RESEARCH PROPOSAL

PARTITION AS WITNESSED BY CHILDREN ( 7-15 yrs of age)

It was when a British barrister drew a line and the once peaceful Indian subcontinent
imploded and India and Pakistan were born washing themselves in one another’s blood. The
news of partition was kept a secret till the last moment, overnight it felt as if everything
changed . Many families torn apart , many women abducted , many children left with
horrifying memories and all became aggressor as well as the victims . The fire of bloodshed
grew and grew and the celebration of independence was just enjoyed by a small group of
people and for the rest only the rulers changed and riots began.

If we look at the numbers around 12 million people were affected and more than 1 million
died in the process but freedom overshadowed that horror . In the midst of these events were
children ( 7-15 years of age) unaware and too young to even understand what was happening
around them, unknowingly caught up in the religious clashes.

To quote from the book Literature, Gender, and the Trauma of Partition: The Paradox of
Independence, “Writings about children’s experience of the partition are scarce” (Mookerjea-
Leonard,2017, p.166) however works like Manik Bandhopadhyay’s Bengali short stories “
Chhelemanushi” , Bhisham Sahni’s “Pali” , Neelu in Sankha Ghosh’ Supuriboner sari ( Lines
of Areca Plams , 1990) and Deepu, in Prafulla Ray’s Bhagabhasi , Amitav Gosh’s “ The
Shadow Lines , Veera Hiranandani’ s “ The Night Diary” and Bapsi Sidhwa’s ” Ice Candy
Man” represent the violence and dislocation of children and show us partition from child lens.
When we view a historical event from the child’s narrative , we are not just confined to a
stationary perspective but allowed to be a part of an ongoing story , full of textual anxiety and
narrative nervousness.( study of trauma and transgression of the ‘adult-child’ in Bapsi
sidhwa’s ice-candy man ~ jharna choudhury, 2020) and thus I want to base my research on
data and narrative that are given by people who were 7-15 years of age at the time of
partition . On their account of what they remember and what they thought about partition and
how they look back at partition right now.
My interaction with one of the children who lived through the nightmare of partition was not
very haunting as Mrs.Lajvanti ( my interviewee for oral history documentation with The 1947
Partition Archive) remembers moving from Bhagsa, Multan to Delhi as a happy memory. She
was 7 years old when her family had to sell their flourishing cloth business and move to India
without much fortune. She walked down the memory lane and remembered how excited she
was to travel by bus ,train and boats to reach Delhi, India. Neither was her train attacked nor
did she loose any family member and thus loosing the fortune was the only price her family
had to pay for partition. She informs that the arrangement done by Indian government was
also very satisfactory. Now she lives happily with her son and his family in Delhi.

But I know this version of partition narrative wont be relatable for many children who had to
face the horrifying incidents. Sohinder Nath Chopra , who was 12 years at the time of partition
recalls how his village in western pakistan had a family-type community still his hindu family
was urged to leave by muslim cleric and that they were able to flee just because they were
guarded by his christian servant. Shamsul Nisa was 10 at the time of extreme fear when she
watched her muslim father, grandfather and six uncles killed by hindu mobs in Udhampur , a
southern town in disputed himalayan region of Kashmir. Even after 74 years she says she cant
stay alone as her heart palpitates with pain when she is reminded of that unfortunate year. (
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-4777114/Remembering-Partition-
70-years-India-Pakistan-divide.html )

These children of partition recall living through these uneasy times and their account tells us
that still after 74 years of those unfortunate events they still are traumatized when asked about
their experience. Many study has been conducted to show how the incidents have affect the
behaviour of those children when they become adults. Through this research I want to know
more about their account and bring forward the story of partition as witnessd by children.

In her book , Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of Silence : voices from the Partition of India ,
which is based on the interviews she had with eye witnesses , she explains why men killed
their own family ,the trauma of women who were abducted and raped and with these stories
we also come to know how hard it it to recall these memories , how hard it is to acknowledge
it and tell someone about it . I want to appreciate the efforts of The1947 Partition Archive to
document such stories and thus I want to take full advantage of the archive in forming my
research . The 9400 oral history , interviews and recording will give me the desired sources
and accounts of people who were children at the time of partition .

The aim of my research is to acknowledge and bring forward the unexplored narratives . I
believe that India and Pakistan haven’t talked much about partition because both sides were
aggressors as well as the victims so its easy to sweep it under the rug than to acknowledge the
burden of killing someone . Many people live in silence with such horrifying stories , from my
experience of wanting to interview a man who completely rejected the proposal of being
interviewed because he said the memories are so daunting that he doesn’t even want to
remember a second of that year, Others who spoke of the horrors they committed had to live
with the consequences of being judged , being feared of and staying traumatized . So when
people let go of that hesitation and share their story with us we have the full responsibility to
make the most out of it and to give it a meaning .

As is stated by Peter Coveney about the stratagem of child as a narrative medium: The child
could serve as symbol of the artist’s dissatisfaction with the society which was in process of
such harsh development about him. In the world given increasingly to utilitarian values and
the Machine, the child could become the symbol of imagination and sensibility, a symbol of
Nature set against the forces abroad in society actively de-naturing humanity. Through child
the artist could express his awareness of the conflict between human innocence and the
cumulative pressures of social Experience. (Coveney31) This is the major reason for choosing
this particular area for research.
The simple understanding of child unfolds the subtle fact about suffering of post partition
scenario which no mature person will be able to notice . And thus if granted this research
opportunity I will make sure to make the best out of it and put forward partition as witnessed
by children .
 REFERENCES

 Literature,Gender,and the Trauma of Partition: The Paradox of Independence Mookerjea-

Leonard,2017
 The Other Side of Silence : voices from the Partition of india , Urvashi Butalia , 1998
 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-4777114/Remembering-
Partition-70-years-India-Pakistan-divide.html
 https://www.academia.edu/44707329/
Study_of_Trauma_and_Transgression_of_the_Adult_child_in_Bapsi_Sidhwas_Ice_Cand
y_Man
 Revisiting the partition through the lens of child narrators: An examine of The Shadow
Lines and Ice-Candy Man , Manzoor Ahmad Najar and Dr. Aparna Banik , 2016
 The night Diary , Veera Hiranandani , 2018
 The Shadow Lines , Amitav Gosh ,1988
 Ice-Candy man , Bapsi Sidhwa ,1988