Migration has meant that the stories of Partition are scattered across the world. In Britain, where a huge South Asian diaspora resides, there was a culture of silence that journalist, broadcaster and author Kavita Puri decided to challenge by gathering the testimonies of Partition survivors and their descendants, first via her radio series ‘Partition Voices: Untold British Stories’ and then a book by the same name. Puri talks to Ketaki Desai about the floodgates that opened up
What made you take up this project?
It begins, as it often does for writers of Partition, with my own family Partition story which I didn’t know much of because nobody talked about it. As the 70th anniversary in 2017 approached, I thought, what if we never know, what if these stories are lost forever? I embarked upon a BBC radio series to collect these first-hand testimonies. What I realised very quickly was that it was a huge awakening not only for me, but that anniversary was a watershed for the diaspora. It was also a significant moment on the path of Britain talking about that colonial past.
Why the silence around it?
I know silence is something that does exist in the Indian subcontinent, but the difference in the diasporic experience is that when you come to another country in the post-war years, you’re fighting against discrimination and you’re trying to make a new life. You want to look ahead, and not at the past. There was also an institutional silence around empire and Partition so there was no public space to talk about these memories. Children born in Britain may not even know what the word “Partition” meant, let alone that it was part of their family story.
Is there a story that sticks with you?
I expected to hear stories of horror, but what that generation wants is for us to remember that people of all religions did exist side by side. A Sikh interviewee told me about his aunt who died. She had little children, who her Muslim best friend suckled after her death. It shows how deep those connections were and the depths of those friendships as well.
Do you think the third generation is more interested in Partition stories?
There is a distance. The second generation, especially in the diaspora, was often caught between two worlds — their parents’ world and the world they were trying to fit into. The third generation is largely more at ease about their place in Britain and there’s much more of a curiosity about where they’re from. They’re happy to take on the complexity of their identity.
It may be easier for the first generation to talk to the third. A great example of this is the story of Sparsh Ahuja. He knew his family was from Pakistan but nobody talked about that. He tried very gently to ask his grandfather in Delhi questions, and his grandfather was initially hesitant but was in the end delighted to. Sparsh found out his grandfather was from a very small village in Pakistan called Bela. His family had been saved by Muslims in their village. Sparsh ended up going back to the village and found the descendants of the family that saved his grandfather. They took him to the place his grandfather grew up. He said that he felt in that moment a weight off his shoulders, that the inter-generational trauma had subsided and he had rewritten the story of his family after three generations. The story he was told is not the one he will tell his children. He took three pebbles from the place and says this is his evidence that his family were once from that land, it represents his entire family archive. He made one of the pebbles into a pendant for a necklace and wears it every day.
To what extent was the decision to migrate a function of Partition?
Groups that came in the post-war years were mostly from places hugely disrupted by Partition. If your life has been massively disrupted once and the worst has happened, why wouldn’t you move again? The place you moved to in the Indian subcontinent may never really have felt like home anyway.
Was it fraught for them to move to Britain in particular?
Some people I interviewed had been part of the Quit India movement, or they had handed out leaflets. In one case, they had been quite violent to British interests. I would ask, ‘Wasn’t it strange for you to come to your former colonial ruler?’ They said, no, not at all. When they came, no one was talking about colonial legacy. But that legacy lived on — look at the jobs they were offered. They faced a lot of discrimination, but they fought against it, in some cases very successfully. They got equal pay and did well over the years. The question of colonial legacy is in much sharper focus now. There are campaigns to make teaching about empire, Partition and the relationship with migration to Britain a mandatory part of the national curriculum, which it is currently not.
Did people carry objects that anchored them to the home they had lost?
The things people keep are very elemental — it is dust, soil or a brick. I went to one home in Edinburgh and in the middle of the room in a glass cabinet was a brick. My interviewee had returned to his home in Pakistan and taken a brick with the permission of the owner. There are also heirlooms, like sarees, which they revere. These are often their only connections to a land long fled.
What made you take up this project?
It begins, as it often does for writers of Partition, with my own family Partition story which I didn’t know much of because nobody talked about it. As the 70th anniversary in 2017 approached, I thought, what if we never know, what if these stories are lost forever? I embarked upon a BBC radio series to collect these first-hand testimonies. What I realised very quickly was that it was a huge awakening not only for me, but that anniversary was a watershed for the diaspora. It was also a significant moment on the path of Britain talking about that colonial past.
Why the silence around it?
I know silence is something that does exist in the Indian subcontinent, but the difference in the diasporic experience is that when you come to another country in the post-war years, you’re fighting against discrimination and you’re trying to make a new life. You want to look ahead, and not at the past. There was also an institutional silence around empire and Partition so there was no public space to talk about these memories. Children born in Britain may not even know what the word “Partition” meant, let alone that it was part of their family story.
Is there a story that sticks with you?
I expected to hear stories of horror, but what that generation wants is for us to remember that people of all religions did exist side by side. A Sikh interviewee told me about his aunt who died. She had little children, who her Muslim best friend suckled after her death. It shows how deep those connections were and the depths of those friendships as well.
Do you think the third generation is more interested in Partition stories?
There is a distance. The second generation, especially in the diaspora, was often caught between two worlds — their parents’ world and the world they were trying to fit into. The third generation is largely more at ease about their place in Britain and there’s much more of a curiosity about where they’re from. They’re happy to take on the complexity of their identity.
It may be easier for the first generation to talk to the third. A great example of this is the story of Sparsh Ahuja. He knew his family was from Pakistan but nobody talked about that. He tried very gently to ask his grandfather in Delhi questions, and his grandfather was initially hesitant but was in the end delighted to. Sparsh found out his grandfather was from a very small village in Pakistan called Bela. His family had been saved by Muslims in their village. Sparsh ended up going back to the village and found the descendants of the family that saved his grandfather. They took him to the place his grandfather grew up. He said that he felt in that moment a weight off his shoulders, that the inter-generational trauma had subsided and he had rewritten the story of his family after three generations. The story he was told is not the one he will tell his children. He took three pebbles from the place and says this is his evidence that his family were once from that land, it represents his entire family archive. He made one of the pebbles into a pendant for a necklace and wears it every day.
To what extent was the decision to migrate a function of Partition?
Groups that came in the post-war years were mostly from places hugely disrupted by Partition. If your life has been massively disrupted once and the worst has happened, why wouldn’t you move again? The place you moved to in the Indian subcontinent may never really have felt like home anyway.
Was it fraught for them to move to Britain in particular?
Some people I interviewed had been part of the Quit India movement, or they had handed out leaflets. In one case, they had been quite violent to British interests. I would ask, ‘Wasn’t it strange for you to come to your former colonial ruler?’ They said, no, not at all. When they came, no one was talking about colonial legacy. But that legacy lived on — look at the jobs they were offered. They faced a lot of discrimination, but they fought against it, in some cases very successfully. They got equal pay and did well over the years. The question of colonial legacy is in much sharper focus now. There are campaigns to make teaching about empire, Partition and the relationship with migration to Britain a mandatory part of the national curriculum, which it is currently not.
Did people carry objects that anchored them to the home they had lost?
The things people keep are very elemental — it is dust, soil or a brick. I went to one home in Edinburgh and in the middle of the room in a glass cabinet was a brick. My interviewee had returned to his home in Pakistan and taken a brick with the permission of the owner. There are also heirlooms, like sarees, which they revere. These are often their only connections to a land long fled.