Gripping storytelling session busts many myths surrounding Partition

A large number of Sikhs were present but alas no one in the audience got to speak. However, the lack of audience participation was made up by the story narrated by Bhalla about the making of the book through slides and in conversation with deputy editor, Live History India, Aparna Andhare

Mumbai: The Darbar Hall of the Asiatic Society may never have been so packed as it was on Monday evening for author Dr Guneeta Singh Bhalla’s talk on her book “10,000 Memories, A lived History of Partition.”

A large number of Sikhs were present but alas no one in the audience got to speak. However, the lack of audience participation was made up by the story narrated by DR Bhalla (left) about the making of the book through slides and in conversation with deputy editor, Live History India, Aparna Andhare (right). (HT Photo)

A large number of Sikhs were present but alas no one in the audience got to speak. However, the lack of audience participation was made up by the story narrated by Bhalla about the making of the book through slides and in conversation with deputy editor, Live History India, Aparna Andhare.

Inspired first by the stories narrated by her grandmother of their family’s migration from Punjab, and then by a visit to the Hiroshima Memorial in Japan, Guneeta decided to document the story of the Partition which wasn’t part of any school history text.

“Textbooks spoke of our non-violent freedom movement and the peaceful transfer of power,” she said. “But when I spoke of my grandmother’s narration, my teacher told me she must be exaggerating.”

In her presentation, Bhalla busted the biggest myth about Partition: That it affected chiefly Punjab and Bengal. As her volunteers spread across the subcontinent recording stories, they found that every part of it was impacted. Indeed, the first slide was about a Sikh who was schooled in Burma, now Myanmar.

Another myth was that the tallest leaders like Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were universally loved. While affection for Gandhi spanned many parts of the subcontinent, from Sindh to Assam, he wasn’t that popular in Punjab. In the United Provinces, now Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Nehru and Mohammad Ali Jinnah were more popular.

Bhalla cited stories of women who covered themselves in mud and filth to avoid predators, as well as of the “Three women on horseback” heavily armed, who appeared in a village near Batala and took the villagers to safety. Interestingly, this story was corroborated by a partition survivor in the US, who described their appearance as an avatar of Guru Gobind Singh.

While the first book, yet to be out, contains 400 stories, every story will ultimately make it into a book and end up on YouTube, if the survivors allow it, said Bhalla. For there were a few who narrated their stories, but on condition that they wouldn’t be recorded. Some were women who’d had to convert; others were survivors who had killed and for whom the narration was like a cleansing. Among them was a man who admitted to killing the elderly left behind as their families fled. “ If I hadn’t, they’d have starved,” He said in justification.

Those still keen on getting their Partition stories included can log on to the website of the 1947 Partition Archive.