“Learning to Remember: The Indian Partition of 1947”

Narrowing in on a less discussed aspect of oral histories of partition, Learning to Remember considers the significance of each act of intentional articulation for the speaker and the audience as an exploration of partition memory by postmemorial generations. For first generation of migrants such articulations become a gesture of hospitality toward those whom they include in their audience and a confirmation of affiliative relationships. For their children and grandchildren or those in that position, it is an opportunity to witness but also to interrogate those narratives from the perspective of the present. This process makes apparent sorrow, loss, joy, guilt, anguish, complicity, regret, and resilience all mixed together in a sensibility that Punjabis associate with themselves, one that was formed and tempered through the experience of partition. Research itself is a process of building and co-creating that community.