‘We still do not know the exact numbers of the millions who became homeless, were killed or went missing’: Kishwar Desai

At a time when the number of people displaced globally has crossed 100 million, propelled a range of political conflicts in Afghanan, Burkina Faso, Syria, Congo, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Ukraine and other countries, the story of India’s Partition that led to more than a million deaths and the displacement of 15 million or more people from both sides of the border resonates more than ever.
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Conceptualised author Kishwar Desai and her team from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust that set up arguably the world’s first Partition Museum in Amritsar in 2017, the tumultuous story can be experienced at an ongoing exhibition in a small and intimate space in the permanent gallery of Delhi‘s National Gallery of Modern Art. A searing photograph of corpses being placed in a mass grave, with bulldozers standing near, unfolds the hory of the suddenness, scale and ferocity of the violence that unravelled as poignantly as the running image of a train packed with refugees, and a gruesome cargo of bodies. The definitive moments of independence and the Partition have been highlighted using dozens of posters, newspaper clippings, and photographs from the collection of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, National Archives, Delhi State Archives, British Library, The Illustrated London News, and the startling images of American photojournal Margaret Bourke-White, amongst others. The video clips of oral hories add depth and gravitas to the richly textured and nuanced exhibition.
(Source: NGMA)
Debasish Mukherjee’s installation using untwed yarns woven together is evocative of the Partition’s pain and trauma and the rivers of blood that flowed in its wake. The exhibition also uses Sardari Lal Parasher’s sculpture of the lonely pilgrim to draw attention to the predicament of solitary migrants. The trunk on which the artwork is displayed is one of the many in which he buried his sketches of that dark period. Amid all the artwork inspired Partition, the one that draws most attention is Amarnath Sehgal’s epochal sculpture Cries Unheard. The emaciated, anguished figures of a man, woman and child with outstretched arms reflect the extreme despair and helplessness of hundreds of thousands of people who were on the road during the holocaust, in columns that were sometimes 45 miles long, with little or no food or water.

In a conversation, Desai spoke about the need to summon up a past on the verge of being erased. Excerpts from the interview:
Let us begin talking about your museum’s spatial journey across two cities. You are in the process of launching another museum on Partition at the Dara Shikoh Library in Old Delhi’s Kashmiri Gate. Will the core narrative arc of the two museums be the same?
The two museums, in Amritsar and Delhi, are both dedicated to the Partition of India. The one in Amritsar, at the Town Hall, was set up in 2017, on the 70th anniversary of India’s Independence and Partition. It was and is till today, the first and only museum (or memorial) dedicated to the Partition of India. The Partition Museum in Delhi, at the Dara Shikoh Library Building, is being readied during the 75th anniversary and will be the second museum of its kind in the world.
The Partition Museum in Amritsar was set up entirely through donations of memories, memorabilia and money from those who are interested in the preservation of India’s hory and heritage. It was a very difficult task and we did not sleep for the two years that it took from the time we decided to set up the museum, to the time it took to actually set it up. Curated Mallika Ahluwalia, it is much larger than the Delhi Museum. It is spread over 17,000 square feet and 14 galleries. It tells the larger narrative of the Partition: in Punjab, Bengal and Sindh, and it is constantly growing in terms of displays and archival material. In Delhi, the building is smaller but we have managed to tell the narrative in six large and three small galleries.
(Source: NGMA)
The two museums complement each other, as both are “People’s Museums”: the narrative is largely explored from the people’s perspective.
The museum in Delhi uses common horical elements and research from Amritsar, but the oral hories and objects etc are unique to Delhi. The focus in Delhi will be the impact of the Partition on the city, and how much it changed, post 1947.
After a long hory of silence, there is sudden renewed interest in the oral hory related to Partition, exemplified Guneeta Bhalla’s Partition Archives, photographer Anusha Yadav’s The Indian Memory Project, and initiatives like the Partition Hory and Colonial Hangover projects, and Project Dastaan. The Kolkata Partition Museum project is another remarkable initiative seeking to memorialise the specificity of Bengal’s partition experience. Why does partition continue to haunt the collective memory and conscience of the subcontinent?
To be honest, while there have been a lot of online collections of oral hories, our Trust made the first concerted effort to actually have a space dedicated to this great tragedy. We still do not know the exact numbers of the millions who became homeless, and those who were killed or went missing, nor do we know the names and numbers of the women who were abducted and raped or brutally mutilated or killed, or the children who died.

We had, on the 70th anniversary, decided that there needed to be a space where we could remember these millions, and also know of their sufferings and sacrifice. There had to be a physical space —to actually feel the sense of loss — often told through the simple objects people donated to us.
Do you also plan to use your museum space to tell stories of people who lived together for generations — their shared joys and sorrows across toxic and hardened political and religious fault lines, stories of compassion, empathy and support at a time when the normal mores of civilization were all but forgotten.
Absolutely, this is an imperative part of the narrative and actually comes through very clearly in the memories of the people when they speak to us as well as the art, literature, poetry that we showcase.
(Source: NGMA)
Communities lived and worked together — and these memories are enshrined in our museum. We also have the Gallery of Hope in both Amritsar and Delhi, where we have stories of the affection still exchanged between people when they cross the border and visit the homes they were forced to leave behind. Many of the stories are inspirational as there is so little bitterness. People understand that it was a policy of divide and rule that eventually led to the Partition, and they have empathy for the suffering ordinary people faced on both sides.

You have recently exhibited the traditional textiles of undivided Punjab as part of the Khes Project. Is this the beginning of another creative journey?
We are constantly adding to our collection, mostly through donations. So these objects are placed in various galleries as per the narrative which accompanies them. Woven and embroidered textiles of that period, such as the phulkari and the Khes, are very much part of the narrative. Thus we were honoured when a young team from NID showcased their Khes collection at the Partition Museum in Amritsar over the Independence week recently. And they also donated a Khes to us. We are very grateful to them.
The exhibition on Partition of India is open for viewing at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi till August 31. Sujata Prasad is an author and art column. She works as advisor to the National Gallery of Modern Art.
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