Lajwanti
1
Re-covering Women: Reading Two Partition Stories.
Priyadarshini Dasgupta Coordinator, Senior Section,
Shree Bharati School, Kolkata.
Dibyabibha Roy
Assistant Professor in English,
Maheshtala College, Kolkata.
“Playing British Gods under the ceiling fans of the Faletlis Hotel – behind Queen
Victoria’s gardened skirt – the Radcliffe Commission deals out Indian cities like a pack of cards …… A new nation is born. India has been divided after all.” (Sidhwa 140)
The available histories of Partition are often tainted with patriotic bias or discuss political events rather than the experiences of people on the ground. This is perhaps because a nation – state most often sets down its own version of selective history, which is expected to be accepted in order to consolidate and further its collective identity. In such histories voices which challenge or interrogate this meta-narrative are side-lined at best and totally ignored at worst, so that alternative histories and perspectives that might break the selective linearity of the state’s version are institutionally marginalized.
The Radcliffe line which officially came into existence on Aug. 16, 1947 truncated the
Indian sub-continent into India and Pakistan on the basis of territory as well as religion.
However, this homogeneous division let loose fear, insecurity, religious fury, migration of staggering magnitude in both the communities. Women were abducted, their ‘purity’ lost and their body became a medium on which vengeance was taken, victory celebrated. People in general were infected with the spirit of vendetta committed excess on the women folk of the other community.
On 6th December, 1947 an agreement was made between the governments of India and
Pakistan regarding the recovery of abducted women. It was decided that conversions by persons abducted after March 1st, 1947 would not be recognized and all such persons were to be restored to their respective Dominions.
Re-covering Women: Reading Two Partition Stories.
Priyadarshini Dasgupta Coordinator, Senior Section,
Shree Bharati School, Kolkata.
Dibyabibha Roy
Assistant Professor in English,
Maheshtala College, Kolkata.
“Playing British Gods under the ceiling fans of the Faletlis Hotel – behind Queen
Victoria’s gardened skirt – the Radcliffe Commission deals out Indian cities like a pack of cards …… A new nation is born. India has been divided after all.” (Sidhwa 140)
The available histories of Partition are often tainted with patriotic bias or discuss political events rather than the experiences of people on the ground. This is perhaps because a nation – state most often sets down its own version of selective history, which is expected to be accepted in order to consolidate and further its collective identity. In such histories voices which challenge or interrogate this meta-narrative are side-lined at best and totally ignored at worst, so that alternative histories and perspectives that might break the selective linearity of the state’s version are institutionally marginalized.
The Radcliffe line which officially came into existence on Aug. 16, 1947 truncated the
Indian sub-continent into India and Pakistan on the basis of territory as well as religion.
However, this homogeneous division let loose fear, insecurity, religious fury, migration of staggering magnitude in both the communities. Women were abducted, their ‘purity’ lost and their body became a medium on which vengeance was taken, victory celebrated. People in general were infected with the spirit of vendetta committed excess on the women folk of the other community.
On 6th December, 1947 an agreement was made between the governments of India and
Pakistan regarding the recovery of abducted women. It was decided that conversions by persons abducted after March 1st, 1947 would not be recognized and all such persons were to be restored to their respective Dominions.
Cited: Mumbai: Jaico, 2003. 1- 84. 5 Freedom: Indian Women since 1947. Ed. Bharati Ray and Aparna Basu. New Delhi: Oxford University press, 1999 6. Sidhwa, Bapsi.Ice Candy Man. New Delhi: Penguin, 1989. 7