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ABSTRACT
For over 20 years, I have collected Partition narratives, recording the stories of survivors of the violence, from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. At every stage, I have faced the question of how to store, use and disseminate this fascinating material for scholars and researchers; whether to store it in physical space or virtual, so that I do not compromise the people to whom I have spoken. One of the extremely valuable documents contains names of 22,000 women who were abducted and raped. Some of these women may still be alive. Should one make this list public and compromise their right to privacy in the interest of the search for 'truth '? In this paper, I explore such troubling questions about the Partition that remains a living history, even after 60 years. How do you 'museumise' such a history in a manner that is appropriate, sensitive and responsible? There are no easy answers.
INTRODUCTION
How do you preserve and memorialise a painful past? Is there any value in remembering? Is there a way in which public memory, particularly of traumatic pasts, can be made to serve the interests of a peaceful future? Do nations and peoples need to fear the past? These and similar questions have largely remained unanswered in India, at least at a state level and it is difficult to escape the conclusion that as Indians, we are somehow fearful of confronting the past.
ARCHIVING PARTITION MEMORIES
For the last decade and a half, I have been researching and writing on the hidden histories of the Partition, looking mainly at the memories of survivors. Every interview uncovers a different experience of violence, loss, uprooting, grief and trauma. For many people, the past remains, somehow unresolved, unacknowledged and without a closure. The question that confronts the researcher at every step is: if these memories live on so powerfully inside families and communities, why have we, as historians, as citizens, been unable to give these a public face and indeed, the attention they deserve.
In the city of Delhi for example, the Old Fort or Purana Qila, became a major location where hundreds of thousands of refugees were housed. Yet, today there is not even a plaque or a notice that marks this...