Partition

I have opened this research with my personal story of mismatch. I also have addressed the issue of silence/absence of East Bengal and Partition in respective realms. The focus of the research was to dismantle the canonical Indocentric narrative of Partition. On the way of doing so, I have identified the blind spots and exclusions in that approach. Parallel to the gruesome aspects of the non-Muslim exodus from East Bengal/Bangladesh, I have drawn upon the claim of the Muslim identity and the stories of arrival. I have also attempted a critical engagement to the East Pakistan phase of history, removing the nationalist rhetoric. Instead of counterpoising experiences of different groups against each other, I have argued how people had gone through similar experiences and how all these lives have been shaped by meta-events like the 1947 Partition. I have stretched the concept of prolonged Partition, pointing out its inadequacies by drawing upon the borderlanders. Leaving aside the grandeur-fetishism of history, I have focused on the everyday mundane.