How the Partition of India shapes the lives of those born in its aftermath
History viewed through the lens of memory helps us understand how generations progress, says oral historian
*Originally published on Dec. 13, 2022.
Growing up, oral historian Aanchal Malhotra never heard the word 'Partition' at home — even though all four of her grandparents migrated from what is now Pakistan during the Partition of British India in 1947.
More than 14 million people were displaced during Partition, as Muslims fled to the new nation of Pakistan while Hindus and Sikhs fled to India.
"I never grew up with any stories. For many families that's the case, where silence is practiced quite religiously," she told IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed.
"When we are in school in India, we are taught Partition from such a removed lens, as if it cannot touch us anymore, that our first instinct is never to come home and ask the people in our family, 'You lived through this thing called Partition?'"
When she began to encounter objects that survivors of Partition carried across the border, she realized "how visceral the memories of Partition still were, and how important it was for me to understand my own family's … not just history, but how the event has shaped their personalities, their behaviours, the way they pass memory down to us, even unknowingly."
The conversations she had about objects survivors carried with them became the basis of her first book, Remnants of Partition.
In her second book, In the Language of Remembering, she turns to inherited memory.
"I don't think it ends with the first generation. It cannot. I think any historical event, viewed through the prism of memory, will provide you infinite perspectives to look at as each generation progresses," she said.
Carrying the burden of Partition without witnessing it
The memory of Partition continues to shape politics in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in visceral ways.
"The story very much still continues, because the newer generation is inheriting not just memory, but also anger and hatred and bitterness to a time that they did not live and a people that they don't know anything about," said Malhotra, a co-founder of The Museum of Material Memory.
"My grandparents saw Partition. My parents remember '65 and '71. I remember the Kargil War. What will my children and the generations after that see?
In the Language of Remembering weaves together the stories and reflections of people born in the wake of Partition, extending "from Afghanistan in the west to Burma in the east, from Kashmir in the north to Karnataka in the south, swallowing the better part of South Asia," Malhotra writes. It also includes many interviews with people in the diaspora. Rather than arrange the book by nationality, geography or religion, she chose to arrange it by experiences that cut across those categories, like "belonging," "borderlands," "love" and "regret."
"It would allow multiple nationalities to sit within the same chapter, sometimes right beside one another, in a way that you sometimes can't really tell which story is Pakistani? What is Bangladeshi? What is Indian? And you were forced to reflect on how similar the experiences were, or forced to reflect on how different the experiences were," she said.
Malhotra told Ayed the book is both an archive and an act of peace-making.
"I don't know if it will ever translate into actual visible change … But, yes. That is always the end goal," she said.
"I want to see in my lifetime that young people, people my age that have never witnessed Partition but are really carrying its burdens … [can] walk on the soil of their ancestors, their origins, with dignity."
On interviewing her own family about Partition
"Talking to your family is the hardest. I think Partition is one of those very unique historical events where, when you ask a question about it, the likelihood of your interviewee or your interviewer asking you a question about why you are asking the question is very high. So, for example, if I ask my grandfather, 'Tell me how it happened. You were 19 years old. What did you see?' His first reaction was, 'Well, why do you want to know? What will it change? Will it change the border? Will I go back to my homeland? Would Partition not have happened?'
"No, of course none of this is true. But I feel like I would know. And I would know and I would know why it defines me. And yes, uttering the words won't change anything. But then we would share that … Me talking to him about it would not change anything in him, but it certainly would change everything about our relationship."
On unlearning
"When you start to speak to people across borders, any kind of border for that matter, man-made, land-made, mental … there is an enormous amount of unlearning that will happen quite naturally if you give yourself into that.
"So the minute I began speaking to people in Pakistan, in Bangladesh, the diaspora, people that have had multiple migrations in their family, very complicated interfaith marriages, it's very hard to keep thinking of that very narrow us versus them. And I think the futility of the border really dawns on you. How are people that are intrinsically so similar, limited by this line, put down by a colonizer?
"You see this like in places outside of South Asia, where Indians and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis meet freely. They really enjoy one another's company. They can pronounce each other's name. We speak one another's languages. We eat the same food. We look the same. And there is a real joy to being connected. We feel like we found someone who is our own. And I'm thinking back to my years in Canada and how some of the best, best interactions I had with Pakistanis. It's so confusing at first. Because you start to think, why have these people been portrayed as our enemy for so many years?"
On the politics of truth and reconciliation in South Asia
"An interviewee of mine said something so interesting. He said that truth and reconciliation — those words come in an order for a reason, because without truth, you cannot get to reconciliation. But here in South Asia, where truth is manifold, when everyone has their own version of truth, where every event means different things to different nationalities, the first thing is to understand that truth is different and truth is not singular. And to listen to each other, not just to your own countrymen, but to those across the border, to listen to their perspectives, to respect their perspective … only when that happens can we think of reconciling with what has been lost on all sides."
*Written and produced by Pauline Holdsworth.
