Writing across Partition(s)

In this dissertation, I focus on examining how South Asian women's writing in different forms—literary, cinematic, and critical—emerging from South Asia or its diaspora, helps us see the politics of the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan, and subsequent postcolonial divisions, such as the secession of East Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh in 1971, differently. Partition studies have been long pervaded by a silence that has been attributed to the trauma of the violence and forced displacement resulting from the events of Partition. Yet, the communal, regional, and geopolitical conflicts in the South Asian region have continued at an alarming rate. This dissertation takes a cross-border approach to examine Partition across the arbitrary borders and divisions that have prevented any detailed cross-border comparative analysis to develop within Partition studies. By focusing on women's voices and texts across borders, both South Asian and diasporic, this dissertation aims to recover a more accurate representation of Partition history that could counter the high politics of Partition and look into the continued violence, religious extremism, and nationalistic fervor that has continued to cause conflict in present-day South Asia and its communities.