In the Aftermath of 1947 Violence: Recovery and Restoration of Non-Muslim Women from Rawalpindi

Abstract

The paper focuses on the challenging task of locating, rescuing and restoring
the abducted Sikh and Hindu women from Rawalpindi that started
immediately after the March rioting and became a strenuous and systematic
task after August given the unprecedented scale of violence accompanying
the Punjab’s partition. In December 1947, the Governments of India and
Pakistan embarked on recovery work after preparing necessary legislation to
restore non-Muslim women to East Punjab and Muslim women to West
Punjab. Between 1947 and 1955, due to the collaborative efforts of the two
governments, the statistical data revealed that 2372 non-Muslim women
were recovered from the six districts of the Rawalpindi division. This paper
highlights that although the problems of political and administrative nature
entangled the recovery work and made it a laborious task what was more
difficult was to create social acceptance for recovered women, stigmatised
as “impure”, in a society where they were to start their lives again. Besides
dealing with unreceptive social attitudes, the struggle to cope at an
emotional level with the trauma of abduction and the ensuing untold
miseries shaping their identities and memories also characterised the new
beginnings for the recovered women.