Does anyone know of any primary sources that contain anecdotes or a compilation of anecdotes from people who were displaced in the 1947 partition of the Indian Subcontinent?

by blankfacesemptypages

The main title really says it all. I understand that a lot of these sources might be in Hindi, Urdu, Bangla, Punjabi, etc., but even those are fine.

Alternatively, if anyone knows of any secondary sources that uses these primary sources, then I would be happy to look at those too (though I've combed through JSTOR and Google Scholar a lot).

caffarelli

There's more to life than JStor and Google products! In fact Google Scholar is actually kinda a poor scholarly index, I typically use it dead last. But mostly you didn't check WorldCat, a classic mistake! :)

There's a lot of things I think are pretty promising under India -- History -- Partition, 1947. In particular the personal narratives sub heading has a lot for you. I think this looks like precisely what you are looking for. This one is interesting too. But there's lots more in there.

drylaw

All great suggestions so far. It's definitely a good idea to look into secondary sources as well especially with this topic, to put the narratives into context. Having said that, this online Partition archive might be of interest. It's run by volunteers, and continues to collect testimonies by contemporary witnesses, sorting them geographically.

I attended a talk on the difficult topic of women's experiences of the Partition (including abduction and rape) a while ago, which has only rather recently received more scholarly attention. Not sure how relevant this important perspective is for your research, but this article gives a good introduction to oral history sources, specifically from women, other secondary sources, and covers a bit more historical background. Apart from the literature already mentioned it also lists this interesting book.