The Other Side of Silence

Voices from the Partition of India

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by Urvashi Butalia

Duke University Press

Due/Published June 2000, 278 pages, paper

ISBN 0822324946

The partition of India into two countries, India and Pakistan, caused one of the most massive human convulsions in history. Within the space of two months in 1947 more than twelve million people were displaced. A million died. More than 75,000 women were abducted and raped. Innumerable children disappeared. Homes, villages, communities, families, and relationships were destroyed. Yet more than half a century after this event, little is known of the human dimensions of this history. Urvashi Butalia fills this gap by placing people--their individual experiences, their private pain--instead of politics at the center of this monumental event.

Through a series of interviews conducted over a ten-year period and an examination of diaries, letters, memoirs, and parliamentary documents, Butalia asks how people on the margins of history--children, women, ordinary people, the lower castes, the untouchables--have been affected by this upheaval. To understand how and why certain kinds of events become shrouded in silence, she begins by tracing facets of her own partition-scarred family history before investigating the stories of other people and their experiences of the effects of this violent disruption. Those whom she interviews reveal that, at least in private, the voices of partition have not been stilled and the bitterness remains. Throughout, Butalia reflects on difficult questions: how much did community, caste, and gender have to do with the violence that accompanied partition? What was partition meant to achieve and what did it actually achieve? How, through unspeakable horrors, did the survivors go on? Believing that only by remembering and telling their stories can those affected begin the process of healing and forgetting, Butalia presents a sensitive and moving account of her quest to hear the painful truth beyond the silence.

"This is a magnificent and necessary book, rigorous and compassionate, thought-provoking and moving. Oral history at its best."--Salman Rushdie

"The Other Side of Silence is without a doubt one of the most imporant books ever to be written about the Partition of the Indian subcontinent. More than a history, more than a memoir, it is also an extended reflection on narrative form. Official history has always flinched form acknowledging the full extent of the human cost of Partition. Urvashi Butalia shows us why we cannot affod to forget the suffering, the grief, the pain, and the bewilderment that resulted from the idvision of the subcontinent. [This] is an extraordinary achievement."--Amitav Ghosh

Review

Though it occurred over half a century ago, the violence and destruction that were part of the partition of India in 1947 continues to haunt the region. Stories of mass killings, rape, families being separated, and neighbor turning against neighbor are passed down, still recounted, and used to motivate and legitimize present-day violence. While the facts and political events of Partition have been well-documented, Butalia, an historian and leading feminist thinker in India, felt that the experiences of everyday Indian and Pakistani citizens have not been given enough attention. Butalia argues that one must go beyond the “objective” history of Partition to explore how it has been remembered and its continuing meaning. Through interviews conducted over a ten-year period and an examination of diaries, letters, memoirs, and parliamentary documents, Butalia examines the human cost of Partition. She also attempts to understand its meaning through her own family’s story.

In a review of the book Amitav Ghosh writes, “The Other Side of Silence is without a doubt one of the most important books ever to be written about the Partition of the Indian subcontinent. More than a history, more than a memoir, it is also an extended reflection on narrative form. Official history has always flinched from acknowledging the full extent of the human Partition. Urvashi Butalia shows us why we cannot afford to forget the suffering, the grief, the pain, and the bewilderment that resulted from the division of the subcontinent. [This] is an extraordinary achievement.”