This year marked the 75th year of both India and Pakistan’s independence. Seeing people observe both independence days spurred me to start reading about the partition, again. I recently wrapped up listening to Aanchal Malhotra’s book titled Remnants of a Separation. This post is my review about the book. To start, I believe it is incumbent on everyone in the South Asian diaspora, to educate themselves about the partition. If the diaspora is not educated enough about the partition, then the history will die with the few remaining survivors of that era.
Before I jump into the review, I want to provide context. While many celebrated (as is their right!), I couldn’t bring myself to see the positive side of independence. When I think of 1947, I think of a dystopian world, where mob violence is the default. This is the impression I have been given by my mom, who has passed down stories of the partition to me from my maternal grandparents, who died before I was born. I’ve always felt a void about what happened to my grandparent’s generation during that time, and in many ways, I’ve always found myself picking up the pieces to make sense of the past. This void led me to Malhotra’s book. The book is a collection of 19 interviews with partition survivors, who shared their experiences. So for me, the stories of these interviewees became a way for me to fill the void of not knowing the details of what my ancestors experienced.
Now, I’ll jump into the review.
I’ll start with the fact that the book is engaging, immersive, and authentic. The book was engaging and immersive because when I would listen to each chapter, I felt like I was conversing with the survivor themselves. Although I will probably never meet the survivors, I felt a sense of connection, as I listened to them respond to Aanchal’s questions. That sense of connection with each interviewee, made it difficult to put the book down. I also found the book authentic, simply because I wasn’t listening to some narrate a history that was pieces together by a coalescence of old documents. Instead, I was listening to people share their first-hand experiences, which made the dialogs seem very authentic. Overall, a highly recommend reading or listening to the book.
Next, I’ll talk about the things I learned from the book.
As someone who has researched the partition extensively, I assumed I would be hearing a lot of things I already knew. I was wrong, though. Each interview was incredibly unique. The uniqueness of each interview meant that every interviewee taught me a new perspective. For example, the book taught me that the cause of the partition couldn’t be pinpointed to a singular event or person. Instead, it was the compounding and convergence of many events at once, that ranged from the crumbling of the British Empire following World War 2, to the influence of the many different pro-partition and anti-partition groups, who wanted to see their respective agendas come to fruition. In terms of the violence during the partition, it wasn’t always looting, rape, and religion-based violence, that caused loss of life or family ties. Other, less known tragedies happened. On the walk to their new countries, if toddlers or children couldn’t keep up, parents simply would abandon their children and bury them alive. If someone chose or had to stay behind, they would sometimes convert to the majority-religion and be adopted into a new family, losing ties with their biological families who who migrate to their new countries. The engendered nature of the partition also created an environment where women were taught how to quickly commit suicide, so that if they were at risk of rape or murder , they could easily kill themselves before their assailants could. These examples were all based on stories shared by Malhotra’s interviewees.
Malhotra’s book also gave me insight into the plight of various groups, after the partition. Groups from both sides lost everything, started all over, and often started their new lives in refugee camps. For instance, Hindus and Sikhs who migrated from Pakistan, often ended up in Delhi’s refugee camps. Upon arrival, they took up whatever work they could, whether , often as day laborers. As they sought to start new lives, they faced discrimination based on their language and ethnicity (Punjabi). Many Delhi-locals either didn’t want to see a migrant group take work away from them, or even succeed. One interviewee even mentioned that shopkeepers wouldn’t even sell them food, simply based on where they came form.
Another interesting story was about Sindhi Hindus, who migrated from Pakistan’s province of Sindh. The plight of Sindhi Hindus was unique because not only uprooted from their homes, but they were going to a completely foreign land. You see, Hindu and Sikh Punjabis still had an opportunity to re-settle in Punjab, albeit Indian Punjab. Hindu Bengali’s still has an opportunity to re-settle in Bengal, albeit India’s West Bengal. Such a luxury has afforded both communities to maintain a distinct set of languages, cultures, and customs, that often set them apart from other Indian ethnic groups. For Sindhis, they left Sindh, and settled across many parts of India, often adapting to the cultures and languages of the Indian states they lived in. The end result, at least for the interviewee in Malhotra’s language, has been the gradual loss of Sindhi language and culture, for the Sindhi Hindus who came to India.
There were dozens of other insights I got out of the book - perhaps too much to include in a review. The main point I want to make is, I highly recommend this book be read, especially if you are a part of or have an affinity for the South Asian diaspora. If you’re the former, I will go as far as saying, it would be a disservice to your identity, to not read or listen to the book’s interviews.