The FOCUS section of volume 7 is titled "Revisiting Partition Seventy Years Later: Of Layered Echoes, Voices and Memories". The articles in the special issue contribute to the existing historiography on Partition by giving cognizance to experiences of displacement, relocation, trauma, re-shaping of lives as well as their periodic re-telling. They re-turn to oral history as a source that informs the writing of Partition to emphasize the multifarious and fragmented nature of remembrance and testimony. In doing so, they bring forth, and even magnify, the absence of singular narratives while simultaneously puncturing official statist silences on Partition or the inculpating discourses that lay blame on a religious ‘other’. At the same time, the contributions revisit literary works that have been crucial in shedding light on the human dimension of Partition, its deep-felt impact on innumerable partitioned lives. The articles take us through sites ranging from Faqiranwalla, Sheikhpura and Lahore in present day Pakistan to Delhi, Haryana, Dandakaranya, Kolkata and the Andaman Islands in present day India.

The FORUM section consists of eight articles that rely on historical, linguistic, literary and oral history approaches. Among others, they deal with topics as diverse as the perceptions of India in Germany and the USA, countercultures and movements in the Indian and Pakistani public sphere(s), the revival of vernacular languages in transforming social spaces, and the roots of resurgent political authoritarianism in India.

The REVIEW ESSAYS rubric comprises contributions that present overviews of scholarly engagement with the topics of land property rights, transitions from colonial to the national education system and the changing social and professional life-worlds of engineers in India.