Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften

A collaboration between _Subkontinent, Critical Pakistan and BERSAS

Partition in Cinema and Fiction of the 1960s in Pakistan

Location: Donaustraße 84, 12043 Berlin

June 8, 2024

Doors open: 6pm

Programme begins: 7pm

Introduction and Moderation Dr. Sadia Bajwa (IAAW, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Sadia Bajwa is assistant professor of South Asian Studies at the Institute of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her research interests include the history of student politics, education and nationalism in Pakistan and colonial India.

Reading of excerpts from Jamila Hashmi’s Ban-Baas (Exile) in Urdu and English

Born in eastern Punjab in 1929, Jamila Hashmi was an acclaimed feminist novelist at the forefront of women’s writings in 1960s. She wrote a series of long and short novels that characteristically gave equal room to Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, emphasising shared experiences. ‘Ban-Baas’ is a story of violence and exile following partition.

Talk “LakhoN mein Aik” Partition Violence, Women and the Nation in Pakistan’s Cinema from the 1960s

Prof. Kamran Asdar Ali (University of Texas at Austin)

While the partition of British India (1947) resulted in the creation of two sovereign nation states – India and Pakistan – and promised new beginnings for millions on both sides of the border, the carnage, killing, and rape also remind us of the extreme violence and destruction humans are capable of. The female body, irrespective of its religious affiliation, became the primary site on which communities fought horrific battles to safeguard their ‘honour’. Join us for a discussion with Kamran Asdar Ali, who traces this calamity through its manifestations in Pakistan’s national cinema of the 1960s, during the rule of the military strong man, Ayub Khan (1958-1969). Partition surfaces as a major trope and aesthetic within the cinematic representation of the era, infused with the politics of national unity, family and honour.

Kamran Asdar Ali is professor of anthropology, Middle East Studies and Asian Studies at the University of Texas. He has conducted research in Mexico, Egypt and in Pakistan and published widely on issues pertaining to health and gender, ethnicity, class politics, sexuality and popular culture.

Q & A