Research
Paper on History of British India
(First 3 Pages)
Fifty-two years after the
partition of India, which created Pakistan, millions of people
are still trying to find peace with the trauma they experienced.
About 12 million people were uprooted. Among the refugees were
Muslims moving to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs to India. Along
the way, an estimated 200,000 died. They were murdered, died of
malnutrition or contagious diseases. An estimated 75,000 women
were raped by men of religions different from their own. Homes
were destroyed, families divided and crops left to rot. [Muddy
Waters : A Critical Assesment Of The Benefits Of The Sardar
Sarovar Project - Rahul Ram]
These horrific facts come from a book by Urvashi Butalia
exploring the stories of people affected by the partition
called, The Other Side of Silence. Ms. Butalia is co-founder of
the Kali for Women's Press in New Delhi, India, an organization
which has long been a friend of MATCH.
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Ms. Butalia's family on her mother's side was divided because of
the partition. They had lived in Lahore (now in Pakistan) and
most of her aunts and uncles and her mother moved to New Delhi.
Ms. Butalia's uncle Rana and maternal grandmother remained in
Lahore and relations with the siblings who left became strained.
Among other things, it became dangerous to correspond or travel
between the two countries. The Saga of Dharmapuri (Dharmapuranam)
- O. V. Vijayan "My mother's grief at losing her home, her
mother and brother gave way to bitterness and resentment and
eventually to indifference," writes Ms. Butalia. Time passed and
they lost contact.
For Ms. Butalia, who grew up in a middle-class family in a time
of relative calm, her elders' stories of the partition seemed
remote and meant little to her. Then Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi was assassinated by one of her security guards, a Sikh,
in 1984. All over India, people sought revenge, killing
thousands of Sikhs, "often by dousing them with kerosene and
setting them on fire," says Ms. Butalia. She found herself among
the citizen groups providing food and blankets, compiling lists
of the dead and missing and listening to the stories of those
who had suffered. Hearing the words of refugees from 1947 who
had thought this could never happen in India, Ms. Butalia was
struck by the fact that "people from the same country, the same
town or village could still be divided and do terrible things to
each other."
Two years later she began working on a film about the partition
with a British television channel and began collecting stories
of survivors. She later met her uncle Rana and visited him many
times. He had stayed on in Lahore because he was young and
poorly educated and saw no future for himself in India. In
Lahore, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs had lived alongside each other
for centuries and Rana could not foresee the violence that would
come, nor his eventual need to convert to Islam to survive.
In India, there is no institutional memory of the partition - no
plaques or statues to show the dark side of independence. As Ms.
Butalia points out, to do so would be to admit the state's
complicity. So the memories live on in people's minds and are
handed down to their children. And this is what Ms. Butalia
documents in her book. Gandhi: A Prisoner of Hope (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1989) She believes it is essential to
confront the partition and the impact it has had, yet
understands the reluctance of people to speak about it. There is
the historical silence of the state; the silence of those who
fear they may be held accountable for what they did, and the
silence of families who have colluded in hiding their histories
or developed an indifference as Ms. Butalia's had. Then there
are those who are too traumatized by what they experienced to
talk about it at all. And those who have resigned themselves to
their fate and believe that talking about it would be futile.
Sartre On Cuba : A First-Hand Account On The Revolution In Cuba
- Jean-Paul Sartre
In researching her book, Ms. Butalia was careful to respect
silences while at the same time offering opportunities for
people to record what happened.
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Urvashi Butalia, a co-founder of the first feminist publishing
company Kali for Women in India, has been working for women's
rights for over two decades. Her best known book, The Other Side
Of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India, is a worldwide
bestseller. At the IHEU conference she focuses on the role of
women in humanism. A few provocative statements by way of
introduction. He Conquered The Jungle - Kesav Reddy 'However
people understand Humanism, and whether you're in Europe or
America or looking at the Renaissance or more modern times, the
definitions and understandings will be different. But I think
there is a need for a philosophy that focuses on the human
being, that recognizes the difference human beings bring with
them to their lives and that respects those differences.
The only label I have ever claimed is 'feminist'. For me, that
covers everything that I believe in. If we learn from the values
embedded in philosophies like humanism and feminism, we will not
take the line that President Bush took. The so-called 'War on
Terrorism' is nothing but America's assertion of its power. The
tragedy is that my country India, and also Pakistan, have
swallowed this line and now use it against our own people. This
is inhumane, as was Bush's action in Afghanistan and the curbs
he is putting on freedom in the US. There is still a lot we can
learn. Not necessarily from Humanism, but from the experiences
of being human and living like humans.' Around The World In
Eighty Days With Michael Palin - Michael Palin 'Feminism is the
recognition that women, like everyone else in our society, are
human beings. And have a right to a life of dignity and
humanity. This definition is very close to that of Humanism. It
is not located in religion or some other kind of narrow
politics, but in the lives and feelings of ordinary people. This
is what I think humanism can offer to feminism or the struggle
for women's rights. And this, equally, is also what feminism can
offer to Humanism.' In An Antique Land - Amitav Ghosh
.....
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