On August 14th and 15th, India and Pakistan will raise their flags for Independence Day – this year for the 75th time. What is officially a reason to celebrate opens old wounds.
It has been 75 years since Pritam Khan lost his family. He was a child when the British announced the division of their former colonial empire, British India, into two countries – triggering sectarian massacres and one of the largest waves of migration in history. In 1947, the colonial power divided the multi-religious, mostly Hindu British India into India and the new state of Pakistan for Muslims.
Hatred flared up between the religious groups. Neighbors killed neighbors. Pritam Khan, a Muslim, barely survived when followers of the Sikh community raided his village. “I was playing near the house when a rampaging mob came,” says the 86-year-old in an interview with the German Press Agency. His father and three older brothers ran away. He hid in fields, his mother in a well. When he went to her, she didn’t come out.
Millions dead and displaced
Like Pritam Khan’s mother Rehmi, at least a million people died in the riots in 1947. Up to 15 million people were displaced or had to flee. Muslims like Khan’s father and his brothers moved to Pakistan, which was founded for them, Hindus and Sikhs from there to Hindu-influenced India. People suffered terrible atrocities along the way, many never arriving. Many families lost their belongings as a result of the resettlement, which further fueled the unrest.
The traumatic experiences are still in the collective memory today, influence politics and fuel a bitter rivalry between the two nuclear powers. Four wars have broken out between India and Pakistan since partition. From the third, today’s Bangladesh emerged in 1971 from the former East Pakistan. The Kashmir region on the common border in the Himalayas is still disputed to this day.
Pritam Khan doesn’t know exactly what happened after his mother’s death. He wandered around, then stayed with villagers until the violence stopped. He grew up in a place near his home village and worked for a farmer. He never went to school.
It is now the 75th anniversary of Khan’s tragedy. And both countries celebrate their independence in triumph – Pakistan on August 14, India a day later. But Khan won’t be celebrating, probably sitting outside his room on his charpai, a traditional bedstead in the region, thinking of his lost family.
Strained relationships
The partition has left the region – one of the most densely populated on earth with almost 1.4 billion people in India and around 220 million people in Pakistan – unequal. In the public perception, India is a country that has fought its way out of the status of a developing country. Pakistan is seen as a state with an ailing economy, weak democratic structures and a security problem due to many extremist groups.
Nevertheless, Pritam Khan wants to go exactly there, to Pakistan, where the descendants of his deceased brothers live. But he can’t. Because of the tense relations between the neighbors, he won’t be able to get a visa, he says. His family only found out that Khan was still alive seven years after their separation from a distant relative.
Almost 40 years ago, Khan first heard from a son of one of his brothers in Pakistan – nephew Shahbaz wrote to him. Since then, the two have been in regular contact, now via video chat. Once the separated family was able to see each other directly – at a Sikh memorial in Pakistan, which is a glimmer of hope for many separated families because Indian relatives come there without a visa. Nephew Shahbaz says: “I wish we hadn’t let him return to India when he visited.”
Khan’s Indian neighbors also hope that he can move in with his family. They lend him a cell phone to make video calls to Pakistan. They cook for him and bring medicine, but he is still lonely. The 86-year-old wishes for friendship between neighboring countries. “In this way, people could live peacefully and prosper.” His 54-year-old nephew emphasizes that India and Pakistan share a similar culture and language.
YouTube as a glimmer of hope
Khan is also currently hoping for a YouTuber. Pakistani Nasir Ali Dhillon contacts separated families via social media, helps them meet again – mostly at the shrine in Pakistan – and tells their stories on the video platform. Stories about love and friendship, about the past and hate.
The memories of his grandfather, who comes from the same Indian state as Khan, changed his perspective on the relationship between India and Pakistan. “We are told in the media that the Indians are enemies. But what our elders say sounds very different,” he says.
He has helped more than 300 families meet over the past six years. His YouTube channel has subscribers in both countries. Not everyone thinks that is good. He has already been interrogated by authorities on trips to the shrine, and there are even said to be death threats against him. Nevertheless, he wants to continue and also help Pritam Khan to get a visa. “75 years of war brought us nothing,” says Dhillon. “If we want to go further, we should change something.”
Source: Stern
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