PARTITIONED IDENTITIES: WOMEN IN THE BORDERLANDS

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Dr. KonkumoniBoro

Abstract

Partition came as one of the most massive convulsions of human history, creating two states, namely India and Pakistan (East and West). Later East Pakistan was liberated from the west and the state of Bangladesh was formed in 1971. Partition arrived as a sword, dividing not only people’s consciousness but also their lives, their families, their identity and their lands. Hastily enough people were uprooted and found themselves at a new place, passing through some of the arduous times, which are still lingering in their collective memory. Pakistan was created on the basis of religion and those with Muslim majority areas were supposed to be included in the state of Pakistan. Despite the fact that Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) was a Buddhist majority district, it made excluded from India and made a part of Pakistan leaving the minority ethnic communities in the hills at the whims and fancies of the new rulers. The indigenous women of this region were subjected to exploitation by the arrival and impact of outsiders under different regimes. This study focuses on the plight of the indigenous women of ethnic minoritieswho were not only deprived and exploited in CHT and during their journey to India but they also at their place of settlement. Against this backdrop, the paper aims to explore how post colonial border impacted borderland women, leaving them in a state of double deprivation. How these women belonging to minority communities negotiated borders- borders of territory, of community, of patriarchy and of conflicts both of their own land and also of a foreign land away from their homeland.

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