Events

The Centre for Policy Research invites you to a symposium on:

Revisiting the Partition of 1947: History, Memory, and Remembrance

Chief Guest and Inauguration by:
Shri Ram Bahadur Rai, Chairman of Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts (IGNCA), Ministry of Culture, Government of India; recipient of Padma Bhushan  and Padma Shri. 

Speakers:
Lady Kishwar Desai, Chairperson of Arts & Heritage Cultural Trust, Partition Museum(Amritsar and Delhi)

Vivek Shukla, Senior Journalist

Rekha Saxena, Senior Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science, Delhi University

Souradeep Banerjee, Doctoral Candidate in Political Science, Temple University, USA

Curator:
Ashwani Kumar, Senior Visiting Fellow, CPR

Tuesday,  13th October 2026, 4 PM IST onwards.

The event will be held at the CPR office (Dharma Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi) and online over Zoom.

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About the Talk 

The Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 was not merely a political and territorial division. It was a profound rupture that reshaped communities, identities, cultures, relationships, and ideas of home and belonging. How did the “freedom at midnight” turn into days and nights of violence and horror, leading to a profound fracture in the social and cultural fabric of a civilisation? While the violence, displacement, and refugee movements that accompanied Partition remain central to its history, its consequences extended far beyond the immediate events of 1947 and continue to shape the social and political imagination of the subcontinent.

Earlier understandings of Partition were largely shaped by a liberal, elite historiography, centred on high politics and the negotiations between the colonial state and political leaders. Scholarship has since broadened its lens to include local histories, communities, gender, everyday experiences, oral histories, and individual narratives. These perspectives have also found expression in literature, cinema, OTT series, museums, memorials, and social media. Thus, Partition cannot be understood as a settled chapter of 1947. It did not merely divide territory; it also divided memories, cultures, communities, and selves.

The symposium invites reflection on how history is remembered and lived across generations and how deep wounds of the past are carried, transformed, and sometimes healed. How do people and communities move beyond histories of rupture to rebuild lives, relationships, and possibilities of living together?

About the Chief Guest
Shri Ram Bahadur Rai is a distinguished journalist, author and public intellectual, and serves as the Chairman of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Widely revered as a towering and seer-like presence in Hindi journalism and public discourse, he has served as the News Editor of  Jansatta and has been associated with Hindustan Samachar and the Hindi daily Aj. A prolific author and biographer, he has written acclaimed works including Shashwat Vidrohi Rajneta (2016) on Acharya J.B. Kriplani, Raghuvir Ke Sawal (2018), and Manzil Se Zyada Safar (2006) on former Prime Ministers Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Chandra Shekhar. A recipient of several honours, including the Padma Shri (2015) and Padma Bhushan (2025), he has made pioneering contributions to journalism, public discourse, and cultural thought.

About the Speakers
Lady Kishwar Desai is the Chairperson of the Arts and Heritage Cultural Trust, which established the world’s first museum and memorial dedicated to the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent, with institutions in Amritsar and Delhi. An acclaimed author, she has written the probing and affectionate biography Darlingji: The True Love Story of Nargis and Sunil Dutt, and The Longest Kiss: The Life and Times of Devika Rani, which was recognised for the National Film Award for Best Book on Indian Cinema. Her debut novel, Witness the Night, won the Costa Book Award for Best First Novel in the UK and Ireland. 

Vivek Shukla is a senior journalist, columnist, author and historian with over 38 years of experience in Hindi and English media. In his journalistic career, he was the Senior Editor at Dainik Bhaskar and a Special Correspondent with the Hindustan Times. He is also a chronicler of the city of Delhi and has devoted significant time to researching and writing about Delhi’s history, politics and architecture. His recent book 1947: विभाजन के शेष सवाल (1947: Vibhajan ka Shesh Sawal) on the Partition was released in September 2026.

Rekha Saxena is a prominent Political scientist, Senior Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Delhi. She is Honorary Senior Advisor at the Forum of Federations, Ottawa, and Vice-Chairperson of the Centre for Multilevel Federalism, New Delhi. She has also served as Lead Coordinator of the Leverhulme International Network on Indian Federalism and as a Member of the Task Force for the Justice Punchhi Commission on Centre–State Relations. Her recent book, The Rajya Sabha: A Federal Second or a Secondary Chamber? is a pathbreaking study of the Rajya Sabha’s role in Indian federalism.

Souradeep Banerjee is a Doctoral Candidate in Political Science at Temple University, Philadelphia, USA. He is currently working on a monograph on Partition refugees and social service provision by the Hindu Mahasabha. A recipient of prestigious research grants from the American Political Science Association, including the Centennial Grant and a Grant from the Religion and Politics Section  as well the Dissertation Completion Grant from the International Studies Association (ISA), he is engaged in research on the understudied politics of memory, examining the impact of museums and memorialisation projects on public opinion. His writings have appeared in India Review and Economic & Political Weekly, as well as The Indian Express, Scroll.in, Outlook, and The Hindu.

About the Curator
Ashwani Kumar is a distinguished political scientist, public policy scholar, and currently Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi. His work focuses on governance, welfare, democracy, migration, and public policy, with significant contributions to MGNREGA, rural development, and electoral governance through leadership roles with the Government of India, the Election Commission, and international institutions Beyond academia, he is a celebrated English-language poet and literary curator and his latest book is Map of Memories(2025).