Look back in hope
Can there be looking ahead without looking back? The 73rd Independence Day of India could be a good time to ask the question. But as Prof. Anjali Roy’s just-released book on the ‘memories and post memories of Partition’ makes obvious, the question is a complicated one, for looking back itself is a complicated task. One reason that has complicated the ‘looking back’ at Partition –a fact of history indissociable from Independence - is the deafening silence surrounding it. Part of this is because of the conscious erasure of the disturbing memories of Partition in order to promote the triumphalist narrative…