Portraiture of human afflictions in the partition literature of India.
A. Vijayanand
Abstract
The sources of history and literature witnessed that few people on the name of
religion divided the subcontinent and created severe problems in all regions of the
subcontinent that people still have been facing even after seventy years of partition. If we go
through the pages of Indian History and Partition Literature many admirable characters will
come alive in front of us. About numerous events and disasters we can learn from the books
of historians and literary giants who portrayed all the situations, disasters and predicaments
faced by the people before, during and after partition.Partition of India is still a darkest period
in the history of subcontinent and it has left indelible marks on the pages of Indian history.
Many writers have attempted to represent the trauma of partition skilfully through their
writings. Britishers before leaving the subcontinent tried to break the unity of religions on the
name of partition, many people were shocked as they were aware about the consequences of
this division. After partition, the people who earlier were friends, neighbours,colleagues were
labelled as Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians and became thirsty of each others’ blood.
They acted as savages; they forgot the respect for elders and women, love towards children.
To represent the people who on the name of religion killed millions of precious lives, many
writers of the Indian subcontinent produced a literature called Partition Literature. The
partition led to huge movements and disastrous conflicts across Indo-Pak border. About ten
million Hindus and Sikhs were expelled from Pakistan and nearly seven million Muslims
from India to Pakistan and thousands ofpeople were killed in this conflict. Though,
independence for Indian subcontinent was an event of celebration, but it was celebrated in the
shape of mourning, tears, separation, exile, crying, bloodshed, abduction, rape, murder etc.
India was the one of the largest colonies of Great Britain and was granted freedom after a
long period of subjugation, however resulted into the partition of country which caused a big
destruction to the subcontinent in the form of ethnic and religious riots. This paper aims to
explore Portraiture of human afflictions in the partition literature of India.
Keywords
Partition Literature, history, violence, abduction, subjugation, migration, cataclysmic events, riots.