Welcome back. And in the last section, we discussed the political social and cultural amnesia that was associated with partition. And in this section and the next, we will talk about some spectres of partition that still haunt the sub-continent. So first of all is international relations. India and Pakistan construct each other as permanent enemies. Really in a sense without India as an enemy, Pakistan would lose one big reason to survive. And similarly, without Pakistan as an enemy, India would lose one big reason to survive. And these enemies are again factors that both nation states use to unite their people against this common enemy. And as I think I said a previous part of the lecture, that there have been three wars fought by these… actually, three or maybe even four if you count Kargil as a war. So there are many wars fought by India and Pakistan. And there's the disputed territory of Kashmir. So there's this constant war preparation and arms race and in fact, even the nuclear option in India and Pakistan has been part of this construction of each other as enemies. So when India performed its first nuclear test, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who was then the President of, the Prime Minister of Pakistan actually said we will get a nuclear bomb too, even if we have to eat grass. So it was really that, we have to keep up with the weapons, because this perpetual enemy on the other side of the border will otherwise destroy us. So this has been a really crucial factor in the international relations in the sub-continent and has kept enmity and tension bubbling along. And as I said also before, borders which were porous. People sort of moved across borders, and went to visit and to trade and do various things, are now fixed in the national imagination. So, the inevitable cross-border migrations become illegal. So for an Indian to get a visa to go to Pakistan and vice versa, is really difficult, when in fact you, you speak the same language, eat the same food, have very similar culture practices, but you are separated by this border. And in the case of Bangladesh, it's a really big issue because there's a very strong migration from Bangladesh into India, especially by people looking for work. And all of this migration, all of these people are seen as illegal and live under the radar. And are not able to access any of the benefits of citizenship or even of legitimate workers. And the absorption of migrants or refugees during partition, has later sort of dominated sub-continental politics. The MQM in Pakistan is basically made up of refugees mainly from India. And the both in West Bengal and Punjab, the absorption of refugees, how to resettle them, what to do, has really been a very crucial factor in the post-partition decades. And, also within the nation itself, in this case within India, the idea, there's always a feeling that the nation was betrayed by a minority. That the Muslims betrayed us because they wanted to create a Muslim nation. So national politics then becomes majoritarian, that is the majority Hindus. We are the ones who will be the major players in national politics. And the metaphors of insiders, outsiders, religion, language, other differences, are constantly created. So where minorities are either looked upon as groups to be appeased, especially at election time, where they can deliver votes, or at other times as groups who are demonised as the people who produce terrorists or traitors and so on. So, again, as I said before, minorities have to constantly fight for legitimate citizenship in the national community. So the communal riots, for example, the recent ones in the ones previously whether in Bombay or, other parts of the country where there have been communal riots between Hindus and Muslims - The rise of very strong movement of Hindutva and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which wants to position Hindus as at the centre of Indian culture, politics, and society. And finally, in 1992 the demolition of a mosque which you can see here, the Babri Masjid. The mosque was was under dispute for a long time. And a Supreme Court injunction kept it locked up from people of both communities. But the demolition of the mosque was all about the fact that the Janata Party, which is now in power, promulgated the idea that this mosque which is in Ayodhya. The birthplace of one of Hindus' most revered deities, Rama that this mosque was built on Rama's birthplace. And in spite of a whole range of scholars pointing out that since the Ramayana was written a long time ago, nobody really knows where the birthplace is or this is just a myth. In spite of that this idea took hold and eventually a huge crowd of people descended on the mosque and destroyed it. So all of these are really the ways in which minorities and minority religions have been recreated, redefined in India as somehow other to the future of India, to the well-being of India and so on. So even though the national story is about the unity of Indians in their diversity, this notion of national identity often undermines political pluralism because it means that everybody. Regardless of who you are and your religion, has to behave in exactly the same way. And it subordinates other identities, regional identities, religious identities. And the fear of partition and further territorial disruption demonises minority groups, so India has a number of separatist movements. We've talked about Kashmir a little bit but there are also ones in the northeast in Nagaland for example. And there is enormous oppression brought to bear upon these insurgent, these separatist movements because of this fear that partition in genders within the Indian polity. So the partition the, the original partition, that fear percolates and permeates the way in which the Indian's re-polity deals with other dissonant groups, or groups that disagree, or which have other views of where they want to go and what they want to do with themselves. So in the next section, we will discuss a bit further these spectres. And specifically we will talk a little bit about the poetry and fiction written about this event. And also ask whether it's possible for such traumatic historical wounds to actually recuperate and be healed.
