This dissertation focuses on the works of Amitav Ghosh and tries to see how literature has tried to negotiate the gaps within the historiography of postcolonial India. It discusses the relationship that exists between historical and literary narratives and the specific points where silence can enter historiography and how literary narratives deal with that silence. I use Michel De Certeau and Hayden White to brood on the conceptual similarities and differences between history and literature. Michel Rolph Trouillot's model of silence in history is used in conjunction with the literary narratives of Ghosh and Tagore with the backdrop of South Asian history of the 20th century. The specific historical moments in question in this work include the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, the Partition of India and the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. This dissertation also argues that the role of the writer when faced with such a calamitous event like the Indian Partition is not just to harken the mind to the pictures of violence but to show the readers the positive human stories entrenched within the annals of the violence.
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