From physics to oral history

Guneeta Singh Bhalla is a physicist and oral historian who founded The 1947 Partition Archive. In a 2016 California Humanities interview, she described working on postdoctoral physics research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, when the idea for the archive took hold. She connected her interest in preserving memories of Partition with her own family history and upbringing in India. Her account is a personal explanation of the project’s origins; it also shows how a research career can extend into public history through collaboration with interviewers and witnesses.[1]

Recording Partition memories

The 1947 Partition Archive collects oral histories from people who experienced the 1947 division of British India. In a 2022 California Humanities interview, Bhalla described the importance of preserving stories that families knew but that were not always reflected in the official histories familiar to her. The project encompasses many experiences across the affected region, including Punjab. A recorded interview is evidence of an individual’s memories and the conversation in which they were shared; it is not a complete account of every community. Interview conditions, consent and the passage of time matter when interpreting testimony.[2]

Preservation and access

Stanford University Libraries includes The 1947 Partition Archive and Stanford Libraries among the oral-history resources in its guide to the Partition of South Asia. A library guide helps readers find a collection, though access conditions and the material available to view can change. Collection guides can identify where interviews are preserved and how a researcher may be able to consult them. Its stories can be read alongside official documents and other community archives to study both shared experiences and differences between them. Sensitive testimony deserves careful handling, especially where it concerns loss and violence.[3]

Sources & notes

Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.

  1. California Humanities. 1947 Partition Archive Project Director Interview ↗Written source · Source date: 2016 · Locator: Physics career and project origins. Accessed 2026-11-03.Institutional record, collection description, or interview inspected.Return to From physics to oral history, paragraph 1 ↑
  2. California Humanities. The 1947 Partition & Oral Histories: An Interview with Dr. Guneeta Singh Bhalla ↗Written source · Source date: 2022-03-01 · Locator: Archive and oral histories. Accessed 2026-11-03.Institutional record, collection description, or interview inspected.Return to Recording Partition memories, paragraph 1 ↑
  3. Stanford University Libraries. The 1947 Partition of South Asia: Oral Histories ↗Written source · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Oral history collections. Accessed 2026-11-03.Institutional record, collection description, or interview inspected.Return to Preservation and access, paragraph 1 ↑
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Record PH-PEO-0269 · English edition · human review not performed