Why Bengal Gets Left Out of the Partition Story

In Imtiaz Ali’s Main Vaapas Aaunga, we see the horrific scenes of Partition on film: “blood trains” carrying thousands, many of whom are slaughtered before reaching their final destination, as A.R. Rahman’s “Dariya” plays. But the lyrics were even more surprising: “chokher bhasha keu bojhena, kede je berai kotha, bheshe jai keu jaane na” (“nobody understands the language of my tears, I wander around carrying my unspoken words, they drift away and nobody knows where”). That’s because the last thing you expect to hear is Bengali when so much of our understanding of Partition — including Main Vaapas Aaunga — centers Punjab.

“The film’s geography is Punjab, so characters speak Punjabi, but I included a Bengali section to recognize Bengal’s experience, too,” director Imtiaz Ali said in an interview. But that’s all it was: an acknowledgement, perhaps a footnote in a larger story. The subcontinent’s 79th anniversary of independence and Partition will also mark the release of Batwara 1947, which also centers the western borders of India. When we know that everything from cinema to literature is a vehicle for how we remember our history, why do we keep forgetting the Partition of Bengal?