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Language
English (en)
Date of Award
Spring 5-20-2022
Author's Department
History
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (A.B.)
Restricted/Unrestricted
Restricted
Abstract
In the 1947 Partition of India, the British Raj bifurcated itself into two countries on the basis of religion: India emerged as the new homeland for Hindus, while Pakistan became a new homeland for Muslims. People fled their ancestral homes to avoid persecution, seek shelter, and guarantee prosperity for themselves and their children. Millions were uprooted as the escaped to the other side of an arbitrarily drawn boarder. Since the formation of the British Raj in 1858 to present day, the dominant, government-maintained record of Indian society reinforces the notion of India being a Hindu majoritarian state despite its constitutional secularity. This religious bias coupled with the lack of psychology in the country amplified the leftover trauma from the Partition. However, psychology and film can be used to understand how the memory of the Partition is understood in a contemporary environment, specifically when recognizing how individual and collective memories form and reform themselves through an intrinsically reconstructive process. Notably, the colloquial, cultural, and cinematographic narratives of Partition focus on the themes of religion, loss, and suffering while neglecting the roles of the Indian, Pakistani, and British states in the historical generation of violence. To understand this narrative – supported not only by the government, but also the majority of people – the Indian film industry serves as a conduit to understand the collective memory of the Partition. This paper understands the longstanding government project of characterizing India as a Hindu state, then recognizes the lack of psychology in history and South Asian studies, validates film not only as a cultural archive but also as a government and socially sanctioned historical archive, and finally utilizes film to understand this project of redeveloping the memory of Partition.
Mentor
Shefali Chandra
Recommended Citation
Halder, Ayush, "Expanding the Archive: Validating Collective Memory and Film to Understand the Partition of India" (2022). Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses. 77.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/undergrad_etd/77