With several fiction as well non-fiction literature on the 1947 Indo-Pak Partition, what prompted you to write another book on a topic so well-covered? 

You are right. The Partition conjures up very real and tragic images in our minds. And while I have used its backdrop against my novel, the idea behind it was to talk about the other traumatic events that have unfortunately fallen through the cracks. This is not a novel that is centred around the Partition, but it relies heavily on the aftermath of the Rescue and Restoration Act that sprung from the Partition. 

What is exactly the Rescue and Restoration Act, and how did it impact the lives of women?

When the rioting started, a vast number of women were abducted across the border–in India and Pakistan. They were then forced to convert their religions and usually married off to their abductors. The series of kidnappings created a human rights violation, which led the governments of India and Pakistan to release the Inter-Dominion Treaty, a precursor to the Rescue and Restoration Act, that the Indian Government drafted in 1949. The agreement stated that women who have been forcibly married and made to convert will be returned to the country of their religion at birth. So Hindu and Sikh women would return to India, whereas Muslim women would be handed over to Pakistan. 

The novel highlights the underrepresented stories of women involved in the rescue operations. Why was illuminating this aspect of the Partition important to you?

Women banding together to save women always makes for compelling reading because it is relatable. History has taught us that women supported other women and with surprisingly positive results. And using this slice of history, I wanted to talk about the stories that got lost in the crimson colour of the Partition. It is important for us to understand that a few women–and men–risked their lives to save hostages from a life of misery. It was an altruistic act, borne out of humanity.

Beneath Divided Skies explores themes of love, loss, and resilience. Was there a particular message you wanted to convey to your readers?

Yes, very much so. At the core, what you have survived does not define you. What it does do is make you stronger, resilient, and more capable of helping others in similar situations. Like using your knowledge and gift of life to make someone else’s life better. How women can come together, use every resource known to them, and protect others like them was the underlying message. And of course, never give up, irrespective of the situation you find yourself in.

What was the spark that ignited the idea for Beneath Divided Skies? Was there a particular event or inspiration that drew you to this story?

My parents are both migrants, having moved to India before the rioting started. When I would speak to my aunts and uncles about the Partition, there was a tiny whisper within me, which wanted me to explore more and maybe write about it. But then life happened and left me with no time, it is when the Pandemic hit our lives, the tiny whisper grew in strength and wouldn’t just keep shush anymore. As I started my research, I realised there is so much more than what we learnt in school. So many nuances, so many stories, so many voices that have remained unheard. And this is how the idea germinated, took root, and finally, in a literary form, it branched out.

One of the things that makes a book special is its characters. What makes the characters in Beneath Divided Skies unique and at the same time relatable?

The characters are you and me in a different era. Satya, Preeto, Santosh, Amrita, and Prerna, amongst others, are ordinary women who have undergone hardships and assimilated the pieces of their lives to make something meaningful out of it. The circumstances of their lives, the atrocities they face, are something as women, we face–maybe, in lesser degrees–in our lives. It doesn’t make them any different from us, but what differentiates us is how they dealt with the cards they have been handed. Surviving the Partition and extending the help across to others makes them stand apart. 

Setting is often a character itself. How did you craft the atmosphere of the Partition era, and what role does it play in your story?

A) It is a cause-and-effect situation. Had the Partition not happened, the condition of women would not have worsened and the agreements would not have been drafted. So, Partition is the catalyst for my story. I make use of the displacement in my book as a tool, but never get into the who-and-why of it. It is more of a backdrop. To craft the atmosphere, I relied on verbal anecdotes or stories people told me. How people dressed, which languages they spoke, what was the mode of communication, how did they move from place to place, so on and so forth. And I interacted with both sets of people: those who were in India when the partition was declared and those who migrated. This gave me a sense of what the migrants must have faced when they landed in an unknown, unfamiliar place.

 What surprised you most about the story or characters as you developed your book?

The camaraderie between the women. Their friendship, the way they raised each other’s morale, the help they extended. While this is a book that examines the horrors women faced, it also talks about men who risked their lives to save women from the clutches of their offenders. Saved women who belonged to different faiths than theirs! It is not always the situation that drives people to take certain actions; it is one’s core values that guides them too.

Historical fiction requires extensive research. What was your research process like for Beneath Divided Skies, and did you uncover any surprising facts about the Partition?

Research is my favourite topic and I can go on and on forever. In the interest of brevity, I’ll keep it short. Relying primarily on oral interviews with people from both sides, I read several books based on the Partition, about how Delhi was emptied and, later, filled as it became the epicentre of the forced movement, and how its map changed. I also perused white papers dealing with gender violence and related trauma set in the 1947 time period. 

Beneath Divided Skies is set in India, a country with a rich and complex history. The partition of India in 1947 left a lasting impact on the nation. Does the concept of division play a role in your story beyond the immediate conflict you’ve described?

Yes, the story is centred around division as the title suggested, a divided nation. Beneath Divided Skies deals with the lives of the migrants, concentrating on the women and chronicling their journeys–painful and inspiring–as they were. The Rescue and Restoration Act was repealed in 1957, and for almost a decade, the people who carried out the act brought back hostages, at times unwilling ones, across the borders. I have (also) divided my book into two parts–one that happens around 1947 and then a few years later. The second part takes a thirty-year jump and moves to the late 1980s, where it examines the need to have a central place where the migrants’ stories and voices can be heard. So, in many ways, the concept of division is where the story is centred around and its impact decades later.

By Divya Venkateswaran