Coming Out of Partition - by Gargi Chakravartty (Hardcover)

About the Book

Exploring the category of 'refugee women' as it emerged in the events of the Bengal Partition, the book claims that they have not only played an important role in shaping women's movement but also have been responsible for the radical reorientation of social lives in Bengal as they rebuild and reshaped their lives in alien conditions.

Book Synopsis

Out of Partition is a narrative of the Bengali refugee women, both Hindus and Muslims after the Partition of India in 1947. The story of their struggle is not merely a saga of mental and physical trauma, which did exist, but also a portrayal of their hardship experiences for shelter, rehabilitation and employment. In this arduous journey, they came out of Partition and emerged as new women of a distinct category, self-reliant, and soon turned into social, cultural and political activists of a progressive secular dimension. Spaces and roles they could acquire in this new alien situation were earlier denied in their sheltered and secure places in the pre-Partition days.

Review Quotes

'Refugee women' was a new social category that owed its very painful birth to the shattering events of Partition. At the same time forced into new public and political roles and identities, they also came to possess spaces that had been denied to them in more secure and sheltered times. The complex dialectic of such a turbulent history is defined and explored in this book with remarkable deftness.--Tanika Sarkar in her foreword to the book.

About the Author

Gargi Chakravartty, taught in the Department of History, Maitreyi College, University of Delhi. Her book, Gandhi: A Challenge to Communalism, a critical appraisal of Gandhi's struggle against the forces of communalism, was published in 1987. She is also the author of P.C. Joshi: A Biography (2007), and editor of People's 'Warrior' Words and Worlds of P.C. Joshi (2014).