In a sea of uncertainty

THE PARTITION OF BENGAL
Fragile Borders and New Identities
Debjani Sengupta
Cambridge University Press
274 pages; Rs 875

In the introduction to the recently published translation of Intizar Husain's The Sea Lies Ahead, its translator Rakshanda Jalil writes: "In the years that followed [1947], pathos, confusion and conflict reigned supreme… Delhi and Lucknow, the two great centres of Muslim culture in Upper India… lay decimated. Across the border, Lahore and Karachi too were bursting at the seams with strangers looking to put down roots in an alien soil that would henceforth be their home." The Urdu title of Mr Husain's novel is a response to General Ayub Khan's remark, "Aage samandar hai (ahead, lies the sea)", when asked what would happen to muhajirs (refugees) coming to Pakistan from India.

A similar sea of uncertainty greeted the millions who crossed the borders in the east: Hindus coming to West Bengal, Assam and Bihar; and Muslims fleeing to East Pakistan, as Bangladesh was then known. Debjani Sengupta, an English teacher at Indraprastha College, New Delhi, in her first full-length study of the 1947 partition of Bengal argues, the amputation in the east was significantly different than in Punjab. In the Introduction, she writes: "…the partition in the East is the longue duree," not merely an event but a historical process, the effects of which are evident even today.

It is now impossible to imagine the history and culture of both east and west Bengal without the multiple partitions it has suffered: The one in 1905, that radicalised none less than Rabindranath Tagore, which was eventually annulled; 1947; and even 1971, when the conditions accompanying the previous partitions - severe economic and political stress; the influx of refugees into Calcutta - were replicated. On a lighter note, the effects of the partitions are evident in the East Bengal-Mohun Bagan rivalry, the endless debates over the bangal and ghoti cuisine and the caricature of each others' language and customs. But far-reaching political effects - such as the popularity of the communists in West Bengal, radical Islam in Bangladesh, and sectarian violence in the Northeast - are all legacies of the amputations.

True to her thesis of considering the Partition as longue duree, Ms Sengupta looks not only at the moment when the country was cut up but also events preceding and following it: The riots in Calcutta and Noakhali right before Independence; the movement of millions of homeless people to West Bengal and the social turmoil it led to; the project of resettling the udvastu (rootless) in Dandakaranya and the tragedy of Marichjhapi; and finally, the afterlife of the trauma entrenched in the collective memory of the community. She has considered historical texts, government records, and reportage but also personal memoirs and reminisces, recorded in interviews, and the mountain of literature produced in both Bengals as well as the Northeast by Bengali-speaking people. To explain why both non-fiction and fiction need to be juxtaposed to understand the history she is dealing with, Ms Sengupta writes: "…questions and more remain suspended in ether… because one can find no adequate answer in the historical archive. It seems the only way to get some understanding of these questions is to look elsewhere."

But this brings us to an almost intractable problem. This is an academic book, written in English, presumably for an audience larger than those who can read and write Bengali. Yet, where is one supposed to find reliable translations of much of Bengali literature of the second-half of the 20th century? For a curious reader who does not read Bengali, it is nearly impossible to track down the original literary texts that make Ms Sengupta's book so compelling.

In an interview to scroll.in earlier this year, bestselling Bengali novelist Mani Shankar Mukherjee, better known by his nom de plume Shankar, said: "Since's Tagore's Gitanjali, Bengali writers have known that translation is the gateway to world success. Unless they reach London, nothing will happen." It might be easy to get a Shankar or a Sunil Gangopadhyay in English, but where is one supposed to get a Shaktipada Rajguru or a Dulalendu Chattopadhyay? This, of course, in no way undermines Ms Sengupta's thesis or the vast scope of her research.

To her credit, Ms Sengupta's book has a detailed critical apparatus of endnotes and bibliography for the curious reader. In her effort to analyse the forces at work in the formation of a nation, her book gracefully moves from history to social anthropology to literary criticism, and she uses western theory and philosophy effectively to understand her material. What comes through is her commitment to narrate and analyse a part of our history that should have been better known. The literature she considers responds to the traumatic experiences in multiple ways, often providing therapeutic solutions; Ms Sengupta's critical and sympathetic commitment to her subject finds a sort of closure for those washed up on the shore of the uncertain sea.