The Independence of India and Pakistan

This was perhaps the largest gathering of historians, anthropologists, literature scholars and writers interested in the Partition of the Indian subcontinent ever held in the UK. Despite its title the conference, organized by Professor Ian Talbot of Southampton, was centred on traumatic experiences of Partition rather than triumphant experiences of Independence. It was a testament to the seriousness with which the subject is finally being treated in universities. Older debates about constitutional debates and map-making in 1947 were resurrected but inevitably the majority of innovative papers focused on the humanitarian disasters which surrounded the disengagement from the Raj in 1947: this has been the direction of serious historiographical research in the subject for almost a decade, especially since the publication of Urvashi Butalia's book, The Other Side of Silence (1998). Not only does this approach – founded on interviews and social history – draw attention to the gravity of migrations...

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Disengagement theory · Historiography · Independence (probability theory) · Library science · Media studies · Partition (number theory) · Political science · Seriousness · Silence · Sociology · Subject (documents) · History · Law · Medicine · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · South Asian Studies and Diaspora · Gerontology