Kamla Patel’s first-hand experience as an overseer during the rescue operation for women and children across the borders relives the period following India’s violent partition in 1947. Patel recalls, ‘Innumerable women who were abducted during the riots were repeatedly sold; while some were even offered as gifts to friends and relations!’ (p.19). Patel travels through her memories from Pakistan to bring back to life the horrors, tragedies, and incidents of joy that she experienced and encountered during the rescue operations. She treads between her associations with the newly formed states and their politics, the changing contexts due to the events that followed, and the lives and stories of the women separated across the other side of the border.
One of the first impressions that a reader would possibly be left with while and after reading the book is the image of women’s despair. Still, Patel reminds us throughout the book how the women of Punjab showed resistance and resilience in the most adverse times. She recalls instances where the last act of resistance chosen was death, as in the case of Mianwali, where the dead bodies of women had filled a well. Here, she sees the act as a choice of honour over life. Books on India’s partition are testimony to many such instances. My agenda here, though, is to highlight something differently.
I believe that the book’s merit lies in bringing forth the idea of care in such a period of communal rupture. Patel and her associates aimed not only to rescue the women who had been left behind in Pakistan but also to help them overcome the memories of ruination from their recent past in some capacity. One of the examples that have been cited is the case of about six hundred refugees who were to halt at the camp led by Patel in Lahore before moving ahead to India. Lack of water and food had led the women and children to a state of severe malnutrition, to the extent that a child being carried by her mother died as they just entered the camp, similar to three of the child’s siblings, who had died before. The volunteers and others at the camp cared for the six hundred people, from making food to arranging clothes for them and using lotions to get rid of the lice in their hair and bodies (p.88). They eventually left for India after a week’s stay. This incident demonstrates how care enabled the people to gravitate towards a cause for sustenance. This is a moment of remarkable resilience, and the book is a collection of varied experiences, but what cuts across them all is the desire for care.
The book is perhaps the only published account of the women's experiences and journeys of displacement from the perspective of someone who was so intimately connected to the rescue operations following India’s partition. This writing also offers an understanding of the problems that women had to face in the face of forced migration. One of the questions was that of war babies. Some of the women abducted ended up bearing children out of wedlock. When these women were to cross the borders, they were insecure about their families' acceptance of illegitimate children. A way was devised by which the state would look after the war babies if their parents did not or were unable to. Another problem women faced was locating other family members who may have survived the migration. In some cases, the women could not tell the truth of their abduction as well, as they were made to believe that it was in their favour to stay with the abductor. These are some of the difficulties faced by the displaced women that the book documents.
The book’s title, Torn from the roots, indicates the violent process of uprooting. The uprooting of women had specific dimensions unique to the challenges faced by them in being displaced. These have been presented as a more or less chronological series of events in a very lucid way of writing. Written and published about two decades after the events, Patel is able to draw a nuanced picture, which also forms a holistic whole. Patel contextualises the developments in the refugee camps by citing global and local events that kept on changing the dynamics of their operations. Events such as the military struggle between the two countries in Kashmir and festivals such as Baisakhi place the happenings in her life and in the camp on a broad timeline. Patel’s work is a lesser-known but valuable account that skillfully brings together her association with the rescue operations, the lives of the displaced women, children, and the enormous changes at the global level.
One of the first impressions that a reader would possibly be left with while and after reading the book is the image of women’s despair. Still, Patel reminds us throughout the book how the women of Punjab showed resistance and resilience in the most adverse times. She recalls instances where the last act of resistance chosen was death, as in the case of Mianwali, where the dead bodies of women had filled a well. Here, she sees the act as a choice of honour over life. Books on India’s partition are testimony to many such instances. My agenda here, though, is to highlight something differently.
I believe that the book’s merit lies in bringing forth the idea of care in such a period of communal rupture. Patel and her associates aimed not only to rescue the women who had been left behind in Pakistan but also to help them overcome the memories of ruination from their recent past in some capacity. One of the examples that have been cited is the case of about six hundred refugees who were to halt at the camp led by Patel in Lahore before moving ahead to India. Lack of water and food had led the women and children to a state of severe malnutrition, to the extent that a child being carried by her mother died as they just entered the camp, similar to three of the child’s siblings, who had died before. The volunteers and others at the camp cared for the six hundred people, from making food to arranging clothes for them and using lotions to get rid of the lice in their hair and bodies (p.88). They eventually left for India after a week’s stay. This incident demonstrates how care enabled the people to gravitate towards a cause for sustenance. This is a moment of remarkable resilience, and the book is a collection of varied experiences, but what cuts across them all is the desire for care.
The book is perhaps the only published account of the women's experiences and journeys of displacement from the perspective of someone who was so intimately connected to the rescue operations following India’s partition. This writing also offers an understanding of the problems that women had to face in the face of forced migration. One of the questions was that of war babies. Some of the women abducted ended up bearing children out of wedlock. When these women were to cross the borders, they were insecure about their families' acceptance of illegitimate children. A way was devised by which the state would look after the war babies if their parents did not or were unable to. Another problem women faced was locating other family members who may have survived the migration. In some cases, the women could not tell the truth of their abduction as well, as they were made to believe that it was in their favour to stay with the abductor. These are some of the difficulties faced by the displaced women that the book documents.
The book’s title, Torn from the roots, indicates the violent process of uprooting. The uprooting of women had specific dimensions unique to the challenges faced by them in being displaced. These have been presented as a more or less chronological series of events in a very lucid way of writing. Written and published about two decades after the events, Patel is able to draw a nuanced picture, which also forms a holistic whole. Patel contextualises the developments in the refugee camps by citing global and local events that kept on changing the dynamics of their operations. Events such as the military struggle between the two countries in Kashmir and festivals such as Baisakhi place the happenings in her life and in the camp on a broad timeline. Patel’s work is a lesser-known but valuable account that skillfully brings together her association with the rescue operations, the lives of the displaced women, children, and the enormous changes at the global level.
Yakin Kinger is an architect and is currently a teaching associate at CEPT University, Ahmedabad. His current research focuses on decoding the archival photographs of the uprising of 1857 through a postcolonial lens and theorising industrial modernity in colonial India in the late 19th century.
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