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Partition: Memory, Responsibility & Voice
On Owning the 1947 Partition & Giving It an Honest Voice
Speakers
How do we honour truths without exploitation or erasure?
This panel discussion will explore how the chapter of Partition is remembered, who holds the responsibility of preserving its stories, and what it means to give them an honest voice. Through literature, oral testimony, archives, or immersive media, each speaker has engaged with histories marked by silence, trauma, and survival. In this session, they will reflect on the choices they have made: to amplify certain voices, to tell different stories with care, and to avoid reducing complex truths into simplified narratives.
At the heart of this conversation is a shared responsibility; not only as writers, educators, or artists, but as individuals shaped by inherited memory. As Partition fades from lived memory, this panel asks how the stories we carry today might shape the understanding of future generations, and the ways they remember, question, and imagine.
In collaboration with:
Speakers
Urvashi Butalia
Urvashi Butalia is a feminist publisher and writer. Co-founder of India’s first feminist publishing house, Kali for Women, she founded Zubaan, another feminist imprint after Kali shut down in 2003. She has a decades-long involvement in the women’s movement in India and writes and publishes widely on a range of issues related to gender. Among her best-known publications is the award-winning oral history of Partition: The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India. Her book on the life of her hijra friend, Mona Ahmed, is forthcoming.
Soni Wadhwa
Soni Wadhwa teaches Literature Studies at SRM University, Andhra Pradesh. Her digital archive PG Sindhi Library is dedicated to post Partition Sindhi writing in India. She is a regular contributor to Asian Review of Books.
Tejshvi Jain
Tejshvi is the Founder-Director of ReReeti Foundation. She seamlessly blends her dynamic leadership with a profound love for art and museums. With over 10 years of experience working in and with museums, she has honed her expertise in the sector while leading international projects, spearheading crowdfunding campaigns, curating thought-provoking shows, lecturing at colleges, and penning insightful articles in renowned art publications. A recipient of the Nehru, ATSA, and IFA fellowships, her contributions span 15 years of dedicated work in the arts and culture space. Her ongoing effort is to make history relevant, reachable, and relatable — using storytelling and interactivity to shift the perception that history is dull, and to bring forgotten episodes like Bangalore’s role in WWI, Sindhi migration, and Partition into public conversation.
