Orphans of The Partition

The perilous journey of women during the Partition period

- Asha Hans

BHARATI Devi was from Quetta, now in Pakistan, where her father had been a physician. She was married off at the age of 16 to a penniless scion of a zamindari family from Dera Ghazi Khan whose land had been confiscated by the British. Barely was the wedding over when the warning signs of a holocaust that would overturn their near-normal lives appeared on the horizon. Bharati was pregnant when she heard the news of the Partition and communal rioting forcing people out of their homes. The news was frightening as thousands had died due to an emerging nationalism based on communal violence. As riots soon started in Quetta, they left, leaving behind their home and taking with them only their memories. Finally crossing to Delhi and finding sanctuary in a camp, the horrors of the Partition unfolded with stories of killings, rapes, suicides and violence against women narrated in forms Bharati had never heard of. A traumatised nation watched with Bharati helplessly as its women suffered.