A day to remember Partition: A step to divide or heal?

Independence Day is a reminder of our long freedom struggle and all those who were involved with winning independence for India, as we now know it. From one’s school days, the viewing of the unfurling of the Indian tricolour and the singing of the National Anthem imbued a great feeling of patriotism.

But since the last few years, there seems to be a dulling to the sheen of that emotion. It’s hard to exactly pinpoint when this change came about, but one thing that certainly caused the shift was the announcing of a Partition Remembrance Day on August 14 by this Union Government in its previous avatar. The fact that this date coincides with Pakistan’s Independence Day makes it that much more poignant.

This year, the event provides further grist for the Bengal wing of the BJP’s agenda to partition West Bengal. The way that this partitioning is being suggested indicates that the party is looking to cut its losses and increase its gains in a state that did not help tot up its seat tally in the recent Lok Sabha elections. The party could also be treading dangerous ground, as the word might well be anathema to the average Bengali.

A recent visit to Bengal and conversations with people indicated that the memories of the Partition and a loss of a culturally similar East Bengal (now Bangladesh) to Pakistan have left deep wounds in the people. The recent events in Bangladesh may have exacerbated painful memories.

The anger is perhaps deepest in those who had to leave everything behind and start afresh. The suspicion of the other has also permeated from one generation to another, with people openly expressing their resentment of the minority community. The role of social media is also questionable in this regard. But barring Bengal and Punjab, whose people lived through the cleaving, for the rest of the country, it was also the time that the country gained freedom from British shackles. 

Holocaust Remembrance can be criticised for commercialising what was a very tragic event and also turning it into something to be offered lip sympathy to. Also, this overemphasis could have the potential for polarisation, and, as one can see with regard to the conflict in Gaza, this identification has the capability to result in feeling a lifelong victim of a tragedy from the past while being blinded to the trauma of another community being made a victim in present times. Ironically, many people who have sympathised with the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza are being termed guilty of anti-Semitism, as if both would weigh up equally on the scales of justice. 

The Germans were wise in ensuring that the dangers and threats of fascism made it into their history so that they could say, “Never again.” If the British and other colonialists had shown a similar maturity in reflecting the mayhem, looting, and violence that they had inflicted on so many nations in their history books, it would have offered perspective to their present generations. Countries across the world are still bearing the brunt of poverty, resulting from the loot of those who colonised them.

The strangest thing about the present Union Government is that it always plays down the dubious role of its predecessors, the RSS, in the freedom movement. It took long years for the Indian tricolour to fly in the RSS headquarters in Nagpur.

Whilst the Partition Museum and other documentation may serve a historical purpose, the whole idea of bringing focus on Partition Remembrance seems to be to force present generations to dig into India’s dark history of 1947, when the frenzy and violence happened on both sides of the border. A good number of India’s post-independence generation may be less aware of these facts. It could also contribute to further communalising the country while keeping alive hatred against a neighbour, whom we would be better off building bridges with.

Sadly for the generation that has lived through Partition’s horrors, nothing was ever done to understand their anguish or ease the trauma of displacement. 

If the Union Government really must remember this event, let it do so by reaching out to the last of this generation instead of offering mere tokenism in the form of a Partition Remembrance Day. Let the focus instead be on the joy of our hard-won Independence.

(The author is an independent writer)