The partition of India is the most painful and traumatic episode of Indian history. Partition in general was accompanied by a huge wave of violence, but the atrocities against women were probably the most horrible ones. Though women were neither the part of the political decisions that divided the nation nor they had any role in the violence that followed partition, yet they were the worst targets of brutality inflicted by the men of other communities. The impact of the partition on women was much different and more traumatic and heartrending than men. Atrocities were enacted upon the bodies of women as men of one religious group sought to dishonour the men of another faith by declaring them impotent in their inability to protect their women.
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Bagchi and Subhoranjan Dasgupta argue,” the easiest way to assail a community is to defile the sexual purity of its women.” (Bagchi 1-14) . Kabir argues that the ‘wound that was then inflicted on the body of the individual was also a wound inflicted on the body collective, most obviously through the rape, mutilation and abduction of women’ (“Musical Recall” 176). Writing about the partition experience of north India, Gyanendra Pandey uses Beeran ki kai jaat (what caste or nationality can a woman have?) because she belongs to someone else, and therefore to his caste, nationality and religion” (Pandey 165). However, then Pandey points out the extreme paradox and says: Yet, the evidence from 1947 seems at times to suggest almost the exact opposite: not that ‘ women had no religion for community or nation, but that they came for a moment to stand for nothing else”(Pandey 165).
Traditional history most often tells only political and historical events conducted by a few historical key figures, mainly politicians and leaders, the histories of ordinary people and the consequences of those events on their lives are not included in the main historical discourse. Therefore it is not surprising that nearly most of the …show more content…
Fellow! Before making this announcement, you should have asked your mother.
I did ask her.
Then the ignorant woman refused to give evidence, he said in a grief-stricken voice. Then he said sadly, ‘ our fathers are cruel and our mothers are ignorant.’ Even as he spoke, he began to weep.
When Ajmal saw Salamat weeping, tears began to fall from his own eyes as well.
Fellow, why are you weeping?’
Yar! My mother is even more ignorant than Salamat’s mother. When he asked her, first she slapped me, then she began to tear her hair and scream ( Basti 60).
Gendered Violence in Raza’s Adha Gaon:Adha Gaon is not a gendered centric text. Women are represented within the premise of domesticity discussing, gossiping, engaged in preparations for the celebrations of marriages and especially highly engrossed in the festivity of Moharrum, preparing dresses, composingnauhas. They are the women shown, even in the midst of tense atmosphere of communal clashes outside, singing marriage songs inside their homes:
Look, here comes mum-in-law Full of joy and fun In her front’s a little pond At her back a wrestler’s bum Drinking sharbat she’s got
Bagchi and Subhoranjan Dasgupta argue,” the easiest way to assail a community is to defile the sexual purity of its women.” (Bagchi 1-14) . Kabir argues that the ‘wound that was then inflicted on the body of the individual was also a wound inflicted on the body collective, most obviously through the rape, mutilation and abduction of women’ (“Musical Recall” 176). Writing about the partition experience of north India, Gyanendra Pandey uses Beeran ki kai jaat (what caste or nationality can a woman have?) because she belongs to someone else, and therefore to his caste, nationality and religion” (Pandey 165). However, then Pandey points out the extreme paradox and says: Yet, the evidence from 1947 seems at times to suggest almost the exact opposite: not that ‘ women had no religion for community or nation, but that they came for a moment to stand for nothing else”(Pandey 165).
Traditional history most often tells only political and historical events conducted by a few historical key figures, mainly politicians and leaders, the histories of ordinary people and the consequences of those events on their lives are not included in the main historical discourse. Therefore it is not surprising that nearly most of the …show more content…
Fellow! Before making this announcement, you should have asked your mother.
I did ask her.
Then the ignorant woman refused to give evidence, he said in a grief-stricken voice. Then he said sadly, ‘ our fathers are cruel and our mothers are ignorant.’ Even as he spoke, he began to weep.
When Ajmal saw Salamat weeping, tears began to fall from his own eyes as well.
Fellow, why are you weeping?’
Yar! My mother is even more ignorant than Salamat’s mother. When he asked her, first she slapped me, then she began to tear her hair and scream ( Basti 60).
Gendered Violence in Raza’s Adha Gaon:Adha Gaon is not a gendered centric text. Women are represented within the premise of domesticity discussing, gossiping, engaged in preparations for the celebrations of marriages and especially highly engrossed in the festivity of Moharrum, preparing dresses, composingnauhas. They are the women shown, even in the midst of tense atmosphere of communal clashes outside, singing marriage songs inside their homes:
Look, here comes mum-in-law Full of joy and fun In her front’s a little pond At her back a wrestler’s bum Drinking sharbat she’s got