After the Partition: A Shared Cultural Heritage in Essex

Launching a New Pop-up Touring Exhibition 

Over half a million Sikhs, Hindu’s and Muslims came to Britain because of the upheaval of Partition, the promise of economic opportunities and a safer life. In 2024 Essex Cultural Diversity Project was awarded funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund for Sikh, Hindu and (Pakistani) Muslim communities living in Essex to reflect on seven decades of their families’ lives, to explore experiences, challenges, successes, and social change from 1947 to today.

With few original settlers surviving, this is the last chance to bring three generations together to document the fortunes of settlers and their families who can trace their migration directly to Partition between India and Pakistan. This is a rare chance to focus on lived experiences since Partition, rather than on the experience of Partition itself, opening opportunities to explore this unique cultural context within and between communities. As time passes and memories fade, it is important for Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslim communities to capture what shaped their modern heritage for posterity, and to reflect on wider issues of migration and colonialism today.

Through the project we have captured people’s memories through oral history recordings, films and interviews. The project has created a touring pop-up exhibition by emerging Sikh female historian Simran Bance with original images, memories, materials and artefacts, belongings from the time of the Partition which migrants bought with them when settling in the UK.

The exhibition was launched at a special event at Essex Record Office on Saturday 1 February, which was on display along with the oral history interview recordings. There were also talks and a panel discussion with interviewees, who shared their memories.

Find our more about the project and listen to the oral history accounts at After the Partition: A Shared Cultural Heritage in Essex

Programme of launch event

12.30pm Exhibition and light refreshments

1.00pm Welcome and project overview

1.10pm Interviewees from the project in conversation with Rav Singh

2.00pm Suman Gurjral, Harlow-based artist, on her work on the Partition

2.20pm Introduction to the Essex Record Office

2.30pm A Little History of Sikhs by Rav Singh

2.50pm Partition Poems by Suman Gujral

3.00pm Guided tours of the ERO

Photo: Mr and Mrs Kang, 1964