Reflection on the condition of women during the partition of India in the selected works of Sadat Hassan Manto

Abstract

History bears as a testament of the tragic time where human beings could not fully realize the destructive proportions that were a part of the experience of women during the era of partition. This paper aims to highlight the significance of suffering of women resulting from the patriarchal religious values of the two nations: Pakistan and India. This study will attempt to trace the inhuman conditions of women during the Partition of India, 1947. This study will begin its analysis from the era of the Bengali Renaissance, tracing how the political ideologies of the Bengali Renaissance shaped the reality of women from a more subjugated way to a more subtle form. Although the Bengal Renaissance opposed the European colonial claim that women are subjugated in India through certain religious practices such as Sati, the political theorists and ideologists Bengal Renaissance kept women in another dimension of subjugation. As time passed and religious tension eclipsed throughout the Indian Subcontinent, women became the victims of religious conflicts resulting in many untold horrific stories of rape, suffering, death and isolation. This paper will review the works of some of the prominent Partition theorists to reflect on the miserable conditions of women through articles, interviews etc. to reflect on the suffering and sacrifices women had to make in order for nations to claim its religious identity. Finally this paper will analyze some of the popular short stories authored by Sadat Hassan Manto, a writer who was a direct witness of the Partition, and later conveyed through his stories the suffering of women during and after the Partition of India.