8/18/2019 1.7 Ghosts of Partition- Contemporary India 2

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/17-ghosts-of-partition-contemporary-india-2 1/4

Unless otherwise indicated, this material is © The University of Melbourne. You may save,print or download this material solely for your own information, research or study. 

1 

Title

Ghosts of partition: contemporary India 

• Partition did not neatly reassign the religious demography of South Asia

• More Muslims remained in the new India than those migrating to

Pakistan.

“ As to where Pakistan was located, the inmates knew nothing...

the mad and the partially mad were unable to decide whether they were

now in India or Pakistan. If they were in India where on earth was

Pakistan?”

Saadat Hasan Manto “Toba Tek Singh”” 

8/18/2019 1.7 Ghosts of Partition- Contemporary India 2

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/17-ghosts-of-partition-contemporary-india-2 2/4

Unless otherwise indicated, this material is © The University of Melbourne. You may save,print or download this material solely for your own information, research or study. 

2 

• Its ideological fallout benefited reactionary forces in both

nations.

• It legitimised the ethnic/cultural model of nationalism.

• The logical extension of this model would be the creation of

ethnically ‘homogeneous’ entities and/or genocide of minorities.

“Your history gets in the way of my memory.

Your memory gets in the way of my memory”

 Agha Shahid Ali Farewell 

Ghosts of partition: contemporary India (continued) 

“This daybreak, pockmarked-- this morning, night-bitten.

Surely it is not the morning we'd longed for …

Walk on for that destination is not yet here.”

Freedom's Dawn (1947),

Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1911 - 1984) 

Ghosts of partition: contemporary India (continued) 

8/18/2019 1.7 Ghosts of Partition- Contemporary India 2

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/17-ghosts-of-partition-contemporary-india-2 3/4

Unless otherwise indicated, this material is © The University of Melbourne. You may save,print or download this material solely for your own information, research or study. 

3 

• Partition was a failed solution to the

question of difference.

• It created unstable alignments of territory

and identity that have to be constantly

renegotiated.

• Borders are complex sites of reciprocity,

exchange and livelihood, even wheredisguised as clean thin lines 

Ghosts of partition: contemporary India (continued) 

Border of Bangladesh and India at Tamabil 

“Come covered with flowers from the gardens of Lahore

We ll bring you the radiance of a Banaras morning

The freshness of the Himalayan winds.

Then let us ask who the enemy is. 

Ali Sardar Zafri, Bombay

Ghosts of partition: contemporary India (continued) 

8/18/2019 1.7 Ghosts of Partition- Contemporary India 2

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/17-ghosts-of-partition-contemporary-india-2 4/4

Unless otherwise indicated, this material is © The University of Melbourne. You may save,print or download this material solely for your own information, research or study. 

4 

Slide credits 

• 

Slide 4: Ahfaz with Faiz Ahmad Faiz By Rameez Rahman [GFDL http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html ], via Wikimedia

Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAhfaz_with_Faiz_Ahmad_Faiz.jpg 

• 

Slide 5: Border with India Tamabil Sylhet Bangladesh 2 By Md. Shahnoor Habib (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia

Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABorder_with_India_Tamabil_Sylhet_Bangladesh_2.JPG 

• 

Slide 6: Ali Sardar Jafri By Swordofsunnah (Own work) CC-BY-SA-3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 , via

Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ali_Sardar_jafri.jpg