Embodied Spatial Violence: Dialectics of Body and Place in a Fine Balance

Abstract

In A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry explores the authoritarian displacement of residents in physical, social, and cultural space during the Indian Emergency. The novel is set against this backdrop. The system's deliberate use of physical force caused spatial trauma on multiple levels, including the body and the environment. This essay uses A Fine Balance's depiction of subaltern bodies and spaces to trace how embodied spatial trauma develops as a result of state-sponsored violence. It bolsters the argument that the places the subalterns inhabit—in this case, the Mumbai slums—and their bodies are entangled in a traumatizing dialectic. Coercive evictions of the subaltern population from the slums caused by violence on the site and in the surrounding area deprived them of agency over their living conditions and contributed to their dual feelings of placelessness (body and place). There seems to be a correlation between the violence against the body and the violence against physical space. The destruction of Om and Ishwar's dwelling areas for the sake of urban beautification led to a disconnection from their surroundings. The characters' identity crisis following sterilization lends credence to Mensch's observation that disorientation feeds disorientation, and this theme runs throughout the novel. This article aims to draw a comparison between the subaltern characters' physical space (body) and the political space (place) they occupy in the book. As part of its textual analysis of A Fine Balance, this paper delves into the ways in which embodied spaces are born out of situations of violence.