The Bleeding Border: Revisiting the stories of Partition in Bengal through a new lens

Including stories from multiple communities and by marginal authors, this anthology published by Niyogi Books hammered the fact that Partition literature can never be homogenous or monolithic.

‘The uprooting during Partition was not affected in one swift swipe through massive pogroms on both sides of the border; in Bengal, it was an agonisingly protracted process’, cautions Prafulla Chakraborty, the author of ‘The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal’. The attempts to trace the public history of Bengal have been few in the past, and it is imperative to consider how space plays a key role in mediating the relationship between the displaced and the emplaced. I believe delving deeper into the public and private space of 1940s India would offer one way of understanding how experiences are stretched across time and space and how they link pasts and futures.

Niyogi Books has a rich legacy of publishing volumes that deal with and illuminate South Asia's social and political criticalities. In the last few years, they published fiction and non-fiction alike on the topic of the tragic mass migration in 1947: the partition of British India. Some of these include Bridge Across the Rivers: Partition Memories of the Two Punjabs, edited by Jasbir Jain and Tripti Jain, Two and a Half Rivers by Anirudh Kala, Pigeons of the Domes: Stories on Communalism, edited by Rakhshanda Jalil and The Family Saga: A Novel Set in the Time of Partition by Narendra Luther.

Compared to Pubjab, stories of partition from Bengal are relatively less huddled with violence in its crude form. The stories incorporated in The Bleeding Border: The Stories of Bengal Partition, published by Niyogi Books this year, articulate the idiom of ‘a loss of a world’ in which all religions lived in complete harmony over centuries. Partition shattered the social fabric of peace and unity, ‘signifying the death of the social’, as stated by eminent social scientist Dipesh Chakrabarty. The pathos in the chosen stories questions the idea that views the city as an apolitical and static space against which the process of social development and political voice took place during the 1940s and 1950s.

This book has been edited and curated by Joyjit Ghosh and Mir Ahammad Ali, especially for sensitive readers who would be moved by the sense of loss and layers of grief within the pages. The reader is also led to empathise with the pathos associated with the anecdotes and lived experiences of the characters of the stories. Consisting of twenty-four stories, the volume contributes significantly to the study of the meanings of space dynamics amidst Bengal Partition literature. Thinking through the home and the public sphere with a gendered lens, which a handful of stories attempt to do in this collection, allows us to unpack ubiquitous processes that tend to be entirely overlooked amidst the grand narratives of marginalisation. The collation thus strives to trace the change in patterns of lived experiences of the migrant men and women amidst class conflicts.

Among many stories, some put an imprint on the reader’s mindscape. Adhir Biswas, known for his Partition memoir Allar Jamite Paa and several other volumes narrating his lived experiences, reminisces a photograph of his birthplace in the story ‘Photograph’. Aanchal Malhotra has worked extensively on the various aspects and notions of material memory of Partition, opening new doors to further delve into the intangible heritage of divided lands. In Acharya Kripalani Colony by Bibhutibhashan, we encounter the struggle of less affluent migrants who were compelled to squat in the infertile swamps like Jirat. No place in West Bengal ever seemed to be a replacement for the home these migrants had to leave behind in East Bengal.

The thoughtful collaboration between the editors and publishers, with the support of the translators, succeeded in doing justice to the nuances of trauma, loss and memory embedded in Partition stories. The cover design by Pinaki De deserves special mention. Each story ends with a short bio of the author and the translator that provokes the reader to read the original stories. The book ends with an enriching glossary that contains notes of Partition-related terms and phrases. The most significant aspect of The Bleeding Border is how it aimed at ‘representation’. Including stories from multiple religious and regional communities and by marginal/ Dalit authors, this anthology by Niyogi Books once again hammered the fact that Partition literature can never be homogenous or monolithic.