Mukand and Riaz: National Award winning animation artist Nina Sabnani will screen Mukand and Riaz, a film that explores a childhood marred by the trauma of Partition — the heartbreaking story of the artist’s own father. Sabnanai has also created an installation for the Museum of the traditional Kutch and Sindhi appliqué fabrics she used to animate this children’s film. This exhibit celebrates the power of friendship, a power that knows no borders.

Remembering the Partition of India, “so that we may move ahead”

Pop-up exhibition memorializes and celebrates the Partition of India in 1947 — a historical event that affected the lives of millions.

In 1947, Britain abandoned its imperial rule of India, dividing the subcontinent into India, Pakistan and later Bangladesh. In the process, up to 12 million people were displaced, leading to a period of intense conflict. On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Partition, the Godrej India Culture Lab—founded by writer and activist Parmesh Shahani—is hosting the Museum of Memories: Remembering Partition, a collaborative pop-up museum and festival that celebrates the people who experienced and survived these historic events with three days of discussions, performances, screenings, exhibitions and more.

For those of us who can’t make it to Mumbai to visit the museum, we asked Parmesh to give us a virtual walk-through.

A priceless shaving kit: The most ordinary of objects hide the most fascinating tales. Family members of the survivors of the Partition have donated priceless pieces of their worlds that hold the memories of that great divide and the consequences it had. This shaving kit from WW1, preserved over the tumult of Partition, has a story of struggle and loss to tell. Passed down through generations, these objects are priceless because they carry the narratives that shape these families even today.

What was the Partition of India, and what did it mean for the citizens of the countries involved?

Partition is many things. To start with, it was the largest migration in human history, taking place in 1947. Until then, India had been ruled by the British crown since 1858, following the East India Company’s domination of the subcontinent in the preceding years. When the British decided to leave, they divided the subcontinent into India and East and West Pakistan, drawing the borders in a sudden and haphazard manner, which led to months of looting, massacre and a breakdown in law and order.

There is still no accurate count of how many people crossed borders or lost their lives. All we know is that thousands died, and millions were displaced. It is a great tragedy that independence and the birth of two nations was accompanied by such unimaginable violence between the border-crossing Hindu, Muslim and Sikh citizens of the different countries.

Stitching History: “Like any other creative medium, garments are a medium of narrating history. This piece is made by leading Indian fashion designers Abraham & Thakore, and is one of the garments from an exhibit that my friend Nonita Bazaar, editor of Harper’s Bazaar India, has created for our pop-up museum exhibit ‘Stitching History’.”

Why is important to remember this event?

It is important to remember this event 70 years later because one needs to understand the past to move into the future. Post Partition, there are now 3 countries that share a common border, a common history and extremely youthful populations.

A good place to start moving forward is by acknowledging what happened — and here I include both the horror as well as the random acts of kindness. While all of us citizens from these countries need to acknowledge our past, we should also be working together for our future — including important issues like food security, water scarcity, caring for the environment and fighting the threat of terrorism. So that we may move ahead, we need to build bridges, and celebrate those who are building these bridges. There are some amazing people and organizations doing so today. This to me, more than anything else, is why we need to remember Partition.

Wall of Remembrance: “While curating this Museum of Memories, I have come to realize that reflecting on the history of Partition itself is an internal conflict: the struggle between the grief of loss and hope for the future. This exhibit is a symbol of this duality, with the well being a source of life but, in times of war, a setting for the death of thousands. The Well of Remembrance commemorates the lives of women lost in the horrors that followed Partition, driven to commit suicide in fear of rape and murder. This stunning installation by the GCPL Design Lab in collaboration with the Partition Museum, Amritsar, is an interpretation of a similarly powerful exhibit in Amritsar.”

How does the pop-up exhibition approach memorialising the partition?

The fault lines of Partition run deep. For this pop-up, we decided to assemble people across academia, film, books, art and fashion — all of whom were either working on Partition in some way or the other, or were touched by it. We wanted to create an intense experience through sight, sound, touch and more.

Our approach to history is different. This is not the history we are taught in schools — history with a capital ‘H’. Rather, this is a focus on micro-histories, the complicated and beautiful stories of change told through people’s own voices. The museum we have assembled include oral history videos, objects contributed by Partition survivors, letters written by current school children to their grandparents, photographs sent to us from historians and from personal archives, a wide range of films, sound installations, textile sculptures and much more. In the centre of one of the main exhibit areas we have built a Well of Remembrance in collaboration with the Partition Museum in Amritsar, to commemorate the thousands of women who jumped, or were forced to jump into, wells across the different countries, to avoid being captured or sexually assaulted.

These different exhibits will be accompanied by a program of screenings, panel discussions and poetry and music performances. We wanted to curate something that was very overwhelming — because Partition was indeed overwhelming, but we also wanted to curate through the lens of hope and possibility. That’s why we have such a strong focus on peace builders and people who are bridging divides across borders, just like the 15th century mystic saint Kabir did with his poetry. It is fitting that our closing music performance is by a band called Kabir Café — we want people from the subcontinent to understand that what we have in common is much more than what divides us.

Kabir Café: How does a community come together to reflect on tragedy and still look to tomorrow with hope in their eyes? The language of music is universal. Meet Mumbai-based neo-fusion rock band Neeraj Arya’s Kabir Café, a group that paints an incredible soundscape interspersed with the poetry of the 15th-century mystic saint Kabir, whose words are the shared legacy of the subcontinent across all borders.

How did you go about planning the events and collecting and curating the objects displayed?

There was so much we couldn’t include within the three days! What we did know is that we wanted voices from across the subcontinent, and not just India. So TED Fellow Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, the celebrated two-time Oscar award winning Pakistani film-maker and activist, and artist Salima Hashmi, who is also the daughter of noted poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, will be Skyping from Pakistan for various sessions. We are also screening Sharmeen’s Home 1947 films for the first time ever in South Asia.

From Bangladesh, nine-time National Film Award winner Tanvir Mokammel will be flying in to screen the first worldwide preview of his film Simantorekha (The Borderline), which looks at the effects of Partition on both sides of Bengal. From England, we are screening Gurinder Chadha’s Partition:1947 (called Viceroy’s House in English). We also wanted to acknowledge the amazing Partition scholars and archives that exist worldwide, so many of them will be present at our museum.

Partition 1974: “In an exclusive early preview, the much-awaited Gurinder Chadha film Partition 1947 will make its Hindi debut here at the Lab. A spellbinding tale of love in a time of war, of innocence in a time of violence, and of hope in a time of horror, the film takes us back in time to the architects of the Partition, such as Lord Mountbatten. We are also paying homage to the iconic films made in the decades after Partition and so will also be screening masterpieces like Shyam Benegal’s Mammo (1994) and Govind Nihalani’s Tamas (1988).”

Finally — we wanted this museum to be really collaborative. So we invited citizens of India to share their own objects and stories with us. These, to me, are the most moving of all. One family shared a shaving kit with us, as a reminder of their forefather who crossed over from Dhaka, or a lock from a trunk, saved by children as they were smuggled across the border, that their descendants have now shared.

We want all the objects and art we have assembled to trigger our own memories: Which friends have we lost in the journey of our lives? If we had to leave home today, what would we take with us? What would we leave behind? What is home? Is it a place or is it a state of mind? What does it mean to belong — to a family, or a country, or an idea?

1947 Partition Archive: The 1947 Partition Archive is an oral history project, dedicated to collecting the forgotten stories of tragedy and survival produced in the wake of the Partition’s upheaval. The Archive will bring survivors from Mumbai to the event. They will be present to share their stories and thoughts in what will surely be a powerful session of remembrance. These are the voices of a fading generation that cannot go unheard, for they form the foundation of our collective identity.

Did the partition affect your own family? How?

I am a Partition grandchild. I have heard stories from all sides, of how different things were in the homeland, which happens to be Sindh, in present-day Pakistan. For years, I have nurtured a dream to go and visit, and have so many friends there, just as I do in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Soon, I hope!

Visit the Museum of Memories at Godrej India Culture Lab, Mumbai, on August 4, 5 and 6.

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