Women's voices from Partition

An edited version of this appeared in the 14th August Times of India Book section

The particular resonance of the female voice in Partition literature comes, perhaps, from the vulnerability of women as victims.
Subject to the most terrible abuse and alienation, at both private and political levels, these women find their voices in the fiction and commentaries of those times. Ayesha in the film ‘Khamosh Pani’ whose father orders her to jump into the well rather than risk dishonor, Lajwanti in Bedi’s eponymous story whose husband would not touch her after her abduction, are tragic archetypes that recur in Partition literature, and most powerfully in the following books.

The Ice Candy Man by Bapsi Sidhwa (1983)
Set in 1940’s Lahore, this classic Partition story employs an unusual narrative device. Told from the perspective of eight year old polio stricken Lenny, it portrays poignantly the insecurities, shifting allegiances and, betrayals of those tumultuous times. Petrol cans hidden in the back of the family car, great fires that can be seen from the family roof tops, the troubled house next door, where ‘fallen’ women cry and wail all night are some of the searing images in this book that echo and illustrate history the way no text book could. We are introduced to an unforgettable cast of characters, the ice candy man, the Masseur and of course Lenny’s beloved ayah. Ayah, who is betrayed to a mob gone mad, a mob made of men who were her friends and even suitors. And when Lenny eventually finds her again she is an empty shell of her former cheerful nineteen year old self.”I don’t want her to think she’s bad because she’s been kidnapped”, says Lenny, in stark contrast to the attitudes such abused women were subjected to, attitudes reflected in films like ‘Pinjar’ or in Bedi’s moving short story ‘Lajwanti’ . The Ice Candy Man (later editions renamed ‘Cracking India’) has also been made into a feature film, ‘Earth’ by Deepa Mehta.

‘My Temples too’ (Urdu 1948, trans. Eng. 2004) and ‘River of Fire’ (Urdu 1959 trans Eng.1998) by Qurratulain Hyder
Hyder belongs to a Lucknowi zamindari family and her novels mourn the loss of that golden world. In ‘My Temples too’ the young idealistic Rakshanda Begum , editor of the progressive Muslim magazine New Era and her friends are thrust from their hallowed Nehru’s autobiography and Confucius quoting world to a barbaric one. ‘Everybody seemed to have changed , or so it appeared to Rakshanda who noticed a group of Muslims on a wayside platform looking strangely scared .There they are, she thought bitterly, strangers in their own country.’
Hyder’s magnificent magnum opus ‘River of Fire’ looks at 2500 years of Indian history, coalescing and interweaving only to sunder irrevocably in the terrible tragedy of Partition.

‘Sunlight on a Broken Column’ by Attia Hossain (1961)
Largely autobiographical, this critically acclaimed book tells the story of Laila, who is the orphaned daughter of a distinguished Muslim family, and is, set in Oudh and Lucknow. Laila’s coming of age, her choices and fight for independence, are juxtaposed with the political upheavals of the time and their implications for her larger family.

‘What the Body Remembers’ by Shauna Singh Baldwin (1999)
This best seller tells the story of Sardarji, an engineer in the British government and his two wives, haughty barren Satya and young beautiful Roop. The saga of the woman’s lives is set against the back drop of the history of the day, culminating in the horror of their nightmarish journeys across borders. The description of these two journeys, Sardarji’s by train and Roop on the Grand Trunk Road emerges the most powerfully unforgettable section of the book

The Other Side of Silence, Voices from the Partition of India by Urvashi Butalia (1998)
A seminal collection that employs a mix of interviews, reminisces and personal recollections, diaries and autobiographies to look at the effects of violence on women including rape, kidnapping and then after that often the trauma of return. Original and analytical, though it does tend towards the abstrusely academic turn of phrase.

‘No Woman’s Land’ Ed. By Ritu Menon (2004)
Activist and Women’s Publisher Ritu Menon puts together a section of essays and stories by women from different countries. Some like Ismat Chugtai’s reflections on Partition literature are fascinating, so also Sara Suleri on ‘Papa and Pakistan’. Others catalogue personal stories of tragic deaths and displacement and memories of violence and abandonment. Some like Shehla Shibli speak more hopefully of life in ‘Either, Neither, or Both