The panellists — Tarun Saint, a reader at Hindu College, translator Hina Nandrajog and Ananya Jahanara Kabir — have been working on partition literature. Noted writer Urvashi Butalia moderated the discussion.

Tarun Saint concentrated on early writings, the breakdown of communication and the incapacity for listening. He said these factors contributed to gaps and fissures in early writings and referred to the works of Sadat Hasan Manto. A victim of Partition himself, a sense of despair and dislocation is evident in Manto’s writings. Tarun felt the role of memory and problematising of memory was a major factor in these writings.

Hina Nandrajog spoke on Punjabi writings — short stories written during Partition — and said the loss of common heritage was a dramatic event for people, who sentimentalised the events of that great historic upheaval. It was especially hard for women to change their own identity, which is evident in the works of Afzal Ahsan Randhawa, Mohan Bhandari and Amrita Pritam.

Ananya Jahanara Kabir spoke on the fascination among young writers, who weren’t born or witnessed Partition, but it is stories that they hear from their parents or grandparents, which inspire them to write a novel or a short story. She argued it is through this exercise that they bring in new ideas about identity and Partition.