Preserving the intangible history of Partition

Neha Saini

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 18

What prompted a young physicist, research scholar from Berkley University to leave everything and dedicate six years in digging out some heart-wrenching accounts of one of the most significant events in the global history? Well, Dr Guneeta Bhalla says it was the mere fact that 1947 India-Pakistan partition had an impact on almost 14 per cent of the global population. “It was of just about the two countries in question, but one of the biggest mass migrations in history of the world. Also, I was deeply inspired after a visit to the Hiroshima memorial in Japan. The personal accounts of the trauma endured, told a story more effective than any documents,” she said.

Bhalla presented her project on the 1947 Partition archives that she has been working on since 2010. “I managed to create a network of volunteers, right from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu and Aghanistan, Bangladesh, Khyber-Pakhtun regions and others countries, who have been talking to the witnesses, the generation that experienced Partition. People who can tell the story are few as the generation that saw this exodus of humanity completes its lifecycle. The extensive research has been recorded in over 6,000 hours of audio-visual and we have covered 3,500 accounts till date,” she informed. What’s more interesting is that her team of volunteers include people from different nationalities and different age groups. “The youngest volunteer we have is 13 years old and the eldest one is an 87-year-old American. It shows that Partition was a global event and not just between India and Pakistan.”

Speaking about gaining a perspective during her research, Guneeta says that she found out that the older generation does not hold much communal grudge despite the trauma. “It is the younger generations that are divided strongly through communal feelings, as they have only heard the bad stories. The ones, who experienced the horrors of Partition, had also seen the better side of both the communities involved.” She plans to collaborate with public and private stakeholders to exhibit or present the archives collected for better understanding of the event.

Her visit to Punjab to create partnerships for exhibiting the treasure trove she and her team has collected, as well as expand the same while there is still time, has also gained interest of Dilbir foundation. They have a target of 10000 to be reached by 2018 and have reached out to DF for creating partnerships and venues for exhibitions.

Gunbir Singh, president of Dilbir Foundation said, “Intangible legacy is perhaps the most fragile part of history. It inherently is endangered by progressive distortion, as well as possibility of going extinct and thus irrecoverable. We are happy to collaborate in this labour in preserving legacy so close to the hearts of this region.” He said that the last of the fading voices are being recorded for the 1947 Partition Archives.