Sahitya AajTak 2022: Aanchal Malhotra shares why she chose objects to tell stories of partition 

Author and oral historian Aanchal Malhotra and writer Samuel Dalrymple discussed at length the stories of people who witnessed the 1947 Partition of India, which they have recorded in their respective works, at the Sahitya AajTak 2022 during a session titled The Language of Remembering. 

Aanchal Malhotra, the author of Remnants of a Separation, a book that revisits India’s Partition through objects that refugees carried with them across the border, shared why she chose this fresh approach to bring out the stories of partition. 

Revealing that four of her grandparents came from across the border, Aanchal said, “Nobody (her grandparents) talked about the partition. So, I grew up with no stories. When I started to ask about these stories, they would cross-question me on why I wanted to know. It felt like there was a lot of hesitation to approach the subject of partition for many reasons, maybe because of what it reminded my grandparents or they did not want to disclose something,” she said. 

“But I really wanted to understand my origin and where they came from. So, I started asking them about objects they had carried; very normal objects such as utensils, jewellery and a small foldable knife. And, through those objects, they started talking about their life in what became Pakistan, and their school, their home and families. It felt as if they were more open and more willing to share while they were speaking about the objects. And I think, the object acts as a catalyst for the remembrance,” she added. 

While talking about the various kinds of objects people carried from across the border during the partition, she said, “An object is a great ethnographic tool to understand the realities of partition.” 

“And when you show these objects to your children and grandchildren, they become conversation starters as well. Otherwise, it is very difficult to start talking about traumatic history,” she added. 

During the session, Samuel Dalrymple, co-founder of Project Dastaan and son of historian William Dalrymple, opened up about his projects and the upcoming book. 

“I became very much inspired by Aanchal’s work. My first project with partition was called Project Dastaan, where we were interviewing partition families that migrated. And, then trying to put them in touch with families on the other side of the border who could show them what their houses and school look like today,” he said. 

Anchal Malhotra is also the author of In the Language of Remembering: The Inheritance of Partition. While talking about the same, she said, "My second book is about the second, third and fourth generation, who have inherited these stories. I was told many times that partition stories end with the first generation. My own grandmother told me that we never want to pass the memory along further. In speaking to younger people, I have come to realise that there is a lot of curiosity to look beyond the border, to see where their families came from." 

"I don’t think I have any identity crisis, but we are just curious about where the origin lies. I think it is very important to say that you can be of one nationality but still for the city or village that your family came from,” she said while addressing a question about native village and family origins. 

Talking about younger people, Aanchal also added that so many of them reach out to Samuel (for Project Dastaan) because they want to know where their families come from and want to show to their grandparents. 

Samuel, who has also been interviewed in Aanchal’s book for a chapter, recalled how he stumbled upon a scrapbook of his paternal grandfather (Scottish) post his demise and then realised that he also had a connection with the partition while he was already working on Project Dastaan. 

Aanchal Malhotra is the co-founder of the Museum of Material Memory, a crowd-sourced digital repository tracing family histories and social ethnography through heirlooms, collectibles and antiques from the Indian subcontinent. Her upcoming work is a debut novel titled The Book of Everlasting Things. 

Samuel Dalrymple graduated as a Sanskrit and Persian Scholar from the University of Oxford. He has been published in The New York Times and Conde Nast Traveller. He is currently writing a book on partitions which is expected to be launched in 2023.