Tracing the Influence of Partition on Third Generation Indians

This issue brief examines the long term psychological consequences of the 1947 Partition, analysing how mass displacement reconfigured India’s emotional and social formations across three generations. Employing ontological security as its analytical framework, it contends that the erosion of collectivist trust generated adaptive strategies of silence, inward orientation, and intensified familial individualism. These patterns were transmitted to the second generation and selectively reformulated among Gen Z. Integrating trauma theory, oral historical accounts, and behavioural evidence, the study shows how third generation Indians are converting inherited repression into deliberate articulation. These intergenerational dynamics inform anticipation of collective responses to future forced displacement.