Violence and the Partition of India: Voices from Pakistan

Abstract

This interview, centred on the theme of violence in South Asian history and culture with a particular focus on the partition of India from the perspective of past and present, has been conducted with four persons from different walks of life: Kishwar Sultana Mir, a refugee from Amritsar based in Lahore, who was seven years old when the partition was about to take place; Khawar Kazi, retired Lecturer of English at Kinnaird College for Women Lahore, who was six at the time of the partition; Usman Qasmi, a university professor specialising in South Asian history at Lahore University of Management and Sciences (LUMS); and Ishtiaq Ahmed, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Stockholm University and a Visiting Professor at the Government College University, Lahore. In this interview, Mir and Kazi narrate their first-hand experiences during the partition as Mir's entire family was uprooted from her hometown Amritsar, which became a part of newly created India, forcing her to move to Gujarat and then on to Lahore where she currently lives, whereas Kazi's father was the Commissioner for Rehabilitation in Lahore who was actively involved in accommodating refugees in the newly created Pakistan. Complementing these two first-hand accounts, Qasmi's and Ahmed's scholarly insights lend a refreshing perspective on the legacies of the partition violence in South Asia.