Author: Ramananda Sengupta
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: September 21, 2005
URL: http://us.rediff.com/news/2005/sep/21ram.htm?q=tp&file=.htm
Invisible transfers, long distance calls
hollow laughter in marble halls
steps have been taken, a silent uproar
has unleashed the dogs of war
you can't stop what has begun
signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion
we all have a dark side, to say the least
and dealing in death is the nature of the beast
one world, it's a battleground
one world, and we will smash it down
one world...one world
-- Pink Floyd, Momentary Lapse of Reason
On August 15, 1947, what was known as the
Indian subcontinent was forever divided on religious lines into India, East
and West Pakistan.
Some Muslims, perhaps worried about living
in a Hindu majority nation, and that too one which they had ruled for hundreds
of years before the British arrived, wanted -- and got -- their own homeland.
Tens of thousands died in the religious carnage
that followed Partition. Thousands more have died since.
The Empire, it seems, had the final laugh.
My grandfather, Dhaka's first Indian civil
surgeon, and his family fled that city for Assam and then eventually Calcutta,
months before Dhaka became the capital of East Pakistan.
Frankly, I didn't worry, or even think about
Partition during my formative years, being too engrossed traveling with my
father, who was a consultant to the UN.
It was only during my high school days in
Calcutta that I recall noticing that some Bengalis spoke in a singsong dialect
which seemed strange to me, and being told that it came from Bangladesh.
I was also flummoxed when I was once asked
whether I was a ghoti (a steel utensil for usually meant for drinking water)
or a bati (a smaller steel bowl used for mealtime accompaniments like the
daily dal or sabzi). At least, that's what I thought they meant. But actually
they meant whether I was from this side of the border or that.
But my real brush with the anguish and anger
caused by Partition came when I moved to Delhi, where almost every Punjabi
over 60 I met had horror stories to tell. Almost all of them shared a visceral
hatred for Pakistan.
In some cases, this hatred was passed on to
their sons and daughters, who were not directly affected by the division of
India. More than half a century later, memories of the inhuman carnage of
1947 remain embedded in the national psyche of both India and Pakistan.
It was in Delhi that I also met a young Kashmiri
Pandit, who lived in a large, squalid hall in Delhi's upmarket South Extension.
It was optimistically described as a 'transit camp' for the Pandits displaced
from their homeland by marauding militants in the early 90s.
Almost every Kashmiri Hindu forced to leave
the valley talks about their roots and culture, and how hard they are trying
to retain them despite their eviction and subsequent isolation in India, by
Indians.
This young man recounted a sad but telling
story about his cousin, then five. It seems that the little one, in his interactions
with other children in the scorching Delhi summer, would recount how 'in Kashmir,
they had played in the snow.' The child had been born in that Delhi camp,
and had never been to Kashmir.
This is the Kashmir over which we have fought
three wars (four, if you count Kargil, and you should) with Pakistan since
partition.
Today, as part of the peace process, we are
talking with the so-called Hurriyat Conference, whose leaders are among those
who forced these Hindus out of their homes. Many of them are blatantly anti-national.
Some of them are accused of killing Indian soldiers.
Today, we are talking with Kashmiris across
the border, while totally ignoring Indian Kashmiris who were forced to leave
their homes at gunpoint.
I can understand -- though not condone --
the reasons behind the dramatically dwindling Hindu populations in Pakistan
and Bangladesh.
But the thought that this could happen in
a state of 'secular' India makes me want to throw up in the face of the government(s)
which condoned -- some say even encouraged -- this.
Enough has been said about the plight of the
Pandits. It is time we did something about it.
One thing we can do is tell Pakistan -- so
self-righteously adamant about 'Kashmiris' having a say in the peace process
-- that we will discuss this issue only after all those who were forced to
leave due to Pakistan-sponsored militancy are readmitted to their homes and
allowed to participate in the local government.
Until then, anyone who declares himself or
herself as representing the Kashmiri masses should be viewed with suspicion.
And that includes elected officials. Because any election conducted after
the ethnic cleansing that took place in the state is per se faulty and skewed.
