Abstract:This paper seeks to analyse the causes of sectarian violence against women which are rooted in the history of the partition of the country during independence and patriarchal attitudes which continue to dominate society. That this violence was gendered is a fact largely ignored by recorded historyal though it appears as a recurrent theme in the fictional narratives of the partition.

"Abstract: Fear is one of the primary emotions and state of psychological being which affects the physical existence of human being. Literature dealing with holocaust, partition or physical violence also highlights the dimension of fear. Victims are always under the siege of psychological trauma that devastates their human existence.

Abstract: The colonial archives are filled with documents detailing incidents of arson, beatings, shootings, robberies and harassment that occurred along the contours of the numerous borders that separated French India from India following the departure of the British in 1947. The framing of these years as a period of terror wrought by “goondas” covered an underlying anxiety about the future of the nation-state and national citizenship at the moment of decolonization.