Unfinished stories of the Partition: Across 75 years

Abstract

This conversation between two second cousins born and brought up on different sides of the India/Pakistan border and now, as academics and writers, engaged in examining the Partition, looks at what the tumultuous and tragic events of 1947 have meant for families most obviously impacted by them, and how their impact has unfolded over the past 75 years. Educated, Muslim, Urdu-speaking middle-class families ( ashráf) from North India were sundered by the Partition, and, as they remain divided between the two (later three) countries — unlike the bulk of Hindu refugees from Pakistan, who relocated to India over the next few years — the traces of the Partition can be observed with particular vividness in this large group. The dialogue explores what it meant for post-Partition Indian Muslims to have Pakistani relatives, and how Pakistani immigrants reacted to the home regions of India. It also examines some of the ways in which the division of colonial India continued and continues to shape post-Partition events, such as the creation of Bangladesh or the rise of religious nationalisms. Progressive politics, socio-economic fissures, and related tensions are also examined.