Barbed Wire

The book is an anthology of creative and critical responses to the many partitions of India within and across borders. By widening and reframing the question of partition in the subcontinent from one event in 1947 to a larger series of partitions, the book presents a deeper perspective both on the concept of partition in understanding South Asia, and understanding the implications from survivors, victims and others. The imagery of the barbed wire in the title is used precisely to confront the jaggedness of experiencing and surviving partition that still haunts the national, literary, religious and political matrices of India. The volume is a compilation of short stories, poems, articles, news reports and memoirs, with each contributor bringing forth their perception of partition and its effects on their life and identity. The many narratives amplify the human cost of partitions, examining the complexities of a bruised nation at the social, psychological and religious levels of consciousness. The book will appeal to anyone interested in literary studies, history, politics, sociology, cultural studies, and comparative literature.

Jayita Sengupta is Reader and Head, Department of English, South Calcutta Girls' College, University of Calcutta.

Dedication. Preface. Acknowledgements. Note on Translation. Glossary. Introduction PART ONE. I. Crossing Over: Rememory(ing) the Loss 1. Uprooted Achinyo Kumar Sengupta 2. 'Hello Khukhu!' Indrani Sen 3. Across Boundaries Anita Tandon 4. Distance to Lahore Surjit Sarna 5. Living the Dream: Narrating a Landscape Lost and a Land Left Behind Ashes Gupta 6. The Ultimate Dislocation: Migration, Histories and the Human Jasbir Jain II. Bruised Nation: Tropes of Violence 7. Partition as Leitmotif in the Stories of Sa'adat Hasan Manto Sreemati Mukherjee 8. The Emblematic Body: Women and Nationalism in Partition Narratives Himadri Lahiri 9. Holocausts and Human Hearts: A Study of Rajinder Singh Bedi's 'Lajwanti' Nibir Kumar Ghosh 10. Recalling the 'City of the Dreadful Night': Narratives of Partition Tutun Mukherjee. III. Reconstructing Identities: Strategies of Survival 11. Dismemberment and/or Reconstitution: Visual Representations of the Partition of Bengal Somdatta Mandal 12. Chaos, Dislocation and Problem of Identity in Sunil Gangopadhyay's 'Arjun' Naina Dey. PART TWO. IV. Of Borders, Barbed Wires and the Unending Trail: Map Makings and Map Makings (North-East and East) 13. Of Nation (an excerpt) Debashish Tarafdar 14. Thinking and Rethinking Partition in the North-East: Colonial and Post-Colonial Assam Moushumi Datta Pathak 15. Me and the World of Millitants Indira (Mamoni Raisom) Goswami 16. At the Crossroads: Representation of Violence in Contemporary Assamese Poetry Bibhash Choudhury 17. Locatings Dilipkanti Laskar 18. Bangladesh: Dhirendrandra Nath Dutta and the Language Movement Kamaluddin Ahmed 19. Of Bangladesh and East India: Fictional Representation of Violence and Migration after 1947 Jayita Sengupta 20. People in Quest of a River (Excerpts) Purabi Bormodoi 21. Pushback Meenkashi Sen V. The Agony of Desire: Kashmir 22. A Brief Overview of the Kashmir Issue Jayita Sengupta 23. In the Shadow of Militancy: The Diary of an Unknown Kashmiri (Excerpts) Tej N. Dhar 24. Special Reports from Kashmir Kavita Suri VI. Partitions: The Undying Angst 25. The Partition Ghazal Keki Daruwalla 26. Criminal Jilano Bano 27. Kamaleshwar's Kitne Pakistan and the Metaphors of Partition Ameena Kazi Ansari. Select Bibliography. About the Editor. Notes on Contributors. Index