In Partition Voices: Untold British Stories, Kavita Puri observes that following the Partition, many South Asians moved to Britain. With time, she has realised that their stories have largely remained untold. It showcases how the oral interviews have traced the presence of Partition survivors scattered in different parts of the world. The archive is gradually making the recordings available to researchers. So far, they have successfully archived around 9,000 interviews. It was only in 2009 that he was finally able to sell the property in India.īoth these interviews are conducted by the ‘citizen historians’ of the 1947 Partition Archive. Founded by Guneeta Singh Bhalla, the Berkeley-based archive aims to record ten thousand oral history narratives of Partition survivors. While he was in the US, Khan got to know that refugees had forcibly occupied their home near Nainital. To be honest, he had no friends, and we felt out of place.” His family decided to migrate as well, and his father sent Khan and his brothers to the US. He said, “After the Partition, my dad felt extremely lonely. The nostalgic ruminations of his days spent with the English families were followed by a sense of loss as the Partition took place.Īlso read: The Living, Breathing Memory of the PartitionĪccording to him, the saddest part was to find that their English friends left overnight without informing his family. In my childhood, I played mostly with the British kids,” he said. “My dad had just British friends he hunted with the Britishers and asked me to accompany him. Many British families frequented Nainital for their summer sojourn, and they a paid visit to Nasr’s family garage. His family owned a car repair shop at the foothills of Nainital. In an almost similar fashion, Nasr Ullah Khan, who considers himself an Anglo-Indian, recounted his days spent in British India. The narrative of Stafford Elias is a case in point. At the same time, the Partition also affected those who were not directly associated with the entrenched communal divide in South Asia. Understandably, the narratives have primarily been secured from the members of the dominant communities – the Sikhs, the Muslims and the Hindus. The introduction of oral history has directed our attention to the emergent narratives of those who crossed the newly drawn international borders, bifurcating India and Pakistan. However, there has been a discernible shift in thematic focus in studies related to the Partition. Saint opines that the memories of individuals who lived through the Partition had been strategically suppressed and silenced for quite a few decades after 1947. In the ‘Introduction’ to Looking Back: The 1947 Partition, 70 Years on, Tarun K. It was not at all good for business.” Within a few years, the prevailing tension forced him to leave Calcutta forever. “But riots would often break out in Calcutta,” he said, “and there was this sense of insecurity that permeated the society at large. So, his Hindu and Muslim friends trusted him with their valuable items, which he safely kept on their behalf. Since they were Jews, they played no part in the unfolding communal politics that plagued Calcutta in 1947. Initially, the situational crisis left his family untouched. Some of them slept on the streets,” he said. “I saw the refugees come on foot, buffalo cart, horseback and train. Most of his Muslim employees left for Pakistan, and the city was overburdened with the Hindu refugees from East Pakistan. Yet, he vividly remembers that Calcutta drastically changed in 1947. There are lapses in memory owing to his age. But he soon ended up learning Bengali, Hindi and Urdu because he had to follow his father’s footsteps and expand the family business.Īt times, Elias fails to recollect the names of his friends and misplaces the chronology of various incidents in his life. In his formative years, his parents did not encourage Elias to get acquainted with the children of his neighbourhood. Interestingly, his journey started in Calcutta in British India, where he was born to Nissam and Rachael in 1923. Seated in his picturesque apartment in Manhattan, New York, Stafford Elias believes that though he has resided in several places, he is at present a New Yorker.
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