Formation and Fragmentation of Nation-States: Partition of India - An Example
-- Ramkrishna Mukherjee
The paper demolishes the lingering viewpoint that partition of Indian subcontinent was caused by
religious animosity between the Muslims and the Hindus, and substantiates that unequal exchange of
material and mental amenities among the people belonging to sensitive social groups leads to the formation
and fragmentation of nation-states along the march of the process-structureprocess syndrome in
extant society.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Partition(s) and Bengal
-- Rila Mukherjee
This paper looks at partition theory as regards South Asia and claims that the Bengal partition
differed significantly from the Punjab model. It argues that the Punjab partition cannot be seen as a
universal model. Moreover, the paper does not regard the partition of 1947 as the sole partition in Bengal,
but looks at Bengal's partition history as part of a process starting in 1905 and culminating in 1971
when East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Finally, the paper emphasizes regionalism as an important
component of the Bengal partitions. The paper pays attention to the physical map of partition: the delta, its
rivers, ports and cities and their respective hinterlands all have their `own' histories which were
reoriented after the partition of 1947. Moreover, a new geographical and political category, the enclaves
that emerged post-1947, is also studied. Today, soon after the signing of the New Delhi-Dhaka
bilateral agreement, this revisiting of Bengal's partition history, and the physical map of the two Bengals,
is especially significant.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Locality and Partition: A Comparative Study of Lahore and Amritsar
-- Ian Talbot
Little has been written about partition and its aftermath with respect to the neighboring Punjabi
cities of Lahore and Amritsar. Both were profoundly affected by the legacies of violence, mass migration
and their emergence as new border towns. Lahore was eventually able to recover from the economic
setbacks, but Amritsar faced long-standing problems. This paper seeks to bring a comparative approach to
the understanding of the impact of partition on the two localities. It focuses on four major themes: first,
the characteristics of the partition-related violence in the cities; secondly, the differential class and
community experiences of violence, migration and resettlement; thirdly, the ways in which memory and
national historical discourses impact upon each other with respect to the cities remembered past; finally,
the extent to which Lahore and Amritsar became refugee-dominated cities and the degree to which
migrants and locals competed and cooperated with each other in the aftermath of partition.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Refugee Crisis in Eastern India
During the Early Decades in the
Post-Partition South Asia
-- Om Prakash
The partition of India in 1947 resulted in displacement of approximately 18 million people in
Punjab and Bengal and killing of thousands. For Bengal, the refugee exodus continued for years after
partition. It is important to note that while the Partition of Punjab was a one-time event with carnage and
forced migration, however restricted primarily to first few years, the Partition of Bengal has turned out to be
a continuing process. It would be important to observe that how these people struggled to
reconstruct their lives, and to what extent their new environment posed a challenge to their existence and
culture. What was their attitude towards the government policies of relief and rehabilitation? The
government policy to resettle these migrants requires a critical appraisal. For a proper analysis and critique of
the government policy, we need to depend upon the government sources, especially of the Ministry of
Refugee, Relief and Rehabilitation of Government of West Bengal and those of the Department of
Rehabilitation, Government of India, and the Lok Sabha Debates and West Bengal State Legislative Assembly
Debates, Report of the Indian Planning Commission etc., along with other sources.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Forgotten Land, Forsaken People:
Sylheti Women's Tales and the Partition in
Colonial North East India
-- Binayak Dutta
The scholarship that partition of India has generated is as varied and contested as the outcome of
the event itself. Partition which was viewed as a mode of easy exit by the colonial powers from the
Indian subcontinent became synonymous with the violence that broke out with the partition itself. Among
the violence victims, women have been most vulnerable. In spite of an avalanche of modern Indian
history researches centering around partition of India and decolonization, the tales of women experiences
have been recent entries in these narratives. Women who have been the worst victims of the process,
suffering in silence, found their voices silenced in most decolonization narratives, which were written by man
and for `mankind'. While each of these partition narratives were efforts to informally memorialize the
event, women's sufferings found no space in such memorials, till recent times. But, apart from most of
these studies being socially non-inclusive, they suffered from geographical myopia as well. Their
obsessions with Punjab initially, and then a grudging accommodation of Bengal in the partition has failed
to include Assam, which in spite of being the `other' site of `partition of India' remained absent from
their scholarly `gaze'. If Assam represented the marginal in partition discourse, its women represented
the marginal within the marginal, or twice marginalized. This study is an attempt to highlight the voices
of these `twice marginalized' in the Indian partition discourse.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Maulana Azad and Partition
-- Asghar Ali Engineer
Partition of India in 1947 was a tragedy of grave proportion which left a permanent scar on our
minds and hearts. It was the result of very complex political problems involving several actors and
stakeholders. However, as the dispute was between sections of two communities and ideologies, matters were
simplified in communal propoganda and one community was held responsible for partition, which is far from
true. Political leaders, intellectuals and sensible citizens from both the communities opposed partition
and articulated their views. Maulana Azad was not only a senior Congress leader but also a great scholar
of Islam and statesman of great vision. He opposed the partition and very well understood its
long-term implications, which he spelt out in his seminal work India Wins Freedom. This paper is based on
his views.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Radcliffe Line: The Watermarks
of the Partition Wounds Between
India and Pakistan
-- Samta Jain and Sangeeta Loonker
The partition of India is one among the top ten tragedies in the homo-sapien history. Partition of
India wobbled from communal to economic edges, translated itself into geographical boundaries
from geographical distances, moved from sensitive to the strategic factors. It divided not only the Hindus
and Muslims living together for ages, not only struck the cultures and caused the greatest migration ever,
but this `divide and relinquish' policy led to the endless boundary disputes. The Radcliffe Line devised by
Sir Cyril Radcliffe, which equitably divided 175,000 sq miles of territory among 88 million people,
became the border between India and Pakistan. It managed to provide international entity to the two
countriesIndia and Pakistan, but it failed to draw a geo-politically sound line, though it made a perfect line as
a political cover, it had long lasting repercussions with regard to mass violence and frequent
conflicts. Apart from the tremendous dislocation of inhabitants of the two nations, there is a watermark of
dispute in the partition history. Since the boundaries were made without any understanding of impact of
resource partition, this led to the fact that water issue has stoked tensions between the two nations. The
watermarks of partition are too deep and intense to remove the conflict between the two nations and so it is
essential to understand all linkages with water. The paper aims at understanding the footprints of the past
and suggesting the strategies for future.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
BOOK REVIEW
NINE LIVES:
In Search of the Sacred in Modern India
-- Author:
William Dalrymple, Reviewed by Rita Rangnekar
NINE LIVES by William Dalrymple is a narration of nine idyllic, non-judgmental and non-critical accounts of nine not-so-normal Indians, leading lives which are different from the ordinary, in the name of the sacred and in religion.
© 2010 IUP holds the copyright for the book review. All Rights Reserved.
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