Through oral histories, interviews and fictional retellings, 'Bengal Partition Stories' unearths and articulates the collective memories of a people traumatised by the brutal division of their homeland.

This study looks at the rich literature that has been spawned through the historical imagination of Bengali-speaking writers in West Bengal and Bangladesh through issues of homelessness, migration and exile to see how the Partition of Bengal in 1947 has thrown a long shadow over memories and cultural practices. Through a rich trove of literary and other materials, the book lays bare how the Partition has been remembered or how it has been forgotten. For the first time, hitherto untranslated archival materials and texts in Bangla have been put together to assess the impact of 1947 on the cultural memory of Bangla-speaking peoples and communities. This study contends that there is not one but many smaller partitions that women and men suffered, each with its own textures of pain, guilt and affirmation.

A reappraisal of the tumultuous Partition and how it ignited long-standing animosities between India and Pakistan This new edition of Yasmin Khan’s reappraisal of the tumultuous India-Pakistan Partition features an introduction reflecting on the latest research and on ways in which commemoration of the Partition has changed, and considers the Partition in light of the current refugee crisis. Reviews of the first edition: “A riveting book on this terrible story.”—Economist “Unsparing. . . . Provocative and painful.”—Times (London) “Many histories of Partition focus solely on the elite policy makers. Yasmin Khan’s empathetic account gives a great insight into the hopes, dreams, and fears of the millions affected by it.”—Owen Bennett Jones, BBC

Usually books on partition are sob stories, but not this one. 'Rising from the Ashes of Bengal's Partition' is an untold story of the journey of a child born around the time of partition, who battled many hurdles and aspired to lead a new life - like a Phoenix. This is a story of his - and his generation's - unflinching determination to move ahead. This is the story of the real people who did not curse their fate and sit idle shedding tears. It covers a child's - and his generations - torturous journey from refugee camps and colonies to the world above the sky. The story covers a span of seven decades of time and space - people and events, politics and economics, corporates and their leaders and above all the kaleidoscopic panorama across the journey through Bengal and India. The book opens up several untraveled terrains - personal experiences, a person's struggle, sufferings, tears, joys and smiles. It documents people's perception about critical contemporary events, which conventional history does not cover. The author writes from the ringside, for example on how it was to work for the most reputed corporate of the country and, what happened in the business and economy when the 'Tiger' was 'Uncaged.' Sure, readers would like to run through the author's experiences. The author has poured his heart and soul out into writing this story.

This book engages with diverse modes of representations of Partition violence and its consequences in a selection of Partition narratives from Bengal. Violence constitutes one of the most obvious images of this traumatic period in Indian history. Its dynamics of representation—the nature of violence, its impact on society and the individual, the forms of its socio cultural and political implanting—invariably highlight the aesthetic sensibility of its writers. The book questions if it is possible to qualify violence with all its complexities, and examines how these narratives offer a critique of historical and political engagements with violence. The experiences of suffering, pain, trauma, affliction, torture, fear and betrayal are also constituted within the structural analysis of violence.

Stories From Bangladesh And West Bengal In A Unique Attempt To See How Partition Has Shaped The Narratives Of The Two Regions That Share A Common Culture And Language.

The Refugee Woman examines the Partition of 1947 by engaging with the cultural imagination of the ‘refugee woman’ in West Bengal, particularly in three significant texts of the Partition of Bengal—Ritwik Ghatak’s film Meghe Dhaka Tara; and two novels, Jyotirmoyee Devi’s Epar Ganga, Opar Ganga and Sabitri Roy’s Swaralipi. It shows that the figure of the refugee woman, animated by the history of the political left and refugee movements, and shaped by powerful cultural narratives, can contest and reconstitute the very political imagination of ‘woman’ that emerged through the long history of dominant cultural nationalisms. The reading it offers elucidates some of the complexities of nationalist, communal, and communist gender-politics of a key period in post-independence Bengal.

The International Bestseller 'Barney White-Spunner's book stands out for its judicious and unsparing look at events from a British perspective.' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times Review 'This book is at its most powerful in its month-by-month narrative of how Partition tore apart northern and eastern India, with the new state of Pakistan carved out of communities who had lived together for the past millennium.' Zareer Masani BBC History Magazine 'A highly readable account . . .' Times Literary Review Between January and August 1947 the conflicting political, religious and social tensions in India culminated in independence from Britain and the creation of Pakistan. Those months saw the end of ninety years of the British Raj, and the effective power of the Maharajahs, as the Congress Party established itself commanding a democratic government in Delhi. They also witnessed the rushed creation of Pakistan as a country in two halves whose capitals were two thousand kilometers apart. From September to December 1947 the euphoria surrounding the realization of the dream of independence dissipated into shame and incrimination; nearly 1 million people died and countless more lost their homes and their livelihoods as partition was realized. The events of those months would dictate the history of South Asia for the next seventy years, leading to three wars, countless acts of terrorism, polarization around the Cold War powers and to two nations with millions living in poverty spending disproportionate amounts on their military. The roots of much of the violence in the region today, and worldwide, are in the decisions taken that year. Not only were those decisions controversial but the people who made them were themselves to become some of the most enduring characters of the twentieth century. Gandhi and Nehru enjoyed almost saint like status in India, and still do, whilst Jinnah is lionized in Pakistan. The British cast, from Churchill to Attlee and Mountbatten, find their contribution praised and damned in equal measure. Yet it is not only the national players whose stories fascinate. Many of those ordinary people who witnessed the events of that year are still alive. Although most were, predictably, only children, there are still some in their late eighties and nineties who have a clear recollection of the excitement and the horror. Illustrating the story of 1947 with their experiences and what independence and partition meant to the farmers of the Punjab, those living in Lahore and Calcutta, or what it felt like to be a soldier in a divided and largely passive army, makes the story real. Partition will bring to life this terrible era for the Indian Sub Continent.