Since 1947 (OIP)

Description

Since 1947 is the history of forced migration and resettlement of Hindu and Sikh refugees from the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and West Punjab in the aftermath of Partition. Through extensive archival and ethnographic work in the refugee resettlement colonies, it lays out the making of refugees into ‘locals’, and eventually the modern citizens of the postcolonial nation. This transformative moment is mapped through an exploration of individual and collective coping strategies as well as the state resettlement policies. The book challenges narratives that represent migration essentially as chaotic, disorderly, and hurried. Instead it shows how caste, class and gender shaped vastly divergent experiences of the Partition movement.
The new introduction to this paperback edition looks at the politics of memorialization of Partition: how the popular culture of memory preserves and exhibits upper- and middle-class narratives of displacement and remains oblivious to complex terrains of caste distinctions.

About the Author

Ravinder Kaur is an associate professor of modern South Asian studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Reviews

‘Ravinder Kaur's work breaks new ground in the study of Partition to understand how it still affects its inheritors. Among the recent spate of books on the Partition of India, Ravinder Kaur's stands out for its meticulous attention to detail and its wealth of information.’
Urvashi Butalia. Financial Express

‘New narrative vigour and fresh insights into a theme that's been reduced to a static tale of suffering. Step by step, she questions existing theories and assumptions. Step by step, she opens up her inquiry to uncharted territory.’
Mushirul Hasan, Outlook

‘This is part of a new way of describing the all too human story behind the grim partition statistics of 1 million dead and 12 million refugees, “the largest ever mass migration in human history”. Just how do people come to terms with trauma and what is the role of memory? ... It is a piece of quite radical deconstruction.’
Journal of Royal Asiatic Society

‘Since 1947 is an ambitious and insightful examination of Punjabi migrant life in Delhi from the time of Partition to the end of resettlement in 1965.’
Journal of Asian Studies

‘[A]n important study of the migrants who came to settle in Delhi after the Partition.’
Contributions to Indian Sociology

‘The book seeks to trace the movement from North West Frontier Province and West Punjab to Delhi. However the movement she seeks to explore is not only at the level of physical displacement but also that of mental disruption.’
Refugee Watch

‘Because of the agency Kaur gives the refugee, and her work to address the complicated role of the state, she delivers a nuanced account of Delhi and the experience of its inhabitants, old and new, in this period. The picture of the refugees that emerges is far removed from the familiar one of hapless victims who built their future through struggle and strife.’
Journal of Punjab Studies

Table of contents

List of Tables
Acknowledgements
Curating the Wound: Introduction to the Paperback Edition
1. Narrating Everyday Forms of Past: An Introduction
2. State and Community in the Narratives of Displacement
3. The Last Journey: Exploring Social Class in Partition Migration
4. Governmental Policies and Practices of Resettlement
5. Restoration of Loss
6. Missing Fields: The ‘Untouchable’ Migrants of Partition
7. Claims of Locality: At Home in Delhi
8. Ethnic Amnesia: Identity Making among Punjabi Hindus
9. A Community of Narrative
Bibliography
Index