[Reader-list] Let's talk Partition

[pratap pandey]

Dear Professor,

Every slanging match has words of wisdom in it. You
said:

"On the subject of the Partition, and the poem-- well,
a discussion might have been possible which could have
enriched this forum."

Light at the end of the tunnel!

Let's have a discussion on the subject of the
Partition. Since you have edited a book on the
subject, you could moderate the discussion, or even
begin it. Of course, research on this subject is a
matter of sophistication. It is complex subject.

Most importantly, it can and will throw light upon
Gujarat.

I wish to understand how Gujarat could have happened,
and is still happening (and 1992, and 1984...). I
believe (it is an unresearched belief) that it all
began with the subject of the Partition.

Although K K Dyson's book on the memoirs of British
men and women shows that they were completely
captivated by this "HIndu-Muslim" rioting (countless
anxieties about Muharram processions coinciding with
Holi celebration, as happened this year), let us use
the "partition question" as a convenient starting
point.

Michel Foucault was once asked to comment on the
Gulag. He said he didn't know if he could talk about
"the Gulag", but he certainly knew about "the Gulag
question". Similarly, some of us do not know "the
Partition". But we are interested in "the Partition
question" (what you call "the subject of the
Partition)

You said:

"It has taken years for the psychic numbness that
refugees experienced to give way to a new kind of
> communication between generations that the poem 
> alludes to"

What causes a "numb" population to bring the BJP into
power, thus allowing them to contest the national
elections as a fully-fledged party? Isn't Delhi
considered a BJP stronghold (even after this year's
municipal election)? And Maharashtra a Sena
stronghold? How is it that the very spaces where "the
Partition" was experienced are those where a fascist
political formation can come into being, can
re-emerge?

It is perhaps crass to turn "the Partition" into an
occasion for comedy. But then, the Partition (like the
Holocaust) has not been rendered as tragedy, either.

What are the protective fantasies surrounding the
subject of the partition?

wanting to know more,
pp      
   







--- tarunksaint <tarunksaint at sify.com> wrote: > List
administrator, others,
> Kindly convey my disinclination to receive
> unsolicited mail at my personal
> address to pp. I have already expressed my desire to
> discontinue this
> unedifying 'dialogue'.  We put up our addresses
> taking full responsibility
> for what
> we post-- does this give anyone a right to direct
> crude gestures at another
> (which if
> made in person would receive an appropriate
> response), or violate another
> contributor's privacy and personal space? Will this
> serve as an
> encouragement to contribute in future to the many
> silent witnesses to what
> has become a distasteful online spectacle?
> 
> On the subject of the Partition, and the poem--
> well, a discussion might
> have been possible which could have enriched this
> forum.  But not in the
> face of motivated and crass misrepresentations of
> this kind, which reduce a
> complex reality to 'holes' and 'rifts'. Research on
> the subject of Partition
> literature is a little more sophisticated than that.
> It has taken years for
> the psychic numbness that refugees experienced to
> give way to a new kind of
> communication between generations that the poem 
> alludes to. Sentimentality
> my foot! This about shades of emotion which require
> some experiential
> grounding to appreciate in detail, perhaps, but at
> the very least
> sensitivity and emotional intelligence. There is a
> growing literature on the
> experience of those doubly affected, as in the case
> of Sikh refugees in
> 1984. Dilip Simeon was one of the first to highlight
> the genocidal aspects
> of the 1984 pogrom. Instead of an acknowledgement of
> the courage of
> survivors who remained, and were often forced to
> take a stand against
> fascism, as the father the poem is dedicated to
> does,  in the face of
> discrimination and collective amnesia, we have this
> vulgar rant about
> appropriations by the VHP of such anger and grief.
> Nonsense-- it is the
> refusal to allow for such voices to be heard which
> has generated the
> situation in which new refugee camps as in Gujarat
> have now appeared.
> 
> The hostility towards NRIs and compensatory strut
> and swagger on
> display are familiar coordinates of a certain kind
> of mofussil bhadrolok
> mind-set; the
> kunji-style account of satire a predictable cover-up
> for a lack of ability
> to write satire well. There is a context in which
> effective satire becomes
> meaningful; an implicit yardstick, or set of indices
> which allow for the
> nuanced point to be conveyed. When everything is
> fair game, no point emerges
> whatsoever-- rather, the vacuity of an aspirant to
> satirehood whose every
> dig mirrors back his own inadequacies and
> ineptitude.
> 
> 
> Yes, cyberspace also brings us the freedom to endure
> mediocrity, to field ad nauseam the Grub Street
> hacks of our time (note the
> continued pleas for recognition of some sort-- read
> my poems, says he, read
> my satire, says he-- sure signs of the novelist on
> the make these days).
> What is most comical is the recourse to political
> correctness-- we can be rude, we can disregard
> conventions, and scholarly
> etiquette, the sub-text seems to run, because we are
> not from the privileged
> colleges, because we have read theories of the
> carnivalesque, and Rabelais,
> because we are
> anti-Hindutva. The tone of abjection, grovelling
> (kick my ass, says he,
> reminiscent of the famed colonial cringe of yore)
> suddenly shifts into belligerence and stridency
> (such as that of the local
> colony goon, with his well-known repertoire of
> obscene gestures) when
> threatened. Radicalism
> of this desi variety has simply become a pretext for
> third-rate writing, and
> lumpen behaviour.
> 
> I'd like to let the list know that I do not know pp
> beyond the most
> superficial of acquaintance-- nor do I wish to. Each
> to his own.
> 
> One hopes that one's privacy and right to a
> dignified silence will be
> respected in future. This extends as well to former
> teachers whose names
> have been bandied about freely on this forum, in
> flagrant disregard of
> earlier reminders. Indeed, both academics tried
> their level best to stay on,
> one at D.U. , the other at J.N.U., but were faced
> with the same frog in the
> well  syndrome that we find here on the Sarai list.
> (I can croak louder than
> you! I'm the best!). Neither 'fled' India-- a term I
> would dissuade any
> upstarts from using to thier face in direct
> conversation.  One's shelf-life
> in the academic world is likely to short indeed,
> with such an attitude,
> though one might get away with it for a while in the
> laissez-faire moral
> economy of this list.
> 
> This basic courtesy is observed on numerous lists
> across the world, to which
> both home-grown patriots and NRIs subscribe, all of
> which emphasise the need
> for netiquette. May this list move on, as I plan to,
> to more worthy
> concerns.
> I repost the poem for those joining the 'discussion'
> late.
> 
> regards,
> Tarun
> 
> 
> For Papa
> To my father
> > >
> > >August 14th 1947. Firozepur, Punjab.
> > >You-
> > >eighteen years old
> > >sit alone and wait
> > >for news of your parents
> > >When they arrive days later
> > >my grandfather, grandmother, and her brother
> > >offer no explanation, no report, no narrative
> > >of how
> > >they ended up alive in a train from Lahore,
> Pakistan
> > >Their arrival simply becomes a fact
> > >--a fact
> > >that even the children--my brother and I
> > >learn never to question
> > >
> > >November 1st 1984, Delhi
> > >You wait again.
> > >This time
> > >with your parents, my mother, my brother, and I
> > >murdering mobs parade the streets
> > >announcing their arrival by rattling street
> lights
> > >My grandfather sitting in front of the house
> > >reads the newspaper, pretending oblivion
> > >The neighbors demand he go inside
> > >"I left once," he says,
> > >"where am I to go  now?"
> > >You-
> > >I know, are afraid
> > >But refuse to remove your turban or cut your
> hair--
> > >as some neighbors and so-called friends suggest
> > >You, who would not enter a temple
> > >mock religion and even God
> > >Say that you are a teacher
> > >And do not wish to teach submission to fascism
> > >
> > >September 11, 2001--to date. Delhi, India and
> Carbondale, U.S.A
> > >You wait there
> > >And I-here
> > >My brother who is visiting me
> > >Finds again that wearing a turban invites the
> name "terrorist"
> > >And, just as in 1984, he wants to be on the
> street
> > >I wait here
> > >for news of American bombs on Afghanistan
> > >while the successors of Gandhi's assassins
> > >rule his birthplace
> > >drowning in blood the hopes of 1947
> > >sowing land mines into the line your parents had
> crossed
> 
=== message truncated === 

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