August 14, the eve of India’s independence and the day Pakistan officially came into being in 1947, is associated with the memories of millions of people who suffered during the traumatic episode; the fallout of which has lasted decades. Women, in particular, dealt with brutal violence. The Partition brought with it many uncertainties, where violence, pain, distress, tumultuousness, disarray and mayhem seemed to be the only certainties.This period in history witnessed gendered violence inflicted on women either by the males of their families or by members of other religious communities. Women were kidnapped, raped, publicly humiliated and had their genitalia mutilated. Women were also killed in the name of honour by their families, and many were forced to die by suicide in an attempt to protect their chastity.
Kamla Bhasin and Ritu Menon, in their book Borders & Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition revealed that the official number of the number of women who were abducted while on their way to Pakistan stands at 50,000, while 33,000 women were abducted as they attempted to migrate to India. In her book The Other Side of Silence, Urvashi Butalia provided similar statistics and claimed that 75,000 women were abducted from both sides of the border. However, it is presumed that the actual numbers may vary as many incidents went unnoticed and unrecorded because of the tumultuousness of the times.
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