Indianising Memories: Reviewing Intersections of Memory Studies in South Asian Partition Literature

The nascent yet growing interdisciplinary arena of memory studies has been gaining momentum in the past decade, especially in the Indian subcontinent. However, upon closer inspection, there remains a clear gap in the literature in the subdiscipline contextualising memory studies with Partition studies focusing on the eastern side of the subcontinent. This paper argues that despite significant strides taken towards the preservation and capturing of memories in the Punjab-Pakistan regional context, the Bengal-Bangladesh phenomenon remains largely overshadowed by the grand canonised narratives of the 1947 Indian independence or the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation, in spite of its chronic, even contemporary aftershocks. The study ultimately proposes possible future directions to fill this dearth of literature through theoretical frameworks fit to analyse and assess the ramifications of the Bengal Partition. Upcoming studies will take up the cause of the missing critical theory that can address the specifics of Bengali memories associated with partition, displacement, and subsequent life rebuilding across decades, with particular ethical attention to the last generation of survivors and eyewitnesses who are now passing away.