Partition Week, an event created by Bayaan Collective in collaboration with University Press Limited (UPL), will conclude today following a session entitled “Teaching Partition,” by Professor Ferdous Azim, at Brac University.
The event brought together academics, writers and researchers to examine the legacies of 1947 and the partition of India in the eastern theatre of Bengal.
It looked at the socio-economic circumstances, narratives, configurations and the consequences of dividing Bengal into West Bengal, which remained with India, and East Bengal which subsequently became East Pakistan and then Bangladesh.
The creation of East Pakistan and the independence of Bangladesh has pushed the memory of partition outside of the East Bengali public sphere.
However Bangladesh has inherited the problems of partition and many of these issues remain current in the Bangladeshi discourse.
The conflict between Bengali settlers and non-Bengali locals in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), the non-Bengali “Pakistani” communities in Bangladesh, the cultural and economic segregation and the communal tensions are examples of the legacies of 1947.
Prof Zakir Hossain Raju from Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) presented a paper on East Bengali Cinema, Tamina Chowdhury from Cambridge University presented a paper of the history of the CHT, Dina Siddiqi from Brac University spoke about the “Stranded Pakistanis” and Prof M Emdadul Haq of North South University presented on the narratives that led to partition in Bengal.
Along with the papers, a number of films dealing with the circumstances and consequences of partition were also screened at various venues across the capital.
Dhaka Tribune was the media partner for the five-day event, which began on August 10 and ending today, to coincide with the date of partition.