Remembering Partition in the Punjab Part 1

Realms of Memory

The partition of British India in 1947 displaced over 14 million people and claimed the lives of another 1 million. Some of the worst violence occurred in the Punjab. Pippa Virdee, historian at De Montfort University in the UK and author of From the Ashes of 1947: Reimagining Punjab, explains how it took decades to include the experiences of those who suffered most from the story of partition—women, Dalits (untouchables), refugees. She points out how the once pluralistic region of the Punjab has become an increasing communalized and divided space. Lastly, she notes how despite tensions and unrest in the years and months leading up to partition, British authorities and their Indian and Pakistani counterparts, failed to anticipate the chaos and bloodshed that would follow the end of British India.