1947 partition Narratives: 'Longing & Belonging' Goethe-Inst

Goethe-Institut Bangladesh and Goethe-Institut Kolkata Friday launched the event 'Longing and Belonging,' a collection of narratives on the 1947 partition, on Facebook. - UNB

Dhaka, Jul 10 – Goethe-Institut Bangladesh and Goethe-Institut Kolkata Friday launched the event "Longing and Belonging," a collection of narratives on the 1947 partition, on Facebook.
Assembling the narratives of the 1947 partition by a section of Dhaka residents who experienced or were affected by that course of history, the Longing and Belonging project presents a collection of interviews and visual materials to trace the contours of those negotiations and attachments and to establish, in their fluid state, how a place makes subjects and subjects make a place.
The event featured readings, discussions, reflections and poetry recitation.
Writer-researcher Parsa Sanjana Sajid and researcher-educator Professor Sayeed Ferdous, the project co-leads, were accompanied by a group of invited local and foreign experts – comprising Canada-based Pakistani writer, oral historian and educator Anam Zakaria; human rights lawyer and founder of the organisation Council of Minorities Khalid Hussain, writer Javed Hussen; Indian writer, journalist and photographer Nazes Afroz and poet Shamim Zamanvi.
"Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has warned us of 'the danger of a single story' – and the different chapters of 'Inherited Memories' follow that proposition. The project particularly explores the diversity of recollections, of memories that continue to live on in space and time and across generations. Read, view and listen in to Longing and Belonging, and be ready for a journey full of discoveries of diversity in the 'Indian émigré' communities of Mirpur and Mohammadpur," Dr Kirsten Hackenbroch, director of Goethe-Institut Bangladesh, said at the event.
Parsa Sanjana said, "Longing and Belonging is pieced together from jagged conversations, supplemented by photographs, memorabilia, and archival documents. It's a collection of narratives from Urdu-speaking – whom the poet Ahmed Ilias calls Indian emigres as a more accurate encapsulation – residents of Dhaka's Mirpur and Mohammadpur, communities who were affected by the 1947 partition of British colonial India. Longing and Belonging stands as a record and testimony of community, and offers reflections on home, attachments, friendship, identity, the generational transmission of stories and more."
While speaking on oral history and narratives as inheritance, Anam Zakaria said, "Close to 75 years after the partition of 1947 and 50 years since the birth of Bangladesh, it is increasingly evident that the experiences and memories of those years continue to shape us."
"Far from being static 'events' that we can leave behind, Longing and Belonging reminds us of how our present leaves imprints on our understanding of the past and the past impacts our present. Memories and histories are passed on from generation to generation, taking on new meanings and revealing the journey of partition after partition."
Nazes Afroz, who supervised and led the first part of the Inherited Memories/My Parents' World, said: "These memory projects are immensely helpful for the present generation to negotiate the past events that are shaping them. Historical events have human faces and human stories that are often overlooked. Through these projects, we are trying to humanise the events that left an indelible impact on the lives of millions."
Longing and Belonging is another phase of Goethe-Institut's Inherited Memories project, which assembles narratives of the 1947 partition by those who experienced or were affected by that course of history. More than recollections, these are openings that offer an understanding of negotiations and attachments, their deepening or dissolution, from the cleaved circumstances of partition into the present. - UNB