The 1947 Partition Archive is a
501(c)(3)
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of ...
nonprofit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
oral history
Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...
organization in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...
and a registered trust in
Delhi, India
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
, that collects, preserves and shares firsthand accounts of the
Partition of India in 1947.
The organization started in 2010 when Dr.
Guneeta Singh Bhalla began recording video interviews with elder Partition witnesses throughout the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area G ...
, and was formalized in 2011. The creation of the 1947 Partition Archive was inspired by the
Hiroshima Peace Memorial and the work of various
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
memorials.
The 1947 Partition Archive crowd-sources the collection of Partition witness interviews and conducts free classes, in the form of an online Oral History Workshop, to train volunteers in story-collection and interviewing techniques.
As of January 2020, over 9,140 interviews have been collected from more than 450 cities and villages in 14 countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, United States, United Kingdom and Israel among others.
The 1947 Partition Archive's methods of crowd-sourcing story collection include Story Scholars, a fellowship program in which individuals are chosen based on academic merit and prior experience to conduct interviews in a selected region, and Citizen Historians, a program in which volunteers can contribute Partition stories to the organization's website.
The website of the 1947 Partition Archive includes a Story Map that shows the migration patterns of each interviewee.
Given the sensitive relationship between Partition stories and Hindu–Muslim relations, only a small portion of the 1947 Partition Archive's collection has been released to the public in edited form.
Currently, access to the stories is granted on a case-by-case to scholars for academic research.
See also
*
Opposition to the partition of India
Opposition to the partition of India was widespread in British India in the 20th century and it continues to remain a talking point in South Asian politics. Those who opposed it often adhered to the doctrine of composite nationalism. The Hindu, ...
*
Violence against women during the partition of India
References
External links
*
The 1947 Partition Archive website
{{DEFAULTSORT:1947 Partition Archive
Organizations based in Berkeley, California
Partition of India
2010 establishments in California