Abstract: Histories and aesthetics of space intersected in South Asian decolonization. The contest for space has continued to be reflected in South Asian cinema from the 1950s to the present. Spatial politics and the aestheticization of spaces both reflect current politics and urban policies and also glance back at colonial and postcolonial histories of national fragmentation and nation-formation.
"Few events have been more important to the history of modern South Asia than the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947. The coming of partition has cast a powerful shadow on historical reconstructions of the decades before 1947, while the ramifications of partition have continued to leave their mark on subcontinental politics fifty years after the event.
