Framing the (Im) Possible: The Museumisation of Partition Memories in India

Abstract

The new Partition Museum in Amritsar remembers the violent past within the frame of the Indian nation. Although the remembrance of partition has been part of popular and public memory cultures for a long time, the violent pasts been split off from the history of independence struggles and the dead and injured have been categorised as sacrifices for nation building. The Partition Museum tells the stories of different layers of violence from different perspectives, mostly from the perspectives of ordinary people. However, the narratives are limited where the continuities of gendered violence, the (de)construction of national identities and the transgression of nostalgic attitudes are concerned. Nonetheless, the mission of the museum is based on ideas of coming to terms with the past, accepting the existing postcolonial nations of the British Raj, and emphasising peaceful cohabitations within and between the nations.