Identity Challenged & Changed: A Comparative Study of Women Victim of Partition (1947). - Biman Samaddar.

Identity Challenged & Changed: A Comparative Study of

Women Victim of Partition (1947).
Biman Samaddar
Assistant Professor,
Department of History, Santipur College
&
Ph.D. Scholar,
Department of History, University of Calcutta.

The partition of 1947 & the following violence not only changed the identity of a Nation,
but also challenged the identity of women in many ways, specially in Punjab & Bengal.
Undoubtedly Partition left a crass effect on women in both the borders. Women often
disenfranchised as sexual objects, communal commodities & patriarchal property, by both the
nation-state & their relations, hundreds of thousands of women experienced multiple forms of
gendered & sexual violence during partition. The magnitude of violence, horror & torture on
the women in Punjab occurred in such a large scale that it shatters the total morale of society &
the identity of their women. In our small research we are trying to portray that the family ,
society & religion which created the identity of women; after partition violence, often failed to
protect the women & their identity, even sometimes killed their women by the collective
decision of “honour killing”.1 The abducted women got their new identity in the “other” state.
But at that point of time State also tried to protect the lost patriarchal prestige of family &
society & tried to act as a guardian through a recovery operation. After the recovery the
uprooted women had no choice but to accept the State given identity. In the whole process the
consent of women themselves was of no use. On the contrary the Sikh society eulogized the
sacrifice of their women by a consciously made “violence- victimhood” paradigm.2 The
partition violence & the subsequent refugee hood had given the Bengalee refugee women a
different identity, which was marked by struggle, self reliance & political activity, not only by
the “violence- victimhood” paradigm which is still present in Punjab.

In Punjab the form of violence from ‘others’ was reached in such extent that women of
many Sikh families committed mass suicide & in some cases the family head man killed the
women. These decisions were taken by the patriarchy & eventually put forward a set of
questions, why the men of ‘own’ community killed their women? Why the society sanctioned
death orders for women & provoked them to commit mass suicide? Definitely these incidents
confirm the ideology that the honour of a society lies in protecting its women from patriarchal

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Identity Challenged & Changed: A Comparative Study of Women Victim of Partition (1947). - Biman Samaddar.

violence of ‘other’ community & unable to offer such protection the patriarchal society gave
their consent to such deaths.3 Undoubtedly in this regard, patriarchy was acted as an ‘agency’;
even Gandhiji said, “in certain circumstances even suicide was morally preferable to
submission.”4 Undoubtedly here the identity of women has been diluted in the identity &
existence of society, where the identity or voice of any individual was veiled by ‘collective
censorship’.5 Many times women’s patriarchal identity restrained them to prevent others to
commit suicide. This patriarchal identity carefully harnessed the later propagated idea of
‘violence – victimhood’ or the identity of martyrdom. But patriarchy didn’t prevent the looting,
rape & abduction of their women in the hand of the patriarchs of ‘other’ community.

In this pretext State with his full patriarchal vigor came into stage to prevent further
damage to patriarchal society.6 Indian State was also hurt & emasculated by partition &
following bloodshed & it was in a need to reclaim its lost male chauvinistic identity. The goal
was achieved by the undaunted, but much criticized, process of ‘Recovery’, from ‘paraya’
houses to their ‘real’ homes.7 Here State prerogative was to regain its prestige by branding of
‘our women’ & bring them back from Pakistan in lieu of abducted Muslim women in India.8
Though many of the abducted women had started a new family life & found a new identity of
wife & mother in the new country, yet the State tried to wipe out the newly gained identity by a
single stroke of recovery. Keeping this basic ideology in mind India & Pakistan signed the ‘Inter
Dominion Treaty’ (1948) for recovery of abducted women.

The recovery process was an attack on women identity. After settling down in their new
life, many women didn’t want to go back to their past life; but the State clearly mentioned that
‘The wishes of the persons concerned are irrelevant & consequently no statements of such
persons should be recorded before magistrates ’.9 By the recovery process the identity of
women was challenged, changed & newly formed by the unprecedented coercive measures of
society & State, which was very much patriarchal too. The element of dictation in this process
was so nude that the will of any individual women was thoroughly neglected & their identity as
a woman, a daughter, as a wife, & as a mother was reshaped by the State & society. Religious
identity of women surpassed by State’s prestige. So the humanitarian measures in recovery
gradually subdued by State prestige. Even Nehru’s humanitarian thinking of not applying the
force in recovery process was not working.10 Finally Indian State tried to regulate women’s
sexuality by exercising the right to determine her life after recovery, as well as performing
abortions (safaya), whenever necessary.11 The main aim was to restore State & community
honour. So what was the response of women to recovery or what was the impact of recovery
on the identity of women can now being questioned.

Basically recovery became a number game for the two newly find states, every state
wanted to give back fewer ‘other’ women but reclaim more of their own.12 It became a case of

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Identity Challenged & Changed: A Comparative Study of Women Victim of Partition (1947). - Biman Samaddar.

objectification of women identity, where they can be exchanged as goods.13 But what the State
had done with the women after recovery? Like the other patriarch who wanted to establish
control on women’s womb by raping, the state also tried to establish the same control by
performing abortions (though then illegal) & at the terms defined only by the state.14
Moreover the State through recovery agents forced the recovered women to leave the children
born by association with the male of ‘other’ community.15 In this process the State tried to
establish total control over the body, mind & identity of motherhood of the recovered women.

Moreover many Hindu & Sikh families were reluctant to take back their abducted
women, despite repeated requests by Nehru, Gandhiji as well as social workers. To counter this
problem, Ministry of Relief & Rehabilitation in a pamphlet propagated that a women became
purified after three menstrual cycles, and then could be taken back. Even stories were
published claiming Sita remained pure despite she had sex with Ravana.16 Some of the
members of All India Women’s Conference, Delhi branch also did such a propaganda work in
the streets of Delhi.17 It clearly depicts that though the State was trying to recreate the identity
of recovered women, yet in a large scale it was not totally acceptable by the society. As a result
many of the recovered women got their new identity as a spinster or as a widow permanently.
So we can tell that the continual process of construction & re-construction of the identity of
women transformed them as ‘permanent refugees’.18

In the aforesaid recovery process there were basically multiple stages of conflicts, which
women had to fight against patriarchal State, society & family. If we can try to look into the
matter from margins, we can find an alternative voice, a different construction altogether, of
women recovery workers & recovered women. In these alternative voices we can find that the
women often refused to go back to their past life & often questioned the State & leadership
too.19 In a nutshell the women questioned the authority of a State, who failed to protect its
women, to intervene in their later lives. Many women recovery workers, like Rameshwari
Nehru, also protested against the conniving identity of State sponsored recovery work &
resigned from the post of Honorary Advisor to the Ministry of Relief & Rehabilitation.20 The
identity of women social workers was also very confusing to themselves. Often they didn’t
understand whether they were an ‘Indian’, a ‘Nationalist’, a ‘Hindu’, a ‘social worker’, or a
‘woman’, “this last category often subsuming all others”.21 In addition to these there was
another problem regarding the identity of the children born of rape & abduction. Here also the
State highhandedly derived their identity & separated them from their mothers, to make the
mothers pure. On the contrary Sikh society & family tried to hush up these truths by the
conscious making of “violence- victimhood” paradigm.

Over a period of eight years, approximately thirty thousand women (20728 Muslims &
9032 non-Muslims) were recovered by both countries.22 But the form of partition violence &

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Identity Challenged & Changed: A Comparative Study of Women Victim of Partition (1947). - Biman Samaddar.

the following matters were different in Bengal altogether than the western border. Though the
nature of pre-partition riots in Noakhali was almost same. Where Hindu women became victim
of loot, abduction, rape, forcible marriage & killing. Almost seven hundred complains of rape
were registered in Noakhali & adjacent areas.23 One of the main differences between the
nature of partition riots between east & western border was this that unlike the one sided
torture & killing in Bengal the riots in Punjab occurred in a one swift blow. But after the 1950
riot the Hindus of East Pakistan started to believe that they have to abandon their ancestral
home. Indiscriminate one sided violence, rape, abduction & killing followed their last journey.

The nature & identity of armed patriarchy may be same in two borders but State
response was different; in West the exchange of property & population was an accepted fact,
which was absent in East. In Bengal the State was not prepared to accept the migration as a
fact. Women sexuality was carefully protected in lieu of property in Bengal. Against the huge
Government sponsored relief measures in the west, Bengalee refugees got only twenty rupees
per head.24 Moreover State didn’t show his patriarchal identity in Bengal by organizing large
scale recovery operations like Punjab. Though a committee was formed by the Chittagong
branch of All India Women’s Conference, under the leadership of Nelli Sengupta, to recover the
women victim of Noakhali riot in 1946, yet it was not at all sponsored by the State.25 But we
can find a striking similarity in the question of identity of the recovered women of West &
Eastern border. Even Gandhiji had to request the family members of the Noakhali riot victims
to take back their abducted women.26 A striking similarity was also shown by patriarchy in both
the borders, & in both cases women’s identity was marked by the sense of purity identified by
society. But we are unable to find many more similarities except the issue of purity.

The identity of refugee women of Bengal was primarily shaped by a strong presence of
leftist women organizations. The ground was prepared by MARS by their activities since the
famine of 1943.27 The movement for relief & peace was repeated by this organization after the
Calcutta riots of 1946. Though banned afterwards, yet by attracting many non communist
women in their movement, MARS prepared the ground for ‘re-creating’ the new identity of
Bengalee women in West Bengal.28 In fact the identity of Bengalee refugee women was
reshaped by a profound leftist impulse. From the beginning MARS helped the refugee women
till they arrived at Sealdah station. On the other hand Communist party led Women’s
Conference thoroughly opposed the ‘rescue & recovery’ process like Punjab.29 They
categorically opposed the uprooting of abducted women from their newly settled life. In
addition to that, Communist Party of India thoroughly discarded the freedom & continued their
united identity in East Pakistan & West Bengal. They ordered the party workers not to leave
East Pakistan. C.P.I also send many female party workers to work in East Pakistan & render help
to the distressed.30

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Identity Challenged & Changed: A Comparative Study of Women Victim of Partition (1947). - Biman Samaddar.

U.C.R.C brought the refugee women into the circle of movements, & with the help of
U.C.R.C, communist ideology started to encroach into the houses of refugees, in which women
played a leading role.31 In addition to this the non communal ideological teaching of C.P.I not
only resisted the Hindu Mahasabha to penetrate into the refugee mind, but also created a non
communal identity of refugee women.32 No doubt this was not the case in Punjab. The
Bengalee refugee women with their new, but nascent identity operated as vanguards of
communist lead anti eviction movement & the movement to legalize the colonies. They had to
come out to work to help their families. Patriarchy had to accept the new situation. Slowly but
steadily the patriarchal inhibitions in Bengal started to wither. After receiving the benefit of
Central Aid & property – population exchange, the case of refugees of Punjab was much
different. The identity of their women was marked by the ‘glorified’ ‘violence-victimhood’
paradigm;33 but the identity of Bengalee refugee women was marked by the history of re-
building.

The problem of insufficient living space for refugees in Calcutta & suburb abolished the
concept of ‘andarmahal’.34 In this process of refiguring the gender, the bengalee refugee
women lost their own ‘private space’, but for this loss they became the audience & later
participant of the socio-political discussion of men. By the dilution of ‘private space’ into ‘public
life’ women may loss something, but they became ‘exposed to the man’s world of business,
politics, and all sorts of social activities’, often free from superstition & communalism.35
Communist Party did the rest. This type of identity building was totally absent in Punjab.

The building of the identity of new women was not at all an easy process. Bengalee
refugee women had to compromise with the hatred of the ‘ghotis’ . State Congress, in open
meetings, often threatened to send them back, moreover changed food habit, changed system
of toilet, dress sense & dialect posed a serious threat to their identity.36 In addition many of
them had to work out side to help her family. Thus the identity as well as the home of Bengalee
refugee women was re-created & accepted by the society.

Thus the ‘other story’37 of Bengalee refugee women remains very different in identity
than ‘other side of silence’, the veiled story of refugee women in Punjab. At the moment of the
birth of India & Pakistan, Nation’s one fragment, ‘community’ established control over the
other fragment, the ‘women’. This was the case during partition in both borders, but the re-
creation of women identity in Bengal was a major difference than Punjab. Bengalee refugees
were not violent refugees (muhajirs) like Punjab. Central Government tried to identify them as
effiminate, ‘creature apart’, who lacked ‘pioneering spirit’.38 Thus the identified Bengalee
refugees who carried forward a memory of ‘soft violence’39 became self reliant, their women
became a new women & unlike the re-settling refugee women in Punjab, prepared themselves
to enter in their new identity, the vanguard of Communist led refugee movement in Bengal.

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Identity Challenged & Changed: A Comparative Study of Women Victim of Partition (1947). - Biman Samaddar.

This is a preliminary effort of comparison between the partition affected refugee women of
both borders. A scope of further research is always there.

References

1. Bir Bahadur Singh, personal interview. Interviewed by Sudesh Vaid & Urvashi Butalia.

2. Ibid

3. Community, State & Gender: Some Reflections on the Partition of India, Urvashi Butalia, in
Inventing Boundaries: Gender, Politics & the Partition of India. Ed. By Mushirul Hasan. OUP, New
Delhi, 2000. P.187.

4. The Statesman, 15th March, 1947.

5. Community, State & Gender……….. Ed. By Mushirul Hasan. P.187.

6. Urvashi Butalia, Community, State & Gender: Some Reflections on the Partition of India. P.197.

7. Kamlaben patel, personal interview. Interviewed by Urvashi Butalia.

8. Urvashi Butalia, Community, State & Gender: Some Reflections on the Partition of India. P.194.

9. Inter Dominion Treaty, quoted by Urvashi Butalia, Community, State & Gender: Some
Reflections on the Partition of India. P.190.

10. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, op. cit.p.114.

11. For such abortions in Delhi- Damyanti Sehgal, personal interview. Interviewed by Sudesh Vaid &
Urvashi Butalia, in Jullandhar personal interview of Kamlaben Patel by Urvashi Butalia.

12. Constituent Assembly of India (Legislative) Debates, December 1949.

13. Kamlaben patel, personal interview. Interviewed by Urvashi Butalia.

14. For such abortions in Delhi- Damyanti Sehgal, personal interview. Interviewed by Sudesh Vaid &
Urvashi Butalia, in Jullandhar personal interview of Kamlaben Patel by Urvashi Butalia.

15. Kamlaben patel, personal interview. Interviewed by Urvashi Butalia.

16. Urvashi Butalia, Community, State & Gender: Some Reflections on the Partition of India. P. 224 &
196.

17. Ibid. p.224.

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Identity Challenged & Changed: A Comparative Study of Women Victim of Partition (1947). - Biman Samaddar.

18. Urvashi Butalia, Community, State & Gender: Some Reflections on the Partition of India. P.222.

19. Ibid. p.p 220-221.

20. Private papers of Rameshwari Nehru, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi.

21. Urvashi Butalia, Community, State & Gender: Some Reflections on the Partition of India. P. 200.

22. Urvashi Butalia, Community, State & Gender: Some Reflections on the Partition of India. P.222.

23. Indian Annual Register. P.196.

24. Prafulla Kumar Chakraborty, Prantik Manab,(in Bengali) Protikkhon, Kolkata, 1997.

25. Ashoka Gupta, Noakhalir Durjoger Dine,(in Bengali), Kolkata, Naya Udyog,1999. P.74.

26. Quoted in G.D.Khosla, Stern Reckoning: A Survey of the Events Leading Up to & Following the
Partition of India. OUP, New Delhi, Reprint 1989.

27. Gargi Chakravartty, Coming Out of Partition: Refugee Women of Bengal. Bluejay Books, !st
publication, New Delhi, 2005.

28. Ibid.

29. S B Collection, S Series, 517/55.

30. Nibedita Nag, Opposed To Exodus, In The Trauma & The Triumph:: Gender & Partition in Eastern
India. ed. by Jasodhara Bagchi & Subhoranjan Dasgupta. Stree. Second Reprint. Kolkata.Oct.
2007.

31. Prafulla Kumar Chakraborty, The Marginal Men, Lumiere Books, Kalyani, West Bengal, 1990.
P.50.

32. Gargi Chakravartty, Coming Out of Partition: Refugee Women of Bengal. Pp63,69.

33. Ritu Menon & Kamala Bhasin, Recovery, Rupture, Resistance. Indian State & the Abduction of
Women During Partition. Review of Womens Studies. EPW, 1993. Ws 2-11.

34. Gargi Chakravartty, Coming Out of Partition: Refugee Women of Bengal. P.83.

35. Rachel Weber, Re(Creating) the Home: Womens Role in the Development of Refugee Colonies in
South Calcutta. In The Trauma & The Triumph:: Gender & Partition in Eastern India. ed. by
Jasodhara Bagchi & Subhoranjan Dasgupta. P.71-73.

36. Gargi Chakravartty, Coming Out of Partition: Refugee Women of Bengal.

37. Ibid. p.86.

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Identity Challenged & Changed: A Comparative Study of Women Victim of Partition (1947). - Biman Samaddar.

38. Haimanti Roy. Partitioned Lives: Migrants, Refugees. Citizens in India & Pakistan.1947-1965.
OUP,New Delhi, 2012. P.198.

39. Jayanti Basu. Reconstructing the Bengal Partition: The Psyche Under a Different Violence, Stree,
Kolkata,2013.

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