GASC48H3

Partition in South Asia

This course examines the history of South Asia's partition in 1947, in the process of decolonization, into the independent nation-states of India and Pakistan. Major course themes include nationalism, violence, and memory. Students will read historical scholarship on this topic and also engage with literature, film, oral histories, and photography. Partitioning lands and peoples is an old colonial technology of rule. Why did it become such a compelling solution to the problems of group conflict in the Indian subcontinent and beyond in the twentieth century even after 1947? How did the emergence of different ideas of nationalism – Indian, Pakistani, Hindu, Islamic, and beyond – contribute to this? Why was the Partition of India so violent? What happened to the people who were displaced at the time of Partition? How has the Partition been remembered and narrated and how does it continue to echo through national and regional politics? Beyond the subcontinent's partition into India and Pakistan, the course will introduce comparative case studies of Burma and Sri Lanka, among others.