Abstract
In August 1947 the Indian Subcontinent achieved its freedom from the British Raj after being partitioned into two independent nation-states, Pakistan and India, along the religious line. However, this freedom was colored in the blood of millions of people because what followed then was one of the largest scales of ethnic cleansing and forced migration in all of human history. However, even after almost seven decades, there are many aspects of the Partition that are still unexplored. While there are many studies available on the political developments of that time, the lived experiences of the Partition are still under-documented. In particular, the voices of those who belonged to those regions of India which, unlike Bengal and Punjab, saw relatively less bloodshed, are less recorded. Consequently, this skewed focus gave rise to the assumption that migration was engendered by the violence only and that it was only limited to the year of 1947. The conventional narrative of the Partition has also ignored the migration experiences from the perspective of religious minority communities; in particular, the voices from within the Nizari Ismaili community are missing. The purpose of this research is to analyze the rationale behind the Nizari Ismailis’ decision to migrate and to settle in their specific destination cities of Pakistan (including Bangladesh) so that the migration wave of the Nizari Ismailis from India to Pakistan could be better understand. It also aims to add substantially to the historiography of the subject matter about which not much is known.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Partition, Migration, Lived experience, Nizari Ismailis
