279 Journal of Social Studies (JSS), ISSN: 1858-2656 (p); 2721-4036 (e) Vol. 18. No. 2 (2022), pp. 279-290 doi: 10.21831/jss.v18i2.49597.279-290 Living between brackets: Public-private patriarchal violence and the mental state of women on both sides of Radcliffe line Mostafizur Rahman Department of Science and Humanities, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Aviation and Aerospace University, Bangladesh Email: mostafiz@bsmraau.edu.bd Nahida Anwar Department of Sociology, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh Email: nahidasophy@gmail.com Abstract This study examines the public-private patriarchal notion of Sylvia Walby and its violent effects on women’s mental state during and after the partition of Indian Subcontinent. Systematic electronic searches were conducted in 7 electronic databases and 42 studies were included for final review. Findings explored private patriarchal violence including ‘honor killing’, ‘collective suicide’, hate and curse, social rejection, sex trap, cancelled communality, and twice displacement. Public patriarchal violence became evident through rape, forced marriage, and abduction. The private and public patriarchal violence captivated and imprisoned women’s minds and resulted in mental traumas including estrangement and emotional detachment, unbalanced minds, diseased thought and paranoia, post-traumatic stress disorder, ‘feeling of loss’, depression and sadism, ‘disturbing memory’ and insanity, haunted nightmare and spooky dream, and concealed grief. Keywords: mental health, private patriarchy, public patriarchy, partition of Indian Subcontinent, women psyche Introduction Once the Jewish poet Yehuda Halevi (1924) wrote, “My heart is in the East, and I am in the uttermost West.” Sometimes, there is a clear distance between physical and mental presence, between here and there. Likewise, with the partition of India, its bodies and minds were cleaved and separated. Many minds were left in Pakistan, while the bodies were in Hindustan, and vice versa (Chughtai, 2015). As society is never homogenous (Waever et al., 1993), there ever exists communality that fragments a whole society into pieces like a torn paper and results in the separation of its body and mind. The communality appears with violence, mostly against women, as to prove other community inferior, the easiest way is to disgrace its women (Nittali, 2013). Patriarchy socializes woman in a prejudiced way, where her sexuality is a cause of fear to her and she has a body that is ‘not her own’ (Nittali, 2013). It controls the psyche of women that is also a ‘part of governmentality’ (Basu, 2019) by both community and state and has fooled women by giving them sacrificing womanhood (Tripathy, 2014). In almost all societies, womanhood is considered to hold the representative position and her chastity is known as a sign of purity. Therefore, in communal riots, women become a sign of disrespecting a community (Nittali, 2013). During the partition of Indian Subcontinent, for instance, bodies of women were considered as the sign of scandalizing the rival community and hence became the media of revenge as well (Bahri, 1999). Likewise, two nations of India and Pakistan were inscribed upon the bodies of women (Kudaisya & Yong, 2004) that were the surfaces on which the text of the nations was written (Das, 1996). 280 Journal of Social Studies (JSS), Volume 18, Number 2, 2022: 279-290 Sylvia Walby (2011) considers patriarchy as the “systematically structured gender inequality” which has two forms; private and public. In private patriarchy, men control women individually in a household. On the contrary, in public patriarchy, women’s domination, exploitation, and expropriation take place collectively (Chowdhury, 2013). The private and public patriarchy was obvious during and after the partition of the Indian Subcontinent. In the communal uprising, with the intention to disrespect rival community and to prove heroism, one community would violate the women of rival community (for instance, rape, abduction, and forced marriage). Because it was the easiest way to disgrace and to prove rival community inferior (Nittali, 2013). When the men of the targeted community defeated, they would try to safeguard women’s religious purity and chastity by violating their own women (for instance, ‘honor killing’), rather than being touched by the opponents. Similarly, in numerous ways, women were the prime victims on both edges, in private and public. Partition history has less mention of women (Butalia, 2007), hence it prioritizes and emphasizes more researches in this arena. Some studies, mainly basing on fictional literature, tried to frame out either the patriarchy or the trauma of women, but they lacked the specificity of patriarchal violence and its link to the mental state of women. From this emphasis, this study aims at exploring the specificity of patriarchal violence, specially its public and private domains, occurred during and after the partition of Indian Subcontinent. Further, the study shows how these two types of patriarchal violence affected the mental wellbeing of women on both sides of the Radcliffe line. Methods Search strategy We accomplished electronic searches in Google Scholar, ProQuest, PsycInfo, PubMed, Informit, and JSTOR. Besides, the scattered online materials including books, films, and web resources organized in another web (http://www.1947partitionarchive.org/library) seemed effective. The search terms were “partition of India”, or “partition of Indian Subcontinent”, or “Indian partition 1947”, or “women amidst partition”, or “trauma of women during partition”, or “women’s mental health during partition”, or “women’s sufferings during partition”, or “patriarchal violence during 1947 partition”, or “public patriarchy”, or “private patriarchy”, or “patriarchy in India”. The web search was confined to article titles and keywords due to the excessive commonality of the search terms. In addition, a hand search of reference lists was also scrutinized to diminish the loss of potential literature and was included as appropriate. Screening, quality assessment, and inclusion The studies were included if they met these criteria; written on the partition of the Indian Subcontinent, published in 1947 onwards, discussed patriarchal incidence, mentioned mental trauma, and included women as the primary focus of partition study. All searches produced about 326 studies which were reduced to 274 after excluding duplicates. Articles were further excluded if they were out of the contexts and were the sub- topics that were discussed in detail in other studies. The study selection was accomplished in two stages; the authors firstly reviewed titles and abstracts, and then all studies were gone through for full-text review. A matter of concern is that the context of this study was very rare and insignificant in scientific articles, while it was amply present in fiction and grey literature. Hence, these were included to increase the width of literature for a thorough review. The full process finally approved 42 studies which included journal articles (12), books (10), book chapters (16), reports (3), and thesis (1). As studies were heterogeneous in types, as the scientific studies were fewer in numbers, and as the grey literature was more, the quality assessment of the selected literature was not possible. Information extraction and thematic analysis Three categories were outlined for the analysis of findings; private patriarchy, public patriarchy, and mental state of women. The findings based on these categories were noted to form a thematic framework. Then, the findings of all papers were designed to the framework that looked at what is thematically similar and dissimilar 281 Living between brackets: Public-private patriarchal violence and the mental state of women on both sides of Radcliffe line (Mostafizur Rahman and Nahida Anwar) between studies. If any dissimilarities were found, either new insights were noted or the existing themes were amended. Results Public patriarchal violence: The left bracket Patriarchal society has diverse weapons to bolt the chastity of women (Nittali, 2013). During communal uprising in 1947, victimizing women was the easiest medium to prove the supremacy of men on a rival community. Witnessing various violence in communal upheavals, women’s mental boundary was fenced with excessive fear and anxiety that killed them frequently before their physical death. The weapons that the people from rival community used against women were mainly rape, abduction, and forced marriage. Rape was the most heinous violence against women. Approximately 75,000 women were raped and abducted during the partition of Indian Subcontinent (Butalia, 2007) and even the pregnant and dead women were not exempted. Some women were reserved and retained for repeated rapes and humiliations (Nahal, 2003) and the retained women would sometimes become robotic objects, as Manto (1995) depicted in Khol Do (Open It). Aimed for ‘emasculating the enemy’ (Sengupta, 2012) and dishonoring them (Nittali, 2013), three main sorts of rape occurred against humanity, namely witnessed, symbolized, and post-death. In its first kind, witnessed rape, women were harassed before their parents, brothers, husbands, and sons, and being unable to bear the scandal, many of them committed suicide (Singh, 2001). Even, womanhood was tortured before other women, where mothers and daughters were molested before the eyes of each other, and many were dishonored before their gods’ idol (Duggal, 1951). The second kind of rape was symbolized rape where women’s organs, such as breasts, genitalia, were symbolized by cutting and marking communal symbols (Menon & Bhasin, 1998). Sometimes, Hindustan and Pakistan were inscribed on their thighs and breasts (Dhir, 1973). The third one is post-death rape where the level of ferity went beyond fortitude when women were raped after deaths. Manto in Thanda Gosht (Cold Meat) (1994) mentioned a young girl, the unfortunate, who was raped after her death, as though womanhood had no right even to demand a dignified death. Regarding forced marriage, women had to face cruelty in the hands of the people of rival community and were forced to marry the person whom she was abducted by (Singh, 2002). Sometimes, with forced marriage, they were forcibly converted as well (Menon, 2004). In most of cases, having lost all of their shelter, the abducted women had to marry their abductors deliberately (Butalia, 1993), and sometimes they were forced to marry (Nittali, 2013). The sufferings of abducted women appeared to be the example of bestiality and ferocity, nevertheless their agonies were not like the raped women, actually much more than the raped ones. Sometimes, they were killed, but if one looked pretty and tempted well, one would be handed over by several hands including police, doctor, army, and others (Butalia, 1993). The most attractive women were kept for the higher officials and less tempting were for the lower (Saint, 2019). The beastliness of abduction affected the mental wellbeing of women through abusing, oppressing, raping, killing, symbolizing bodies, selling like goods, using as gifts, and torturing in the hands of rescuers. The abducted women had double trauma than the raped ones. They would generally be kidnapped first, then raped, and later killed sometimes (Butalia, 2007). Nahal (2003) depicts an incident of some women where a man captured a woman with others whom he raped publicly and then killed. Besides, the abductor tended to symbolize them with religious signs (Chakraborty, 2014). Somewhere the abducted women were found symbolized with the name of abductor, date, and religious symbols, and somewhere the women were found marked with the symbol of ‘OM’, flowers, and Venus (Kidwai, 2019). The woeful abducted women were used as gifts and sold like goods at a very cheaper rate or free (Scott, 2009). For instance, Duggal (1995a) clearly mirrored such an incident where a girl was bought by an old man and at first was raped and humiliated by him and then was offered to a young school teacher. The young abducted women were also bartered and sold like cheap properties and chattels (Singh, 2005). They were distributed and 282 Journal of Social Studies (JSS), Volume 18, Number 2, 2022: 279-290 shared, as the ‘baskets of oranges and grapes’ are sold and gifted (Menon & Bhasin, 1998). A rescue operation with a majority of male rescuers was initiated. But due to the tortures in the rescue operation by male rescuers, females were later given partial rescue responsibility. Even, police, who plays the role of protector, became spoiler. Two assistant sub-inspectors, for instance, raped a woman after rescue, and a tahsildar (an official of revenue) confined a woman for eight months (Butalia, 1997). Despite such heinous tortures in the rescue operation, the patriarchal society did not allow the women rescuers to go singly for the inquiry of the abducted (Kidwai, 2019). Rather, they had to share the responsibility with the male rescuers. Private patriarchal violence: The right bracket Since women were considered as the archive of dignity and honor of a community (Nittali, 2013), the people of same community or households would try to save them before getting spoiled by the people of a rival or opponent community. As communal honor was in focus, the acts circled around the dignity that was ensured even in exchange for the lives of women. Such numerous violence by the people of own community or people in households, had impacts on the mental wellbeing of women through ‘collective suicide’, ‘honor killing’, ‘twice displacement’, hate and curse, social rejection, sex trap, and cancelled communality. Women had to commit ‘collective suicide’ to protect the honor of the community and to avoid the harassment and persecution of opposition activists. In Rawalpindi, a ‘mass suicide’ occurred in a village, Thoa Khalsa, where 90 Sikh women committed suicide abruptly. At the time of the riot, when the village was attacked by the opponents but the men flock defeated and became unable to protect them, the brave women, including their daughters, not just young girls, threw themselves into a small well to restrain their chastity, sexual purity of the community. But three of them were alive miraculously, as there was no plenty water to drown them all (Butalia, 2007). At that time, the women had only two choices, either to surrender or to immolate themselves, and the protagonist consented to die in order to avoid disgrace (Menon & Bhasin, 1998). In another case, several young girls were abducted in front of men flock, and many of them committed suicide to protect sanctity (Singh, 2001). The suicide act that was done deliberately was considered a ‘heroic death’ (Butalia, 1993). In the name of saving the sanctity and communal purity, men killed their women including mothers, wives, daughters, and claimed the heinous act as ‘honor killing’. Butalia (1993) mentioned an incident where 26 girls were taken to be killed, and they were thought to be martyred. Another chronicle of a grandfather and his granddaughter was while they were traveling by train and when the enemies were just knocking at the door, the grandfather, Santa Sing, killed his granddaughter with a pistol. The author portrayed the scene unprecedently gesturing that on the other part of the train the same unscrupulous acts were revolving (Gill, 1978). Another inauspicious study was by Butalia (2007) where a respondent, Mangal Singh, had lost his family members on the way of fleeing. They had to cross a river, but women and children were unable, and so, 17 members were killed by three brothers. The excuse was not about getting defeated, actually being dishonored. The women who were alive after rape were accounted for, refused, and were not cordially accepted or protected later, rather they were assessed as perpetrators and alive sinners. They were blamed and rejected by their families and faced bitter experiences for being alive (Bedi, 1997). Also, the abducted women who did not commit suicide were hated, cursed, and left by their parents, husbands, sisters, and brothers, and were accounted in such a harsh way, “Why did they not die? Why did not they take poison to save their chastity? Why did not they jump into a well to save their honor?” (Bedi, 1997). The men would rebuke the women contumely that she had lost her chastity, and the religion had been stained. Since the raped and abducted women were refused by their families, they were deprived of getting entry access to familial life. For instance, when Pooro came back to her father, he replied, “My daughter this is your fate. Where we will keep you, who will marry you. You have lost your religion… Nobody stopped her. Pooro kept on moving” (Pritam, 2009). The victims of abduction faced ‘twice displacement’ with multiple agonies through recovery operation. The operation reappeared as ‘second dislocation’, because after being handed over in multiple hands, they got another family and settled there, but became destitute twice by the rescuers. A girl named Ram Rakhi was renamed Allah Rakhi after conversion and settled up as a citizen of Pakistan, but later forced to come back to 283 Living between brackets: Public-private patriarchal violence and the mental state of women on both sides of Radcliffe line (Mostafizur Rahman and Nahida Anwar) India. On her way to India, she was carrying a hand fan written ‘Pakistan Hamara Hai’ (Duggal, 1995b). Here it is noteworthy that recovery as ‘twice displacement’ was initiated by the government of both countries, while their communities were reluctant to welcome the rescued. Being humiliated, persecuted, and misguided, the refugee women experienced horrible situations like sex traps during their displacement period. They fought for survival but had foreseen intensive harassment even by their co-gender, co-religionist, and co-community people. They were misguided and trapped in a helpless condition and then were raped, abducted, and forcefully married. Seeming the maltreatments unable to bear, several of them committed suicide (Nittali, 2013). Living between the brackets: Mental state of women During communal upheavals and riots, women would get stuck in such a condition that seemed like a two- way sword. On one side, the rival community intended to dishonor another community, where the victims were women. On another side, when the men of the targeted community defeated, then also the victims were women. The two-way sword and its fear fastened and confined women between two brackets, between the violence of two communities, where they had to endure various mental traumas including emotional detachment and estrangement (spatial, cultural, religious, and self), unbalanced minds, diseased thought and paranoia, post- traumatic stress disorder, ‘feeling of loss’, depression and sadism, ‘disturbing memory’ and insanity, haunted nightmare and spooky dream, and concealed grief (Figure 1). The partition victims had to undergo emotional detachment and estrangement that were divided into spatial, cultural, religious, and self. Their ‘physical dislocation caused mental estrangement’, as evacuating from their own homes was like evacuating from their minds (Nandrajog, 2019). For instance, a merchant, named Lala Kanshi Ram, got astonished when came to know that he became a refugee overnight at the place he was born, and with a broken heart while leaving his homeland, he became impassioned and screamed, “I was born around here, this is my home- how can I be a refugee in my own home?” (Nahal, 2003). “In short with independence several kinds of loneliness had been born, from the loneliness of the bed to the loneliness of the heart” (Reza, 2003). Bediuzzaman (2002) in Antim Ichchha (The Final Wish) discussed a migrant, Kamal Bhai, to be a ‘nowhere man’ who was estranged from himself. As most holy shrines of Sikhs were in Pakistan and the Muslims left the graves of their ancestors in divided India, they faced cultural and religious isolation as well (Nandrajog, 2019). Severe abuse unbalanced the minds of women (Khosla, 1989), and the trauma was so horrible that they became deranged. Manto in Khol Do (Open It) depicted the anguish of a girl who was humiliated in several ways. After the rescue, the girl was in a room where a doctor entered and asked her to open the windows that were closed. But hearing the word ‘open’, she started to put off her dresses and to show sexual attitudes (Manto, 1995). Not only her body (Nittali, 2013), but also her mind was not her own. Diseased thought and paranoia occupied the minds of men and women though they continuously changed themselves to get rid of fear and undesired outcomes. Davis in his work (1949) noted a case of a 22-year- old Bengali person who endured disturbing ideas, dread, and paranoia for a long. Though it was a case that happened to a man, the experience of women was not less than that. In his (Davis, 1949) own words, “The man first had dreams that he had urinated on the head of goddess Kali followed by a fear that someone might know this and punish him. He changed his name and dress, called himself a Mohammedan, and got relieved of the painful idea and fear. He also started speaking in Hindi, although he was a Bengali. After sometime he had an idea of sexual intercourse with the wife of a great Mohammedan political leader, and the idea started disturbing him and one night in his dream, he had sexual intercourse with her. He got extremely frightened and next morning he took a Christian name and got dressed in a suit and started speaking in English. He became a normal man in this way again free from troubles. But only after a sometime, he had strong obscene ideas about Virgin Mary. Now he is completely broken down.” 284 Journal of Social Studies (JSS), Volume 18, Number 2, 2022: 279-290 Figure 1. Public-private patriarchal violence and mental state of women. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was evident among the women victimized during the partition. For instance, a Mohammedan lady in old and dirty clothes was rescued from a railway station. She was still feared of something when some tea and bread were offered to her. In some cases, unwanted children were also the reason behind PTSD, because the unwanted children, who were born in hetero religion, seemed turmoil and treated as 285 Living between brackets: Public-private patriarchal violence and the mental state of women on both sides of Radcliffe line (Mostafizur Rahman and Nahida Anwar) polluted, whereas the mother had to choose either motherhood or own species (Butalia, 1997). ‘Feeling of loss’ showered sorrows on the minds of women. They felt that losing their homeland, they had lost happiness, soul mates, and many dear ones (Pittenger, 1947). Butalia (1997) narrated several cases of women who had lost their husbands and homeland and breathed their last being destitute. One of them was Premvati whose husband, at the time of the heinous riot, was murdered and she reached Delhi with her son; another woman was Sheelavati whose husband died of diseases and became destitute, and; another was an older woman who lost her entire family and committed suicide as nobody was left for her whom she could live with. The ‘feeling of loss’ made some abducted women eager to meet their parents (Sidhwa, 1989). But they were accounted for why they did not commit suicide (to save their chastity and purity), jumping into well or taking poison, and the accountability also raised ‘feeling of loss’ among them. Depression and sadism were other curses of the partition. Bedi (1997) presented such a situation where the girl, Lajwanti, was abducted at the time of a riot. Later, her husband Sunder Lal engaged himself in a recovery operation, motivated many women for restoration, and revived several women as well. But when Lajwanti was recovered, his dominion aptitude grew up, and he started oppressing and torturing Lajwanti. Having been impoverished and destitute, Lajwanti went to a brothel. Even though she missed her children, she couldn’t meet them as her husband was adverse to her (Bedi, 1997). A Muslim girl Dilshad was sexually abused by a non- Muslim, and then she went to Pakistan with new hope, but there the co-religionists also treated her like a sexual object (Shahab, 1995). Such unexpected incidents bestowed depression and sadism that the political leaders like Suhrawardy, Nehru, and Gandhi could understand and emphasize on treating the victims. Gandhi preferred to make the jails like the mental hospitals where the people are corrected, and the staff should be like the doctors and nurses (Gandhi, 1948). ‘Disturbing memory’ always chased women and sometimes resulted in insanity (Saint, 2019), immensely caused by the patriarchal violence. Eminent writer Manto was unable to write for two months, migrating from Bombay to Lahore due to the memories and traumas of partition (Sethi, 2012). Thousands of women were left unrecovered, but they tried to restore themselves in new situations, knowing that they would not be accepted as they had lost chastity and purity. The life of Pooro was such a kind where she tried to forget the disturbing memories of her past days and loved her abductor husband. Since they had a son, she consoled herself and did not return to her village (Pritam, 2009). Recovered women experienced infliction, scandal, and refusal, and then they had no way except to go to ashrams and brothels that gave birth to new disturbing memories for them (Asaduddin, 1999). Alluding to a woman, Khosla (1989) described an incident where a victim was repressed so horribly that she had gone mad and lost sanity. Sometimes, incidents, better or bitter, make impressions for lifetime. For instance, spooky dreams haunted a person for 50 years and when he had had the dream, he would wake up in a panic. The narrator was a migrant who thought, with their displacement, they have displaced their selves as well. They had a mentally ill companion who would sometimes scream, “Don’t kill me. I am a Hindu, look! while loosening his pajama strings, at other times shouting out that he was a Muslim” (Paul, 2002). Further, the forcefully converted women had concealed grief and feeling of resurrection to the previous religion they belonged to. For instance, an old lady who, at the time of skirmish, converted to Sikhism kept the trauma hidden in herself till older, and at the time of death she mourned and repented (Singh, 2002). Discussion The specificity of patriarchy and its effects on women’s mental health during and after the partition of the Indian Subcontinent were unresolved and unclear in current literature. With an urge to address the literature gap, this study explored private and public patriarchal violence against women during and after the incidents of partition and searched the effects of the violence on their mental health. The findings of this study remained theoretically similar to Sylvia Walby’s notion (2011) that patriarchy has private and public dimensions and has diverse effects on women. 286 Journal of Social Studies (JSS), Volume 18, Number 2, 2022: 279-290 The findings assert that patriarchal violence against women during the partition of Indian Subcontinent affected women’s mental state in various ways. The mental effects were emotional detachment and estrangement (spatial, cultural, religious, and self), unbalanced minds, diseased thought and paranoia, post-traumatic stress disorder, ‘feeling of loss’, depression and sadism, ‘disturbing memory’ and insanity, haunted nightmare and spooky dream, and concealed grief. These effects on the mental state of women were intensified because of slow migration, women’s vulnerability, rehabilitation in focus, lack of mental hospitals and staffs, misinterpretation of religion, and others. The world’s biggest mass migration was slow and it increased the vulnerability of millions of women migrants. An area would take about a week to cross or reach, due to elderly and children, and only 6-10 miles could be crossed in a day (Nandrajog, 2019), as most would leave on foot, while some by trains, cars, and buses (Butalia, 2007). Besides, the transfer process of mental patients between two newly-created countries was slow and it took 3 years and 4 months since partition (Kala & Sarin, 2019). Between April and October 1948, 3,761 Muslim prisoners were sent to Pakistan, and 4,078 non-Muslim prisoners were repatriated to India (Kaur, 2011). But that time, the asylums turned into jails, as Lodge Patch (1931) noted, “prisoners were many and lunatics few”. In terms of intervening the mental health of women, there was little from the side of community and state. As the rehabilitation was in focus, the horizon of health was ignored (Jain, 2019) and the communities were rather busy occupying their portion of newly-divided states. With the partition of geography and assets, the institutions including prisons and mental hospitals were also divided (Kala & Sarin, 2019). There were 20-odd mental hospitals in Indian subcontinents; out of which, 3 were in West Pakistan, the rest were in India, while in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, there was none (National Health Portal of India, 2015). Rather, there were some psychiatry units at general hospitals, but not sufficient and efficient doctors. All over India, there were less than 50 psychiatrists (Kala & Sarin, 2019), and was also the crisis of lady doctors, as 75% trained nurses and two-third of women doctors left Pakistan (Symonds, 2001). Though there were some psychiatric units and staff, the quality and pattern of treatment were below the standard and expected line. The treatment of mental illnesses was almost custodial in nature. In Lahore Mental Hospital, for instance, people, mainly Muslims, were cruelly interrogated in an interrogation cell (Carter, 2007). All Hindu and Sikh mental patients were discharged by the East Punjab government of Lahore, Pakistan, while their fitness was in question. During partition, at least 650 Hindu and Sikh patients were in Lahore Mental Hospital (Punjab Mental Hospital, 1951), but among them, more than 300 patients died in three years, let alone 210 deaths in 1947, due to the negligence of care staff (Punjab Mental Hospital, 1949). Actually, health care started to walk in the political footsteps (Mackenbach, 2009). Though mental hospitals in India emerged at the same time in America, and mental schools preceded half a century compared to those in Japan, the service did not get developed and disseminated as like in these countries. Here, the colonial rule can be added as a cause (Sarin & Jain, 2019), though many modern medical ideas, services, and education were initiated by the British. Actually, public health was managed by British officers, the Indian doctors though qualified could not grasp those higher positions, and doctors were not in the center of health care planning. Besides, the Indian doctors were suspected by both colonial government and Indian political leaders (Jain, 2019), but the Westerners were trusted more, and sometimes the inoculation by the people of other communities was refused (Pittenger, 1947). And so, the doctors remained silent in most of the cases (Kala & Sarin, 2019) and had little to do for the psychiatry patients including women and others. Traditionally, Unani, Ayurvedic, Siddha, and fold medicine were influential in India (Jain, 2019), but these covered little aspects of mental issues. In such communal violence and mental traumas, religious words were their sole source of the spirit of survival and hope. The Hindus themselves sometimes consoled saying that Lord Rama (or Pandavas) had to be exiled. Likewise, the Muslims consoled themselves as well. Reza’s Adha Gaon (A Village Divided) (2003) depicts a scenario where Wazir Mian expresses, “Arre, Bhai Sahib, it’s the fate of Muslims to be separated from their homeland. After all, didn’t the Prophet of God himself have to leave Mecca for Medina?” In addition, some 287 Living between brackets: Public-private patriarchal violence and the mental state of women on both sides of Radcliffe line (Mostafizur Rahman and Nahida Anwar) Muslims thought themselves to be ever migrants. In Joginder Paul’s Sleepwalkers, Sain Baba says, “In truth, we are all mohajirs… Who knows where Allah will send us after we’ve breathed our last?” (Paul, 2002). In course of time, due to various changes, the traditional patriarchy of Indian Subcontinent is diminished today. Women’s demands for freedom and equality brought perplexities among men about their social position. As the dependent housewife model started to be declined, men were baffled about their role and how to prove their superiority in the changing conditions. With the wave of industrialization and Green Revolution, opportunity doors turned open for women from all classes and castes who then enjoyed numerous opportunities. Besides, the rise of various forms of feminism worked in response to economic as well as cultural changes. These transitions changed Connell’s hegemonic masculinity (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005) and caused an emergence of feminized man or New Man. The New Man was in moral panic about what it exactly means to be a man, as masculinity requires continued proof of manhood that was frequently discontinued in new century. In line with the transitions, changes broke different aspects of cultural code and altered the mind-set of people to ensure a better haven for women (Sivakumar & Manimekalai, 2021). This study confesses some limitations. Non-scientific evidence that was purely descriptive with no evaluative items e.g. fictions were also included as examples of evidence. Besides, non-peer-reviewed studies, informal opinions, and abstracts were not excluded. In addition, where the scientific study was not available, fiction and grey literature were chosen and included. But quality assessment for the fiction and grey literature with the peer-reviewed studies was found impossible. Since it is a qualitative review, no analysis could be done for checking the accuracy of proposed associations between the themes. Conclusion India was divided as per the scale of the two-nation theory (O’Brien, 1988) where the nations were imagined, as the members of the nations never knew and even saw all other members. The ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson, 2006) that were communal in feeling brought the same community together and integrated, but increased distance with rival ones. The integration, respect, and fellow feeling for same community increased at a broader range, but decreased for the rivals at the same scale. This communal sentiment showered curses on the women of both communities (Nittali, 2013). Two intentions mainly worked behind the violence against women that the co-community people violated in the purpose of saving women’s chastity and purity (private patriarchy), while the rival-community people violated for dishonoring another community (public patriarchy). It was not intended always to victimize the women mentally. 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