Intersection of Trauma and Cultural Identity: Recounting Indian Partition in Literary/Screen Narratives

The 1947 Partition of India profoundly impacted the country's history. The tremors of Partition caused a significant shift in the political map of India and had a profound emotional impact on the populations of both sides. The violence and grief that people experienced affected them psychologically and also evoked a sense of identity crisis among them. At an individual level, trauma disrupts and fragments one’s identity from within, leaving an imprint on cognitive behavior and modulating emotional patterns. At a wider social scale, trauma intersects with different groups, which are a part of a comparatively larger community, thus transforming their collective identity and unsettling their sense of association. This paper examines the psychological impact on individuals and communities of the historical trauma of partition and displacement, as reflected in select literary texts. The paper focuses on Urvashi Butalia’s work titled The Other Side of Silence (2000) and the TV series Jubilee (2023), highlighting how the different sections of society grappled with the trauma and violence while responding in terms of their embrace of a historical reality. The paper navigates two different genres of literature and intends to explore how the same historical narration may surface distinctly in its genre-specific reconfigurations. This exploration also allows one to comprehend the multi-dimensional complexities of a traumatic experience, especially when such incidents are creatively captured through a distinct artistic lens.