00:00Hello there, this is me Ansh Pandey and you are watching One India News.
00:04Viewers, today is Independence Day.
00:07Today, every Indian is filled with pride and joy on this momentous occasion.
00:13However, when we talk of the stories of independence,
00:16it is something that fills everyone with emotions.
00:20It fills some with pride, it fills some with great sorrow.
00:25Today we have got two prominent books with us.
00:28One is Humanity Amidst Insanity and second is Warriors After War.
00:33And we have also got the author of these two books with us, Mr. Tridivesh Singh Meni.
00:39Welcome to the show, Mr. Meni.
00:40So, my first question to you is that what exactly was the inspiration
00:45and the striking point behind writing these two books?
00:50Essentially, there are two or three factors, I would say.
00:53The first is right from childhood.
00:56You know, my maternal grandparents and paternal grandparents,
01:00their roots were in West Punjab.
01:02So, one grew up on stories, not just about partition but even pre-partition.
01:08And one heard more about, in fact, one has grown up hearing about Kahoota,
01:13about Gujranwala and you know about obviously about Lahore.
01:17So, one was that aspect.
01:21The second was myself, you know, when I studied overseas and interacted with scholars
01:32from across the border, many of them obviously, you know, there are cultural similarities.
01:37And then you just begin to question the reasons what led to, you know, the divide.
01:45So, of course, the second factor, it's not necessarily that the interactions
01:51with people from other parts of South Asia, I would not say directly led to a curiosity
01:56but somewhere or the other that does play a role.
02:00The third is also that, you know, one read about the Holocaust and people drew parallels.
02:12But not much was done for very long on partition.
02:15So, that was obviously one aspect.
02:17And then even there were very serious works, serious, a lot of research had begun to happen.
02:25But obviously, I think the first partition, one was that, I think there was a serial called Tamas.
02:33I mean, I was very young then but one has memories of that.
02:36And then based on a novel and then The Train to Pakistan, Khushwant Singh's very famous novel.
02:46So, I think these were some of the important points.
02:51Now, I would also like to add here that for very long, it's a very important issue
02:59that the post-partition survivors, they were not able to overcome the trauma.
03:06So, even some of the prominent scholars and writers, they wrote on partition not based
03:12on their own stories but they wrote novels.
03:14But it is in the past two decades, you see a lot of work of that sort happening.
03:21And even I think oral history has become a very important tool.
03:26The first important work in this context was by Urvashi Bhutalia.
03:30There have been novels earlier but Urvashi Bhutalia's work was very important in terms
03:35of promoting oral history, the importance of oral history.
03:38So, I think these are some of the really important, anybody who, not just me but anybody who is
03:44in this generation or after is interested in partition, I think these are some of the
03:49important propelling factors.
03:50Mr. Turizavesh, these two books, can you tell us something more about these books?
03:56What is this exactly about and what kind of stories do these books have regarding the partition?
04:02The book basically, it's a co-edited book.
04:06On the Indian side, I carried out interviews and on the Pakistani side, there were two
04:11co-authors, Mr. Tahir Malik and Ali Farooq Malik.
04:15The first edition came out in 2008, the next edition came out in 2022.
04:21The focus, we have 20 stories, 10 on each side.
04:25The focus there is on instances where members of one community rescued members of another.
04:34So non-Muslims rescuing Muslims and vice versa or somebody who has been rescued.
04:41And there were some very interesting takeaways in that.
04:44So for instance, simply put, we blame religion for instance as one of the dividing factors.
04:50There were instances of religious priests of one community saving members of another.
04:56In some instances, people used religious symbols to disguise themselves also.
05:02Then the other is that the ordinary public, especially individuals coming from West Punjab,
05:09they actually did, some of them thought we will come back because they said,
05:13we have lived together for so long, we had various rulers, but we have lived together.
05:19And this is a question of few months and we will come back.
05:22There was one instance where an individual actually asked, a Sikh gentleman was asked
05:27to unfurl the flag of Pakistan.
05:29Then after that, in that area, the riots broke out and then he left after that.
05:34You know, what happens is when we look at, often when we look at, first of all,
05:39I think the scholarship of partition was often relegated to the sidelines.
05:43Because obviously, 15th August happens to be Independence Day, so the emphasis was on that.
05:51So in recent years, that of course has begun to change.
05:54There is more and more growing interest in partition.
05:59But also even the partition scholarship, it often missed out.
06:03It was based on, you know, the broader issues.
06:08So the human side of it, some of the, like I have just given you some, they never really came out.
06:13And how, you know, people also like, so for instance, this thing of, at a personal level,
06:20I can say you go to, till a few years ago when you went to India International Centre,
06:24people who had hailed from, who were from Lahore or from, there used to be one sort,
06:28it was an informal sort of club and they used to be discussing that, you know,
06:31we used to live like this in Lahore, we used to be discussing stories and all that.
06:35And that happens obviously even in Punjab, it happens in the rural areas,
06:38people who have migrated from that side.
06:40Of course, that generation is withering away now.
06:42These things were relegated to the sidelines.
06:44Now that has begun to change.
06:46The human side of it has begun to change.
06:49So one last question that definitely we were partitioned at a scale
06:54and an unprecedented violence followed after that.
06:57But regarding in this 21st century, how do you see India-Pakistan relations coming in the future days?
07:06I think in the future, one of the important aspects is social media has really changed.
07:11One, the first thing I would like to say is that social media has democratized the partition space.
07:18It was earlier relegated to certain sections of society.
07:23And you had to be an intellectual or a scholar,
07:27and it was done under the overall ambit of conceptual frameworks and theoretical frameworks.
07:33But the most important part is that in this region, everything happens according to word of mouth.
07:40So oral history had, I mean, you know, oral history interviews had started.
07:46But a lot of people, a lot of writers themselves were not, they were not articulate in the local languages.
07:51So you could not, you know, especially Punjabi, for instance, you could not actually, a lot of stories are missed out.
07:58Now, you have initiatives, you have, for instance, you have this partition archive,
08:07and the Punjabi Lehar channel from which started off across the border.
08:13I think that has done human service.
08:15It has, one, it has obviously gone to various parts of West Punjab,
08:21and, you know, stories regarding partition have come out.
08:26But it has also helped in reuniting families. A lot of families have got reunited.
08:31So these initiatives have been very important.
08:33And I may also mention here that interestingly, the Kartarpur religious corridor has,
08:42apart from obviously fulfilling the desires of pilgrims,
08:48and there's obviously, there's a yearning on this side of the border.
08:53For very long, there's a yearning that has been fulfilled.
08:55But even some of these families, family members were reunited after a very long Kartarpur religious corridor.
09:02So it has played a very important role in that.
09:04And I think for the future, it's very important to the next generation.
09:09One is, obviously, we must learn, there are certain aspects, as I said, which are relegated to the sidelines.
09:14There are positives also from the past. People have coexisted.
09:17So like, for instance, till 1965, the people-to-people contacts, the trade was there.
09:22So we need to learn that even after 47, yes, a lot of things happened.
09:26But 10 years after that, when people actually went that side, or, you know, Pakistanis came this side,
09:32there was bonhomie, you know, there were hockey matches, cricket matches.
09:36So if immediately after partition, you could get over that, at least we should strive for a manageable relationship.
09:44And it's very good to see sportspersons from both sides, in spite of the relations being strained.
09:50I think sportspersons have a very good cordial relationship.
09:53And what is also interesting is, you know, earlier, when cricket wasn't played for very long,
10:00when there weren't too many interactions, there used to be hostility, even between sportspersons.
10:05Now that is gone. So it's, you know, and I would like to add here that you need,
10:10the first thing is, I'm not getting into, you know, whether peace or conflict,
10:14there should at least be maturity. And the relationship should be one which is at least manageable and normal.
10:20There's, I mean, this unnecessary hostility, jingoism, ultra, I mean, that does good to no one at all.
10:27Well, Mr. Sudhivesh, thank you for this interview with us. Thank you.
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