India’s Partition through the lens of Gender: Trauma and Triumph interconnected

Abstract

The horrible tragedy of modern Indian history is India’s Partition and the consequent refugee problem. A total of 18 million people were victims of this bloody incident; undoubtedly 10 million and more had been compelled by circumstances to abandon their homes. According to Ram Chandra Guha, author of India After Gandhi, nowhere in known history had the transfer of so many millions taken place in so few days. Women were the worst sufferers of Partition because their life was terribly affected by rape, murder, plunder and devastating bloodbath of communal riots. Prafulla Kumar Chakravarty in his book entitled Marginal Men depicted the fathomless trauma of uprooted people. Actually, refugee crisis was cause of severe headache of the newly created states. In the West the crisis did not take a never- ending shape and ended after a short while.  The story of Eastern Frontier was quite different.  According to Bipan Chandra, the flow of refugees did not stop upto 1971 in the Eastern Frontier and it can be added that the refugees from the East was an alarming problem for the Government of India.

Khwaja A. Khalique in his article entitled Genesis of Partition has rightly raised the pertinent issue that the unwanted incident of India’s Partition benefitted no one.

Undoubtedly the Partition benefitted none but affected the life of women in both Eastern and Western Frontiers in the ghastliest manner. In this article I have tried my best to discuss its tremendous influence on womenfolk of our beloved motherland.