Publisher's Synopsis
Continuing the discussion on Partition in the Eastern Region from volume 1 (Stree, 2006), the editors present in volume 2, a deepening portrait through literature, interviews, surveys and documents. As is evident, there has been more published on the partition of the Punjab in western India than on the partition in eastern India and so in many ways both volumes are a pioneering venture. Much of the material has been translated for the first time from Bengali. What is particularly interesting is that contributions, whether in fiction, interviews, or memoirs, are from both sides of the border so that the full force of what Partition wrought, the way women dealt with its mindless havoc, how new lives were built, offering insights on displacement, loss, abduction and rape. The documents throw light on political and communal violence; the British Inspector-General of Police's comments on Direct Action Day, 1946 and the violence at Noakhali and the ineffectiveness of Gandhi; Renuka Ray's speech on abducted women at the Constituted Assembly, 1948; Question and Answer on Recovery of Abducted Women in East Bengal following the Nehru-Liaquat Pact, 1950; Janab Husain Ara Begum on communal riots in West Bengal with special emphasis on Calcutta, 1950, Manikuntala Sen on problems of rehabilitation of refugee women in West Bengal, 1957; and excerpts from Mridula Sarabhai's report submitted to the Enquiry Commission investigating communal tension and outbreak of violence in Calcutta, 1950.
