Aftermath Of Partition Research Articles

“Sindhi literature in post-partition India: marginalization, challenges, and digital interventions”

ABSTRACT Sindhi, both as language and literature, has had a precarious position in the Indian literary canon. In the aftermath of Partition, various social, educational, and political realities resulted in Sindhi being on the periphery of literary scholarship. Given the historical background of Partition and resettlement in a new social and geographical space, this article aims to explore the current status of Sindhi literature produced and distributed in India. Specifically, it seeks to assess the readability and dissemination of Sindhi literature, particularly among the post-Partition generations within the Sindhi community. To uncover the present ground realities in the canon of Indian Sindhi literature, the research incorporates deep-focused interviews with Sindhi intelligentsia, mainly comprised of Sindhi writers, scholars, and publishers. The selected interviewees represent the last Sindhi generation of writers and scholars that is entirely conversant with the practices of Sindhi culture and literature due to their educational and historical background; they articulate their first-hand experiences and perceptions concerning the challenges in the overall expansion and development of Sindhi literature in post-Partition India. The research employs an autoethnographic approach as it is useful to draw from the personal academic experiences of the researcher, who comes from the third generation of post-partition Sindhis. The autoethnographic approach aids in performing a comprehensive analysis of the interviews, which contributes to locating the challenges restricting the maintenance, accessibility, and utility of Sindhi literature among the young Sindhi generations in India. The interviews underscore irrevocable literary and cultural damage that is being caused due to the marginalization of the Sindhi language and education in India; they also discuss the existing challenges and opportunities in developing Sindhi literature. The study concludes with the possibility of employing digital methods to facilitate access to and comprehension of Sindhi literature and cultural history among the young Sindhi generations.

Exploring the idea of Resistance in Saadat Hasan Manto's Toba Tek Singh

“Toba Tek Singh”, portraying psychic-asylum inmates and their transfer between India and Pakistan in the aftermath of partition, is possibly a most celebrated short story by Saadat Hasan Manto. He intensely brings out his personal experiences of dilemma after the partition on which he colors his work “Toba Tek Singh.” In doing so, the author produces a character, revolutionary in nature, called Bishan Singh. The present paper investigates the story from a contemporary philosophical prospect to consider asylum as well as no man’s land as a space of resistance.

Voluntarism in partition’s aftermath: the Faridabad story

ABSTRACT This article adopts an alternative framework for thinking about the Nehruvian state and the drivers that shaped India’s postcolonial development strategy. This is a firm shift away from viewing development as a technocratic enterprise, and towards a focus on how the Nehruvian state sought to deploy notions of voluntarism. Within the Indian context, voluntarism referred to the mobilisation of ordinary people to further local development projects. This article investigates voluntarism through efforts at rehabilitating able-bodied refugees in Faridabad. Like many refugee townships that were constructed in the immediate aftermath of Partition, Faridabad was built from the ground up entirely through reskilled able-bodied refugee labour. Within the environment of rehabilitation, the article shows how voluntarism through the cooperative model became an integral postcolonial development strategy adopted by the Nehruvian state to construct new distinct urban spaces on formerly uncultivated lands. However, the article will reveal how the Nehruvian state’s use of voluntarism was beset with tensions, challenges, and problems. The article shows how widespread refugee discontent, bureaucratic mismanagement and alleged financial misconduct ultimately impeded the Nehruvian vision of empowering and mobilising ordinary Indians to further projects of public utility.

Social Work, Refugees and National Belonging: Evaluating the ‘Lady Social Workers’ of West Bengal

In the aftermath of Partition, the Government of India suddenly found itself to be responsible for a large number of refugee women who were not ‘attached’ to male guardians. The national government readily acknowledged the fate of these widowed, abandoned or abducted women as a sphere of feminine expertise and sought the active participation of prominent social workers such as Rameshwari Nehru, Mridula Sarabhai, Ashoka Gupta and Romola Sinha. Referred to as ‘lady social workers’, these women worked as volunteers and advisors to rehabilitate unattached women. Focusing on the voluntary service of social workers in West Bengal, and drawing upon the memoirs and personal papers of Ashoka Gupta, this article seeks to understand the limits and possibilities of this role. Was their role entirely circumscribed by the larger patriarchal vision of rehabilitation that treated ‘unattached’ refugee women as permanent liabilities of the state, or could they author policy that benefitted refugee women? Through a close reading of the solutions, schemes and reforms proposed by lady social workers, this paper suggests a complex relationship that resists such binaries.

Building a National Economy: Origins of Centralized Federalism in India

AbstractIndia’s post-colonial constitution introduced a new approach to federalism based on a substantial sphere of shared responsibility between Central and State governments, especially in the fields of social and economic policy, and a Central government with strong prerogatives to intervene in provincial affairs. This was qualified at the time as a diminished or “quasi” form of federalism. Existing explanations of the origins of India’s centralized federalism focus on efforts to curb further secession attempts in the aftermath of Partition or the need for a strong Center to consolidate democracy in a highly unequal society. This article draws on archival materials to demonstrate that distinctive elements of Indian federalism were shaped at their foundations by the desire to boost industrial development and lay the foundation for a national welfare state in a post-colonial future by preventing the consolidation of “race to the bottom” dynamics arising from unregulated inter-provincial economic competition.

Memories of a Lost Home: Intizar Husain’s Basti

In this paper, Intizar Husain’s novel on Partition, Basti is examined which depicts the human denouement that followed Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. The novel looks back at the aftermath of Partition after more than two decades, talks about the turmoil caused by the socio-political situation in Pakistan and the realization that the Partition was an ever going on event. The process of separate homeland for Muslims, the chief motive that resulted in Partition, was reversed with the secession of Bangladesh. Partition and migration have failed to provide stability to the migrants. Intizar Husain has recaptured the agony of Partition after a lapse of two decades. The novel, dealing with the Muslim perspective of Partition, depicts the plight of the members of the community who crossed over to Pakistan with the euphoria of the creation of a separate homeland, fail to realise their hopes. Feeling of alienation has been delineated in a highly subtle manner.

Memories of a Lost Home: Intizar Husain’s Basti

In this paper, Intizar Husain’s novel on Partition, Basti is examined which depicts the human denouement that followed Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. The novel looks back at the aftermath of Partition after more than two decades, talks about the turmoil caused by the socio-political situation in Pakistan and the realization that the Partition was an ever going on event. The process of separate homeland for Muslims, the chief motive that resulted in Partition, was reversed with the secession of Bangladesh. Partition and migration have failed to provide stability to the migrants. Intizar Husain has recaptured the agony of Partition after a lapse of two decades. The novel, dealing with the Muslim perspective of Partition, depicts the plight of the members of the community who crossed over to Pakistan with the euphoria of the creation of a separate homeland, fail to realise their hopes. Feeling of alienation has been delineated in a highly subtle manner.

Building Pakistan and Filmmaking

This, the second of two remarkable essays by Muhammad Hasan Askari (1919–1978) translated in this volume, was originally published in January 1949 during the second, Pakistani phase of Askari’s life and career. With it, his expansive canvass of cultural references is extended to encompass French documentary realism of the 1940s, early modern Indo-Persian Islamicate music and Indo-Muslim literary fiction, and cinema under colonialism. In contrast to his earlier piece on the usage of color in film, here Askari is concerned with cultural identity and thematic content rather than matters of form and aesthetics. His usual sophistication of thought is evident throughout the essay, which begins with a poignant anecdote from the aftermath of Partition, in which the question of who and what was to be considered Pakistani rose its head almost immediately, leading to confusion about such basic questions as the place of nonMuslim heritage—specifically, the statue of Ganga Ram, the defacement of which was subsequently written about by Saadat Hassan Manto in a typically ironic Partition sketch. Although Askari’s essay includes clear evidence that he envisaged an inclusive Pakistan where minorities and peripheries were to be brought on board the national project with the help of a diverse national cinema culture, his tendency to link post-colonial Pakistan to the recent and distant past of Muslims in South Asia somewhat unproblematically bears hints of early Pakistan’s Islamic cultural nationalism that alienated key figures associated with the Progressive Writers Movement. Askari’s patriotic certainty about what had to be done for the forging of a unified national identity clashed violently with Leftist ideals that stressed class conflict and solidarities beyond the nation, as Sadia Toor has documented in a recent study of the cultural Cold War which casts Askari in an altogether less flattering light than Mehr Afshan Farooqi’s sympathetic probing; both works make important contributions to recent lively debates on the early cultural history of Pakistan (Farooqi, 2012; Toor, 2011; see also Asdar Ali, 2011). Perhaps most striking, in terms of the essay’s relevance to contemporary debates in film history and theory, is the sense of outrage Askari appears to have felt about the stereotypical representation of Muslims in Hindi cinema before Partition. The Islamicate ethos of classical Indian cinema, he seems to suggest, had been restricted to shallow depictions of a premodern, decadent, and ornate courtly culture that was symbolic rather than genuinely representative of the lived experiences of flesh-and-blood Muslims. Askari thus foreshadows more recent controversies about the dynamics of Bombay cinema’s Hindu majoritarianism, whilst providing clues as to the roots of his ardent and uncharacteristic instrumentalism about the need for cinema to help build a cohesive Pakistan. However reasonable it may sound, the autocratic centralism with which it went on to become associated is cause for critical reflection on the general thrust of Askari’s argument. The very day after I arrived in Pakistan, I witnessed something astonishing. It was October. The violence had cooled down, but the threat of attacks on vehicles remained at all times. People’s minds Archives

SAFETY FIRST: THE SECURITY OF BRITONS IN INDIA, 1946–1947

ABSTRACTA month into his viceroyalty, Lord Mountbatten took time out from sounding Indian political opinion about independence to discuss the future security of British residents with his provincial governors. By this stage, the concerns stemmed from fears of a general breakdown in law and order and Hindu–Muslim conflict rather than nationalist assault. Detailed plans were developed for a sea-borne evacuation. In the event, the only Britons who were evacuated were those airlifted from Srinagar in November 1947 as they were in the path of an invasion of the disputed Kashmir territory by Pakhtun tribesmen from Pakistan. Despite numerous articles on the British departure from India and the aftermath of Partition, little has been written about either the airlift or the broader strategic planning for European evacuation. The paper will focus on this neglected corner of the history of the transfer of power. It argues that while anti-British sentiment declined from a peak around the time of the Indian National Army trials, of 1945–6, the memories of the wartime chaotic flight from Burma and Malaya and the irreparable damage this had done to British prestige in Asia coloured the safety first approach adopted in 1947.

Memory, nostalgia and identity in narratives of India’s Partition

The Partition of India in 1947 resulted in the displacement of millions of people from both sides of the newly created border. This article explores the reconstruction of identities in the aftermath of Partition. The unexpectedness of the tragedy, the sudden uprooting of people from the secure environs of their homes and the alien land in which they found themselves, led many to withdraw into themselves. The memory of the past, nostalgia and a feeling of disconnection with the present resulted in a conflicted sense of identity. However writers also employed the memory of the pre-Partition past to suggest alternative imaginings for a society divided along religious lines.

The great partition: the making of India and Pakistan

partition of India in 1947 promised its people both political and religious freedom - through the liberation of India from British rule, and the creation of the Muslim state of Pakistan. In reality the geographical divide effected an even greater schism of the population, benefiting the few at the expense of the very many, exposing huge numbers of the population to desperate and devastating consequences. Thousands of women were raped, at least one million people were killed, and ten- to fifteen-times that number were forced to leave their homes as refugees. It was one of the first, the most bloody, and remains one of the most significant, events of decolonisation in the twentieth century. In The Great Partition, Yasmin Khan examines the context, execution and aftermath of partition, integrating an incisive knowledge of political manoeuvres with a deeply-felt understanding of their fundamental social and cultural consequences. She exposes the obliviousness of the small elite driving division, as well as the majority of activists on both sides, to what partition would entail in practice and its effects on the populace. Its repercussions still resound today. Published to coincide with the 60th anniversary of partition, Yasmin Khan's personal account draws together a fresh and considerable body of research, including many new interviews, newspaper extracts and archival sources, to reappraise independence and division and reinforce its catastrophic human cost. Intelligent, terrifying, wise and timely, The Great Partition is a testament to a country and people who were brutally and recklessly ripped apart.

Writers and generals

The first attempted coup in Pakistan took place in 1949, but the story of this has virtually disappeared from its national memory. The attempted coup was characterised by the converging of interests of two extremely unlikely bedfellows: first, a layer of army officers dissatisfied with the outcome of the war in Kashmir, and second, a group of influential left-wing writers and poets. The coalescing of these two separate and quite distinctive social groups represents a fascinating episode in South Asian history. Interviews with the some of the surviving writers and activists involved, as well as documentary evidence from the Punjab Criminal Investigation Department sheds interesting new light on this period. This article examines these events in the context of politics in Pakistan in the immediate aftermath of partition, and the disillusionment that spread amongst a nationally minded and radical intelligentsia. The article addresses the relationship of memory—individual, collective and historical—to the forging of a nation's history and identity. It raises issues surrounding what constitutes an ‘archive’, and how this relates to the ‘recovery’ of a progressive memory that has been denied for half a century.

<sc>Tai Yong Tan</sc> and <sc>Gyanesh Kudaisya</sc>. <italic>The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia</italic>. (Routledge Series in the Modern History of Asia, number 3.) New York: Routledge. 2000. Pp. xiv, 322. $90.00

Journal Article Tai Yong Tan and Gyanesh Kudaisya. The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia. (Routledge Series in the Modern History of Asia, number 3.) New York: Routledge. 2000. Pp. xiv, 322. $90.00 Get access Tan Tai Yong and Kudaisya Gyanesh. The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia. (Routledge Series in the Modern History of Asia, number 3.) New York: Routledge. 2000. Pp. xiv, 322. $90.00. Sudhir Chandra Sudhir Chandra Delhi, India Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 108, Issue 2, April 2003, Page 501, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/108.2.501 Published: 01 April 2003

Reviews of Books:The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia Tai Yong Tan, Gyanesh Kudaisya

Reviews of Books:The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia Tai Yong Tan, Gyanesh Kudaisya

A New Dawn: Shared by Scotland and Pakistan: Reflections on August 1997

August 1997 was a month to remember for both Pakistan and Scotland. Fifty years ago the Indian subcontinent achieved independence from Britain and two new sovereign states Bharat and Pakistan * appeared on the map of the world. The anniversary of the creation of Pakistan was a time for remembrance of the many people who suffered and died in the tragic aftermath of Partition, but also for celebration of the ways in which the people of Pakistan have shown their indomitable spirit and enterprise in their homeland, and in their migrations to other countries, especially Britain. At the same time, Scotland was preparing for the vote which would restore the Scottish Parliament lost in 1707 through the Act of Union with England. The memories of Pakistanis and Scots were keen throughout this month August was a time when many people were thinking hard about the past and the future.