Borders and Freedom at the Cost of Silence and Violence

Gender best violence has been Prime concern whenever violence comes into play. The partition, followed by Indian Independence movement was also a 'gendered experience' for women. As women are a symbol of honour chastity and prestige of respective cast communities and ultimately countries. Gender violence was a revenge against all these as women were/are the most vulnerable and honoured entity conserved, cherished and protected by the males of the respective community. The paper intends to focus upon the violence faced by women during the Indian partition.

"Twelve million people were displaced as a result of Partition. Nearly one million died. Some 75,000 women were raped, kidnapped, abducted, forcibly impregnated by men of the ‘other’ religion, thousands of families were split apart, homes burnt down and destroyed, villages abandoned. Refugee camps became part of the landscape of most major cities in the north, but, a half century later, there is still no memorial, no memory, no recall, except what is guarded, and now rapidly dying, in families and collective memory.”The Other Side of Silence

The works considered for the paper are The Other Side of Silence by Urvashi Butliya and Borders and Boundaries women in India's partition by ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin.

Keywords- partition, communal violence, women, honour, and borders.