MEET THE AUTHOR
Rosemary Collins talks to AANCHAL MALHOTRA, the author of the new book Remnants of Partition
When India gained independence from Britain in 1947, the subcontinent was divided into two states, India and Pakistan. This process, known as Partition, set off waves of ethnic violence in which as many as two million people may have been killed and about 14 million were displaced. Indian author Aanchal Malhotra’s new book, Remnants of Partition, tells the story of 21 objects preserved by those who survived.
What inspired you to write the book?
All four of my grandparents travelled across the border during Partition or just before it, but despite this there was never really a culture to talk about what happened in my family. So I think my point of entry into this subject was when I encountered the two objects I talk about in the book – the ghara (a vessel for making lassi) and the gaz (a yardstick). My grandfather and his elder brother showed them to me, and started talking about how those two objects were once used in Lahore. It felt like such a transportive experience. Not only were we crossing the boundaries of time – we were also crossing very fortified national boundaries through objects.
Using the lens of heirlooms and antiques and things that people carried, I started to ask them about Partition, because it was quite difficult to say, “Oh you lived through Partition – can you tell me about it?” But if you say something like “Oh you got this ring from there – can you tell me about it?”, then you get a story not just about the madness of Partition itself but the days that came before and after – the days of daily life.
What was it like talking to the interviewees about their experiences?
Some of them had never talked about what had happened before. Talking to your family is quite hard, but talking to a stranger is sometimes easier, which is what I was for many of the interviewees. If someone has witnessed awful traumatic violence and has never actually said things to their family, or untangled it themselves, then the conversation you’re going to be entering is in incredibly vulnerable terrain. You go through five or six years of interviewing people about their trauma, and surely that will have a psychological effect on you. But I didn’t realise it. I was saying to myself, “You’ve got to do it – nobody else will.”
Do you think writing about Partition can help heal these kinds of wounds?
One hopes, but there’s more to it. Uncovering wounds and talking about things we haven’t talked about is important, but what is also important is piecing together the past. The writing of history is often done by the victors, so what gets lost is the story of the individual and the predicament they went through.