“I haven’t heard many of these names in a long time,” he said, his tone both wistful and concerned as accounts of mayhem in East-Bengal-turned-East-Pakistan-turned-Bangladesh were rattled off in the peculiarly urgent staccato tones of Bengali news channels. “Why is this happening again?” His anxiety was natural as among the areas cited was his former zamindari estate, Sherpur, (now a district in Bangladesh), where a major jailbreak had taken place.
It has been over 80 years since he left his boyhood home in a remote corner of north-eastern undivided Bengal, but his memories of it are crystal clear. A part of him is still there, watching as history and circumstance roil the green, riverine land of his forefathers. Some Indians even younger than he-ever fewer as the years go by, of course-may have the same feelings when they see painful events unfold across the Radcliffe line through the sharp telescope of TV.
For those who have never lost a homeland, my uncle’s mixed feelings are hard to comprehend. More so as the schism in Bengal played out very differently from the one that divided Punjab as India was partitioned in 1947, as in the east it was prolonged and plagued by uncertainty. There was a (false) hope, created by the ultimately unfeasible Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950 that cross-border links would not (have to) be severed. Memories of that audacious hope die hard.
More so as even the national anthem of Bangladesh, flowing from the pen of a great son of undivided Bengal Rabindranath Tagore, resonated on both sides of the border regardless of age. “Amar shonar Bangla, ami tomaye bhalobashi; Chirodin tomar akash, tomar batash, amar praney, O Ma amar praney, bajaye baanshi…” The adoption of Tagore’s poem by a new Bengali nation in 1971 reignited that dream, though subsequent events effectively dispelled it.
Those who grew up in undivided India-especially in regions that are no longer part of it-have a very different sensibility than those of us who were born within the new geographical confines. The younger the Indian, the more likely it is that she will see turmoil in Bangladesh and Pakistan with the same eyes as the conflict in Ukraine, and probably with even less concern than for what is happening in Gaza now. But older Indians’ hearts still beat for this entire region.For, no other country with such a long, unbroken common history now has to live with a permanently cleft reality as India does now. Our situation is unique. It cannot be compared, say, to the Soviet Union’s split into Russia and a myriad of independent republics, as their joint history was not thousands of years old. Nor did global colonial empires have shared ancient roots like our subcontinent. China, luckily, still retains much of its political and cultural territory.This shorn India has to find a new equilibrium. And that can only begin with letting go, which is one of the hardest things for the human heart to do. That is why right till the end of the 20th century, fanciful notions of reunification like Vietnam and Germany were kept alive by many Indians of that pre-Partition generation, buoyed by feelings that we are essentially the same people. This prospect has been steadily fading as that generation passes into history.
Younger Indians dismiss that idea, not the least because the paths of the three subcontinental siblings have diverged so distinctly and dramatically. That growing emotional distance will be ultimately beneficial even as geographical proximity precludes total detachment. Meanwhile, my uncle and others of his diminishing generation will continue to feel and fret for our neighbours’ travails, sepia memories of a shared past clashing with jarring HDTV images.
