Keywords
Partition, Postmemory, Displacement, Survival, Memoir
Abstract
India gained independence from the British Empire in 1947, an event accompanied by the country's partition into India and Pakistan. This division forced Hindu and Muslim communities who had coexisted for generations to migrate to majority-dominated regions. Amid heightened communal tensions, severe riots and massacres erupted on both sides of the border, resulting in approximately one million deaths and the displacement of over twelve million people. In the aftermath of these atrocities, survivors articulated their grief through fiction, life narratives, and poetry, contributing to the emergence of Partition literature. Memoirs and personal testimonies offer crucial interventions in formal historiography, serving as alternative historical sources that deepen our understanding of this tragic period. Within this framework, this paper examines Bhawana Somaaya’s memoir, Farewell Karachi, which recounts her family’s migration from Karachi to Kutch while documenting their complex experiences of displacement, survival, and resettlement. The paper will use the lens of postmemory to investigate how memories are transmitted intergenerationally and continue to shape their lives after Partition.
