The birth of two modern nations, India and Pakistan, was marred by the gruesome violence of the partition of the Indian subcontinent. From Within and Without examines the representations of the partition of India in Anita Desai''s Clear Light of Day, Attia Hosain''s Sunlight on a Broken Column, Bapsi Sidhwa''s Cracking India, and Sara Suleri''s Meatless Days as counter narratives to nationalist narratives. By focusing on the suffering of the female subject in the nation-building process of India and Pakistan and its relationship to the emancipatory nationalist movements, it reveals how these feminist writers recover the woman''s body that has been appropriated as a sign in Indian nationalist discourse.