Inventing Boundaries: Gender, Politics and the Partition of India

A selection of some of the most significant writings on India’s partition, Inventing Boundaries reflects on the forces that marked the prelude to partition. In brings into focus the diversity of political currents in the 1940s, and introduces the different meanings attached to the Pakistan movement. The value of this book is greatly enhanced by the prologue and the introduction that examine the more recent historiographical debates, evaluate old theories on how and why the partition happened, and suggest areas of fresh research and enquiry. The final section in the collection draws upon some evocative literary pieces to reveal, as it were, the other face of freedom. ‘Siyah Hashaye’ or ‘Black margins’ by Saadat Hasan Manto is one of them. The essays included in this volume will interest students and scholars of history, literature, politics and culture studies and also appeal to the general reader.