MIGRATION: SHATTERED DREAMS DURING 1947 PARTITION

Abstract

The world is breaking into smaller fragments since time immemorial, making the Partition of countries a salient feature of world history. India got its Independence from Britishers in 1947, but unfortunately, it was partitioned on ethnic grounds. The Partition led to the inception of two independent states, India and Pakistan. Independence brought in much more than attaining freedom and an end of hundred years of struggle. It was an eagerly awaited but joyless birth of a nation that created one of the world’s dangerous borders. A lot has been written about Partition from the political, sociological and economic viewpoint, but there is a gap in the psychological study of the trauma experienced. The present paper focuses on the robust understanding of the trauma of the people who have experienced immigration during the country’s Partition through literary representations and advocates a rethinking of cross-border migration. The select texts, univocal, offer rich multiple interpretations. The narratives refer to the country’s Partition either directly or indirectly and deal with the entire community’s individual trauma and collective trauma. Thousands of citizens crossed the India-Pakistan border during 1947, during the Partition of British India. Although much has been written about these so-called Partition refugees, a complete picture remains abstruse.