Socio-Political Underpinnings in Intizar Hussain's Basti: A Critical Discourse Analysis

The 1979 Urdu release of Intizar Hussain's book "Basti" was followed by an English translation. It was written against the backdrop of the 1971 political tension, as well as the 1947 events of the establishment of Pakistan and the division of India. The article looks at issues like identity, displacement, and the socio-political changes people went through at these raging times in history. Discourse is taken for analysis from the translated novel by Frances W. Pritchet with the same name, Basti. The research is qualitative in nature and the text is analyzed in the sociopolitical domain of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The study deals with the application of Fairclough’s version of the Dimensional model of CDA. Furthermore, it unearths notions like social, cultural, and political besides memory loss and despair in relation to the aforementioned text.