India-Pakistan Partition: Songs of separation
The Partition of the Indian subcontinent is a significant geopolitical event in the history of the twentieth century, one with far reaching implications, not just for South Asia, but for the balance of power in what could be called arguably, a post-American world. It is also one of the bloodiest chapters, perhaps matched in brutality and gore only by the two world wars.
Across most of north India, Hindus and Muslims were mixed together, along with large communities of Sikhs, Christians and other minority groups. On the eve of their departure from India, imperialist map-makers drew a seemingly arbitrary line across the land, dividing families, cultures and peoples who had co-existed for millennia, sharing the same stories, speaking the same language and eating the same food.
In Punjab, the border was carved right down the center of the province causing hysterical mobs to rush to the other side in the brief window given to them. Trains filled with refugees were attacked by crazed fanatics from the two dominant faiths, and the passengers brutally massacred. Nearly fifteen million people were displaced and close to fifty thousand slaughtered in the retributive genocide that accompanied the forced migration.
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan was founded on August 14, 1947. On the following day, the Republic of India was established adjacent to it. Both nations euphemistically refer to the occasion as “Independence Day”, signifying their liberation from British colonial rule.
Less than a year after independence, on January 30, 1948, "father of the nation" MK Gandhi was assassinated by Hindu supremacist and one-time RSS member Nathuram Godse for showing sympathy towards Muslims and for advocating a secular, multi-religious state. In the same year, Gandhi’s protégé Jawaharlal Nehru used the brute powers of the Indian army and police to annex the princely state of Hyderabad into the Indian Union. Up to 40,000 Muslims were killed, making this episode the single-largest massacre in the history of independent India.
Since then, India and Pakistan have had three major military clashes over territorial disputes, the most prominent being the war which led to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. And the contentious boundary line between Indian ruled Jammu and Kashmir and its Pakistani counterpart has been a source of tension from the very beginning. The area was not formally under the British Raj in India but functioned as semi-autonomous princely state. The Hindu ruler signed the Instrument of Accession in India’s favor despite having a Muslim majority populace, causing tensions and resentments that have continued to fester ever since. Since 1990, over 40,000 people are estimated to have been killed in Kashmir, about half of them civilians.
In 2017, the 70th anniversary of the Partition, the liberal sections of both countries find themselves being pushed increasingly to the margins by rabid ethno-nationalists fueling a majoritarian backlash against the minorities in their respective nations, often spiraling into orgies of sporadic violence.
A spate of performances, articles and remembrances are doing the rounds; to mark the traumatising event and simultaneously the independence of both nations from the shackles of British rule. Standing out from the clutter is singer-composer Sonam Kalra’s viscerally experiential mixed media performance entitled Partition: Stories of Separation. It seamlessly combines art, video, theatre and music to relive memories of the event and explore ways of reconciliation and healing.
Kalra recalls her aunt telling her about the time her great-grandfather called his two youngest daughters to him and said, “I have a favor to ask of you. If the mob comes, if the mob overpowers us, I will shoot you. But promise me that you won’t cry when I do so, for it will break my heart.” Such harrowing accounts are not uncommon to people who lived through that era. Clearly they have informed this artist’s worldview and in turn her work.
The rapt audience in the Stein auditorium at the India Habitat Center, New Delhi was treated to a series of powerful vocal performances set to the words of iconic poets of that era; Ali Sardar Jafri, Ustad Daman, Amrita Pritam and Faiz Ahmed Faiz among others. The musical pieces are interspersed with spoken word recitals by actor-director Salima Raza and heartrending personal accounts from partition survivors projected onto a screen mounted on the stage.
Sonam Kalra is accompanied by a team of talented musicians led by Sarangi maestro Ahsaan Ali, who is also one of the key musicians in the Sufi Gospel Project, an acclaimed troupe that has performed at prestigious events across the world. “I first conceived this Project when I was asked to sing Gospel music to commemorate the birth centenary of the Sufi Hazrat Inayat Khan at the Inayat Khan Dargah in Delhi” explains Kalra. “I had sung Gospel in churches and at other music venues but for the Urz of Inayat Khan, I wanted to create a sound that blended the faiths. I belong to the Sikh religion and am often asked why I sing Gospel. My answer is always the same; because God has no religion”
The Sufi Gospel Project is a feat of hybrid artistry that has won accolades from critics and audiences alike. Their shows feature an intriguing blend of Khusrau with Amazing Grace, Kabir and Abide with Me, and Bulleh Shah’s voice accompanying English and Gaelic texts.
If as Giacometti said “the object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity”, Kalra has succeeded in creating an intensely moving experience that we can only hope spawns more of the same, and translates into lived reality in our turbulent age. For in the realm of art and the human spirit there are no borders.