Partition and Patriarchy: Toxic Masculinity and the Partition of India

Abstract

This paper examines the role of toxic masculinity and the gendered aspects of violence that accompanied the creation of independent India and Pakistan and the subsequent partition of Punjab in 1947. While violence characterized the partition of British India into India and Pakistan for everyone involved, women faced additional and unique forms of violence. Most early research on the partition of India focused on political history. More recently scholars like Ritu Menon, Kamla Bhasin, Urvashi Butalia, and Pippa Virdee have examined the partition experience of ordinary women using interviews they conducted. This paper uses the interviews they conducted and primary documentation from the period and the years immediately following to examine the causes of the violence women experienced. This research argues that toxic masculinity influenced men’s violence against women as representatives of the ‘other’ and against women in their own families as a preventative measure. The states of India and Pakistan also exhibited the influence of toxic masculinity in the forced repatriation of the abducted women. Understanding the causes of the unique forms of violence women face in times of intercommunal strife may help us understand and perhaps alleviate some of its effects in current conflicts.