![]() But they haven't told the details or had the chance to tell their own family members. "They've told it in bits and parts, there and here. "Many haven't really told the story before," she says. ![]() She says strong bonds can form between interviewers and interviewees - and for the Partition survivors, having the opportunity to share long-held, traumatic memories can be cathartic. Reena Kapoor, 1947 Partition Archive citizen historian When we start talking about 'them' and how 'they' are, it absolves us of the responsibility of recognizing them as human. It's very easy to dehumanize the other side. Bhalla herself has conducted interviews with 100 Partition witnesses. More than 500 volunteers have helped record the stories in 22 different languages, from 12 countries - primarily in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (which became independent from Pakistan in 1971), but also in the U.S., the U.K. The project has recorded more than 4,300 oral histories. Now, running the archive is her full-time job. Bhalla started recruiting others to help and founded the 1947 Partition Archive. "I looked up the Sikh temple, mosques and Hindu temples in the area." At her first stop, the Fremont, Calif., Sikh temple, she set up a table and a sign saying "1947 Stories," she recalls, and "a huge line of people formed." She quickly realized the enormity of her task – and that she'd tapped into a great need. ![]() "I just showed up randomly," she recalls. But in her free time, she continued recording interviews with Partition survivors. It was like, 'Oh yeah, that thing that happened, but we don't really talk about it.' I thought that was a problem in itself."īhalla moved to the Bay Area to take a job at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. People had learned to subdue this history and to take it as not serious. At first, she says, "Everyone thought it was kind of a really nuts idea. She sought out Partition witnesses in India and began documenting their memories. But at school in India, there was silence. She knew her grandmother had been traumatized. And all the stories of the dead bodies they saw and had to run over at the time just kind of blew me away as a kid. "She was in a refugee camp for awhile until her brother found her by chance and they drove away in a Jeep. "My grandmother's experience was very harrowing," she says. Her paternal grandmother, a Sikh, fled to India from Lahore, which ended up on the Pakistani side of the new border. She is originally from Punjab - a region split between India and Pakistan that, along with Bengal, which was also split, saw some of Partition's bloodiest violence. "There is a huge urgency," Bhalla says, "because the generation that remembers isn't going to be with us for very long."Īs a child in India, Bhalla, now 38, used to listen to her own family's stories from Partition. Guneeta Singh Bhalla, founder of the 1947 Partition Archive It was like, 'Oh yeah, that thing that happened, but we don't really talk about it.' I thought that was a problem in itself. There was arson, looting and bombings.īy the time it was all over, a million people - maybe more - had died. Women, desperate to avoid abduction and rape, committed suicide. "Ghost trains" full of refugees' corpses plied the railway tracks in eerie silence. Over the course of a year, an estimated 15 million people crossed borders that were drawn up in haste by the British Empire.Īlong the way, scenes of brutality played out: Mobs rampaged through cities and countryside, attacking and killing members of religions not their own. It was the largest mass migration of the 20th century. Millions of people were uprooted and displaced from cities, towns and villages where their families had lived for generations. Religious violence exploded as Hindus and Sikhs fled toward India, and Muslims toward Pakistan, the newly created homeland for South Asia's Muslims. At times, mobs targeted and killed passengers traveling in either direction the trains carrying their corpses became known as "ghost trains."Īs India and Pakistan celebrate 70 years of independence this week, the legacy of the August 1947 Partition of British-ruled India that resulted in the birth of these two nations is something both are still coming to terms with. Some 15 million people crossed new borders during the violent partition of British-ruled India. Muslim refugees crowd onto a train as they try to flee India near New Delhi in September 1947.
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