GENEALOGY OF DEHUMANIZATION AND ETHNOCENTRICITY IN MUHAMMAD HANIF’S OUR LADY OF ALICE BHATTI.

Abstract

This study explores manifolds of power exerted on Christian female in the novel Our Lady of Alice Bhatti. M. Hanif portrays poverty stricken and gendered eccentricity in terms of marginalization and dehumanization of minority group whilst living in a Muslim society. Foucauldian concept of textuality that ‘discourse is involved in power’ is agreed to unmask a process of coercion and dehumanization of characters through close textual analysis of Our Lady of Alice Bhatti. Since the plot of the novel is customary in the peripheries of the capital city, where family unit of ‘Alice Bhatti’ is portrayed as shackled in a multilayered power structure. The narrative questions social justice for a nurse who is pigeonholed in ethnocentrism and a patriarchal society and a radical disapproval of being on account of religious fundamentalism. Alice Bhatti resides in a vicinity the French Colony which as a purlieu of ‘Choorahs’ [the untouchables]. In the epilogue of the novel her father hollers a dreadful life  “that is to tell complete story of Alice Bhatti, her birth and suffering and marriage and miracles associated with her, … leave it to the people to decide whether she deserves to be recognized as Our lady of Alice Bhatti” (Hanif, 339). Hence, Joseph Bhatti seeks justice with a dignity of determination.