WEBVTT - The Border 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:29.479 Yeah, m. This audio is from a daily ceremony that 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:35.479 takes place between India and Pakistan that started in It 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.760 is held at the Waga Border, the most prominent border 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.640 crossing between these two countries. The last time I was 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.159 in Pakistan was three years ago. On that trip, I 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.839 witnessed the Wagga Border ceremony. My family and I were 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.440 visiting Lahore, located in the province of Punjab, which was 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:59.440 a major area of conflict during partition. Lahore is located 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:02.680 only fifty two miles away from India and my experience 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:10.200 at the border was unforgettable. From I Heart Radio, I'm 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:14.200 Nahasis and this is partition a podcast that will take 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:35.520 a closer look into this often forgotten part of history. 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.280 My family's last trip to Pakistan was for three weeks. 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:45.280 This gave us time to explore more parts of the country, 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:48.120 and Lahore was high on the list. It is filled 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:52.400 with stunning architecture dating back to the Mughal Empire. I 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:56.440 love Garachi, after all, it's where I was born, but 0:01:56.520 --> 0:02:00.280 in terms of culture, Lahore has my birthplace beat. We 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:04.680 do have amazing food though. While outlining our travel plans, 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.280 my dad mentioned a ceremony Confused, I asked what he 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.240 was talking about. He told me that every evening, a 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:16.040 military event between India and Pakistan takes place. This ceremony 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:18.080 was one of the first things we saw when we 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.560 arrived in the whore, and it was the epitome of 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:27.119 a spectacle. During our visit, the air was filled with smog, 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:30.720 which made our journey to get there all the more formidable. 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.520 Cars were only allowed so far and we eventually had 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:36.600 to walk the rest of the way to the stadium 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:40.080 where the ceremony would take place. On the way, we 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:45.359 had to go through numerous security checkpoints. As we made 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.160 our way to the entrance, I tried to get my bearings. 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:51.960 Walking along the crowd to get to the stadium was 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.359 just very bizarre. I'm not sure how long we were 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:58.440 walking for, but it felt like at least forty five minutes. 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.040 We were walking on the same roads where absolute carnage 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:08.480 took place over seventy years ago. A shiver ran down 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:14.240 my spine. The majority of people I saw were filled 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:19.760 with excitement and anticipation to witness this tradition. I only 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:22.640 noticed a handful of people realized the melancholy of where 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:26.960 we were and what we were doing. Both sides of 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:30.160 the road were fenced off with barbed wire, indicating that 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:34.200 the other side was Indian territory. The land beyond the 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:38.160 fence seemed vast and endless. I turned to my mom 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:40.960 and said, is this the closest I will ever get 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:45.720 to India. She didn't give me a verbal response, but 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:48.480 instead gave me a look that conveyed all I needed 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:54.000 to know. As we continued our journey, I couldn't help 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:57.440 noticing the amount of school children that were there. I 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:01.040 saw many different uniforms. I wanted to ask if they 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:03.880 were from a local or nearby school, or did they 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.360 travel from other provinces. I wondered what they were taught 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:12.200 about the continuous strife between these two places. I didn't 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:15.760 really know how to feel during the ceremony. At its core, 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.400 it's a daily military practice for the Indian and Pakistani armies, 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.200 a forty five minute long sequence of marches and songs. 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.360 It's spoken of as a display of cooperation and brotherhood 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:31.080 between these two nations. In person, it was almost like 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:36.360 a scene straight out of Gladiator. Thunderous claps and cheering performers, 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:41.039 flag waving snacks being sold. Did my family and I 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:45.240 buy some popcorn, absolutely, but didn't make the concept any 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:52.159 less strange, not at all. The performance has two parts, 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:55.560 the beating retreat and the changing of the guard, performed 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.960 by the India Border Security Force and the Pakistan Rangers. 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.679 Respective sides were separated by two gates that open and closed. 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:08.120 During this theatrical production, Indian and Pakistani soldiers march in 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:12.159 perfect unison. The flags of both countries are lowered and 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.960 they partake in puffery and intimidation. Think of a male 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:20.120 peacock trying to attract a mate. The Pakistan Rangers were 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:23.479 black uniforms while the Indian Border Security Force were as 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:28.360 khaki uniforms, with both sides sporting pops of color. These 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.720 colors demanded attention with every hand raise and leg kick. 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:36.120 The gates first open as the sun sets. The flags 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:39.240 are folded after they are lowered, and a no nonsense 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:42.599 handshake takes place to conclude the end of the ceremony. 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.400 After the handshakes, the iron gates of the border close again. 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:51.120 During the entire event, visitors sing their national anthems and 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.400 chance slogans of Bakistan's in the body, which means long 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:57.880 lived the land of pure or victory to Bakistan and 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:02.080 jay Hind victory to Indian h Long live India across 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:06.360 the way. As I sat in the stadium, letting everything 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.880 in front of me sink in, I couldn't help but 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:11.960 think what were we all supposed to take away from this? 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.960 Is it all fun in games? Or does it build antagonism? 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.120 The idea behind it is to symbolize respect in addition 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:24.400 to rivalry between the two nations, But ultimately it's a 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:28.839 source of national and patriotic pride. There is no shame 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:32.040 in being proud of your heritage and where you come from. 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:34.760 But I think it's important to realize that our identities 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.359 are so entwined with each other. One does not exist 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:43.920 without the other. Our culture, language, food, and countless other 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:48.080 entities are cut from the same cloth. Yet decades later, 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:52.920 there are so much anger, bias, and hurt. As I've 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:57.919 said again and again, partition continues to haunt our daily lives. 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:03.760 I asked how these two governments can have a daily 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:08.000 ceremony together, a ceremony that started over sixty years ago, 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:12.640 when their relationships with each other are so troubled. I'm sorry, 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.040 but you cannot have a ceremony that represents respect and 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:20.240 friendship when Indian and Pakistani people are barred from visiting 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.040 the other country just because of where they were born 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:27.280 in familial ties. As I discussed a little later, it 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:31.720 wasn't always like this. This illusion of friendship, which is 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:35.480 really a disguise for hateful policies and violent rivalry stemming 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.119 from the British made border made me think of something 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.440 I noticed when my family and I began to walk 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.840 towards the stadium. In the distance, I could see both 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:48.000 India's and Bokistan's flags waving in the wind. My dad 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.440 noticed I was looking at them and said that India 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.560 had put up a flag first and Pakistan followed suit, 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.760 but purposely made their flag higher than theirs. I asked 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:00.600 if he was kidding. It's the to my mind to 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.920 look this up at the time, but when writing this 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:08.200 episode I did and he definitely was not kidding. In March, 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:11.720 India put up a flag that was three d sixty 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.560 ft tall. Five months later, Bakistan decided to put up 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.320 a flag of their own, but at four hundred ft. 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:23.320 The Hindustan Times reported in July that India plans to 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.680 create an even larger flag, one that is fifty ft 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.520 higher than the current one they have in place, making 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.760 it ten feet taller than Pakistan's. And I'm sure once 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.679 that happens, Bakistan will make a larger one and the 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:40.360 madness will continue. There are some, I'm sure who see 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.200 this news and feel a deep sense of pride or 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:47.040 find a comical I personally can't help but see it 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.200 as a waste of time, energy, and money when there 0:08:50.240 --> 0:09:03.280 are real needs to be addressed. The majority of our 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.360 conversations on the border have dealt with how difficult it 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.760 is for many Indians and Pakistanis to visit the other side. 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:15.520 But why and what other underlying issues caused each government 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:19.280 to deny visa applications from people of the other country. 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:25.360 Since partition, India and Pakistan continue to have deeply tense relations. 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:30.240 Both countries have nuclear weapons and continue to fight over Kashmir, 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:35.160 even with numerous wars already under their belts. It should 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:38.959 be noted that the dispute over Kashmir and other tensions 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:44.640 between these nations are very intricate and complex, so for 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:47.480 the purposes of this episode, I'll be using a handful 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:51.160 of examples to illustrate how tensions between the two countries 0:09:51.320 --> 0:10:00.680 manifest today. My research interests are about refugee ease and 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.439 borders in South Asia, and so as a consequence of that, 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:11.120 I'm obviously interested in Partition. That is dr ant an 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:15.760 historian and professor of international relations at Royal Holloway University 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.880 in London. I wanted to ask her about the border 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.400 from more of an historical lens. I first asked her 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.720 about these borders over the last seventy five years, they 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:29.440 have gone through different periods of accessibility. I have a 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:32.120 picture of my fraternal grandparents in front of the taj 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:35.280 Mahal in the sixties, shortly after my dad was born. 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.480 The likelihood of that picture being taken in two is 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:44.560 extremely small. First of all, the kind of whole visa 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:47.560 and passport regime has a much longer history. So in 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.200 order to understand where that comes from, I think you 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:53.199 actually have to go back to partition and both India 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:55.080 and Pakistan trying to work out, as I said, who 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.080 belongs and who doesn't. And in that process two things 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:02.079 emerged a forman system first and then a passport system. 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:04.559 So before the visas, they came passports for these people, 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.640 right and why did these systems emerge. The permit system 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.880 really emerges because many Muslims who go to Pakistan want 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.640 to come back to India and the Indian government is 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.360 worried because many of these people have left property behind 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.559 property to the Indian government calls evacuate property and was 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:21.840 going to hand this over to Hindus and Seeks. So 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:23.960 if these Muslims come back and claim this property, that 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:28.160 causes a problem. So they make them apply for permits. 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:30.280 And the permits that are given to Muslims are different 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:32.160 to the permits that are given to Hindus and Seeks 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.560 in this period. So although ostensibly Naru has declared India 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:38.199 to be a secular state, there is a difference in 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:40.520 the way in which Hindus and Muslims are crossing this border. 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:45.880 Even in Nhru was the first Prime Minister of India. 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:52.319 The passport system interesting is introduced at the behest of Pakistan, 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.040 but not quite at the behested Pakistan. But Pakistan has 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:57.600 a greater hand in the passport system. And the reason 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.640 they introduce it is because actually they are overwhelmed by 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.000 the number of Muslims who are coming into Pakistan and 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:09.240 in order to stop that floor, they introduced another document 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:12.080 that would make people's lives harder and more difficult. And 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:14.400 the way this plays out in the next sort of 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.800 a few decades is that both countries see crossing this 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:21.120 border are acquiring this passport as a sign that you 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:23.640 have made a choice. But again, as I said to 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:26.920 you in answer to an earlier question, people's lives are complicated. 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.120 So some people across the border and they make a choice, 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:32.920 and then they want to turn the clock back or 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.480 the acquire a passport. And then they say no, but 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:37.600 we want to go back. We want either claim property 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:39.360 or we're not happy here. We want to go back 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.920 to our own lives. And so if you look at 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.680 sort of Indian constitutional records as well as court cases, 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.080 there are many, many of these court cases about people 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.400 who are trying to claim citizenship, trying to claim passports, 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:54.480 usually Muslims, who may have made decisions to go back 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:56.959 and then come back again. So this history gets very, 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:02.200 very messy. Much like any situation in which there are 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:05.880 disputes between countries and governments, it all boils down to 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:10.360 who is in charge. So you have this regime of 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:13.480 permits and passports. That's first of all, creating this bonder. 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.959 Then over the next sort of a few decades, whether 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:19.280 the border is open or closed, as you rightly said, 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.319 is often a question of geopolitics. It's you know, down 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:24.880 to who's in power, who's not in power. You know. 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.199 So there was at one point of bus that went 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.160 to Lahore. There was a train that went to Dhaka, right, 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:32.440 So there's this kind of bus diplomacy that are trains 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:34.679 on the eastern side of the border. And then every 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:36.960 so often something happens like the Cargill War, and these 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:39.400 are shut down, you know. So there are moments in 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.040 which diplomacy opens up these borders and moments in which 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:47.560 the borders are closed. The Cargo War took place for 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:51.000 over two months, and it is one of the wars 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:56.640 between India and Pakistan overland and Kashmir. But what I 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.560 think is really interesting about the borders themselves, and I 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:01.720 did say earlier that we should think about the borders 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:03.480 is not just physical objects. But if we just see 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:05.520 them as physical objects, as people kind of stamping your 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:07.640 passport as you cross the border and so and so forth, 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:10.720 is that actually, as I said, the border in the 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.240 west has always been harder to cross, and In fact, 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:15.160 there was a time when post did not go across 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:17.120 the border. So if you posted a parcel from India 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:19.800 to Pakistan and went to Dubai, right because you paid 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:22.800 a crazy amount of But as I said, the border 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:24.200 in the east used to be open for a much 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.880 longer period of time. But that border has now been militarized. 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.080 There is now a barbed wire fence and India has 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.000 been in the process of kind of creating a wall there. 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.400 So the discourse around the border, around who is allowed 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:39.520 to cross the border has also changed. Whereas once upon 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:41.840 a time that eastern border would have been relatively easy 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:43.800 to cross. There used to be something called an Indo 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:46.800 Bangladesh passport, for instance, that you could simply used to 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:50.520 cross that border. So Hindus who had families either in 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.200 Bangladesh or we're living in Bangladesh and families and India 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.400 could simply use an Indo Bangladesh passport and vice versa 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.320 across that border. That passport was abolished, I believe in 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:04.960 two thousands teen or something. Ada points out what happens 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.800 within these countries is just as important as what is 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:13.120 happening outside of them, and I will argue that the 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:15.840 opening and closing of those borders is not just about 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:17.760 you know, who's in power and so on, but it's 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:22.920 also to do with internal politics, right about minorities, particularly 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:26.080 in India. And again if you look east, as that 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:30.080 border was created, that militarized border, that has gone hand 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.880 in hand with the writing of a new Citizenship Act, 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:35.840 a new citizenship Act that kind of goes back on 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:40.240 earlier conceptions of secularism and now makes India home for 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:47.640 South Asia's Hindus and seeks quite explicitly in Episode one, 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:49.880 I said that India would be home to the Hindu 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:53.760 Sikh majority, but it would also be more secular than Pakistan. 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.840 As Ada says, the amendment to the Citizen Act has 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:02.640 removed this notion. The Citizenship Amendment Bill was designed to 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:06.520 amend the Citizenship Act of nineteen fifty five to recognize 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:11.040 specific types of immigrants segregated by religion and country of origin. 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:17.960 Under the citizens Amendment Act, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Barsis 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:22.400 and Sikhs who had migrated from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Bakistan 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:26.520 to India prior to twenty fourteen are no longer considered 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:31.400 illegal immigrants. And have a better chance to obtain citizenship. However, 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.920 notably Jews and Muslims are left out of the amendment, 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.600 which makes this a prejudiced policy against the religions of 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:44.240 Islam and Judaism in India. This legislation led to protest 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:48.400 all around India for its blatant exclusion of minority fates. 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:18.320 So I would say these questions around who is allowed 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.000 to get a visa who is not when these open 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.920 up are also a product of domestic politics. And these 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:29.560 domestic calculations around which minorities are seen to be legitimate 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:33.040 and you know, how we can make people lives more 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:39.520 difficult internally has an impact on external broad acrosses, all 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:43.080 of these rules and regulations get further complicated because not 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:46.320 only is this accessibility based on yourself and your faith, 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:51.760 but also where your parents and grandparents are from. If 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:56.280 you are applying for a visa to India but your 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.119 parents or your grandparent was born in what is today Pakistan, 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.480 that's a much more complicated process, right. There extra forms 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.760 to fill out. This isn't just about your passport or 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:10.800 your nationality. There is a sort of grandfather and grandmothering 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:15.679 of these of these causes, and again let's deliberate. The 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:19.200 idea of identity politics really comes into play as more 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:24.240 time passes. But what's interesting is that in the two thousands, 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.760 India introduces an overseas Indian citizenship and introduces a person 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:32.080 of Indian Origin card and then overseas Indian citizenship. And 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:35.159 the way that legislation is written is very interesting because 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:39.520 technically most pakistani Is or many Pakistanis would be eligible 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:43.280 to become persons of Indian origin or overseas Indian citizens right. 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.440 That piece of Indian legislation is primarily kind of directed 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:50.639 at the wealthy diasport to try and get money back. Clearly, 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.400 you know, some countries like Fiji et cetera, which saw 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.400 invented labor from India were excluded from that list, right, 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:00.439 But also it was specifically written to exclude Kistan and 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:02.800 Bangladesation so on, so that you know, people from those 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:07.439 countries could not claim overseas Indian citizenship status, right. And 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:09.840 so for me, I think a lot of these conversations 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:13.720 are really really connected, these conversations about border crossing, the 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:19.040 conversations about diasporic South Asians, as well as conversations within 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:23.119 India about minorities. I think these are always intimately and 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:28.359 intricately linked. All of my grandparents were born in India, 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.320 which makes me a person of Indian origin. I can 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:37.280 trace this fact back several generations, I'm sure. But because 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:39.879 they were forced to move during partition and I was 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:44.080 subsequently born in Pakistan, this legislation does not apply to me. 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.119 I think a lot of people, as I said in 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:51.800 ninety seven, made a bunch of choices, not knowing what 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.199 the long term consequences of those choices would be, or 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:56.879 not expecting the long term consequences of those choices to 0:19:56.960 --> 0:19:59.320 be what they turned out to be, and the ways 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:01.360 in which would be very hard to turn the clock back. 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.600 We also have to think in terms of privilege. I 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:06.399 think about this a lot when I think about personal 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:10.720 histories of Partition and the subcontinent, because the histories that 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:12.960 have been written and the histories that have been told 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:18.119 are so overwhelmingly upper class and uppercast. Right, the vast 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:20.840 majority of the people who moved were working class people, 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:24.600 and they had fewer options than many of the uppercast 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:27.520 supper class people who moved across these borders. Right, So 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:29.800 how you moved across the border. What you took with 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.520 you and then what happened to you after you cross 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.800 the border was very closely linked to your social status 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:39.800 before you cross the border. So even those Pajabis in particular, 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:42.680 who came across and who had very little, but who 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.520 belonged to a certain social strata or who had the 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:49.080 education or who had the connections, were able to thrive 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:52.159 in a way that many working class people struggle to 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:54.520 do so. And we know that that is particularly true 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.600 of the the Lit community that moved from Eastern Bengal 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:04.800 into West Bengal. Unther I mentioned the delt community, individuals 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:09.600 belonging to the lowest cast. We're at the point where 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.399 we're collecting all of these partitions stories where we're almost 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:16.800 sort of curating partition for the next generation. But whose 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:20.280 stories are we curating. There's some really interesting work that 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:23.680 shows that both India and Pakistan wrote that the Lit 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:27.960 citizens out of their histories, but were panicked because many 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:30.720 of these citizens did everyday jobs that the two new 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:34.040 countries needed people to do, so try to retain them 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:36.439 desperately while at the same time writing them out of 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:39.840 their histories. When we step back and we look at 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:45.080 these broader histories, gender, class, cast, religion. All of these 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:49.199 are so closely intertwined in how we understand, you know, 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.679 not just border crossing in ninety seven, but what happens 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:57.760 to those people in the next seventy five years. We 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:00.480 go on to discuss refugees and they're eatment in a 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.879 new place. I shouldn't have been shocked to learn that 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:07.640 who is and isn't considered a refugee also leaned into 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:12.960 the notion of identity politics. I think that's a really 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:16.399 important history of partition, that people didn't just cross a 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:20.840 border and become seamlessly integrated into the new nation state. Right. 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:24.679 And India and Pakistan both refused to sign the nineteen 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:28.879 fifty one UN Convention on Refugees, which defines who are refugees, 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:31.240 and the reason they refused to do that has to 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:33.320 do with the Eurocentric nature of it, has to do 0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:36.680 with the fact that it defined refugees as emerging from 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:38.440 the war in Europe and so on and and so forth. 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:41.439 But the consequences of India and Pakistan not signing that 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:44.520 you still never signed it is that these people who 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:48.080 crossed the border are known as various things. Sometimes there 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:52.879 are refugees. Sometimes they're displaced persons in official discourse. Sometimes 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:55.399 they're migrants, and a lot of this is to do 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:59.520 with how they are then treated. So we know from 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:03.120 the exting literature, for instance, that the Punjabi refugees are 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:06.359 seen as genuine refugees because the Indian government argues they 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:10.200 fled violence and they are hard working and we deserve 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:14.000 to give them compensation and rehabilitation. Whereas these Bengali Is 0:23:14.080 --> 0:23:16.800 are lazy and they did not flee the same kind 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:20.200 of violence that the Punjabis fled from, So somehow they're 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:24.640 kind of claim to refugeehood is less authentic, and then 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:27.399 they claim that therefore they don't deserve the same degree 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:31.760 of rehabilitation. But of course people keep coming and eventually 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:34.199 the Indian state tries to resettle them, and some of 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:37.800 these quite badly thought through rehabilitation schemes in Central India, 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:41.240 which fail because you can't just move people to arid 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:44.080 land and expect them to cultivate it overnight. But then 0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:47.840 that's further seen as proof that these Bengali is only 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:51.200 one charity. They're not hard working like the Punjabis and 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:54.680 therefore truly deserving a rehabilitation. So groups of people who 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:58.840 cross borders at the same time their faiths can turn 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:01.640 out to be very friend depending on who they are, 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:04.920 where they crossed the border and the communities into which 0:24:04.960 --> 0:24:07.840 they crossing too, right, And so those stories are really 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:13.000 really quite complex. Over the past few weeks, you've heard 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:16.280 several stories about people and their homes getting left behind, 0:24:16.760 --> 0:24:19.080 and I wanted to know if I thought if there 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:21.840 could be a time where maybe the process for everyone 0:24:21.880 --> 0:24:28.200 to visit these countries would be easier. Forced border crossing 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:30.480 in South Asia is traumatic, and when forest border crossing 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:33.320 everybody is traumatic. But there are some truly traumatic stories 0:24:33.320 --> 0:24:37.880 in South Asian and that's seven one. There are expulsions 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:40.680 of stateless people in South Asia. There's kind of ongoing 0:24:40.720 --> 0:24:44.400 trauma the Ranga is and so these stories are never 0:24:44.480 --> 0:24:47.199 going to end in some ways, right, and in a 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:50.800 way I think that the kind of individual reconciliations were 0:24:50.880 --> 0:24:54.919 subsumed within both India and Pakistan's original intention to almost 0:24:55.080 --> 0:24:57.440 we raised partition, right, you know, we didn't have a 0:24:57.480 --> 0:25:01.120 partition museum in India will very recently an independence day 0:25:01.200 --> 0:25:03.720 in our fourteenth of August. In Pakistan, fifteenth of augustin 0:25:03.640 --> 0:25:07.480 India is always focused on independence and then displaying a 0:25:07.560 --> 0:25:10.960 military hardware rather than the trauma partition. And that was 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:13.880 a completely deliberate choice, right to raise some of those 0:25:14.280 --> 0:25:18.240 histories to subsume them within this broader narrative, So a 0:25:18.320 --> 0:25:20.680 sort of macro cosm of what happens at the Waga 0:25:20.840 --> 0:25:23.280 Atry border, right, if you think of it that way. 0:25:23.359 --> 0:25:26.000 So that's one of the reasons why those individual stories 0:25:26.040 --> 0:25:30.280 have been kind of lost or don't get priority. And 0:25:30.280 --> 0:25:32.679 you were asking what the kind of the future of 0:25:32.720 --> 0:25:34.800