Amandeep Sandhu » Partition

Indian Express: The Panjabi Refugee Experience

aman — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 05:09:40 +0000

Dear Friends,

On this Republic Day, we need to engage with how we think about citizenship: is it through our lived experience or some bureaucratic papers?

Here is my piece for Indian Express. Thank you Amrita Dutta for the opportunity.

The piece brings to light a different experience of the Sikhs in Odisha and Chattisgarh in the year 1984 and is a homage to the civil servant who saved my parents. Thank you Gagan Bains, Kulvir Singh Dhiman, Hardaman Singh.

Please read more here …

The Book Review: Communal Violence As A Pathology

aman — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 03:54:21 +0000

Friends, my review of a very important book for the Indian sub-continent, especially north-India given our times when as a nation we are gong through a tailspin in terms of our values and politics.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT OF THE PARTITION OF INDIA
By Sanjeev Jain and Alok Sarin Sage Publications, 2018, pp. 260, R 850.00

This appeared in the recent edition of The Book Review. Thank you Adnan Farooqui for the opportunity.

As a lay person interested in mental health, personal and community, I feel this book opens a space the nation should have been discussing and sorting out ever since our blood dimmed independence.

Please read more here …

The Hindu Literary Review: The thin red line: ‘The Unsafe Asylum – Stories of Partition and Madness’ by Anirudh Kala

aman — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 05:49:30 +0000

Friends, after a long time I reviewed a book for The Hindu. The collection of short stories is by Dr Anirudh Kala, a psychiatrist and friend based in Ludhiana.

Please read here …

The Hindu Review: Jinnah Often Came To Our House

aman — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 04:37:19 +0000

It was my pleasure to review Kiran Doshi’s novel Jinnah Often Came To Our House for The Hindu. The novel went on to win The Hindu Best Fiction Prize 2016.

Please read …

The Hindu: Interview with Kiran Doshi

aman — Fri, 02 Dec 2016 08:11:15 +0000

Friends, my interview with Kiran Doshi whose wonderful and insightful historical fiction Jinnah Often Came To Our House is short-listed for The Hindu Prize 2016.

Please read …

Speaking at the Taipei Biennale 2016 Symposium

aman — Fri, 02 Dec 2016 08:01:49 +0000

Friends, on November 26, at 10 AM, I will speak at the Taipei Biennale on the topic: ‘The Writer as a Memory Maker’.

I will talk about the bloody birth of our nation in the wake of the greatest migration in human history which left 1 million dead and 14 million displaced. Yet, how as a nation we seem to be condemned to never learn from history. How our gestures of public history – museums – are shaped. How our discourses are built on excluding narratives of caste, gender, tribals, and minorities. How chasing the dystopia of material development, through corporate capitalism, we are ignoring the core strengths of our diverse nation. What then is our future? All these with special focus on Punjab. I will also discuss the draft novel I wrote in Germany – The Memory Maker – which is currently, justly, gestating.

I will share the video when available. Please read …

Partition and Memory: A Memorial of Whispers

aman — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 05:03:01 +0000

Friends, here is my piece on the partition of India and Pakistan in which I look at what happened to the Sikh psyche since then and suggest a radical retelling of our stories because though the trauma still haunts us …
‘… All we have for one generation are wisps of memory and for the next, family stories buried in silences. It is the third generation now which is trying to engage with Partition. Our generation has heard these stories in whispers and created many online projects where we are turning family histories into oral histories. Yet, pick up any newspaper, recollect the history of riots and genocides in independent India, and we will realise that we are still caught up in the same mess of communalism that created Partition.’
The piece appears in the recent issue of Muse India excellently curated by Charanjeet Kaur. Thank you! Thank you Asiimwe Deborah GKashugi, Ajay Bhardwaj, Prof Alok Bhalla for allowing me to use your quotes. Please read …

Digitizing Memories for The Hindu

aman — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 16:06:09 +0000

We are now entering an era where the fourth generation is dealing with the memory of Partition. My piece in The Hindu a compilation of how the advancement of digital technology is helping ordinary people archive their memories of Partition and create a larger South Asian identity. The new technologies in film-making have aided the work and a list of documentaries is appended to the story.

Thank you Daljit Ami, Kalathmika Natarajan, Anusha Yadav, Chintan Girish Modi, Ajay Bhardwaj, Shiraz Hassan, Sachi G. Dastidar, Muhammad Owais Rana, Guneeta Singh Bhalla, Jaya Bhattacharji Rose, The 1947 Partition Archive, Indian Memory Project, Friendships Across Borders: Aao Dosti Karein, The Citizens Archive of Pakistan, Punjab Digital Library.

See here …