Oral Histories of Indian Partition
The 1947 Partition Archive, California, USA
Oral Narrative collection and archiving with 1947 Partition Archive, California. An ethnographic project associated with collection of personal histories of 1947 Partition witnesses through interviews. Collected 50 interviews of East Pakistan/ East Bengal Partition refugees from Delhi. (May 2017-July 2017)
The 4 months long internship had a rigorous training session for the ethics and the methodology for an Oral Historian and how to conduct ethnographic research with a vulnerable population. After the completion of the training period, I interviewed 30 participants who were the first generation 1947 Partition migrants in New Delhi and aged between 65 - 95 years. I have also been trained to store these sensitive narratives in the form of a digital archive. This research experience made me delve more on the importance of stoty-telling and oral narratives of people to break the age-old silences of the people who had witnessed and lived through historical, political and social violences that have never been addressed in the mainstream academic or socio-political discourses.