Project description
A historically silenced subject.
This project is a digital repository dedicated to the histories of sexual violence during the 1947 Partition, bringing together oral histories, survivor testimonies, archival materials, and scholarly literature to recover voices that have often remained absent from dominant narratives of Partition.
It aims to contribute to the study of women's histories, violence, memory, and trauma while encouraging greater public engagement with a historically silenced subject. Through this project I aim to provide an interdisciplinary resource for researchers, students, and the wider public on a tabooed topic and silenced history.
Importance
Memory, silence and ethical care.
This project is important because many histories of Partition discuss sexual violence as one aspect of communal conflict, rather than a strategic function of conflict. The interest here lies in understanding how survivors themselves chose to remember, or not remember, these experiences.
Oral histories provide a way of examining how traumatic events are narrated across time, how silence functions within testimony, and how memory is shaped by family, community, and changing social contexts. I hope to contribute to these conversations by approaching these testimonies with both historical rigor and ethical care.
This topic is sensitive. Being a grandchild of Partition survivors, I am aware that these testimonies concern deeply traumatic experiences. My interest is not in documenting violence for its own sake, but in understanding memory, agency, silence, and the ways survivors choose to narrate these experiences.
About us
About the researcher.
As for my experience, I am an IB history student at the American International School, Riyadh. I have researched Partition, using the works of Urvashi Butalia, Ilyas Chatta, (and others). I wrote my history IA (2000 word research paper) on the Partition of India, using my grandpa (Muzaffer Haider, his interview is in the archives as well) as a primary source.
I have also written my extended essay (4000 word research paper) on sexual violence during fascist regimes and their militaries in the 20th century. This blend of personal history and passionate activism inspired me to complete another project of my own; documenting sexual violence during the partiton of india. I also aim to write an oped piece about sexual violence during partition and hopefully interview second generation migrants to understand the full impact of intergenerational migration and conflict.
I hope this project can remain fruitful, and inspire others to think more deeply about the hidden aspects of our history.
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