Partition and its Afterlife: Tracing Home, Memory and Longing in the Imagination of the Displaced Sylhetis

Abstract

As people had to choose between one nation and the other during and after the Partition of 1947, homes were lost and lives were altered forever. India’s northeast, despite continuously bearing the consequences of this historical experience, remains largely an unacknowledged area in Partition studies. Any cursory exploration of Partition scholarship would reveal that Punjab and Bengal remain the primary sites of investigation. Where does one locate specificities of Partition experience of India’s northeast? Creative writers and artists in this region have also engaged with Partition and its seminal impact on the society and culture of India’s northeast. Through a study of select Partition writings from India’s northeast, this paper will examine the different registers of public and personal memories of Partition and its afterlife in the literary imagination of the displaced Sylhetis to bring forth a better understanding of the perpetuity of dislocation, loss and anxiety in the spheres of everydayness. Drawing upon Memory Studies and discourses concerning home and identity, this paper aims to explore how literature becomes important vehicle for representing inscription and transmission of Partition memories and connected idea of a lost home.