"The Pity of Partition" or is it pains of separation

"The Pity of Partition" this is part of the title of a lecture.
It was one of the mild Fall days in this city of erratic weather, but I have been waiting for it for a month. I was waiting for Dr. Ayesha Jalal to deliver a lecture on the partition of India and Pakistan. I was waiting to hear “What’s new?” This partition is an old story. It was 1947-48, are they still thinking about it? Apparently yes, they are. Whatever happened after WWII is influencing our lives to this date. Israel came to being in 1948 and we have not heard even a hint to the end of the story. Pakistanis and Indians are still “chewing” so to speak on the partition.

Oh, how little do I know!
The violence and pains of partition surfaced just two decades ago. Reminiscing over the alternatives that could have saved the sub-continent is just being nostalgically brought to the surface. During a closed meeting of the Interdisciplinary School faculty with Dr. Ayesha Jalal, the alternatives that she told about, from the history of the Partition, did not look appealing. One solution was to divide the Punjab between Muslims and Hindus. An older Pakistani sitting at the meeting begged to differ because the ONLY possible solution was the partition. Well, to me it sounded like a ghettoization of Muslims, but anyway that was a solution rejected by all.

The important part came during the lecture in which Dr. Jalal used literature produced by Pakistanis that depicted the pains of partition. Violent rapes in the Camps after millions of Indian Muslims moved out of India to be called Pakistanis. The partition (it is uncanny how the Sudanese partition resembles this partition from 65 years ago) produced regrets on both sides; groups of desperate artists and novelists on both sides. Hashing the “what ifs” of 65 years ago is in books and art works that are filling the shelves. The two countries are burdened by extremists (Hindutva in india and Taliban in Pakistan). Has this burden of extremism turned the minds of intellectuals to revisit the partition? May be.

I left with a heavy heart. Are we going to sit in shock for forty years then begin our reminiscence over the “What Ifs?” What a horrible task for the next and third generations of South Sudan and the Sudan, no direction attached.(smiley)
Stay well

(Edited by Asma Abdel Halim on 11-12-2012, 03:47 PM)

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