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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Geneva Abdul

Uprooted by partition: ‘I feel I don’t belong in England. I’m a very proud Punjabi’

Muslim refugees crowd on top of a train in Delhi in September 1947
Muslim refugees crowd on top of a train in Delhi in September 1947. Photograph: AP

After living in Britain for nearly half a century, Pabitra Ghosh is still gripped by a rootlessness borne after being displaced from modern-day Bangladesh as a child.

When a communal riot broke out in 1950, Ghosh, then five, fled with his family across the newly carved Indian border from East Pakistan. The train journey was both “bedlam” and “traumatic” as they abandoned their home to start afresh in Kolkata.

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