Partition was not a merely a political event. It has many levels of meaning. We can know a lot of things from those who experienced Partition and who survived it. It is memories and experiences that bring out the essence of an incident. Therefore the oral. tradition has a lot of importance in recreating the Partition and its repercussions.

• Personal reminiscences are very important. They help us to understand the experiences of the people in a better way. They show what exactly happened during the Partition and there after. 
• Government documents give mainly information about the schemes and policies they carry out. We have different reports, files and letters from higher officials of those times.
• They throw light into the meetings between the British government and the different political parties. But these documents will not tell us how the decision to partition the country affected the people in general.
• The experiences of the poor and powerless people, help to increase the boundaries of historical research.
• Oral tradition is not the history of the rich and the famous. It is the experience of the marginalised which is usually ignored by mainstream history.

In spite of all these advantages, many historians do not approve an oral history tradition.

They point out the following reasons:

1. The information got from oral tradition does not have precision.

2. The time mentioned by it is often not correct.

3. In oral tradition, generalization is impossible. Individual experiences are special and unique.

4. It is related to only external happenings.

5. It is limited to small incidents. Such incidents cannot explain the complex nature of History.

6. The basis of oral tradition is memory. Because of this necessary details may not be available. Often what is said is unbelievable.

Even if many people speak against oral tradition it has its own importance. When we study about things like the Holocaust in Germany, oral history is important in knowing about the miseries of people. Historians can compare written records with oral history to arrive at the truth. It is wrong to say that oral history is simply connected with external matters. The experiences of the people during Partition talk about the central story, and not external things.

To know about different things, different sources are needed.

We may know the number of abducted and rescued women from the government records of India and Pakistan. But only from their experiences will we know the mental and physical pain ad misery they suffered during their abduction and also rescue.