The territorial division of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan, and eventually Bangladesh, is referred to as "Partition" in English. Indian languages have their own terms to describe this phenomenon and, quite often, victims of this history provide in their oral testimonies versions that complicate the singularity of this event even further. My talk will provide the dialectics between history and memory, state and individuals to show how this "event" is constructed and remembered in diverse ways in India. I will focus largely on my research on Sindh and how its minorities migrated to India during Partition, their processes of rehabilitation and resettlement and also compare them with Sindhi speaking Muslims who have lived along the borders of Kutch and Rajasthan in India to argue that negotiation of borders is an everyday practice for some. Finally, partition reincarnates itself through border making and border crossing practices in the subcontinent. I examine this in relation to language, literature, religion and nations at large.


Rita Kothari is a professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, India.

Location:	JMC Library, 3rd Floor Case Hall [map]
Price:	free
Sponsor:	public
Contact:	Asian Studies Center asiansc@isp.msu.edu
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