Pakistani social media users are unhappy with a dialogue of Pakistani actress Samina Ahmed who is playing the nani (grandmother) of lead role of Disney + series Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan.
In the fourth episode of the series, Kamala lands in Karachi and is reunited with her nani, Sana while on a mission to discover what her vision was really about. She also learns more about Aisha, her great-grandmother.
In a scene, the grandmother-granddaughter duo can be seen talking about Partition and the veteran Pakistani actress Samina can be heard saying, “My passport is Pakistani, my roots are in India. And in between all of this, there is a border. There is a border marked with blood and pain. People are claiming their identity based on an idea some old Englishmen had when they were fleeing the country.”
This dialogue added an extra dimension to its narrative when it touched upon the partition of the Indian subcontinent. Many social media users felt that this scene faltered in the manner in which the partition of India and Pakistan was discussed.
It depicts the anguish of many Pakistani and Indian families that suffered because of the blood-soaked migration of 1947. Indians blame founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah for partition, and Pakistanis argue that the division of Punjab and Bengal was rejected by the Muslim League but supported by Congress. This is part of an irreversible history with competing narratives that are diametrically opposed to one another. However, what is problematic about the dialogue is the removal of agency from Indian Hindus and Pakistani Muslims and deflecting the responsibility of the partition on to the British.
On the other hand, netizens also loved seeing Karachi landmarks in the show. While some were also commenting that locations used in the episode were not from Karachi. There was so much to cheer about for some users. Others just loved the representation.