Chair: Dr. Nathalene Reynolds, Research Associate, Center for Asian Studies, Geneva, Switzerland; and, Visiting Fellow, Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan
Discussant: Mr. Shamil Shams, Deutsche Welle, South Asia Unit, Bonn, Germany
Panel Organizer: Mr. Ahmad Salim, Project Consultant, SDPI, Islamabad, Pakistan
During the panel on “Rewriting History,” chaired by Dr. Nathalene Reynolds, Research Associate from the Center for Asian Studies, Geneva, Switzerland; and, Visiting Fellow with SDPI, Mr. Ahmed Saleem, Project Consultant with SDPI, in his presentation narrated the conception and evolution of the research project on “Rewriting History” sponsored by HBF and hosted by SDPI in collaboration with the 60th anniversary of Partition. He raised a pertinent question of why 1947 is celebrated as the “watershed”, while 1905 (the partition of Bengal) or 1901 (partition of Punjab and the “introduction” of NWFP) are not. There is a similar indifference towards 1971 when it comes to historiography in Pakistan. Is what is prevalent in Pakistan a conspiracy of silence regarding Bengalis? Or a crime of silence? For it appears that the violence committed and the gap in knowledge regarding that particular moment in history (1971) is worse than 1947, he posed. India, for all the recent problematic history writing at least had some institutions, which had relative freedom, he lamented. His project looks into compiling oral histories of massacres in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh and explores the displacements of refugees particularly the Bihari community. There is a particular focus on what happened to members of the minority community (especially Christian missionaries) who helped the refugees and their status in Pakistan today and how has the Pakistani state treated their community.
Dr. Anandi Mahmood from the Department of Humanities, University of Central Lancashire, UK, began with sharing two anecdotes from her father-in-law’s life (who grew up in pre-partition Potohar). When he is queried on his childhood days, he narrates episodes of extreme poverty and walking to his school in another village barefoot in the hot sun, and of his friends tying leaves to their soles in lieu of shoes. The second anecdote relates to the fading rose tattoo on his forearm, this when a Sikh friend takes him to the Baisakhi mela (fair). The young Sikh man is a visitor from a community/village across the “existing” border. These two significant events outline the history of extreme poverty in Potohar, and also of diverse friendships across borders and distance. Perhaps this project cannot conclude that the past is that of idyllic multiculturalism, but it is that of a more nuanced history than our textbooks show.
The experience of the ordinary individuals appear at best as statistics in “official history”, however their experiences of every day life, and oral histories of a period long gone are important to catalogue, she pointed out. This is so we can learn to accept and recognize their “social purpose”. How does one understand the past and the present and contradict which is acknowledged as the truth, she asked. When it comes to partition violence in Potohar, was it class differentials, which “justified” partition violence? Was it growing indebtedness to Hindu moneylenders? There are discrepancies when it comes to literacy levels amongst the different communities with high rates of school enrolments even when it came to non-Muslim women as compared to Muslim men. Elsewhere in the region where Sikhs and Muslims were all agriculturalists, Muslim respondents narrated episodes of sharing love and friendship with their Hindu and Sikh neighbors and continuing to write letters after Partition.
Mr. Asif Farrukhi, a writer and critic from Karachi, Pakistan, took a figurative jump from 1947 to 1971 and the process of memory or lack of when it comes to 1971 in Pakistani historiography and Urdu fiction. He finally decides to take a retrospective of 1971, not through history but from the imaginative.
Year 1971 for his generation was not seen as the conflict in now Bangladesh, but as the Crush India campaign, with its fascination for black outs, sirens and air raid shelters, of long school holidays and playing indoors as the city prepares for being bombed (this is Karachi) and of hearing jingoistic songs, but not of the surrender of Pakistani forces. He talked about how Bengali classmates disappear from schools, but no one questions why. Though the events of 1947 are studied, analyzed and criticized in Urdu literature, however, there is a void when it comes to 1971. Why this emptiness here? Is the lack of stories actually framing the real story?
In the years leading to 1971 there were groups writing in Urdu on the concerns of the region, but as they wrote in Urdu in what is now Bangladesh therefore they were not read by the Bengalis and as these were magazines published in then East Pakistan so not accessible by those living in now Pakistan. In then West Pakistan sadly there were no public agitations over the events of December 1971 and few instances of protests in literature, Mr. Ahmed Salim was one who spoke out and he too was jailed for his efforts. Ms Perveen Sarwar also wrote on the issue, but her work sadly has this stream of constantly blaming “outside influences” for the debacle.
Dr. Pippa Virdee’s, Research Fellow from the De Montfort University, UK, work was an anthology of silences and nationalist attitudes in South Asian historiography. However, there is a paradox when it comes to cataloguing the aftermath of partition violence; there are less nationalistic attitudes, somehow the stories of rehabilitation are told differently. So there is a difference in discourse when it comes to events leading to 1947 and aftermath of partition. However, there remains an overarching theme in works authored in the North on why the partition happened, rather than its impact, an emphasis on politics rather than the people. Years 1984 and 1997 were two moments in history that ushered a new lease of history writing in South Asia when violence and memory were catalogued from standpoints previously unexplored. Today there are upcoming doctoral research projects and early career researchers working on cataloguing human histories and oral testimonies of and in South Asia, she shared.
Discussion
Mr. Shamil Shams from Deutsche Welle, South Asia Unit, Bonn, Germany, in his role as the discussant articulated the problem of not learning anything from history, a conspiracy of silence when it comes to events of 1971, but also the events in Pakistan in 2007. “There is a growing importance to build up on the linkages of activism and research. When it comes to this particular panel on rewriting history, how ironic that we do not acknowledge that in Pakistan, it is the lawyers who are rewriting history,” he said.
In the question-answer session, the audience and panelists discussed similar streams of warped historiography in popular fiction in Pakistan especially children’s fiction. There was also a debate on the “reliability of memory” and particular instances where oral testimonies filled in the gap when official documents were missing due to censorship laws or archival material disappearing. Members of the audience shared their memories of 1971 from Delhi and Bombay and how there is a synergy of “flawed” memories. Some concluded that the whole sub-continent should not be viewed as a nation, but multinational realities. Realize this, acknowledge it and then rework and redesign the idea of nationhood, it was stressed.
Reported by Aneela Z. Babar
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