Azaadi means both Freedom and Partition
Vijay Prashad
Anniversaries are a very useful occasion, not just as a means to honor those who did valorous things, but also as a way to teach ourselves the values which are enshrined in our history. 1997, as the golden jubilee of Indian independence, is worthy of memory so that we might offer respect to those who sacrificed much for the birth of the Indian Republic. 1997 also functions as a memory into the values of patriotism and hope which infused the struggle for independence. So far, we have very correctly begun along these lines, with histories of events as well as with planned celebrations of the values. '1947' was also the year in which Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911-1984) offered us that haunting image, 'yeh dagh dagh ujala, ye shab-gazida sahar,' which my friend Agha Shahid Ali translates as 'these tarnished rays, this night-smudged light.' This was not the Dawn, Faiz wrote, for which the patriots set out in sheer longing. Why not?
When we remember '1947,' let us not only remember the glory of independence, but also the grief and suffering of partition, because as Amrita Pritam wrote in 1947, 'my mother's womb was helpless' as it produced new contentious nations in a bout of pain. The death toll during the transfer of populations is estimated at about one million and by March 1948, about 13 million people became refugees. These are facts to commemorate as much as the flag ceremony at Karachi and Delhi on the 14th and 15th of August respectively. Those who remember Attenborough's Gandhi will recall the poignant images of the two flag hoistings and then the cut to Gandhi, at his ashram, spinning under an empty flag-pole. How are we to recall azaadi with these events in mind?
First, the wrenching of India-Pakistan must not be seen in isolation. Just after the Second World War, the British people elected a government which, unlike Churchill's régime, was less wedded to the Empire. The new régime
was interested in rebuilding a shattered Britain by creating a social welfare state. The massive peasant and working-class uprisings across the subcontinent (from the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny in 1946 to the Telengana, Tebhaga and Punnapra-Vayalar rebellions) as well as in West Asia (notably with the formation of the Arab League in March 1945) crippled the British military. In both areas, the British drew up hasty plans to withdraw. The logic of their withdrawal was by the construction of partitioned states, who continue to fight over the lines in the sand drawn by overworked British jurists (Israel was formed in 1948 with the consequent dispossession of the Palestinian people). The British created two> 'hot-spots' (Israel/Palestine and India/Pakistan) which is an enduring legacy of our immediate history.
Second, the trauma of partition drives many of us to see the world in terms of religion. Because 'the lust of aging men' (in Samar Sen's poetic words) created states along the basis of religion does not mean that the popular masses thought entirely in the framework of religion. Many people had no idea what kind of state was being negotiated, since the discussions did not have a democratic content (the Empire was, after all, a despotism). Others, such as characters in Rahi Masoom Raza's Adha Gaon (1966), believed that their own villages, far inside what is today India, would be divided into Hindu and Muslim sections. These popular ideas demonstrate the lack of clarity with which the people experienced partition. Others, further, gave their lives to protect their neighbors; neighborhoods, rather than religion, often formed the basis of community. Over time, such notions appear to have lost their relevance as people find themselves being mentally and spatially communalized. This is one of the tragic effects of partition. Perhaps in our celebrations we can try to de-communalize our minds.
'1947' was a remarkable year and we are right to celebrate the inauguration of a process of decolonization which is ongoing. India, the Jewel in Britain's Crown, sundered itself from the Empire and set in motion a process which swept through Africa (with Ghana in 1957) and the rest of Asia (with Indonesia in 1949). Our celebrations should, in the context of the memory of partition, be held with humility and with doubt. There is always a need to use these moments to inquire rather than to boast.
Bane hain ahl-e-havas mudda'i bhi, munsif bhi Kise vakil karen, kis-se munsifi chahen? (Dast-e-Saba, 1952).
Authors Address: Assistant Professor of International Studies Trinity College, Hartford, CT. 06106-3100, U.S.A.