Memories and Silences of Partition in India

This project draws attention to memories of the past, told and shared in the present, by older (60-80 years old) settled migrant women in the UK who were young children and girls, during or shortly after, the Partition of India in 1947. Despite literature recognising the sexualisation and weaponising of women’s bodies during the Partition of India, and the creation of the new state of Pakistan (Menon and Bhasin, 1993; Frischmann, 2010), there remains an unprecedented paucity in social science literature addressing the experiences of the children of Partition.

The urgency in which these memories and stories need to be documented comes in the reality that many of these women have and are passing away – taking these past silences with them. This intergenerational, creative methods storying project aims to address this disparity.

In collaboration with the Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) and AMINA Muslim Women’s Resource Centre, “The Lost Voices of Partition” delivered creative methods workshops such as mood boards, poetry, and storytelling to speak about past Partition experiences and memories. The result was a powerful short-film animation, which received 14 international selected film festival screenings in 2023 and 2024.

Full project title

The Lost Voices of Partition: Stories and silences in representations of older migrant women’s histories