The end of British colonial rule birthed two sovereign nations—but hastily drawn borders caused simmering tensions to boil over. 75 years later, memories of Partition still haunt survivors.

This article attempts to revisit the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi on women education, their empowerment and self-reliance, their potential of leadership qualities and capabilities to contribute to nation-building through the folksongs of Haryana and also how these ideas are adopted, adapted or rejected by women in the process of gaining agency. Innumerable nameless women have memorialized dignitaries like Mahatma Gandhi, Sir Chottu Ram, Bhagat Singh and many others in their folksongs.

The Partition of India was one of the crucial moments marking the transition between the colonial and postcolonial era. Partition has become ever since a long-term process that continues to elicit political, cultural and emotional contexts in South Asia. The creation of Pakistan as a homeland for South Asian Muslims involved the division of Bengal and Punjab along religious lines and while the celebratory narratives of decolonization and nationhood marked the official historiographies of 1947, trauma, loss and displacement were not part of the narrative.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the atrocities against women during the Bangladesh Liberation War using memory narratives, historical accounts, and fiction. Through a particular focus on Sorayya Khan's Noor (2003), the chapter analyzes women's memories of such traumatic experiences to argue that Bengali women were not only subjected to sexual violence by the West Pakistani military but were also ostracised by their nation to create a true Bangladeshi identity.

The concept of ‘border' in the context of diasporic subjects revolves around both spatial and psycho-cultural dimensions. The Partition of India has led to the emergence of the ‘Hindu' or ‘Bengali Diaspora'. This dispersion has jeopardized the lives of South Asian women, making them undergo a process of ‘selfing' in the new (host)lands. This chapter deals with the impact of the process of rehabilitation on the conflicting forms of the ‘new' identity or the identity ‘shift' among South Asian women in diaspora.