Elephant in the Room

Project Documentation | Undergraduate Program | Srishti

This project was published in the 7th semester (August 2014) of my Professional Diploma Course, as part of the cluster ‘Art in Transit’. I am re-publishing an edited version here in order to continue the dialogue in a public forum. While the final deliverable is not presented here, the published document details out the process that led to it.

Premise

I had explored the topic of Partition earlier through a Liberal Arts course, Border Babel facilitated by Debjani. The course was about stories of migration and Partition was a context that came up often. The myriad stories of people moving, discovering new places, leaving behind memories touched me and prodded me to take up the project. My intention for joining the project was to understand the ‘problem’ that was Partition and find out more about who and what was responsible for millions of people dying and getting hurt and if this disaster could have been avoided in any way possible.

As I became an atheist over the past year, I hoped that this project would help me demystify the presence of faith and projected nationality at the base of the 1947 conflict. I wanted to realize my objective role in the middle of the communal madness that surrounds us even today.

Immersion

Memory
One of the first discussions in class was around the nature of memory. We explored memories that were perceived tangible and intangible, repressed and imagined. Understanding that memories can be altered while forgetfulness induced, was a great reflection. It made me wary of the ‘nationalistic’ nostalgia and personal agendas deployed to cope with hurtful memories.

When I started being too invested in the trauma, Guest Lecturer Debjani’s take on nationalism and identity brought me out of the microcosm. I began to understand more of the politics and hasty decisions are taken around the process. Many of these decisions affect the communal relationship between Hindus and Muslims even today and the call for secularism in both countries is essential yet unanswered.

I felt that digging through my own memory through meditation was helpful in creating empathy and a sensitive outlook to the brutality of the event.

Music and Meditation
Since the project dealt with understanding memory, the exercise was about accessing personal memories by using music and meditation as access instruments.

Three kinds of music were played and we had to express our reactions through text and images. The idea, as I understood, was about accessing persona memories and understanding the nature of memories and the way they affect our present opinions about something (or in this case different kinds of music). I firmly believe that all our present decisions are anchored in memories too and perhaps they are public memories. In fact, our present identity, as a community, a nation is derived from this public memory.

History
As part of the ‘Beachcombing History’ exercise, we had to choose five historical junctions that were relevant to the way India has shaped up to be in the present.

While I went about my research for this list, I deduced that this list contained not just arbitrary parts of India’s history, but also parts of that history that I hold dear based on my notion of what history ‘should’ consist of. Discussing these events with my peers, it was clear that while someone chose the Bengal Art movement, someone else felt that the successful Pokhran nuclear tests (1999) formed the most consequential junction of our past. The history it seems evokes different kinds of insecurities and aspirations in its combers.

Hockey and Partition

My knowledge of hockey was greatly enriched by film interventions and detailed study of Anglo-Indian sports culture. The films we watched (Fire in Babylon, Hockey in my blood, Chak De) on Hockey and Cricket, revealed a side into nation-building that I have never seen or felt a part of. Through discussions, we created connections between the game and the quest for national identity. For instance, when India and Pakistan play, the players seem to embody the communal tension that exists outside the sphere of the game. The spectator too becomes divided and it's no longer just a game, it’s a representation of the world as it is. And it is worthwhile to argue if you can separate the game from the history it belongs to.

An Alternative View

We looked at music and films curated by Guest Lecturer Deepak Srinivasan who looked at Women and Nawabi Culture, as a source of historical stories. Many avenues, such as architecture, music & dance, opened through which I could understand Partition differently and participate in the healing process through awareness. Partition has been a working debacle of our country, an argument that is never resolved and for a long time so. I can’t say that I have personally experienced the direct aftereffects of Partition in my life, however, it is safe to say that I may have dealt (and am still dealing with) with the indirect ramifications of the communal tension. I have witnessed first-hand my family members were wary of what they consider the ‘Other’ (mostly Muslim) population of India as they project their constructed religious identity and I am reminded often of the identity I must carry forth as well. However, through this project, I can aim to examine the events of the Partition with an active outlook that isn’t invested in blame and resultant jingoism. It is, after all, a complicated occurrence that is not a moment in past but lived as the present.

Reflection

Through the immersion period, I continued to look at literary research through biographical books as ‘The Partition Omnibus’ and emotive research through ‘Shadow Lines’, ‘Ice-Candy-Man’ etc. The immersion period offered me a bridge between the factual reality of the Partition and personal narratives emerging as a result. It is easy to dwell on either side for too long and never engaging with as many perspectives as was possible. The discussions that followed as a result of varying immersion exercises helped me articulate my position surrounding not just the subjects of Partition and hockey but also my artistic practice and personal motivation for the project.

Project Proposal (The Build)

Proposal I

To explore the equation of power in the political decision-making that led to Partition. In the context of growing political friction based on religion in the world, Partition remains a fresh wound. As discussions in class have reiterated, Partition is not a moment in the past. It is a memory continued and it affects our political decisions even now. I want to understand if certain political decisions were taken to make this event happen, can I look for patterns that such decisions followed then and hence follow today? Are there similar scenarios in the present day that can only be worked through with divisive politics by political actors?

After Seminar I, my project proposal went through a change. In my proposal, I feel assured that certain decisions are ‘made’ or ‘forged’ so to say, which would require these decisions to have lobbyists, pushers…people who are certain of the ramifications of this decision. However, I have come to realize that decisions are not always actively being made or forged. They are present in the way people act after or before an event. For example, most of the Anglo-Indian community made the tough choice of leaving Independent India and Pakistan. This was a phenomenon not of a particular family or locality but was spread across people from Calcutta, Bangalore, etc.

Conceptual Framework

The Partition of 1947 was one angry orgy that pushed people who lived together for many generations to kill and fight another. It was the darkest point of many post-colonial lives and has led to a permanent scar on the face of Indian-Pakistani independence. What makes Partition interesting to me is that the violence that came along, could have been avoided perhaps but wasn’t. Non-cooperation movement and the Bengal Pact of 1920 had the potential Hindu-Muslim unite, but they never flourished. Is that still the case?

If certain political decisions made this event happen, can I look for the patterns that such decisions followed then and confront them in the present? Of course, I have to engage with history cautiously because decisions often happen accidentally just as much as they are made to happen. Political decision-making may or may have been the prerogative of the political elite like The Morley-Minto reforms or the foundation of the Muslim League. These decisions may be made within neighbours, within political parties, by people in lands far away.

Project Proposal (Reworked Logline)

Understanding the history of Partition of India,1947 through the randomness of decisions, through the what-ifs and the choices made at different points of time by various stakeholders and unplanned circumstances.

Research Questions

1. In what ways can the event of Partition can be looked at? Is it a historical problem?
2. Can Partition be solved?
3. What are the political parties and decisions that can be blamed for Partition?
4. Are all decisions made? Or are certain decisions made for us?
5. What are some of the political decisions that we, as common people, can intervene in?
6. Is there randomness to this kind of decision making?
7. What were some of the preventive measures that could have been taken to avoid communal tension? Would these have worked?
8. Who are the archetypical characters formed in the process of decision making or conflicts?
9. Are there more than two sides to a political argument?

The Arc — The Missed Opportunity

‘Missed opportunity’ This was going to be the major arc through which worked to sift my information. The idea is to give a sense of missed opportunities within certain events/scenarios that lead up to Partition.

These events might not have led to Partition in a direct way but can be speculated to have affected it in their own little ways. In themselves, the scenarios may seem isolated and in a non-comprehensive pattern for the viewer/reader. So the need of the hour is to weave a narrative for them to be part of. A number of ways to think about a ‘missed opportunity’ visually were defused time bombs, snags in a rope line for a ropewalker or pressure cookers about to go off.

To visually represent the mood, I came up with a comic story where I trace my project and outlook.

Chosen Scenarios

Following are the events/scenarios chosen for further stories and themes in the project.

1. Cow slaughter riots of Azamgarh (The Symbol)

2. The naming of Pakistan (The Moniker)

3. Unionist Party’s dilution into Muslim League (The Pawn)

4. The row over separate electorate between the Congress and the Muslim League (The Row)

The Symbol
Cow Slaughter Legislation/ Cow Protection Movement

From the list of stories I have chosen, I wanted to begin with the cow slaughter riots that happened in 1839 in Mau in Azamgarh. Cows are considered sacred by the Hindus and Muslims have traditionally sacrificed cows on occasions of Eid-al-Adha and otherwise for meat.

There have been in numerous clashes due to this age-old difference in opinion and my view is that these clashes were evidence of an impenetrable divide at a local level. While the violence was widespread and common, such local conflicts could have formed the basis for a growing nation-wide Hindu-Muslim division sentiment, sowing the early seeds of Partition.

What also needs to be brought out is that they remained unresolved at a community level. Was this issue unnecessarily politicised at a large scale?

Themes I explored

1. Tolerance in a community
2. Individual rights and freedoms
3. The real role of cows in the actual debate

The Moniker
On 28 January 1933, Choudhary Rahmat Ali, founder of Pakistan National Movement voiced his ideas in the pamphlet entitled “Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?”. ‘Pakistan’ is composed of letters taken from the names of all our South Asia homelands; that is, Punjab(P), Afghania(A), Kashmir(K), Sindh(S)and Balochistan(STAN). It means the land of the Pure. The scheme of naming the Muslim province Pakistan was not met with cheers, it was a misdirected idea, a confusion attributed to Mohammad Iqbal, leader of the Punjab Muslim League who was merely referring to creating a strong political Muslim bloc in the North West Frontier that will work within the national government. However, it was powerful enough to catch on later when communal tension was at a peak.

The Pawn
Unionist Party got diluted into the Muslim League through the Sikander Pact of Lucknow.

Unionist Party was a secular party in Punjab with equal members of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. Theirs was a working model of an ideal political space. They were extremely popular in Punjab and unlike Congress, they were friendly with the British and enjoyed power through the legislative. However, Sir Sikander Hayat Khan, head of the Unionist Party, concluded a pact with Jinnah in October 1937 by which he became a member of the Muslim League Council. This paved the way for other Muslim leaders too to cooperate with Jinnah in the interest of the Muslims at South Asia level.

A party which seemed to have created a unified electorate across faith joined hands with a communal group for various reasons and a strong Muslim side was created.

The Row
U-turn on separate electorates for Muslims. From Lucknow Pact of 1916 to Nehru Report of 1928

Nehru Report: It did not provide for separate electorates for any community or weight for minorities. This was a complete throwback to the Lucknow Pact formed in 1916 between the Muslim League and the Congress, that supported separate electorate for Muslims and one-third of Muslim representation at the centre. What changed so much between the years that the Nehru report could not hear out the demands of primarily Muslim political parties, Khilafat and Muslim League and adopt a more diplomatic route, instead of being on the offensive and unmoving.

Project concept

Interactive Storytelling
The next step was about looking at four events for the kinds of choices that were made and the kinds of consequences that resulted from them keeping in with my enquiry of decision-making.

After much discussion, it was decided that bringing these scenarios out through a game/application format where the reader picks the next step for the story for the characters and decides the flow of the scenario would be most appropriate to generate a unique understanding of the causes of Partition.

Game Flow

Story Narrative
The story that was written for was about following a character as he negotiates or chooses his actions. The story’s narrator is Sadhu, a cow who often talks to the reader/viewer and prods him/her on the journey. In the scenario of the symbol, the reader is given the task of heeding a mysterious cow, who is apparently the cause of great happiness and glory to an individual. The reader must choose the next step of his journey at certain points of the game though he may find himself in many unexpected situations.

Regarding the location of the story, there were some apprehensions as the original event happened in Mau in Azamgarh. This meant that I must explore a rustic, rural background for the characters. However, my knowledge of such a background was going to be insufficient and simplistic so I was advised to work in similar situations but in an urban context that I am more familiar with.

Storyboarding
A portion of the game flow created for the scenario of The Symbol, based on which I worked on the storyboard for the application.