Asking New Questions about the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent : History Compass

Asia

Asking New Questions about the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent

By Yasmin Khan, St. Antony's College, Oxford (August 2004)

Sections: Asia

Subjects: History Writing, Study of History, History, Political History.

Places: Southern Asia, Asia.

Periods: 1000 - 1999, 1900-1999, 2000 - present.

Key Topic: migration.

Abstract

Fierce historical controversy has raged over the causes of the partition of India, ever since Pakistan was created in 1947. This article briefly analyses these debates, but here the major focus is upon the consequences of partition and the new wave of historiography which has emerged in recent years, especially since the fiftieth anniversary of partition in 1997. These new histories have centred upon the experience of ordinary people, and have emphasised the trauma caused by widespread violence and mass migration. This article questions why these histories of violence have struggled to find their place in a more comprehensive and integrated narrative of the events of 1947, and why a gulf still separates the ‘popular’ and the ‘political’ in partition histories.

DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2004.00090.x

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