a lot of the criticism regarding repetition is fair, yes. But it misses the point. Ms. Butalia has done something that really no other author has: record first-person accounts of the partition violence, from a population that is rapidly dwindling due to age. It is regrettable that more of such work has not been done. Of course she has her own agenda-- she is angry, and especially towards the violence visited on women-- but at no point does she make an attempt to HIDE this bias. You've got to be blind not to know that there is a personal pain and anger driving all this, and what is the matter with that. Stop criticizing her for tangential stuff and focus on the unique scholarship here.

a lot of the criticism regarding repetition is fair, yes. But it misses the point. Ms. Butalia has done something that really no other author has: record first-person accounts of the partition violence, from a population that is rapidly dwindling due to age. It is regrettable that more of such work has not been done. Of course she has her own agenda-- she is angry, and especially towards the violence visited on women-- but at no point does she make an attempt to HIDE this bias. You've got to be blind not to know that there is a personal pain and anger driving all this, and what is the matter with that. Stop criticizing her for tangential stuff and focus on the unique scholarship here.

This book reads like the sensationalist columns of a cheap eveninger. The authoress has listed a number of supposed to be eye witness accounts of mass murders and other brutalities and passed it off as an intellectual work of great merit. I totally agree with many other reviewers view that the book is extremely repetitive. The current trend in the world of arts and literature especially in south Asia appears to be one of playing to the galleries of the west. Shock their ( west ) sensibilities about what is happening in the east and good readership and fame and name is assured .The book lacks any kind of depth and analysis. The work is shoddy at its best.
One important criticism about this work stands out: The author repeatedly blasts the mass suicides of the desperate victims of these riots. Does she mean to say that the invading armies of the rioters are nobleness and kindness incarnate ?
The hapless victims in the face of imminent slavery in the hands of the satanical mobs have little choice. Though unfortunate , suicide appears to be the only alternative. This practice has stood the test of time. From the times when the marauding armies of Mahmud of Ghazni swept the plains of Punjab, the helpless civilian populace knows what to expect and what fate awaits them in the hands of their brutal conquerors.
And this author has the cheek to question and criticize these practices...The author has chosen to turn a blind eye to these pages in history books. Or is it mere ignorance ? With this the author has hurt the sentiments of the victims of these riots. She has desecrated the memories of these victims and insulted the history of partition. This book is of little literary value and lacks penetrative opinion.
This book ought to be avoided like the plague. It gives a skewed understanding of the history of partition.
Unfortunately there is no way to give 0 or negative stars or I would have certainly given negative stars.

I ordered this book because I am extremely interested in the
untold stories of the Partition of India even though the
reviews told me not to. I wished I had heeded the advice. The book is incredibly repetitive--to the point of being unreadable. I learned very little. Not worth the time to read or money to purchase.

I have read this book, Mr. Moon's "Divide and Quit", Mr. Khosla's work, "Stern Reckoning" amongst others on the subject of the Partition. Ms. Butalia's work is so saturated with her personal opinions and idealogy, that it almost ceases to be a work on history than the airing of one's thoughts and mindset. Almost a diatribe, if I may. I will agree with what john_galt_who has written. I think he has hit the nail on the head. I did not consider this book worth either the money or the time.

The amount of matter which the author has repeated again and again if you minus all that repeated matter, the book would hardly be of about a 100 pages .. Don't even borrow to read it ..

Ms. Butalia's more than 250 page book could be told in 20, rest is jibberish about "her" feminism, newly found sikhi, and in general absolute irrelevant non-sense.
The books core is interviews with about 5 survirors, the interviews are badly done, they are really monologues. It's a shame that they told their most touching stories to her and she squandered these in her own confusion. She forgot that she is because someone didn't yield and let her be what she is, her femimism and sikhi and all. That the history shouldn't be explained but told and understood. I would recommend not reading anythings from quackpots like her and her promoter Mr. Rushdi. These people are just as dangerous as the people with guns who shoot without caring about the target.

Urvashi Butalia is citizen and activist in India, the world's largest democracy. This book is a "must read" for those interested in the intersection of faith, ethnicity and identity in the Indian subcontinent in particular and in the world at large.

It is one of the few outstanding books on recent Indian history which integrates gender into the narrative to provide witness to the horror and pain of the subcontient's partition into India and Pakistan from the standpoint of one family, Butalia's own.

Part family biography, part oral history, this remarkably even-handed book deserves to be made into an epic movie.

Besides loss of property and loss of life, two of the subcontinent's many ethnic groups, more than all the others, underwent a sort of psychic dismemberment with partition that they have never really got over.

The Punjabis in the north, who lost west Punjab to Pakistan (and it is fair to say, west Punjab lost east Punjab to India) and the Bengalis of the east who saw east Bengal become East Pakistan, later Bangladesh, and West Bengal become a major state of the new Indian Union.

Urvashi, or someone with her exceptional gifts, needs to round out this narrative by doing a sequel on what happened in Bengal at Partition.