AUGUST — Partitions: Divided country, divided people, and divided minds

Abstract

This article considers the political and personal impact of the partition of British India by reviewing the lives led by the authors' fathers. These men lived through colonialism, partitionand its aftermath, before migrating to Europe as young men. Taking concepts such as extractive introjection (Bollas, 1987) and alienation (Steiner et al., 1975), the article moves between the ways in which social and political traumas have been a part of the psychology of these men as well as their daughters' legacies.