Who is to blame for the 1947 Partition of India and the large-scale violence that it triggered? There are accusations and recriminations.
Akhilananda Dutta comes from a family of doctors. Born in Dhaka in 1942 to a doctor and a housewife, he recalls that most of their family members were doctors at that time.
"The partition of India was effectively the partition of the two main Muslim-majority provinces, Punjab and Bengal. There was nothing inevitable or pre-determined about this."
She says that when she visited Noakhali recently, she felt that both East and West Bengal are part of same culture. She would like to do away with the complex wires and visa system between two Bengals, she says.
"It took me a long time to realise that my family and I, like every other citizen of the current state of Bangladesh, were directly and indirectly a by-product of the Partition to the extent that even our daily struggles sometimes evolved around it," writes Meghna Guhathakurta.
Ten years ago I met Gazi in Bangladesh's Satkhira region, in a small island called Koikhali. He had come with his immediate family about 60 years back, at the stroke of midnight, with nothing but the clothes on his back.
Pushpa Nangia was born in 1939 in Murree Hills, Rawalpindi. Her father was an engineer for the Military Engineering Services (MES) and her mother was homemaker. The Mukker family migrated from Nowshera to Delhi just a few days after the Partition, which also happened to be the day of Mrs Nangia's eighth birthday.
Through 1945 to 1946 and a part 1947, we were in Calcutta. During the riots, three families moved to 11 Circus Range for protection from any attack from non-Muslims.
Partition, unquestionably a pivotal event of the South Asian twentieth century, has become a subject of great significance in its own right.
The Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 has become indissolubly linked to horrific, haunting images of armed gangs or mobs attacking helpless groups of men, women and children trying to cross a border that had just been scratched on the map. Literature registers the shock in works that make harrowing reading.
First, when it came to the ecological question, the two-nation theory, on which the partition was claimed to be based, was muted as seen in Punjab and Bengal where the question of partitioning the water bodies took the centre stage. Second, the immediate aftermath of the partition left thousands of people dead and millions homeless and filled with gruesome trauma.
Ali Imam Majumder was born in the village of Kalabari, Tripura in 1950. His maternal home was in Sylhet. His family had a great deal of land in the village and its surroundings.
For both Pakistan and Bangladesh, the time between 1947 and 1971 was best forgotten.
Bangladesh stands out in postcolonial South Asia for its strikingly anomalous relationship to what neighbours consider to be the foundational event in the region's modern history—the 1947 partition of British India.
Mutsuddy was born into a Buddhist family in Rangunia, Chittagong, British India.
We call '1947' a phenomenon. Although often referred to as 'the Partition' for convenience, it is hard to settle on an agreed description. How should one describe 1947?
Partition, unquestionably a pivotal event of the South Asian twentieth century, has become a subject of great significance in its own right.
Through 1945 to 1946 and a part 1947, we were in Calcutta. During the riots, three families moved to 11 Circus Range for protection from any attack from non-Muslims.
Pushpa Nangia was born in 1939 in Murree Hills, Rawalpindi. Her father was an engineer for the Military Engineering Services (MES) and her mother was homemaker. The Mukker family migrated from Nowshera to Delhi just a few days after the Partition, which also happened to be the day of Mrs Nangia's eighth birthday.
