Memory Practices in History Education about the 1947 British India Partition: Opportunities and Challenges to Breaching Hegemonic Remembering

Abstract

Memory Practices in History Education about the 1947 British India Partition: Opportunities and Challenges to Breaching Hegemonic Remembering Meenakshi Chhabra This article is an epistemological reflection on memory practices in the construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of collective memories of a historical event involving collective violence and conflict in formal and informal spaces of education. It focuses on the 1947 British India Partition of Punjab. The article engages with multiple memory practices of Partition carried out through personal narrative, interactions between Indian and Pakistani secondary school pupils, history textbook contents and their enactment in the classroom by teachers. It throws light on the complex dynamic between collective memory and history education about events of violent conflict, and explores opportunities for and challenges to intercepting hegemonic remembering of a violent past.