![]() Filtered MemoriesSudha Tiwari PARTITION: THE LONG SHADOW Edited by Urvashi Butalia Zubaan, Delhi, 2015, pp. xviii 270, Rs. 599.00 VOLUME XL NUMBER 8 August 2016 The book under review, Partition: The
Long Shadow, delving into the notions
of ‘foreignness’ and ‘belonging’,
focuses upon three significant themes: one,
it brings back the peripheral regions of the
subcontinent, e.g., Assam, Sindh, and
Ladakh, into the academic discussion on Partition;
two, it gives voice to the second and
third generation memories of the event; and
three, it suggests a larger study of the psychological
aftermath of Partition.
Urvashi Butalia introduces the book by
sharing her experience of attending the al
Nakba in Ramallah in 2011. Drawing the
parallel with Partition, Butalia says, which
largely expresses the objective behind this
volume: ‘…over the years, its memories have
become more complex, acquired more nuance
and layers... Further, as the number of
those who retain direct, experiential memories
diminish, as their stories recede, ways of
remembering also change, the filters through
which such memories are passed on—
whether in and through literature, or music,
or art and so much more—now begin to
shape how they are passed on’ (p. viii) (emphasis
original).
With the creation of modern states in
China, India, and Pakistan, Ladakh, from
being a frontier region, became a borderland
after 1947. In his formative essay on Ladakh,
Siddiq Wahid brings the region to the centre
of the Partition debate. With the help of
the Khwaja-Radhu family’s experiences, he
advocates a further study on ‘all the cultural
enclaves we find along the length of the
Himalaya inclusive of the sovereign states
sandwiched between the more powerful
power centres in New Delhi, Beijing and
Islamabad’ (p. 22). Wahid, however, treats
Ladakh as a homogenous region by neglecting
the Partition voices from Kargil.
Rita Kothari’s essay on Sindh reminds
us of the inconclusiveness of Partition. Sindh,
unlike Bengal and Punjab, was not ‘partitioned’,
but its Hindu minority fled to India.
Similarly, the Sindhi Muslims of Banni
region in Kutch ‘happened to be’ on ‘this’
side of the border without choosing. When
Kavita Panjabi, herself a Sindhi and a second
generation of Partition migrant family in
India, decided to visit her ancestral town in
Shikarpur in Pakistan years later, her father discouraged her saying, in spite of having a
deep longing for the place, ‘You will find
nothing there…they will have razed all our
homes to the ground…’ (p. 49). Though
his house still existed in Shikarpur, he was
afraid to lose the memory of those times, that
home (emphasis mine). ... Table of Contents >> |