The Sikh women in Partition

Shefali Saxena Tuesday 13th April 2021 12:50 EDT
 
Ganeev Kaur, Curator (Exhibitions) The Partition Museum
 

According to Google Art and Culture, Jagjit Kaur is an Indian Hindi/Urdu singer and the spouse of the music director, Mohammed Zahur Khayyam. She sang fewer songs for films than her contemporaries like Lata and Asha, yet all of her songs have been described as memorable masterpieces. Tikka Rani Jagjit Kaur Bedi kept strict purdah before 1947. She, along with her husband Tikka Surinder Singh Bedi, migrated to Delhi soon after Partition. She wore this burkha while fleeing Kallar. Once in their new home, with the pressing need to help re-build their lives, she gave up on the purdah and never wore a burkha again.

 

Generously donated by Sarabjit (Gugu) Kaur. The book ‘This is from Borders and Boundaries - Women in India’s Partition by Ritu Menon’ also mentions the story of Sikh women who came to India during the partition and remained in the country. Some of them even started working which made their respective partners (husbands) a bi complacent. Some of them were allowed to work but without any compensation such that the monetary responsibilities of the family still stayed with men, not the women. Some of them also tried to study. The book quotes Bibi Inder Kaur, where she said, “Partition provided me with the opportunity to get out of the four walls of my house. I had the will power, the intelligence, Partition gave me the chance. In Karachi, I would have remained a housewife. 

 

Speaking to Asian Voice, Ganeev Kaur, Curator (Exhibitions) The Partition Museum said, “Following the Partition, there was an enforced change of circumstances which meant that many women who had earlier observed strict purdah now joined the work stream. In the official rehabilitation schemes in Punjab, the government provided women with sewing machines and encouraged them to sew, embroider and knit and become self-sufficient and contribute to the economy, so these products would then be sold in the market.”

 

“In the Partition Museum at Amritsar, we have a burkha donated by a lady who observed strict purdah until the Partition. She wore this burkha while fleeing from Kallar, now in Pakistan, but after reaching India never observed purdah again! Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin’s book, “Borders and Boundaries” has a very powerful oral history of how a woman literally says that she “found her wings” after Partition,” she added. 


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