Anniversary questions
One of the best articles on free India’s 75th birthday is this one in the Indian Express by Vikram Patel, professor of global health at Harvard Medical School:
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/my-india-my-pakistan-8085157/
If you look for this article on the internet, you may find it bearing the heading “My India, my Pakistan” or the title “The Intimate Enemy”. Evidently Dr. Patel’s father spent his early years in Karachi and was one of the millions who seventy-five years ago moved to the “other” newly freed country. Says Vikram Patel:
“I have no lived memory of Partition. But, somehow, I feel as if some part of my identity lies in the other country, one which I am constantly reminded is our enemy to the extent that I cannot even cheer their cricket team, a country which is so despised by some of my fellow citizens that its name is deployed to target political opponents or to troll other citizens who embrace the religion which dominates that country.”
Karachi, the city of more than 20 million with which Vikram Patel feels connected, is the capital of Pakistan’s Sindh province. Before the 1947 partition, about 1.5 million Hindus lived in Sindh. Like Vikram Patel’s father, many of them left. But many did not. Today Sindh’s Hindus number about 4.5 million, not a small figure, out of a total provincial population of around 50 million. Dr. Patel also observes:
“[T]he intergenerational transmission of nostalgic memories and longing is a reality, but tragically so is its malevolent sibling, the intergenerational transmission of grief and hate.”
Yet Dr. Patel dares to envision a day when “we might all, the peoples of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, celebrate our independence, together as one large family, with no regrets.”
Even if large-scale joint celebrations are unlikely in the near future, small circles of friendship already exist in some parts of the world where people of Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian origin are able to refresh links bequeathed by history, language, cuisine, and music. No visas are needed when Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis wish to meet one another in the U.S., the U.K., Europe, Canada, Australia or Japan -- or even in Nepal or Sri Lanka.
On this 75th birthday we should be permitted to hope that what happens outside will one day happen within South Asia. And not just in terms of friendly gatherings of Indians and Pakistanis. We may also imagine a restoration at some point – in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh – of equality in the enjoyment of rights and a defeat of the doctrine of graded rights.
The growing global involvement of South Asians could contribute to this. In a number of countries, Covid has underscored the influence of health care professionals of South Asian origin. Lawyers, accountants, and politicians of South Asian origin are also thriving. They and their counterparts in other professions are not likely, in their new countries, to settle for anything less than equal opportunities and equal rights.
For how long will they tolerate the denial of equal rights in their home country? This too is a good birthday question.
But what about the reverse possibility? Will some Indians argue even on global platforms, as they do in India, that equality is goody-goody, unrealistic and risky, that the strong should not fight shy of supremacy? Will they support the notion that some races or communities merit a superior status, while others deserve a diminution of rights?
The outcomes of the rapidly growing interaction between Indians and the rest of the world will be interesting to watch.
