in addition to its intense work in postwar europe tracing identifying and sorting refugees and displaced people in 194648 it was actively assisting all sides during the conflicts occasioned by the creation of the israeli state and the forced exodus of palestinians when the enormity of the partition migrations and deaths became known the icrc in fall of 1947 sent an expert to assess the situationbut in november 1947 as the kashmir conflict erupted the organisation focused in that area on providing aid to combatants and civilians on all sides prominent women members of the ucrw organised essential relief and humanitarian efforts among them were mrs rajkumari amrit kaur as minister of health mrs sucheta kripalani from the congress central relief committee and kasturba workers and mrs hannah sen delhi branch of the allindia womens conference these women working within their organisations and many other contacts in civil society played prominent roles in moderating the miseries of the camps in delhi and elsewhere by raising funds supplying all forms of goods and engaging with the social and educational life of refugee families these womens organisations also played a crucial role in identifying the issues of abducted and abused women and girls q many lived in poverty and squalor in refugee camps were these camps egalitarian spaces or did the moneyed among them cornered the privilegesa the large transit camps were in general populated by very poor people those with means who were initially in these camps found ways to leave rapidly in many cases the wealthy often did not travel the same routes across the border instead moving by ship or by air or by fast private car these people would find lodging with relatives or use their own funds to find other options they also occupied the vacant houses of the wealthy muslims who had left to join their coreligionists across the border within a few weeks the government of pakistan decided to move the vast number of people arriving by foot from amritsar away from the environs of lahore into farming areas in the west or regions to the south including karachi delhi was overwhelmed by muslims from elsewhere in the country who were seeking safety in the city in large camps before deciding where else to go and also by hindus newly arriving from the pakistan border efforts were made to segregate these two populations and move hindus from pakistan into larger camps north and west of the city limits q how did the arrival of the partition refugees impact the physical expansion and psychological profile of delhi and mumbai a our work dealt with the physical expansion of these two cities and some of the social implications of choices made by the delhi and bombay governments in both cities the newly formed national government struggled to deal with the postpartition influx of refugees existing urban systems were challenged and modified to accommodate an unusually large number of people a short and longerterm strategy was invoked setting