Partition Violence and National Unity

This article analyzes two Pakistani films from the 1960s that deal with the trauma of the partition (1947) and the dispersal of the family. The films raise the question of how certain histories are erased from national memory in Pakistan. In the absence of formal archives, the article seeks to address the silences through a close reading of fiction or other forms of representation (film). The article also brings forward a reading that delves into women's representation in the popular media in Pakistan to create a different archive of women's cultural and sexual politics and histories. The article hence revisits the issue of abducted women or those women who suffered violence and trauma during the partition through their depiction in the Pakistani cinema of the 1960s. As such events of extreme violence in the nation's history remain unaccommodated in the formal archives of the nation and community, the endeavor is to see how we get access to the pasts, the omissions, and inclusions. The films enable the article to address the relationship between memory and record.