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Ms. Marvel, a Pakistani American teenager named Kamala Khan, is the latest superhero to join the Marvel Universe. Her superpower? Family bangles that carry the strength and power of intergenerational knowledge passed down by her grandmother from Pakistan.

But a lot of the magic behind the bangles has been lost to time, war, and trauma. And Kamala has yet to learn how to control these forces. Based on real historical events, Kamala's family was forcibly displaced and lost loved ones during the Partition of India in 1947. After India gained independence, the British Crown drew new borders and divided the region into secular India and a new Muslim territory: Pakistan. As a result, South Asia experienced one of the largest refugee crises in modern history, one that continues to impact families today, including the family of Ms. Marvel.

So what can Ms. Marvel teach us about the impact of Partition on families and intergenerational trauma? And how does the superhero genre allow us to reckon with darker aspects of world history? We speak to one of the writers of Ms. Marvel, Fatimah Asghar, and the founder of the 1947 Partition Archive, Dr. Guneeta Singh Bhalla, about why retelling our history, in both fiction and nonfiction, is so important today.

Resources:
How ‘Ms. Marvel’ Put Partition on Screen. The Juggernaut.
https://www.thejuggernaut.com/ms-marv...

Ms. Marvel: The India-Pakistan trauma at the heart of the show. BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-i...

The Great Divide: The violent legacy of the Indian Partition. The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

The 1947 Partition Archive.
https://www.1947partitionarchive.org/

Watch the full oral stories of the 1947 Partition Archive participants:
Ravi Chopra:    • Ravi Chopra  
Ajit Cour:    • Ajit_Cour  
Ali Shan:    • Shane Ali  

Credits:
Director: Dolly Li
Producer: Tien Nguyen
Consulting Producer: Danielle Bainbridge
Associate Producer: Mia Faske
On-camera appearances by: Fatimah Asghar, Guneeta Singh Bhalla
Written by: Mia Faske, Dolly Li, and Tien Nguyen
Voiceover by: Kiana Taylor
Director of Photography: Brian Inocencio
Gaffer: Bryce Holden
Online Editor: Travis Hatfield
Editor: Eurie Chung
Assistant Editor: Josaen Ronquillo
Motion Graphics: Travis Hatfield, Jonathan Gil
Research Assistant: Kiana Taylor
Makeup Artist: Tanosha Tee Johnson
Fact Checker: Yvonne McGreevy

Post-production services & facilities provided by: Flash Cuts
Executive Producer for Flash Cuts: Eurie Chung
Executive Producers for CAAM: Stephen Gong, Donald Young
Supervising Producer for CAAM: Sapana Sakya
Coordinating Producer for CAAM: Czarina Garcia
Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing

Additional Footage:
Alamy
British Pathé
Getty
NARA
The 1947 Partition Archive

Guests:
Fatimah Asghar
Guneeta Singh Bhalla