I just finished reading Urvashi Butalia’s “The Other Side of
Silence”. It’s a book on Partition, dealing with the partition of Punjab….it is
not an official account of the technicalities involved or the ‘’facts” about
Partition, but deals with the impact of Partition on the human lives involved….
giving much needed space to the neglected and the silenced ones….women,
children and the marginalized communities (the “Harijans”, as they are
called)…..
After finishing this read, I expected to feel in myself an
upsurge of emotions, a feeling of disbelief in what she has written…..but that
didn’t happen…..may be because the accounts I read are so unbelievable that you
keep on reading them like a robot without actually registering the enormity of
what occurred…..may be because they are from too distant a past not having any
direct bearing on me…..or is it because such barbaric and inhumane incidents
are not able to surprise anymore?....Have they become a trend rather than an
exception?....
The devaluing of the human lives that happened at the time
of Partition, when the fact that a human being was just that first and
foremost, a HUMAN BEING, became irrelevant and inconsequential….the only things
that remained important were the adjectives that can be attached to a human
being….those pertaining to religion, gender, caste, class and the like……did
this devaluation happen only then?.....does this not happen day in and day
out….may be on a different scale…..may be in a different form…..but does it
not? Women are still the secondary gender, no matter how much we talk of gender
equality……children are not even considered as separate individuals in their own
right, but only as an extension of the parents….as if they were brought into
the world for the sole purpose of the fulfilment of the unrealized drams of the
parents….the marginalized on the basis of religion, caste and class are not
even considered worthy of being treated as human beings at times…..
Why do these state of affairs not trouble us? Why does it
not give us sleepless nights? How are we able to accept this and live our lives
as usual? Why are we always ready with the excuse that a single individual was
remained incapable of doing anything about anything? Why do not all these
single individuals decide to make a difference, at least in their own lives, in
which case everything will take care of itself automatically?
But till such time this utopia is realized, do read these
personal and human accounts of the survivors of Partition…..it will force you
to think, after you get over the numbness……of the meaninglessness of it all……..
A big thank you to Urvashi Butalia for uncovering some of
the silences……
No comments:
Post a Comment