Coming Out of Partition : Refugee Women of Bengal/Gargi Chakravartty.
New Delhi, BlueJay Books, 2005, xv, 200 p., $17 (pbk). ISBN 81-88575-45-3.
Coming Out of Partition : Refugee Women of Bengal/Gargi Chakravartty.
New Delhi, BlueJay Books, 2005, xv, 200 p., $17 (pbk). ISBN 81-88575-45-3.
Contents: Foreword. Introduction. 1. Abandoned ancestral home. 2. Political activism of refugee women. 3. The crossover: towards a new social and cultural milieu. 4. Partition in the lives of Bengali Muslim women. 5. The 1964 Calcutta riots through the eyes of a Teenager. Appendices: 1. Voices of women. 2. The foundation of Viveknagar Colony: musings of a Veteran. 3. The foundation of Shahldnagar Colony. 4. The camps. Bibliography.
"Partition has by and large come to mean the vivisection of Punjab as well as the holocaust accompanying it. Bengal suffers from a relative neglect, although of late some studies have focused on the trauma that Bengal underwent during and after 1947.
This book portrays the hardships experienced by women in the aftermath of the Bengal partition and how they were able to emerge as a distinct category of refugee women in due course. Their struggles for shelter, food and jobs became part of the wider women's movement. Facing the tremendous challenge of rebuilding their lives in a different environment, these uprooted women gradually turned into activists.
An interesting aspect is the author's attempt to initiate a comparative study of the Muslim women of the two Bengals in the post-partition period." (jacket)