This book explores the theme of continuous wreaking of brutal persecution of a Hindu family on the one hand and the uncompromising efforts of Muslim friend and neighbours to protect this family on the other. It is set against the resultant and barbaric forces let loose after the propagation of the two nation theory and the ultimate partition of India in 1947. Based on the social biography of a Hindu family that stayed back in East Pakistan it traces their journey how they became the ‘other’ in the country of their birth and faced persecution. This being branded the other led to part of the family migrating to India away from their natal roots. The 1965 India-Pakistan war further brought prolonged separation and sufferings for these half-families living on both sides of the borders. Subjecting one to encounter helplessness uncertainty and poverty in India and the other to the state sponsored apathy coercion arrests and physical tortures. The vicious atmosphere of violent communal aggression though did not stop their Muslim friends from protecting them. When the Muslim friend was killed by the religious fanatics in the newly liberated Bangladesh the left behind member of the Hindu Family realized that it was time to leave their motherland for India where they died with the desire to go back to their motherland buried along with them. Despite prolonged violence and tragic separation thereafter numerous memories of the self-sacrificing efforts of the compatriots served as recollection in collective living in the Indian subcontinent. About the Author Debal K. SinghaRoy is a former Professor of Sociology IGNOU New Delhi. His widely acclaimed works include Identity Society and Transformative Social Categories; Towards a Knowledge Society; Peasant Movements in Post-Colonial India; Social Development and the Empowerment of the Marginalised; Women in Peasant Movements; Dissenting Voices and Transformative Action: Social Movements in a Globalising World; Surviving Against Odds: Marginalised in a Globalised World; Interrogating Social Development; Women New Technology and Development; among others.
