April 27, 1998
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Voices of
Anguish A feminist recounting of Partition explores the trauma and loss which women suffered. By Aparna Basu BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES
But women were not always just the victims; there were women who were extraordinarily brave and strong and worked for the recovery of abducted women, running refugee camps and rehabilitating displaced women. So far no feminist historiography of Partition has been written. Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin make women the focus of their inquiry. The book is based mainly on interviews, and women's stories are presented in their own words. These stories are interwoven with the available historical records, official and otherwise. The stories selected reveal the varied ways in which women experienced Partition but, in the process, the book also examines the relation between women, their families, religious communities and the state. It takes a new look at the age-old borders and boundaries of nation, community, religion and gender and also at notions of honour, belonging and shame. In 1947, millions of Hindus and Sikhs crossed over from west Punjab to east Punjab and Muslims in the reverse direction, on foot, in bullock carts, trucks and trains. Convoys were ambushed, families separated, children orphaned, women kidnapped and whole trainloads massacred. Women occupied a special place in this enactment of violence. They were subjected to violence by men of the other community and also killed by their own kinsmen to protect individual and family honour. Immediately after Partition, the governments of India and Pakistan were swamped with complaints from relatives seeking to recover "missing" women. While it may be true that many women, specially after two or three years, did not want to be dislocated a second time, the governments had to undertake the task. The authors vividly describe the refugee camps and the tremendous task of rehabilitation. They find out what happened to widowed women, those whose husbands were missing or whose families could not be traced. The stories show the varying impact Partition had on women: some were shattered, while others "spread their wings". The feminist reading of Partition illustrates how women's history can be written in an interesting way. Menon and Bhasin have been able to capture women's voices and the quality of their lives which traditional historians have ignored or dismissed.
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In this century of displaced persons,
the Partition of India in 1947, which uprooted about 10 million people from their
ancestral homes, still remains one of the greatest social upheavals. Partition-related
massacres and migrations represented a human tragedy of enormous proportions. Yet,
historians have so far mainly focused on the causes of Partition and endlessly debated
whether it was inevitable and who was responsible for it. They have ignored the
dislocation of human lives and the loss, trauma, pain and violence people suffered. In
this communal holocaust, women became the most vulnerable and least protected victims. The
brutality that accompanied the riots deliberately targeted women, for the wounds inflicted
on them scarred entire communities. 
