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The Partitions of Memory
The Afterlife of the Division of India
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Edited by Suvir Kaul
Indiana University Press
Due/Published
September 2002, 300 pages,
paper
ISBN
0253215668
Echoes of the traumatic events surrounding the Partition of India in 1947 can be heard to this day in the daily life of the subcontinent, each time India and Pakistan play a cricket match or when their political leaders speak of "unfinished business." Sikhs who lived through the pogrom following the assassination of Indira Gandhi recall Partition, as do slum-dwelling Bengalis forced to return to Bangladesh. The eight essays in The Partitions of Memory suggest ways in which the tangled skein of Partition might be unraveled. The contributors range over issues as diverse as literary reactions to Partition; the relief and rehabilitation measures provided to refugees; children's understanding of Partition; the power of "national" monuments to evoke a historical past; the power of letters to evoke more immediately poignant pasts; and the Dalit claim, at the prospect of Partition, to a separate political identity. The book demonstrates how fundamental the material and symbolic histories of Partition are to much that has happened in South Asia since 1947. Contributors: Mukulika Banerjee, Urvashi Butalia, Joya Chatterji, Priyamvada Gopal, Suvir Kaul, Nita Kumar, Sunil Kumar, Richard Murphy, and Ramnarayan S. Rawat. Contents Introduction Suvir Kaul Partition and the North West Frontier: Memories of Some Khudai Khidmatgars Mukulika Banerjee Right or Charity? The Debate over Relief and Rehabilitation in West Bengal, 1947-50 Joya Chatterji Partition Politics and Acchut Identity: A Study of the Scheduled Castes Federation and Dalit Politics in UP, 1946-48 Ramnarayan S. Rawat Qutb and Modern Memory Sunil Kumar Performing Partition in Lahore Richard McGill Murphy An Archive with a Difference: Partition Letters Urvashi Butalia Bodies Inflicting Pain: Masculinity, Morality, and Cultural Identity in Manto's "Cold Meat" Priyamvada Gopal Children and the Partition Nita Kumar |
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