Bhabha's theory of hybridity. The study argues that Hyder challenges essentialist understandings of identity by presenting Bengal as a historically interconnected cultural space shaped by centuries of interaction and exchange. Through its engagement with colonial modernity, revolutionary politics, Partition, and women's experiences, the novel reveals the instability of ideological certainties and the persistence of cultural memory beyond political boundaries. By recovering histories of coexistence and shared cultural heritage, Fireflies in the Mist functions as a literary archive that preserves memories of a pluralistic Bengal while critiquing nationalist narratives founded upon exclusion and division. The article demonstrates that Hyder's novel remains highly relevant to contemporary debates concerning citizenship, identity politics, cultural memory, and nationhood in South Asia.