Artistic depictions of the Partition of India
Literature describing the human cost of independence and partition comprises Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan (1956), several short stories such as Toba Tek Singh (1955) by Saadat Hassan Manto, Urdu poems such as Subh-e-Azadi (Freedom's Dawn, 1947) by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Bhisham Sahni's Tamas (1974), Manohar Malgonkar's A Bend in the Ganges (1965), and Bapsi Sidhwa's Ice-Candy Man (1988), among others.
[3] Freedom at Midnight (1975) is a non-fiction work by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre that chronicled the events surrounding the first Independence Day celebrations in 1947.
Reviving life in Lahore as it was before 1947, the book opens on a nostalgic note, with vivid descriptions of the people that lived in the city's streets and lanes like Bhola Pandhe Ki Gali: Tara, who wanted an education above marriage; Puri, whose ideology and principles often came in the way of his impoverished circumstances; Asad, who was ready to sacrifice his love for the sake of communal harmony.
[10] Ali Pur Ka Aeeli in Urdu is an autobiography of Mumtaz Mufti that includes his narration on the account of bringing his family from Batala to Lahore on a truck.
When a portion of the Muslims from the various regions of India were trying to get to Pakistan, some faced attacks from Hindu and Sikh groups, during their journeys, that involved snatching of money, and jewellery of their wives and daughters.
The Broken Mirror, a Hindi novel by Krishna Baldev Vaid, portrays the psychological and sociological transformations in a West Punjabi village in the phase leading up to the Partition, with emphasis on commensal taboos and hardened community boundaries.
The Dark Dancer is a novel by Balachandra Rajan that portrays the experiences of an Indian educated abroad who returns home to face the horror of the Partition.
Sunlight on a Broken Column is a novel by Attia Hosain which depicts the experiences of the protagonist, Laila, a young woman from a taluqdari family of Oudh, in the years leading up to the partition.
Pinjar is a Punjabi novel written by Amrita Pritam which is the story of a Hindu Girl who was kidnapped by a Muslim young man who married her.
His stories include Thanda Gosht, Khol Do, Toba Tek Singh, Iss Manjdhar Mein, Mozalle, Babu Gopi Nath etc.
While Vikram Chandra's 2006 novel Sacred Games is not about partition, it does contain a long and graphic chapter describing the main character's mother's flight as a young Sikh girl from what would become Pakistani Punjab, during which her beloved older sister was abducted.
Random House ISBN 1-4000-3065-X Bapsi Sidhwa's 1989 novel Ice-Candy Man, written in the backdrop of the riots in Lahore, was re-released in 1991 as Cracking India.
[13] Jhumpa Lahiri was awarded the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories some of which involved the aftermath of the partition.
[citation needed] Directed by Ritwik Ghatak Komal Gandhar (1961), the protagonists suffer from the same anguish: the separation from their home, on the other side of the border.
[citation needed] Kamal Haasan wrote, directed, and starred in Hey Ram (2000) film about the Partition and the assassination of Gandhi.
The story follows the life of a south Indian Brahmin man caught up in the madness surrounding the direct action day in Calcutta and the subsequent events culminating in the assassination of Gandhi.
The screenplay touches on many things that are common to the modern nations of India and Pakistan, starting from the Indus valley civilisation.
[citation needed] Directed by Anil Sharma, Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001), is an Indian movie about the Partition; notable for shocking scenes of riot and massacre of Hindus and Sikhs being killed in the famous scene of train full of dead bodies of Hindu and Sikh people escaping from Pakistan.
[citation needed] Directed by Sabiha Sumar, Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters) (2003), depicts the partition ironically and shows the situation of Jihadis in 1979 Pakistan.
[citation needed] A feature-length award-winning documentary by Sarah Singh which explores the history and current climate on both sides of the Indo-Pakistani divide (2007).
The early members of the Bombay Progressive Artist's Group cite the Partition of India as a key reason for its founding in December 1947.
Those members included F. N. Souza, M. F. Husain, S. H. Raza, S. K. Bakre, H. A. Gade, and K. H. Ara, who went on to become some of the most important and influential Indian artists of the 20th century.
[22] Contemporary Indian artists that have made significant artworks about the Partition are Nalini Malani, Anjolie Ela Menon, Satish Gujral, Nilima Sheikh, Arpita Singh, Krishen Khanna, Pran Nath Mago, S. L. Parasher, Arpana Caur, Tayeba Begum Lipi, Mahbubur Rahman, Promotesh D Pulak, and Pritika Chowdhry.
[23][24][25][26][27] Project Dastaan is a peace-building initiative that reconnects displaced refugees of the 1947 Partition of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh with their childhood communities and villages through virtual reality digital experiences.
