Nick Donnelly Podcast

The podcast discusses the Indian Partition of 1947, the creation of India and Pakistan, and the violence and displacement that occurred during this time. It highlights the mistreatment of women during the partition, including abduction, rape, mutilation, and murder. Women were seen as property and objects, and their suffering was used to instill fear and assert control. The recovery efforts aimed to reunite women with their families, but they faced social stigma and difficulties reintegrating into society. The patriarchal system in India further marginalized women, and similar issues were seen in China. You are listening to Don's Podcast and today I will be talking about Indian Partition and I'll be referencing the articles Ritu Manan and Kamala Basin in Honorably Dead and Ritu Manan and Kamala Basin in Borders and Bodies. I'm with Ken who is a great friend of mine who is currently a freshman here at Colby. How are you doing today, Ken? I'm doing well, Nick. How are you? I'm doing amazing. Today we're going to be talking about Indian Partition and I just really wanted to know like have you heard anything about Indian Partition? I haven't heard too many things about it but as far as I know it was the British Raj, it was originally the British Raj and then after World War II the British decided to break it up after they were losing control of their colonies and that's how we have the divided India today between Pakistan and India. Yeah that is a really good description of it and I would just love to go into a little more depth about it. Yeah, I'd love to hear about it. Yeah, the partition of India occurred in 1947 and it's one of the most significant events in modern history. It resulted in the creation of two separate nations, as you said, India and Pakistan and it marked the end of British colonial rule on the Indian subcontinent. And here's like a quick rundown of it, like the historical context was started with British colonialism and the British East India Company established control over parts of India in the 17th and 18th century. By the mid-19th century, direct British rule was established and through the rise of nationalistic movements throughout the 19th and early 20th century, Indian nationalist movements emerged advocating for independence from British rule and this was led with leaders like Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah and factors, other factors leading for partition were religious tensions, like India had a very diverse religious population, primarily Hindu and Muslim and the tension between Hindus and Muslims created by colonial policies of divide and rule and this led to communal violence and because of this, the partition plan was created where the British government was unable to maintain control and was facing mounting violence and decided to divide British India into two independent dominions of India and Pakistan and this was known as the Radcliffe Line, which was drawn by a British lawyer, Sir Radcliffe, who had no experience in India and had no clue what the geography was like and had never been there and because of the hasty nature of the partition, it led to significant confusion, displacement and just emphasized further violence and actually it caused some of the worst violence and the largest mass migration in history and the human cost of this was millions were displaced leaving behind homes, possessions and ancestral lands to migrate to either India or Pakistan and pretty much the aftermath was independence and the birth of two nations, India and Pakistan gained independence from British rule on August 17, 1947 and communal tensions persisted, the partition did not resolve any underlying religious and ethnic tensions and communal violence continued in the years following independence and war continued for several years. That's really interesting, I didn't know the role the colonial British played in the ongoing conflict between Pakistan and India even today. Yeah, I thought it was really interesting too how partition worked and a unique aspect that I want to talk about specifically like the treatment of women during partition and just like the extreme amount of violence they experienced and I was just curious if you knew anything about the treatment of women during the violence of partition and after partition. I don't know too much about the treatment of women during that time period but I know from my own ancestry and like what my parents have told me is that, like I can infer that it was definitely not good because my grandparents, they lived through World War II in China and what they have told me is that during that time period, the Japanese soldiers would frequently rape Chinese citizens, the Chinese women and I can assume that during a time of conflict like in India, something similar must have happened. Yeah exactly, like women were like seen as property and like objects throughout like these times of war and like people were trying to claim them as territory you would say. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. So, as per usual, you got it exactly right. The violence against women during the partition of India in 1947 was awful. They experienced significant challenges including displacement, loss and most notably brutal violence and according to Ritu Menon and Kamala Basin in Honorably Dead, they were subjected to various forms of violence including abduction, rape, mutilation and murder. Even their breasts were chopped off. They were put into naked parades. They were being disfigured and they were being branded according to her and women from both Hindu and Muslim communities were targeted often as a means to dishonor or punish the opposing community. The violence inflicted upon women was a tool used to instill fear, assert dominance and assert control over territory. As we were talking about, women were being seen as objects and I really think of this as like a double-edged sword of discrimination to justify the discrimination. These women were being discriminated against as stated in Ritu Menon's article. It was then justified to further discriminate against them and treat them as objects and property with horrid acts of violence. And we see challenges in their rehabilitation. These women who were treated horribly like this, who had been abducted or raped, often faced extreme social stigma and ostracization from their communities like reintegrating into society and finding acceptance and support was nearly impossible or at least a significant hurdle for these women. Yeah. When I was young, my grandmother used to tell me about a story of someone in her village back in my great-grandmother's generation and we heard that these horrors happened to her and after the war, she struggled to come back into the village and she was ostracized by the other villagers. Yeah, I'm really sorry to hear that and it happens throughout history where we just seem to see women being put in these places where it seems to always happen throughout history when there's conflict where we see women get treated horribly and we see this during the recovery period in India. The central recovery operation initiated by India was in 1947 aimed to address these challenges and facilitate the recovery of communities. A key part of the recovery was the inter-dominion agreement in November of 1947 to recover as many women as speedily as possible to restore them to their families according to Ritu Menon and Kamala Basin's In Borders and Bodies, the women would have to leave whether they wanted to or not. One of the primary objectives of this was to get the women refugees who had been displaced from partition and uprooted from their homes and forced to migrate to India or Pakistan. They would have a great struggle of getting to these camps and if they didn't, they would be picked up by a man to keep for himself or to sell her off according to Ritu Menon and Kamala Basin's In Borders and Bodies article. One thing the article seemed to emphasize which was really interesting was how partition just enhances the patriarchal system India had created where women were already seen as property. Yeah, I can really see how women could be seen as property in a society like India because China was very similar in the sense that women were seen as objects because when they got married they would basically be sold to the husbands and that just seems like they're seen as below men and I could see how that causes something like that. Yeah, exactly. The patriarchal system already puts women in a position where they're seen as inferior so then the men would use this as justification to discriminate them further because they're already seen as inferior. Yeah, exactly. Well, Ken, I really appreciate you taking the time today to speak with me. We are running out of time so it was really awesome speaking with you and yeah, you're my guy, bro. Yeah, it was really great speaking to you, too. The music credits go to Jazar, Fastest Man on Earth.