Coming out of Partition: Refugee Women of Bengal

Partition has by and large come to mean the vivisection of Punjab as well as the holocaust accompanying it. Bengal suffers from a relative neglect, although of late some studies have focused on the trauma that Bengal underwent during and after 1947. This book portrays the hardships experienced by women in the aftermath of the Bengal Partition and how they were able to emerge as a distinct category of refugee women in due course. Their struggles for shelter, food and jobs became part of the wider women’s movement. Facing the tremendous challenge of rebuilding their lives in a different environment, these uprooted women gradually turned into activists. An interesting aspect is the author’s attempt to initiate a comparative study of the Muslim women of the two Bengals in the post-Partition period.