Remembering partition

By Vanita Sharma For the younger, British-born generation, it is important to understand how the events of Partition have shaped their lives, identities and subconscious assumptions about each other.

They need to know not only why and how Partition happened, but also how people on both sides suffered in the aftermath.

Growing up in the UK, the younger generation of Indian and Pakistani families know very little about the 1947 partition of British India.

Their grandparents speak about it very rarely and they do not learn anything about it at school.

But now through the efforts of Aik Saath, (a conflict resolution organisation based in Slough in the UK), a new museum exhibition has been created about Partition.

The exhibition uses stunning contemporary photographs and the personal memories of Indian and Pakistani survivors to tell its history.

In the UK, relations between Indian and Pakistani communities are generally very good.

Often living in the same areas, going to school and working together, people from both communities regularly form close friendships.

However, tensions also exist - sometimes lurking beneath the surface in the form of stereotypes and prejudices, and sometimes manifesting more obviously in the form of youth violence.

Underlying these tensions are contested memories about the 1947 Partition and creation of Pakistan.

Aik Saath (meaning 'together') was set up in 1998, following a period of serious Sikh-Muslim violence in the UK, to teach young people how to resolve conflicts and tackle prejudices.

The idea for the exhibition arose after Aik Saath found that Hindu, Muslim and Sikh youth often said that they felt that Partition was at the root of the tensions between them, but that they knew very little about it or only one side of the story.

By looking at Partition through the personal memories of people from both sides, the exhibition hopes to promote reconciliation and greater understanding between the communities.

For the exhibition Aik Saath's youth team, comprising volunteers aged between 14 and 25, interviewed the survivors in Slough recording their memories.

For the young team, who initially knew little or nothing about Partition, it was a great learning process.

Jawad Ahmed, 24, a member of the team, said, "Learning about Partition through the interviews has given me a clearer picture of how things were during Partition.

I've read about it in books and on websites but to actually hear it from people who were there, it gives you a clearer picture of how things were at the time of Partition." Tejinder Bhachu, 21, another member of the interviewing team said, "I've learnt not to take life for granted.

All the people that we have interviewed have been through a really tough time, and it's all part of our history and a real insight into what they went through.

It's something that we can all learn from." The exhibition begins by exploring life before partition, showing people with happy memories of friendships and good relations between the different communities.

Manzoor Hussain Bhatti highlights this point.

Born in 1925 in Rawalpindi, he explained, "When India was one country, religion was not as important.

Then Hindu, Sikh, Christians and Muslims were all brothers.

we used to go to their weddings and they came to ours, and in sad times or bereavement they came to share our sorrows." The exhibition addresses the question of why and how partition occurred and gained popular support.

It aims to help people understand both sides of the story - not only why some people opposed partition, but also why others desired it.

One of the Aik Saath interviewers, Mujtaba Ali Raja, 19, explained "I thought that people didn't want partition to happen, but when we actually did the interviews I was amazed to see that some people were quite happy that it did, and for some people it was true freedom." Partition triggered one of the largest mass migrations in modern history.

An estimated 14.5 million people were forced to migrate across the new borders, approximately one million were killed and 75,000 women were abducted.

Whilst people often only remember the victims within their own communities, by putting the memories of Indians and Pakistanis side by side, the exhibition emphasises that people suffered in all the communities.

However, what is unique about the memories of the Partition survivors in this exhibition is that they later migrated to the UK where, once again, they found themselves living side by side.

Large scale migration from South Asia to the UK began in the '50s to meet the post-war labour shortage and since then has continued.

By 2001, four per cent of Britain's population was of South Asian origin.

With the memories of Partition still fresh in their minds, some were fearful and it took time for trust to be rebuilt.

But, for others, migration to the UK provided the opportunity to re-establish friendships and let go of the past.

Shared cultural interests and their common experience as new immigrants enabled them to re-establish good relations between the communities.

Born in 1921 in Hoshiarpur, Rajinder Singh Dhatt worked in a refugee camp during partition and so had witnessed human sufferings.

However, his experiences did not prevent him from becoming friends with Pakistanis in the UK.

In his quotation in the exhibition, he says, "When we came to England, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were friends." Aik Saath's exhibition is going to tour museums across the UK.

The relevance of Partition for people of Indian and Pakistani origin living in the UK, is summed up most succinctly by the final quotation in the exhibition.

Asim Khan, 21, a member of the Aik Saath interviewing team, explained, "We should remember it because it's a part of us - it's in us...

But also we should move on because a lot of things have changed.

I've learnt that before the Partition, people saw each other as human beings first.

They all treated each other equally.

What is important is being a good human being first." Further information about the exhibition is available at www.1947partition.com Vanita Sharma is a Scholar of Peace Fellow with Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP) and is conducting her DPhil research at Oxford University.

She is also the Consultant Historian for the Aik Saath Partition Exhibition.