The interviews in this book were conducted in what was, in 1947, the epicentre of the violence, the city of Amritsar, which stands on the volatile border between India and Pakistan. The links of those interviewed with a single city provide unique insight into processes of migration and refugee resettlement and lends a unity to the recollections that is rare in Partition literature.

Even as each account possesses its unique characteristics, a number of themes run through the oral testimonies: the suddenness of the uprooting, the belief that migration was only to be temporary, the sense that the violence was politically rather than culturally and religiously rooted.

The abduction and rehabilitation of women and children, the differing experiences of elite and subaltern classes, the memories of refugee convoys and camps, the hazards of border crossing and the nostalgia for pre-partition bonds between Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus are other important issues that emerge.

The variety of experiences recounted here is historically important as it reveals the immensely differing impact of partition and its consequences for people’s later lives. This discomfiting fact has frequently been obscured by master narratives of the event which continues to capture the imagination and exert a profound impact on developments within the subcontinent.