Author: MUSKAN RAWAT
MUSKAN RAWAT
(Muskan Rawat is an art researcher, curator and archivist. Her research explores the representation of the Partition of India in the visual arts)
History is built on documents. But what happens when the documents vanish? When we remember Partition, we think of borders, refugees and bloodshed. Yet another Partition unfolded quietly: the partition of memory. Documents were destroyed, forgotten, abandoned or left to decay, erasing invaluable evidence. The disappearance of these records remains one of the least explored dimensions of 1947 and continues to shape our understanding of that defining moment. Few episodes illustrate this erasure better than Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who was given just five weeks to draw the borders dividing Punjab and Bengal in 1947. Before leaving India on August 15,…
