Unveiling Identity:Effect of Partition on the Female Identity in Indian Partition Narratives

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of the Partition of India on women’s identities through literary and historical narratives. Drawing on texts such as Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy Man, Rajinder Singh Bedi’s Lajwanti, and Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of Silence, it highlights how women became the central site of violence, abduction, and forced conversion, resulting in fractured and reconstructed identities. The analysis situates women’s identity within feminist discourse, engaging with theorists like Judith Butler and Simone de Beauvoir to explore how gender is culturally constructed and constantly redefined under conditions of trauma. Partition narratives demonstrate how women’s bodies were equated with honour, nationhood, and community, leading to erasures, silences, and forced martyrdom. Yet, despite violence and repression, women’s struggle to reclaim identity reveals resilience amid historical displacement. The paper underscores how Partition not only reshaped political geographies but also perpetually destabilized female subjectivity.