Peace in the middle of Violence: A Study on Temsula Ao’s select short stories

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to find the prototype of political violence and social realities in Northeast India state – Nagaland. The paper focuses to explore how the Naga struggle with the armed forces to engage a separate political entity and how they search their identity and peace in the middle of violence and terror prevailing over. It also attempts to give the idea that political instability and violence of the state make the human conditions pitiable. The paper makes an argument based on the short stories taken from TemsulaAo’s collection of short stories “These Hills Called Home: Stories from a war zone” and discuss the social realities of the state Nagaland during riots and counter riots. The stories generally depict common people who are victimized by the conflicts, violence and politics of the state. They also expose the violation of human rights by different militant organisations and security forces.