Women and the partition of India: social and cultural impact

Abstract

The partition of India in 1947 is one of the most traumatic events in South Asian history. The break-up of British India between India and Pakistan resulted in massive communal violence, dislocation and social breakdown. Of the millions who were struck, women suffered in the most intense and complicated sort of ways. Their bodies were symbolic both of communal honour, political revenge and patriarchal rule. Women experienced rape, forced conversion, abduction, displacement, loss of family members, psychological trauma and social marginalisation. At the same time, women also seemed to be survivors as well as witnesses, and also potential agents of rehabilitation and social reconstruction. This paper looks into how Partition affected social and cultural aspects of the lives of women by examining such material sources of feminine trauma as gendered violence, dislocation, refugee situations and rehabilitation policies, memory, literature, and oral tradition. It also examines how feminist historians and writers have re-created women’s histories that were neglected in dominant colonial histories. The paper argues that Partition was not so much a political event as it was a fundamentally gendered human tragedy - one whose aftereffects lingered in the social and cultural landscape of South Asia for generations.