Two-Day National Seminar on
Partition of India and its Roots and Legacy: Memory and Trauma on the Eastern
Corridor
Organized by:
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute
of Asian Studies (MAKAIAS)
(An Autonomous Body under the
Ministry of Culture)
Government of India
&
Department of English
Janata College
P.O. Kabuganj, Cachar, Assam,
India-788121
5th & 6th October 2018
5th & 6th October 2018
Concept
Note:
“Partition” – the division of
British India on August 14-15, 1947 into the two separate
independent dominions, India and Pakistan – was the “last-minute”
mechanism by which the British handed over the political sovereignty. The
euphoria of getting independence from almost two hundred years of British
colonization made few people understood what Partition would bring about and
the large scale violence and deaths and the enormous scale of migration that
followed had left an inerasable scar on the vast majority of contemporaries who
are still living with its memory and trauma.
The root of partition is in 1905
when the British Viceroy Lord Curzon divided the largest administrative
subdivision in British India, the Bengal Presidency, into the Muslim-majority
province of East Bengal and Assam and the
Hindu-majority province of Bengal (present-day Indian
states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha). The overwhelming, but
predominantly Hindu, protest against the partition of Bengal and the fear, in
its wake, of reforms favouring the Hindu majority, now led the Muslim elite in
India, in 1906, to meet with the new viceroy, Lord Minto, and to ask for
separate electorates for Muslims. In conjunction, they demanded proportional
legislative representation reflecting both their status as former rulers and
their record of cooperating with the British. This led, in December 1906, to
the founding of the All-India Muslim League in Dacca. Although Curzon, by now,
had resigned and returned to England, the League was in favour of his partition
plan. (wikipedia)
This in turn led to the creation
of the two-nation ideology which was based on the principle that that the
primary identity and unifying denominator of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent
is their religion, rather than their language or ethnicity, and therefore
Indian Hindus and Muslims are two distinct nations, regardless of ethnic or other
commonalities. (Robin W. Winks, Alaine M. Low. The Oxford history of
the British Empire: Historiography. Oxford University Press,
2001). The two-nation theory was a founding principle of the Pakistan Movement
which was undertaken by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who termed it as the awakening of
Muslims for the creation of Pakistan.
In March 1940, on the last day of
the League's annual three-day session in Lahore, the League passed, what came
to be known as the Lahore Resolution or “Pakistan Resolution”, demanding that
the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in majority as in the
North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute
independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and
sovereign.
After the Cabinet Mission broke
down, Jinnah proclaimed 16 August 1946 Direct Action Day, with the stated goal
of peacefully highlighting the demand for a Muslim homeland in British India.
However, on the morning of the 16th, armed Muslim gangs gathered at the
Ochterlony Monument in Calcutta to hear Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, the League's
Chief Minister of Bengal, who, in the words of historian Yasmin Khan, “if he
did not explicitly incite violence certainly gave the crowd the impression that
they could act with impunity, that neither the police nor the military would be
called out and that the ministry would turn a blind eye to any action they
unleashed in the city.” That very evening, in Calcutta, Hindus were attacked by
returning Muslim celebrants, who carried pamphlets distributed earlier which
showed a clear connection between violence and the demand for Pakistan, and
directly implicated the celebration of Direct Action Day with the outbreak of
the cycle of violence that would later be called the “Great Calcutta Killing of
August 1946” One of the severest affected areas of this violence on the eastern
side of India is Noakhali in present day Bangladesh.
Following Gandhi's denial but
Congress' approval of the plan, Patel represented India on the Partition
Council. However, neither he nor any other Indian leader had foreseen the
intense violence and population transfer that would take place with partition.
The partition displaced over 14
million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises in
the newly constituted dominions; there was large-scale violence, with estimates
of loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition disputed and varying
between several hundred thousand and two million. On the Eastern Corridor of
India, the severest victims of partition were the Hindu and Buddhist
population. Thousands of Hindus, located in the districts of East Bengal which
were awarded to Pakistan, found themselves being attacked and this religious
persecution forced hundreds of thousands of Hindus from East Bengal to seek
refuge in India and primarily settled across Eastern India and Northeastern
India, many ending up in neighbouring Indian states such as West Bengal, Assam,
and Tripura. Women were often targeted as symbols of community honour and the
Indian government claimed that more than 33,000 Hindu and Sikh women were
abducted and many of them were raped during riots. The violent nature of the
partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and
Pakistan that plagues their relationship to the present.
An important part of Partition
historiography is Sylhet Referendum held on 7 July 1947 to decide whether
Sylhet would remain in Assam and join the new country of India or would join
the province of East Bengal and the new country of Pakistan. This referendum
which became an almost non-existent chapter in the partition history brought
catastrophe to many Bengali speaking people of Sylhet and has far reaching
consequence.
The partition of India and the
associated bloody riots inspired many in India to create literary/cinematic
depictions of this event. While some creations depicted the massacres during
the refugee migration, others concentrated on the aftermath of the partition in
terms of difficulties faced by the refugees in both side of the border. Even
now, more than 70 years after the partition, works of fiction and films are
made that relate to the events of partition and the trauma and memory
of well over a billion people who still live in the shadow of Partition.
It is in this context the
proposed seminar is envisioned to generate a constructive debate around the
above theme and also the following sub-themes.
Sub-themes:
1) Partition and its Roots
2) Historical and Political
Narratives on Partition
3) Migration and Displacement -
Refugee Crisis
4) Change of Demography and its
Impact
5) Partition and Trauma
6) Partition and Memory
7) Women and Children: Victims of
Partition
8) Partition and Sylhet
Referendum
9) Partition Literature
10) Partition and Film
11) Partition and the proposed
Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016
12) Partition and NRC in Assam
Any other topic related to the main theme of the seminar
Any other topic related to the main theme of the seminar
Procedure for submitting Papers and Abstracts:
·
Papers must be original research work and related to
either of the sub-themes or the main theme of the seminar.
·
Maximum length of the paper is 2500 words
·
Only one soft copy will be accepted in MS Word (2007
or later), Font: Times New Roman, Size: 12 point, line space: 1.5 and Paper A4
and a copy in PDF with the same specifications.
·
One participant can submit only one paper.
·
Maximum number of collaborators is restricted to two
in case of joint papers.
·
Languages: English
·
Presentation in Power Point only
Important Dates:
Last
date of Abstract Submission: 20th September, 2018
Date of Acceptance: 22nd September, 2018
Last date of submission of full paper: 24th September, 2018
Last date of submission of full paper: 24th September, 2018
Seminar
Date: 5th to 6th October 2018
Publication:
Selected papers will be published in book form having ISBN by the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies (MAKAIAS), Kolkata, an Autonomous Body under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.
Publication:
Selected papers will be published in book form having ISBN by the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies (MAKAIAS), Kolkata, an Autonomous Body under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.
VENUE: Janata
College, Kabuganj, Cachar, Assam, India.
Kabuganj
is located 20 kms away from the district head quater Silchar on Aizwal Road. Silchar
is well connected through direct train service from Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai,
Tiruvanthapuram, Guwahati, Dibrugarh and other major cities of India. There is
direct bus service from Guwahati which is 330 kms away. The nearest airport is
Kumbhirgram, Silchar which is 42 kms away and air connectivity is there with
Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Guwahati etc.
Accommodation:
The
organizers will assist the participants in booking their accommodation if it is
communicated by 23rd September, 2018
Contact
Details:
Dr. Munni Deb Mazumder, Coordinator
Email: munnidm@gmail.com
Dr. Munni Deb Mazumder, Coordinator
Email: munnidm@gmail.com
Contact
Nos. 9101607441/9706180446
Organizing
Committee:
Patrons:
Professor Sujit K. Ghosh, Chairman, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata
Sri Kalpataru Nath, President, Governing Body, Janata College, Kabuganj
Director, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata
Professor Sujit K. Ghosh, Chairman, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata
Sri Kalpataru Nath, President, Governing Body, Janata College, Kabuganj
Director, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata
Chairperson:
Sri Subhas Chandra Nath, Principal i/c, Janata College, Kabuganj
Sri Subhas Chandra Nath, Principal i/c, Janata College, Kabuganj
Coordinator:
Dr. Munni Deb Mazumder, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Janata College
Dr. Munni Deb Mazumder, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Janata College
Joint Coordinator:
Smt. Gayotri Singh, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Janata College
Smt. Gayotri Singh, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Janata College
Members:
Dr. Ruma Das, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Janata College
Dr. Shirtaz Begum Laskar, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Janata College
Dr. Sudipta Khersa, Assistant Professor, Department of Bengali, Janata College
Sri Sanjit Mushahary, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Janata College
Sri Pradip Kumar Singha, Librarian, Janata College
Sri Sumit Nath Choudhury, Head Assistant, Janata College
Dr. Ruma Das, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Janata College
Dr. Shirtaz Begum Laskar, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Janata College
Dr. Sudipta Khersa, Assistant Professor, Department of Bengali, Janata College
Sri Sanjit Mushahary, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Janata College
Sri Pradip Kumar Singha, Librarian, Janata College
Sri Sumit Nath Choudhury, Head Assistant, Janata College
