Much has been written and debated about partition of India. The book titled “This Side, That Side: Restorying Partition” curated by Delhi-based Vishwajyoti Ghosh earns uniqueness by dint of its graphic narrative.
The book was launched on the first day of the Lahore Literary Festival. At the launch, Mr Ghosh was in conversation with environment lawyer and activist Rafay Alam. Saba Naqvi, a Delhi-based journalist and author of “In Good Faith”, moderated the event.
“Restorying Partition” is a collection of 28 narratives and 46 contributions from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. It is a valuable addition to the corpus of literature on the partition.
Mr Ghosh said every partition story is a translation. It is translated from witness to successive generations. Ghosh, whose solo graphic novel “Delhi Calm” (2010) deals with the period of emergency in India, said the graphic novel was in its nascent stage in India. “My book is usually available in shelves for cartoon books and kids books,” he said in a lighter vein.
Mr Ghosh spoke of the plight of the refugees in the wake of the partition. He said he had been living in Latpatnagar, a ‘refugee colony’ in old Delhi where the refugees of Bharatiya Janta Party-dominated area had become landowners now.
Rafay Alam, who has contributed to the book, said he had his own partition story to tell. “There are so many partitions, one happened in 1947, the other is “partition of water” in the form of Indus Basin Treaty in 1960, the third took place in 1971, which is Liberation War.”
In another session moderated by another celebrated historian Ayesha Jalal, American academic Vali Nasr launched his book “The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat.”
Nasr said the Salala attack was the apex of American frustration with Pakistan as Washington believed Islamabad was not taking steps against militancy according to the US plan.
To a question, he said the Middle East offered Pakistan nothing to emulate. To him, Islamabad should develop its relations with emerging markets like Brazil. He said owing to its foreign policy failures in Asia and Middle East, the ‘indispensable’ United States was becoming the ‘dispensable’.
