Lest we forget the horrors of Partition

AS each day passes, the memories of the sacrifices and sufferings of millions of innocent men, women and children during the times of Partition are getting blurred. The recent announcement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi declaring August 14 as the Partition Horrors Remembrance Day is a welcome step which was long overdue.

In my book, The Holocaust of Indian Partition — An Inquest (2006), I had analysed the monumental tragedy associated with the transfer of power in which over a million people died (estimates vary from as low as 200,000 to two million) and nearly 18 million were uprooted from their homes and hearths and became refugees. As well-known writer Krishna Sobti, who herself became a refugee, put it so aptly, Partition is difficult to forget but is dangerous to remember. After a thorough inquest, I had concluded that, with foresight and planning, the extent and severity of this holocaust could have been reduced.

I had written in the section with the heading, ‘No Inquiry, Not Even a Monument’:“There is a raging controversy to this day whether Partition was avoidable and who was responsible for it. But, there is no debate on whether the horrendous human cost was avoidable and who was responsible for the loss of life and misery, suffering and uprooting of the millions on both sides of the border. The motion of relief and rehabilitation of refugees came up for discussion in the Constituent Assembly of India (Legislative) in the last week of November 1947. Intervening in the debate on November 29, Nehru admitted that ‘the catastrophe was a man-made catastrophe — not a natural phenomenon like an earthquake, or fire, or some other calamity like that.’ But he was neither prepared to take any blame nor even to talk about the reasons which led to this man-made catastrophe. Nehru said, ‘We may blame this or that individual — and no doubt many persons or groups have been terribly blameworthy — but the something that has happened has been on such a cataclysmic scale that it passes human blame. It is in the nature, if I may say so, of some mighty tragedy of which the Greek dramatists have written, which comes and envelops and overwhelms a nation and where human virtues and human failings somehow count for little. This is a big thing that has happened, so that mere blame does not help nor saying that it is the result of so-and-so’s ill-will and action.’ Amazing logic indeed! Nehru was at his poetic best in diverting the attention of the country from the basic question of whether the horrendous human cost of Partition was avoidable. Unfortunately, millions who died or were uprooted and had to suffer unimaginable atrocities, were not just actors in a Greek tragedy but were going through it in real life! It must be underlined that Mountbatten and the leaders of the two Dominions, who took the momentous decisions on the strategy for transfer of power, were not just the spectators of this Greek tragedy, but were its authors! It is shocking to see that there was no demand, leave aside a clamour, either in India or Pakistan for fixing responsibility for this Himalayan tragedy. As if this was a chapter in history which was best forgotten. In India, where every town and city is dotted with innumerable monuments, there is no monument — leave aside a national one — to the millions who died or through their sufferings went through Hell in the holocaust of Partition. The sounds of silence are deafening. No one thinks it necessary, even as a ritual, to observe a moment’s respectful silence in their memory on Independence Day.’

It is against this background that I welcome the announcement of the prime minister. In India’s highly polarised polity and the vitiated, even poisonous, atmosphere in the country, this too has become a divisive issue. It is being considered by some as reopening of the old wounds, creating communal tensions, reigniting ugly passions, attempt to polarise and divide the country, an effort to cast India-Pakistan relations in stone and so on. These seem to be totally misplaced and far-fetched apprehensions.

The world over, such monumental human tragedies are commemorated to recall the sacrifices of those who were the victims of the tragedies and to reiterate the ever-lasting gratitude of the country. Thus, Hiroshima Day is observed on August 6 every year to mark the anniversary of the atomic bombing of two cities of Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki), the United Nations General Assembly designated January 27 — the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau — as International Holocaust Remembrance Day; Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is observed in the United States to honour and mourn the US military personnel who had died in the course of carrying out their duties; and after the end of apartheid, the Day of Reconciliation is observed in South Africa annually on December 16.

If the Modi government had announced a commission of inquiry on the holocaust of Partition to fix responsibility for the horrendous tragedy, it could have been questioned for its timing. But the least India ought to do is to observe, unitedly and with humility and gratitude, a Remembrance Day for the unimaginable sacrifices of the millions at the time of Partition. Otherwise, India will be deservedly called an ungrateful nation.