Revisiting Partition and Bangladesh Liberation War: Contemporary Perspectives

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The Partition of the Indian sub-continent has been a 'live' and protracted issue for discussion and deliberation for various reasons. Even though the division of India was accomplished in 1947, about seventy years ago, the issue has never ceased to be debated upon. Traces of the trauma of bloodshed, displacement, resettlement continue even today and are realized through individual memory, memoir writing, archiving and by other means. Official records do exist, but the very range and scope of such attempts fail to capture the realities and often aberrations of individual and singular experiences of this holocaust. Imposing as they are, attempting to faithfully represent facts and losses in statistical terms, the scripting of the breaking and making of the nation/s remains a quantitative affair. Sadly, the qualitative dimension of the trauma remains unmapped in the politics of achieving neutrality in these official documents. Notwithstanding the state attempts to homogenize experiences, the disruptions in individual and community lives continue to impact upon the politics of everyday life as well as that of nations.

The Partition Project of the Netaji Subhas Open University has already done a commendable job as regard to explore the possibilities of developing a digital repository on Bengal Partition. As part of the project, the book tries to respond to some of the questions. The book is organised around the four main themes of Partition History, Memory, Gender, and Archiving.

At the outset of a publication it is always preferred that it may be placed in a praxis in which it has been shaped. Being instrumental in publishing this volume on behalf of Centre for Language, Translation & Cultural Studies (CLTCS) of Netaji Subhas Open University, I take this opportunity to introduce our work for developing a digital repository on Bengal Partition. This is a project bound publication followed by a seminar titled "Partition O Muktijuddha: Smaran O Bismaran" held on 17th & 18th January of 2018. The seminar was preceded by an initiative to pursue a research project funded by UGC-DEB under the School of Humanities & Social Sciences by Manan Kumar Mandal as P I in the FY 2015-16 on Bengal Partition. As a sequel to that the Centre (CLTCS) has decided to incorporate the project findings and go forward for further research. Then a collaborative research proposal was mooted by the CLTCS, NSOU with the English Discipline of Khulna University, Bangladesh in September, 2017. Finally it was worked out and a MoU was signed on 20th September, 2017. Subsequently a year-long research activities have been carried out successfully by the CLTCS. After the completion of the same, a comprehensive digital repository project on Bengal Partition has been taken up, this year.

The Partition of the Indian sub-continent has been a 'live' and protracted issue for discussion and deliberation for various reasons. Even though the division of India was accomplished in 1947, about seventy years ago, the issue has never ceased to be debated upon. Traces of the trauma of bloodshed, displacement, re- settlement continue even today and are realized through individual memory, memoir writing, archiving and by other means. Official records do exist, but the very range and scope of such attempts fail to capture the realities and often aberrations of individual and singular experiences of this holocaust. Imposing as they are, attempting to faithfully represent facts and losses in statistical terms, the scripting of the breaking and making of the nation/s remains a quantitative affair. Sadly, the qualitative dimension of the trauma remains unmapped in the politics of achieving neutrality in these official documents. Notwithstanding the state attempts to homogenize experiences, the disruptions in individual and community lives continue to impact upon the politics of everyday life as well as that of nations. The temporal distance from the grotesque 'spectacle,' adds new insights and dimensions to the ever-continuing discourses on the politics and sociology of ethnic, religious, community and nation formation and their sustenance.