Migration during Partition was diverse in scale, nature, and means of transport.

Some moved in
stages—from rural hamlets to larger settlements, then to temporary camps—while others left
cities via rail or air, crossing borders directly. Families migrated together or in separate groups,
often unsure if their departure was permanent. Many locked their homes, leaving keys with
trusted neighbors, expecting to return. Others understood there was no home to return to. Some
even moved, attempted to settle, and then reversed their journey. However, as violence escalated,
migration turned into a desperate and perilous flight. Trains and convoys were attacked, families
torn apart, children left orphaned, and women abducted. Entire trainloads of refugees were
slaughtered. By the time the upheaval subsided, an estimated eight to ten million people had
been displaced across Punjab and Bengal, making it the largest mass migration in peacetime
history. The human toll was staggering, with casualties ranging from 500,000 to a million.

Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin’s Borders and Boundaries critically examines this forced
migration from a feminist perspective, highlighting how women bore the brunt of this turmoil.
Women’s experiences of Partition were not just about displacement but also about their bodies
becoming battlegrounds for honor and revenge. Sexual violence, abduction, forced conversions,
and state-controlled “recovery” operations reveal how women were viewed as symbols of
community purity rather than individuals with autonomy. Their agency was often erased, as they
were exchanged between nations, families, and patriarchal systems that sought to control them.
By focusing on women’s narratives, Menon and Bhasin challenge dominant nationalist
discourses, shedding light on how gender shaped the trauma of Partition.

Women held a uniquely vulnerable position in the mass violence of Partition. Ritu Menon and
Kamla Bhasin’s interviews with survivors and those involved in rehabilitation expand on
historical records of this brutal period. Sexual violence became a weapon in the battle of identity
and humiliation. As Menon and Bhasin note, “the most predictable form of violence experienced
by women, as women, is when the women of one community are sexually assaulted by the men
of the other, in an overt assertion of their identity and a simultaneous humiliation of the Other by
‘dishonouring’ their women.” This violence was marked by extreme cruelty. Women were
stripped, paraded, and even forced to dance naked in places of worship. The Civil Surgeon of
Sheikhupura described the state of “women and young girls in all forms of nakedness” at his
hospital after the August 26, 1947, attack. A doctor in Jhang recounted a case where a railway
porter’s wife was mutilated, burned, and thrown into a well with her children. Women also
endured severe mutilation, including “amputation of breasts.” Menon and Bhasin’s Borders and
Boundaries confronts the silence around women’s suffering, revealing how their bodies bore the
deepest scars of Partition’s violence.

During Partition, many women chose death over sexual violence to protect their chastity and
uphold communal “honour.” Some drowned in wells, others self-immolated, often in groups. A
Fact-Finding Team documented a case in Bewal village (Rawalpindi), where, during the March
10, 1947 massacres, “many women and girls saved their honour by self-immolation. They
collected their beddings and cots in a heap and when the heap caught fire they jumped onto it,
raising cries of ‘Sat Sri Akal!’” Survivor testimonies reveal the horrific choices women faced. A
government schoolteacher from Sheikhupura recalled the August 26, 1947, attack on a refugee
camp, where his daughter, separated from her mother, tried to persuade a lawyer’s son to strangle
her. After three failed attempts, she was left unconscious. Other girls in the house prepared a pyre
using quilts and charpayees. The mass suicide of 90 women in Thoa Khalsa (Rawalpindi) on
March 15, 1947, remains a tragic example.

Partition violence against women was both physical and symbolic. As Menon and Bhasin note,
“women’s sexuality symbolises ‘manhood’... Yet, with the cruel logic of all such violence, it is
women ultimately who are most violently dealt with as a consequence.” Violence against women
during Partition carried both physical and symbolic weight, reinforcing the idea that their bodies
were battlegrounds. Public spaces like markets, temples, and gurudwaras became sites of
gendered humiliation. Women were branded with slogans such as “Pakistan, Zindabad!” or
“Hindustan, Zindabad!” to permanently mark their trauma. As Menon and Bhasin state, this
ensured “they never allow her (or her family and community) the possibility of forgetting her
humiliation.” Women’s bodies thus became living symbols of the new nations. Other brutalities
had deeper symbolic implications. Women’s breasts and genitalia were marked with religious
symbols, and breast amputation stripped them of their identities as nurturers. As Menon and
Bhasin explain, a woman who survived such mutilation became “a permanently inauspicious
figure, almost as undesirable as a barren woman.” Sudhir Kakar argues that these acts aimed at
annihilation, likening breast amputation and male castration to an effort to “wipe the enemy off
the face of the earth.” This violence extended beyond direct attacks to forced religious
desecrations and was not limited to external perpetrators. Men killed their own female relatives
to prevent “dishonour,” while some women chose death over assault. As Menon and Bhasin note,
this created “a whole new order of violence.”

The sheer scale of abductions and sexual violence during Partition led to government
intervention. Both India and Pakistan received numerous petitions from families seeking missing
women, prompting the signing of the Inter-Dominion Agreement in November 1947 to expedite
their recovery. This initiative was later formalized through a series of ordinances, culminating in
Indian legislation institutionalizing the process. Leaders on both sides condemned the mass
abductions, framing them as moral and national disgraces. As Menon and Bhasin observe,
political discourse emphasized that “the fact that ‘our innocent sisters’ had been dishonoured was
an issue that could not be looked upon with equanimity.” However, the recovery process was
complex.The Indian government assigned the task to the Women’s Section of the Ministry of
Relief and Rehabilitation, with Mridula Sarabhai as Chief All India Organizer and Rameshwari
Nehru as Honorary Advisor. Local police carried out rescues, supported by officers at multiple
levels. Between December 1947 and July 1948, “the number of women recovered in both
countries was 9,362 in India and 5,510 in Pakistan.” Despite these efforts, many women refused
to return to families that had rejected them. As Borders and Boundaries reveals, these women
became political symbols—claimed by nations but denied control over their own fate.

The task of rehabilitating women after Partition largely fell to other women—those in official
roles, as well as countless volunteers who worked in refugee camps, homes, and seva sadans.
These women served as doctors, teachers, wardens, and counselors, helping displaced women
rebuild their lives.They came from diverse backgrounds, including organizations like the
YWCA, AIWC, and the Women's Indian Association. Some were affiliated with political groups,
while others were widows and unmarried women who had also suffered loss. Despite lacking
formal training, they approached their work with dedication. Partition created a generation of
women workers, many of whom remained in government service. Premvati Thapar, head of the
Gandhi Vanita Ashram in Jullandar, played a crucial role in rehabilitating women, mentoring
young leaders like Krishna Thapar, who later joined the Punjab government.The Kurukshetra
refugee camp housed displaced families from Sheikhupura, Multan, and Muzaffargarh until
1950. To support widowed and displaced women, the Karnal Mahila Ashram was founded in
1948. It provided housing, vocational training, and employment. By 1955, government ration
support was replaced with financial aid, offering Rs. 12 to larger families and Rs. 32 to smaller
ones. Women were informed of their entitlements and discharged as they gained independence.

One such woman, a refugee from Sialkot, was brought to the Gandhi Vanita Ashram as a child
after being separated from her family. Though she never saw them again, the ashram’s support
helped her rebuild her life, reflecting the impact of women like Premvati and Krishna Thapar.
Partition forced many women—especially those who had never worked outside the home—into
the workforce. Economic necessity and the need to rebuild futures led to increased female labor
force participation. Women became teachers, nurses, clerks, and social workers, while some
worked from home. This shift delayed marriage for many, and some never married at all. The
breakdown of traditional restrictions enabled thousands to pursue education and careers for the
first time. Government and voluntary efforts played a role in this transformation. The
Rehabilitation Review (January 1949) recorded that in Delhi alone, 100 girls were enrolled in the
Mehrauli Residential School, 225 studied at Bal Niketan and Gram Sevika Shiksha Kendra, and
1,000 children—half of them girls—attended eight primary schools. Additionally, 10 young
women trained as nurses, 25 received basic literacy education, and 40 learned food
preservation.Beyond statistics, women formed support networks in refugee camps, collectively
raising children and aiding each other’s survival. Despite immense suffering, these women
became survivors, caretakers, and leaders.

In Borders and Boundaries, Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin challenge the silence surrounding
women’s experiences of Partition, reframing them not merely as victims but as agents of survival
and change. Their work exposes the deeply gendered nature of violence—how women’s bodies
became battlefields for male honour, community pride, and national identity. Yet, it also
highlights the resilience and solidarity of women who defied these narratives.Feminism in
Borders and Boundaries is not just about documenting suffering; it is about reclaiming agency.
Women resisted in ways both quiet and bold—through survival, through work, through forging
new lives. Some escaped captivity, others rebuilt shattered communities, and many became
caregivers, educators, and leaders. The book underscores how Partition, despite its horrors,
disrupted traditional constraints, pushing many women into education and employment. It
reveals that while women bore the heaviest scars of communal violence, they also found strength
in each other.By centering women’s voices, Menon and Bhasin expose the limitations of
mainstream historical narratives that reduce them to symbols of honor or shame. Instead, Borders
and Boundaries insists that their stories are integral to understanding Partition—not just as
history, but as a feminist reckoning with trauma, resistance, and survival.