Documenting violence against women during the 1947 Partition

What lives beyond silence?

Welcome to a treasure vault of generational wealth; wealth of stories and belonging.

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For the family who carried us here.

Salma Khatoon

My late great grandmother, Salma Khatoon, was a young widow when Partition came in 1947. She led her family from Phulwari Sharif in Bihar to Karachi, into a country that did not yet feel like home. I think about the courage it took to make that journey with her children, brothers and other family members, and to keep her family together, and I am grateful for it.

Muzaffar Haider

My grandfather, Muzaffar Haider, was only seven when he left his toys and friends behind in the middle of the night, heading for a place he had never seen. He had with him what mattered most; his mother, his older brothers, aunts and uncles. Interviewing him for my History research paper was the first time I heard that night in his own words. It showed me how much a single story could carry. I could then see hints of his story that stayed with him for decades in his role as a husband, a father, a brother, an uncle, a grandfather and so much more - living a life of service, purpose, family, travel and a contagious sense of humor with my late grandmother, Ayesha Haider.

Ayesha Haider

My late grandmother, Ayesha Haider, was one of the most iconic matriarchs of our family. I called her Naani Ami. She would have been proud of this project. Naani Ami did not have a migration story as she was born in Karachi after the partition settled, but she had many stories of women who had migrated to the United States. Her journey of service began more than 2 decades ago when she became the co-founder and executive director of NISA in California, a non-profit organization supporting women in crisis long before it was widely talked about. She was also the first Muslim woman to serve on the Santa Clara Commission for Domestic Violence. Naani Ami helped many women find their silenced voices.

The journey of my late great grandmother, and the life that she rebuilt with her family in Karachi, and the stories that my grandfather and late grandmother built with my mom and uncles taught me that belonging is something families carry with them and pass on. It is now for us to carry these stories forward. This archive is just that and a way for me to say thank you to our elders.

Project description

Welcome to a treasure vault of generational wealth; wealth of stories and belonging.

This project is a tribute to my great grandmother, the late Salma Khatoon, who fearlessly led her family as a young widow from the town of Phulwari Sharif (in Bihar, India) to Karachi (in the newly partitioned Pakistan), with her children, including my grandfather, Muzaffar Haider, who, at a young age of 7, left behind his toys and friends in the middle of the night to territories unknown. Their stories of that fateful journey in early 1948 and what followed to their successful resettling inspired me, humbled me and made me grateful for the opportunities available to us in better times. What you read today is gratitude turned into research and a digital repository curated for my family and many families’ stories that lay the foundation for our sense of belonging.

What started as a humble family project to collect stories of families displaced with drastic change in their circumstances, their grit and resilience to rebound passed down through generations, expanded to explore stories of unspoken tragedies against women. In doing my research on displacement stories, I was astonished to read about the prevalence of violence against women and the limited mention of such tragedies in historical accounts. This project, therefore, pivoted to intentionally capture such unspoken stories.

As you read through, please read the oral histories, archival materials, academic literature, and survivor stories with care. We aim to make material accessible to researchers, students, and the public to bring voices to those often absent from dominant narratives and contribute to the broader scholarship on women’s experiences of violence and trauma during the 1947 Partition.

This project has the following goals, which we hope you will benefit from:

First - Serve as a platform for collecting and sharing our sense of belonging to stories and relationships that transcend time.
Second - Help a broader audience understand how violence against women during the 1947 Partition is conceptualized by examining its role within communal violence rather than treating it solely as a consequence of events before, during and after the 1947 Partition.
Third - Present a space to you and others impacted by the 1947 Partition, including survivors’ own accounts, their recollection, or choice to remain silent about their experiences.

Please explore the different sections of this website and don't forget to add your story! If you wish, you may leave your story with an alias or leave it anonymously. Every voice deserves respect.

I invite you to also please share your feedback and any additional resources that may advance this project. I will be grateful for your contribution.

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About me

Knowing our past is important to know our present.

We are a collection of our stories. I am a certified Citizen Historian by the 1947 Partition Archives (a non-profit based in Berkeley, California, that collects oral histories from people who lived through the Partition of Pakistan and India).

My interest in history, particularly the 1947 Partition, began with my family's history and migration stories. I started exploring my interest in grade 6. It all started with a conversation with my grandfather culminating into a topic for my History research paper. That conversation showed me how personal stories were overlooked in historical accounts and sparked my journey that became this archive today. In middle school, I pursued history as a passion at Stanford Online High School. I then continued to study different eras of history through my O’Level / GCSE and spent my summers deep diving into the testimonies of survivors of the 1947 Partition.

Now, as an IB Diploma student with history as one of my core Higher Level courses, I continue to develop my passion. Most recently, I wrote my extended essay (final thesis in IB Diploma) on a topic of my choosing in History. Beyond the curriculum, I have spent time reading the work of historians such as Urvashi Butalia on the 1947 Partition.

A curious question and my grandfather’s candid stories that inspired me more than 5 years ago developed into this independent project with a goal to document the passage of migration stories through generations. We are who we know to be.

Ultimately, I hope this project encourages greater engagement with the underrepresented stories of the 1947 Partition and how they continue to shape us today. Developing this research through interviews with second-generation migrants about Partition's intergenerational effects will help us appreciate the struggles of our family before us so we can appreciate our opportunities. Your stories will be an integral part of this journey.

Types of evidence

Types of Evidence & its Significance

This archive draws on five kinds of sources. Each tells part of the story, and none tells all of it. Each source offers a different perspective on Partition; some provide insight into how experiences of violence are remembered and narrated, while others show how these experiences have been recorded, remembered, and theorised over time - broader contextual view.

Oral Histories

Oral histories provide a way of examining how different events are narrated across time, how silence functions within testimony, and how memory is shaped by family, community, and changing social contexts. I learned the value of oral histories first-hand by interviewing my own grandfather. Details may shift with time, but what people choose to remember, and what they leave unsaid, is part of their history too.

Survivor Testimonies

Survivor testimonies serve to give voice to those who lived through the violence of the 1947 Partition, in their own words. Many were recorded within weeks of the events, by officials and recovery workers so they carry an immediacy that later memory rarely does. I read them knowing they were shaped by who was asking and why, and I include them with care, not for the violence itself, but for the people who survived it. Survivor testimonies are intended to dignify the survivor.

Archival Materials

Archival materials, such as government reports, liaison officers' records and personal papers, amongst other things, tell us what happened, where and when. But archives are never neutral. Many are written by one side, for one purpose, and some women appear in them only through an official's pen. I read these records alongside sources from both sides of the border, so that no single account stands in for the whole story.

Academic Literature

The work of scholars such as Urvashi Butalia, Ritu Menon, Kamla Bhasin and Veena Das narrates the stories of the women of Partition into mainstream history. For this archive and website, their research shaped how I understand honour, community and nationhood as ideas written onto women's bodies. I have kept the academic literature separate from the testimonies on this site so that analysis never speaks over the survivors.

Objects and Photographs

A letter, a piece of jewellery or a refugee document can hold a story that was never spoken aloud. These objects remind me that Partition did not end in 1947. Families carried it with them, and still do.

Ethics & care

Survivor Testimonies; Archival materials

While analysing academic literature and archival materials with historical rigour, in this section, I approach the collection of survivor testimonies with particular ethical care. Being a grandchild and a great grandchild of Partition survivors, I understand that the topics being discussed are sensitive and that these testimonies concern deeply traumatic experiences. My interest is not in documenting violence for its own sake, but in understanding the ways survivors choose to narrate these experiences.

Read the testimonies

Your voice

Your Voice; Your Stories

I invite you to reflect on your stories and share them with a broader audience; stories that your great grandparents, grandparents or even parents may have shared with you. The goal is to come together and gather our collective learning, appreciate and cherish our elders who went through a time in history that shaped our present.

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