(MIS)USE OF RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY FOR POWER POLITICS IN MOHAMMED HANIF’S A CASE OF EXPLODING MANGOES

Abstract

This research article aims to focus on Hanif’s narrative in the novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes (2008) to analyze how the manipulation and politicization of religious ideology began in a totalitarian regime. Set in the time period of 1970s and onwards in the totalitarian regime in Pakistan, the research contends to analyze in depth through the micro-narratives in the novel that how the exploitation of religion as an ideology began under a dictatorial regime. As a way forward, it will also bring out the deradicalization efforts in order to resist against the totalitarian absolute power. Deradicalization of the radicalized, extremist and politicized ideological apparatuses to “prevent society from indoctrination” as well as to “enrich the knowledge of understanding comparisons” regarding what is right and what is wrong, or good vs. bad etc. (Rezan & Naupal, 2019, p.68) is one of the major aims of this research. Moreover, it intends to study in detail through Gramsci’s concept of Hegemony as well as Hannah Arendt’s political lens provided through The Origins of Totalitarianism (1973) that how and why the totalitarian regime uses terror, violence, extremism and power politics to establish its hegemonic rule. Arendt’s political philosophy on the totalitarian’s exploitation of people as well as social structures for its hegemonic rule and authority is an extensive study that will also be connected to Gramsci’s concept of Hegemony; in which he exposes the absolute power holders’ (mis)use of ideology in order to maintain their hegemonic rule. The use of terror and violence in a totalitarian regime is not only a means of power but it also leads towards the creation of social binaries like, power vs. powerlessness, dominance vs. subjugation, voice vs. voiceless etc. By employing both Arendt’s and Gramsci’s concepts on the totalitarian evils the research will establish a critical backing of the arguments in the context of Zia’s totalitarian evils as portrayed in Hanif’s narrative.