The case of India, in which textbooks have notoriously been the subject of much dispute in recent times, and have resorted to factual inaccuracies, deletions of historically important figures (such as, in one case, the first Prime Minister of independent India), or alterations to assuage ‘hurt sentiment’, is an instructive case for following these controversies, the produced consensus, the dissent suppressed, the conflicts revived, and the life-and-death struggles that are condensed into textbook form. A theme that has been central to the writing and rewriting of conflict and reconciliation narratives is the Partition of India in 1947, which is a theme that has been at the centre of the national narratives of three separate states: Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, the last-named of which is the product of a second partition (1971) that has revisited the previous partition (1947) in its histories, which in turn have necessarily led to a reassessment of a previous partition of a province, not a state, of which it was once a part: the Partition of Bengal (1905), thereby giving way to a layered set of partition narratives whose effects have so far not been studied together.
- Aims
Triangulated with a broader understanding of the central historiographical themes of the history of India (which historically included Pakistan and Bangladesh), and read in conjunction with a number of textbook controversies that have arisen when governments and ideologies have changed, with related changes in the textbooks, we were able to gain a more accurate understanding of what the Partition of India has had to mean at various historical junctures.
- Approach
This project examined the changing narratives of the partition of India (1947) in school textbooks, contrasting these with narratives presented in other historically-oriented genres such as university syllabi and specialist museums (the last of which have emerged in very recent times). This is linked with and emerges from two prior projects: on the historiography of modern India since the 1960s; and on the representation of the figure of Mohandas Gandhi, called the ‘Mahatma’ or ‘Great Soul’, since the beginning of the Cold War. As the Indian state changes its narrative of national belonging and its official memorialisation practices, it is important to review and assess the partition narratives, which have been central to inter-community acrimony or reconciliation, as they are taught in school textbooks produced by different central and federal governments, private education boards, or independent publishers.
- Results
Peer-reviewed articles
Benjamin Zachariah (2023): Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Unpainted Canvas: The Chacha Stories and a Bengali View of Weimar Germany, c. 1929–1932. Zeitschrift für Indologie und Südasienstudien 40(2023), p. 136–154.
Blog post
From An Historian’s Notebook: The Emperor Vanishes. TheSpace.ink (June 5, 2023).
