Oral Narratives of 1947 Memories of Partition Survivors of Jammu & Kashmir

This essay documents the memories of selected survivors of the Partition of India, presently residing in Jammu region of Jammu & Kashmir, and who are in the final sojourn of their earthly life. The main focus of this text will be the oral narratives of these survivors, who are chroniclers of the agony, pain, trauma, brutalities and loss of families, homeland, culture and identity caused by the violent division of the sub-continent. Though J&K initially did not witness the Partition in the manner the other parts of India did, the survivors of the event in this geographical area faced a similar backlash and fury of communal forces immediately post-Partition in 1947.

The study will broadly focus on the memories of the survivors through these tumultuous days and their new existence in independent India. The interviews conducted encompass the social, economic and cultural aspects of the migrants ’changed circumstances. The recollections of these survivors revolve around the largely amicable co-existence between communities, before the Partition irrevocably recast their conditions. The paper archives the journey of these migrants through different places, holding on to the few possessions they hastily managed to escape with from their sudden uprooting. Memories of their friends and neighbours, the homes and villages they left behind continue to revisit them to this day. Some survivors have also carefully kept the letters or gifts they got from their estranged relatives, now residing in present-day Pakistan. Most of them still regret that they have never recovered from the losses that Partition brought upon them, both human and material. The paper highlights the poignant stories of four selected Partition survivors residing in the Jammu region, as narrated to this researcher.