Freedom at a cost …

15th August 1947

It was a momentous day for India when the British rule ended in India.

It would have been a very joyous occasion had not it been tainted by the partition of India.

On this day India was divided into two halves – Hindustan and Pakistan.

There was a mass exodus of people walking on foot, on bullock carts and trains to either Pakistan (if they were Muslim) or India if they were Hindu or Sikh or Christian.

As is always the case, it was and is, the common man who suffers and bears the brunt. The Radcliff line, drawn by Cyril Radcliffe cut through Punjab in the North and Bengal in the East India and split the vast nation.

There was mayhem on both sides …. there are horrific stories of people being killed, women being raped on both sides of the borders. There are stories of trains laden with dead mutilated bodies across both countries ….

War does make monsters of humans and never has this been truer.

Most of us, Indian and Pakistanis, have stories to tell and share of this incredibly sad and horrific event.

For many there has never been a closure …

Lots of immigration to the UK was a direct outcome of partition, when people wanted to rebuild their lives after having been dispossessed of their wealth friends and family …

We are now in the 76th year of Independence and this day always evokes mixed feelings for me …

My family were lucky to have not done that journey from Lahore on foot or by train, they drove from Lahore (they lived in the fashionable capital of undivided India) to Amritsar (to our ancestral home- the second home- I have shared some photos) with armed escort. But they lost their friends and quite a lot of their wealth. I grew up listening to my grandparents talking about their life in Lahore and the many villages that they owned and how “little” they got as monetary compensation?

My auntie’s told me of the large house they grew up in where they learnt how to ride bicycles on the roof top (the house was that big!) They never really recovered from the trauma that they witnessed … or of what they had lost. yet I am grateful that they all survived … but it came at a cost – I always felt that the smiles of my family never really reached their eyes ..

How ever,  despite everything our nation was set free at the stroke of midnight in 1947 .

Today in 2023, my take on the India of today is this ….

76 years of ” Freedom” …. Freedom from the British?

76 years of ” rebuilding” and ” salvaging” and ” picking up the pieces” of a country ravaged by the Radcliffe Line …

76 years of wondering what it would have been like if there were no borders?

Freedom? Independence? At what cost?

Whilst the National Anthem is played across the country and  the saffron, green, and white national flag is hoisted atop schools’ colleges and government buildings …I sit across the pond in a land and amidst people whose ancestors ” ruled ” and ” organised” the country I was born and raised in?

I should be ecstatic that we are a potential superpower. with a space programme, with a large cohort of doctors and engineers, a land of rich ” heritage” and ” culture.” a land where diverse religions co-exist and live together?

But do they really?

We have some of the richest industrialists in the world and yet millions of people sleep hungry.

We have scriptures talking about ” women” being the kingmakers and yet they are paraded naked and raped every other day?

We are a nation where many rapists, convicts and murderers hold positions of power and form public policy?

We have a parliament where elected members shout and scream at each other with no semblance of dignity ….

But we must not lose hope. yes, never lose hope …

Currently, we are battered and bruised by poverty, still trying to cope with the aftermath of being subjugated for more than two hundred years, we are riddled with hatred and communalism (and it is even more obvious. it stands now with the current fascist government) and yet, when I hear the strains of ” Jana Gana Mana” (our national anthem) I stand tall and remember the countless men women and children who lost their lives so we could be free …

I hear the strains of ” Jana Gana Mana,” and I salute our brave men in uniform who guard us on our borders and our hardworking tillers of the land who feed us and the numerous other people who keep the ship afloat …every day.

It is my wish for India and Pakistan ….

Let us have faith and work to rebuild our nations ..

Let us work hard to ensure that we, the people make the right choices and “free ” ourselves in the true sense of the word …

I am sharing the National Anthems of India and Pakistan…. building bridges. dissolving borders in this message of hope, shared pain, and shared dreams for the future.

Jai Hind!!