Is history too much with us? In some sense, yes, but in its broader and deeper sense, no.
Who is to blame for the 1947 Partition of India and the large-scale violence that it triggered? There are accusations and recriminations.
Akhilananda Dutta comes from a family of doctors. Born in Dhaka in 1942 to a doctor and a housewife, he recalls that most of their family members were doctors at that time.
A recent and a very good historian of Bengal, Nitish Sengupta has observed that [in the mid-19th century] 'Nowhere else in the subcontinent were Muslims as worse off in Bengal, just as, paradoxically, few other communities derived as much benefit from British rule as the Bengali Hindus'.
"The partition of India was effectively the partition of the two main Muslim-majority provinces, Punjab and Bengal. There was nothing inevitable or pre-determined about this."
She says that when she visited Noakhali recently, she felt that both East and West Bengal are part of same culture. She would like to do away with the complex wires and visa system between two Bengals, she says.
"It took me a long time to realise that my family and I, like every other citizen of the current state of Bangladesh, were directly and indirectly a by-product of the Partition to the extent that even our daily struggles sometimes evolved around it," writes Meghna Guhathakurta.
Ten years ago I met Gazi in Bangladesh's Satkhira region, in a small island called Koikhali. He had come with his immediate family about 60 years back, at the stroke of midnight, with nothing but the clothes on his back.
We call '1947' a phenomenon. Although often referred to as 'the Partition' for convenience, it is hard to settle on an agreed description. How should one describe 1947?
Partition, unquestionably a pivotal event of the South Asian twentieth century, has become a subject of great significance in its own right.
Through 1945 to 1946 and a part 1947, we were in Calcutta. During the riots, three families moved to 11 Circus Range for protection from any attack from non-Muslims.
Pushpa Nangia was born in 1939 in Murree Hills, Rawalpindi. Her father was an engineer for the Military Engineering Services (MES) and her mother was homemaker. The Mukker family migrated from Nowshera to Delhi just a few days after the Partition, which also happened to be the day of Mrs Nangia's eighth birthday.
It was only the other day, some six decades after my mother's family left Pakistan, that I learnt about how they travelled to India in the aftermath of Partition.
A special train was arranged for Mr Appu's family and all of the workers in his father's factory to migrate from Lucknow.
Ten years ago I met Gazi in Bangladesh's Satkhira region, in a small island called Koikhali. He had come with his immediate family about 60 years back, at the stroke of midnight, with nothing but the clothes on his back.
"It took me a long time to realise that my family and I, like every other citizen of the current state of Bangladesh, were directly and indirectly a by-product of the Partition to the extent that even our daily struggles sometimes evolved around it," writes Meghna Guhathakurta.
She says that when she visited Noakhali recently, she felt that both East and West Bengal are part of same culture. She would like to do away with the complex wires and visa system between two Bengals, she says.
In an interview with Star Weekend, Tanvir Mokammel talks about the significance of 1947 in his films, the role of artists in documenting history and the amnesia surrounding Partition among Bangladeshi filmmakers.
