THE weak, they say, have the purest sense of history because they know anything can happen. When we set out in 1986 to see how a cataclysmic event played itself out in the lives of ordinary people, we decided to focus on those most vulnerable to, and farthest removed from, the making of history: women, especially those destituted as a consequence of Partition. History has never been so silent as it has been on the subject of these women. What did Independence mean to women who suffered its most violent consequences? What was nation to them? Homeland? Religion? Freedom itself? Where did they find their place in this land of redrawn boundaries? Widows from 1947 are still to be found in ashrams and permanent liability homes in Karnal, Delhi, Rohtak, Jalandhar, Amritsar... It is from them and from scores of others that we heard about much that has remained hidden from history.
After the exchange of populations came the exchange of women. Having agreed to an apportioning of assets and a division of the armed forces, civil services and the CID, India and Pakistan entered into an inter-dominion agreement on December 6, 1947, to recover all women and girls who had been abducted in either country and restore them to their families: Hindu and Sikh women from Pakistan, Muslim women from India. In four years, 30,000 women were recovered. The job was assigned to the local police, assisted by one AIG, two DSPS, 5 inspectors, 10 SIs, 6 ASIS and social workers.
Waxing Sapphic Gently 
