Analysis Of Partition: The Day India Burned

Ruby Kaur

May 10, 2014

Source 1

Ricardo Pollack is distinguished as a director because of the documentary, Partition: The Day India Burned (2007). The documentary itself discusses the detrimental consequences of the withdrawal of Britain's reign from India in 1947, which led to the forced relocation of men, women, and even children across newly defined border lines, along with violence, rape, and murder. The film makes it argument through dramatized reconstructions and witness testimonies, which offer personal insight into the horrors of the partition and conjure up feelings of sympathy and remorse. The film intends to make an educated public more aware of how an ethnically diverse nation was tragically divided and its effects on civilian lives. This is a secondary source with primary sources because it is based on witness testimonies and an actual historical event, but offers its own evaluation on the issue through dramatized reconstructions of the event. This source is quite useful and relevant to my project because it offers more than just the historical facts pertaining to the event. It offers a more narrow perspective of the broader, general history; thus broadening the scope of my research.

Source 2

The archivist, interviewer, and cameraperson is Guneeta Singh Bhalla. The 1947 Partition Archive is scholarly website that offers insight on the personal stories of many victims of the partition. The argument is made through eye-opening interviews with the survivors themselves. The website targets an educated audience that intends to learn more about the tragedy behind the event. It can be used as a primary source because it is provides first-hand accounts on the terror that took place. This source itself is extremely valuable ...

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...females, who were quite often silenced during this period.

Source 8

Lawrence Auster wrote an eye-opening blog excerpt titled India and Pakistan: Why the Mass Killing Occurred. The content of this excerpt explore the fundamental issues of identity and religion that led to the violence in 1947. The author makes his point by utilizing current event such as the train massacre in 2002, in which 50 Hindu women and children were burned alive. The blog is for an audience with some prior knowledge on the topic and continues to expand upon that knowledge. The blog is a secondary source because it introduces its own unique ideas regarding the issue and was written after the time of the event. It was very helpful to my research because it simplifies the wordy information often found on scholarly sites and condenses it into something comprehensible and relatable to the reader.