Urvashi Butalia – författare

The partition of India into two countries, India and Pakistan, caused one of the most massive human convulsions in history. Within the space of two months in 1947 more than twelve million people were displaced. A million died. More than seventy-five thousand women were abducted and raped. Countless children disappeared. Homes, villages, communities, families, and relationships were destroyed. Yet, more than half a century later, little is known of the human dimensions of this event. In The Other Side of Silence , Urvashi Butalia fills this gap by placing people-their individual experiences, their private pain-at the center of this epochal event.Through interviews conducted over a ten-year period and an examination of diaries, letters, memoirs, and parliamentary documents, Butalia asks how people on the margins of history-children, women, ordinary people, the lower castes, the untouchables-have been affected by this upheaval. To understand how and why certain events become shrouded in silence, she traces facets of her own poignant and partition-scarred family history before investigating the stories of other people and their experiences of the effects of this violent disruption. Those whom she interviews reveal that, at least in private, the voices of partition have not been stilled and the bitterness remains. Throughout, Butalia reflects on difficult questions: what did community, caste, and gender have to do with the violence that accompanied partition? What was partition meant to achieve and what did it actually achieve? How, through unspeakable horrors, did the survivors go on? Believing that only by remembering and telling their stories can those affected begin the process of healing and forgetting, Butalia presents a sensitive and moving account of her quest to hear the painful truth behind the silence.

The Partition of British India into the nations of India and Pakistan in 1947 and the further redrawing of the borders in 1971 to create Bangladesh were major, wrenching events whose effects are still felt today in the everyday lives of people in all three nations in fundamental ways-yet these events have never been explored in all their aspects. This volume gathers essays from scholars in a variety of fields that explore substantial new ground in Partition research, looking into such understudied areas as art, literature, migration, and, crucially, notions of "foreignness" and "belonging," among many others. It will be required reading for any scholars of the recent history, politics, and culture of the subcontinent.

Breaching the Citadel, part of the Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia series, supported by the International Development Research Centre, Canada, puts India in focus, showcasing new and pathbreaking research on sexual violence and impunity. Bringing together both young and established scholars, the book explores medical protocols, the functioning of the law, the psychosocial making of impunity, histories of sexual violence in places like Kashmir, the media, and sectarian violence, among other timely topics.The essays Urvashi Butalia has collected here were developed through comparative research and a series of workshops, so each entry is peer-reviewed and on the cutting edge of the field. Breaching the Citadel breaks new ground as it uncovers and analyzes the link between sexual violence and the structures and institutions that enable perpetrators to act with impunity.