Versions of history

107 days back, someone very close to me lost his life in the most unexpected way. Days were tough, nights tougher. I was, and still am certain that my outlook towards life, people and relationships will never be the same. Everything changed and became horrible in a flash.

105 days later, I start reading the book ‘India After Gandhi’ which notes that history in India has stopped being written after midnight of 15th August, 1947 (Independence day). And for those who wrote biographies on Gandhi have their history till 30th January, 1948 (Gandhi’s assassination). So the writer tries to explore what happened next in the contemporary India. Still it starts with 1940s.

Migration of 10 million people – 150,000 brutal deaths. These are the official numbers that are recorded attributing to partition.

The above two incidents, separated by 7 decades are interestingly connected by Joseph Stalin. I heard this quote years ago, but suddenly it started making so much sense. “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic”.

While reading the book, I was reminded of an old photograph and a heated conversation that I had with my grandmother after this photograph was taken.

From left : Gurpreet, Abdul, me

The first character in this picture is 8 years old Gurpreet, my elder cousin, and probably my first friend. Since his dad (my father’s elder brother) was moved by the preachings of Sikhism, he changed his religion from Hinduism when he was 23.
The tall guy in the middle is Abdul in his teenage. He used to assist his dad in a shop in our neighbourhood when he wasn’t playing with us. Two of his many other tacit duties were to pick me up from school every day and to bring my favorite ice cream so that I keep my mouth shut as much as possible.
The third one, in the green sweater is me after 6 years of coming into the world.

If you are used to Indian names, you would get that the 3 people here are from 3 different religions – worshipping 3 different forms of God, going to 3 different holy places, though celebrating all festivals together. And how bizarre this fact sounds to me while writing. These people cannot be different. These are still inseparable!

But I do remember my grandmom advising me to stay away from Abdul. When a child aged 6 is asked to stay away from his friend who never fails to bring smiles to him, he is bound to retaliate. When I couldn’t find any sense in what she said, she showed me a deep scar on her back and narrated the day when at the age of 14 she saw her parents being killed and how she managed to get on a train to India from Pakistan, bleeding by the knife attack. No matter how much I am sure that she’s completely wrong, still I think I have no idea what she went through.

But the reason for writing all this is that I need to know the other sides of the story. I am sure there would be 4 versions to this history of partition – the Indian government version, the Pakistani government version, the British Raj version and finally, the truth.

One version’s villain is the hero of another. But I am curious to know what the people of Pakistan and British think about there versions. I sincerely invite everyone who is reading this to tell me what/who according to them was the reason of so much violence and their views about the partition of India. Also what image do they have of Jinnah, Gandhi and Nehru.

I am refraining here to give my opinion because I need to listen and learn, rather than speak, for a change 🙂

Eye for an eye

I looked in those eyes trying to find
The fear in which they swam
The pain that broke teary dams
Instead I saw,
Eye for an eye making the whole world blind

Innocent blood was split, burnt bodies were lined
Though candles were lit and songs were sung
Still hard to understand if the communal bee never stung
What candles couldn’t provide, was provided by terror
So eye for an eye made the whole world blind

Revenge was taken by spilling more innocent blood
Swords and knives transformed to RDX and guns
Punished was everyone except the culprits
The culprits of both sides still hard to find
Probably because eye for an eye has made us blind.

The misunderstood hero

Watching these two images together is like witnessing a paradox. How could the Father of a nation, who spent his life fighting for equality all over the world, an inspiration for numerous world leaders even today, be blamed for one of the biggest evils that resides in India?

Also, there is a huge number of people, that blames Ambedkar and know him as the man who brought the idea of reservations that still prevents deserving candidates to achieve their goals in every sphere of life. So how did this most sought after lawyer, who laid the foundation of independent India by drafting the constitution became the biggest villain of modern India?

To understand this, let me take you 70 years back. India was burning in the fire of struggle for complete independence and all efforts by the British government to negotiate were boycotted by the Congress and thus, by the masses.

One such attempt was the infamous Simon commission which was greeted by Indians as shown here.

It was shown black flags by all the political groups except the small group of Untouchables led by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the only Shudra by then who had managed to cross the barrier of primary education, earned a law degree and various doctorates from Columbia University and the London School of Economics. He was skeptical of the government that would form after independence and had understandably feared that the condition of untouchables might remain the same.

Amidst widespread protests and violent attacks on him, he also attended the first round table conference in London to express his concerns and became the biggest villain of the country.

This was the time when the first official meeting happened between the two pillars of Indian struggle at Gandhi’s ashram. There, they agreed to disagree on all the proposals. Ambedkar aggressively called Gandhi’s fight for equality as fake and Gandhi coldly refused Ambedkar’s demand of separate electorate for Harijans (for initial 10 years), though he had earlier agreed to give the same to Muslims, Christians and Sikhs. The meeting ended with the historical statement that Ambedkar gave. He concluded, “I have no homeland”.

It is difficult to fight for people who are against you. Still, Ambedkar continued to fight alone and attended the second round table conference (Gandhi also attended this) and convinced the British government that it is much more essential and logical to give separate electorate to Harijans than other minorities.

After this, Gandhi played gathered the masses by a simple but effective measure – he started his fast unto death.

Though Ambedkar was celebrating his win, he didn’t know when the whole nation (Hindus and Muslims were united for the first time in this measure) including his own wife turned against him because he was the reason that Mahatma Gandhi was dying. It is heartbreaking to spend a lifetime for others, achieve your goal, and see your own stakeholders so determined to shatter what you got for them. Finally, Ambedkar had to negotiate with Gandhi which gave birth to the Poona Pact. This is where Congress  leaders suggested the alternative of Reservations in government schools, colleges and jobs and forced Ambedkar to accept it. Ambedkar, broken and deceived signed the pact and became the scapegoat for allegations from generations to come.

This is the story of a tussle that never ended. Gandhi was of the view that giving separate electorates would divide Hindus and it would be a disastrous measure when the whole country was united. He wanted to get independence first and then slowly eradicate all the evils including untouchability. Ambedkar on the other hand, had experienced the inhuman behavior by his fellow countrymen and wanted political power to get quick results.

A still from the play to depict the mental state of Ambedkar during Poona Pact

We are often misunderstood by those for whom we are always ready to anything. They may or may not acknowledge it, but it is solely our decision to carry on the efforts or not. I recently did a stage play called “Gandhi vs Ambedkar” based on the above story (I played Ambedkar) which can be watched here.

The play is in Hindi so if you need any explanation in English, or any background if you are not aware with any of the above events, please do not hesitate to ask in comments. Also, I would love to know any views or additional information you have on this tussle.