-Brian Mendonça
Oral
history tells us less about events than about their meaning.
-Alessandro Portelli*
This rather intriguing title is the name of a set of
study materials prepared by the Department of liberal arts of the University of
Texas. The subject is Partition and its narratives.
The partition of British India into India and
Pakistan in 1947 is an event which has seared the mind of all concerned. How is it necessary to remember it seventy
years later?
When I put this question across to students who were
studying Partition, they felt that the topic had relevance today. They wanted
to ‘know more’ about that moment in history and hear the stories of the hidden
voices.
Partition has been addressed in the popular Indian imagination
in 21st century films like Begum
Jaan, Gadar, Partition-1947 and Bajrangi
Bhaijan. Since most of the students
were women they were more interested in the voices of women and children in the
Partition.
‘On Independence day we celebrate our freedom, but
we do not remember pain and suffering which made it possible,’ the students
felt. I advised them to look up
Catherine Belsey’s essay, ‘Literature, History, Politics’ which argues that
none of these disciplines has an absolute value in itself and is, in fact, complicit with the other.
Tamas
– a novel by Bhisham Sahni on the Partition – was made into a television film
and shown on Doordarshan in 1988. It depicted how fringe elements among the
Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities turn on each other and are enveloped in the
spiral of hate. Train to Pakistan (1956) set in Mano Majra by Khushwant Singh used
the image of the train bearing refugees to Pakistan. The novel depicts the carnage than ensued
enroute to civilians being deported to Pakistan, simply because they were
Muslim.
Gulzar’s poignant short stories like ‘Crossing the
Ravi’ and ‘Two Sisters’from Footprints on
the Zero Line (2017) are an example of how literature can portray the
horrors of life with greater immediacy than history – which simply focuses on
fact. A student made the point that Gulzar was of the view that despite
Partition, Muslims and Hindus were more united then, than they are now.
In Ice Candy
Man (1988) set in Lahore, Pakistani writer Bapsi Sidhwa depicts Partition
through the eyes of a child Lenny. She shows how the rape of Ayah revolves on
the innocent disclosure by Lenny to the
Ice Candy man about the whereabouts of Ayah. The truth told by a child is
problematized. Innocence is suspect.
Some students felt that Partition should not have
happened. It was all due to the machinations of
politicians and the poor were made to suffer. As I walked away I felt
that there is hope for a new tomorrow in these youth. They are more sensitive
to life, recognize the value of studying the past, and are alert to the
fissures that divide India.
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*The Death of
Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History. Published in Gomantak Times Weekender, St. Inez, Goa on 15 April 2018. Pix courtesy tribuneindia.com 'Perspectives on Partition' (2017).
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