The Witnesses
Stories from the Children of Partition
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The Witnesses
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Summary
Marking the 80th anniversary of Partition—the 1947 division of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan—The Witnesses brings to life the experiences of a generation who lived through one of the largest and most violent migrations in modern history. Fifteen million people were displaced and more than a million were killed, yet the stories of those who experienced Partition as children are disappearing with the last generation who remembers it firsthand.
For twenty years, Academy Award–winning filmmaker, journalist, and activist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has been collecting oral histories from people who lived through Partition as children in Pakistan, while a friend in India has been building a parallel archive. Drawing equally from the Citizens’ Archive of India and the Citizens Archive of Pakistan, The Witnesses brings together 30 stories—15 from each side of the border—rooted in firsthand testimony and told as intimate literary narratives through a child’s eyes.
These are stories of the homes they fled, the families they lost, the impossible choices they witnessed and the resilience that carried them forward. At their heart is a universal experience: what it means to lose home—not simply property or geography, but the ordinary certainty that tomorrow will resemble yesterday.
While every displacement is distinct, the experiences of these children echo in the lives of displaced children around the world today. The Witnesses preserves voices that may soon be lost and invites new generations to reflect on memory, migration, identity, and belonging.
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