Speaker 1: Warning. The following episode contains stories of extreme violence. I
Speaker 1: didn't know it that I would go anywhere or not.
Speaker 1: I was just enjoying the independent state, saying all the
Speaker 1: final about and they were we were dunking on the
Speaker 1: on the road. I don't know. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to be left for our next day. That is my
Speaker 1: grandfather or my daughter John speaking. I called him recently
Speaker 1: over what'sapp to ask about something that happened many years ago.
Speaker 1: He's eighty nine years old and he lives in Karagi.
Speaker 1: Even though the connection wasn't very good, what he told
Speaker 1: me brought me back with him to his teenage years.
Speaker 1: It was June three and he was fourteen years old
Speaker 1: when he found out that the country he called home
Speaker 1: was going to be severed into pieces. He heard the
Speaker 1: used from his father, the newspapers and on the airwaves,
Speaker 1: but had no idea what this meant for him or
Speaker 1: his family. What was this news? Britain was finally going
Speaker 1: to grant India independence and in the process a new country,
Speaker 1: Pakistan would be formed. With this information, a difficult choice
Speaker 1: was rapidly approaching. Were they going to stay in India
Speaker 1: or would they make the trip to Pakistan, so many
Speaker 1: factors were still at play, the official boundary lines were
Speaker 1: still unknown. There remained that way until a few days
Speaker 1: after the official independence days of each country August fourteenth
Speaker 1: for Pakistan and August fift for India. Imagine the gravity
Speaker 1: of this situation. Most of us on any given day
Speaker 1: can't decide on a place to grab food when we're hungry.
Speaker 1: But this decision is one that would not only impact
Speaker 1: my grandfather, but future generations of our family. For many,
Speaker 1: this was not a leisurely choice, but one made on
Speaker 1: the basis of survival. If you have no idea know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, you aren't alone. From I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: This is Partition, a podcast that will take a closer
Speaker 1: look into this often forgotten part of history. Seven Partition
Speaker 1: of India is a story of panic, chaos, and violence.
Speaker 1: The partition created two independent nations, the Muslim majority Pakistan
Speaker 1: and the Hindu Sikh majority India. When the British left India,
Speaker 1: they made these divisions along religious lines, even though Muslims, Hindus,
Speaker 1: and people of other faiths all had lived together in
Speaker 1: the same communities for generations. Over fourty million people were displaced,
Speaker 1: making it the biggest mass migration in history. It's estimated
Speaker 1: between a half a million to two million died in
Speaker 1: the ensuing violence seventy five years to the day, and
Speaker 1: we still don't know the exact number of lives lost,
Speaker 1: and it's safe to say we never will. My name
Speaker 1: is Najazi's a writer, podcaster, and film programmer living in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 1: I was one in Karachi, Pakistan, and came to the
Speaker 1: US with my parents, my sister, and eight suitcases when
Speaker 1: I was just eight months old. I'm going to be
Speaker 1: real with y'all. As an immigrant and Muslim growing up
Speaker 1: in the South, especially when eleven happened, I very much
Speaker 1: shied away from these parts of my identity. I didn't
Speaker 1: have any interest in learning about my culture or where
Speaker 1: I came from. It wasn't until my first semester at
Speaker 1: the University of Texas at Austin where I truly found
Speaker 1: a space where I was able to embrace these parts
Speaker 1: of me and take the time to discover myself more
Speaker 1: as a person. I didn't get the opportunity to go
Speaker 1: back to Pakistan until I was twenty seven years old.
Speaker 1: Both my parents had been back on separate occasions, seen
Speaker 1: was the year we were all going to be together.
Speaker 1: It was like a homecoming of sorts. I was so
Speaker 1: excited that not even the combined seventeen hour flight was
Speaker 1: enough to get me down. When we landed, it was
Speaker 1: about four am. I had barely slept, but it didn't matter.
Speaker 1: I was wide awake and taking everything in. During this trip,
Speaker 1: I got to see where my parents went to school, museums,
Speaker 1: and markets. I would be in a car and look
Speaker 1: at the window and there'd be a camel next to us.
Speaker 1: I didn't write a camel then, but I did on
Speaker 1: my second trip, and let's just say I don't think
Speaker 1: I would do it again. I saw relatives that I
Speaker 1: haven't even seen since I was a baby, and didn't
Speaker 1: even have any recollection of They would tell me little
Speaker 1: antidotes of what I was like in those first few months.
Speaker 1: Apparently I smiled a lot, which I find very easy
Speaker 1: to believe based on the handful of photos I have
Speaker 1: from that time. This trip was everything I could have
Speaker 1: wanted my first trip back to my home country to be.
Speaker 1: From exploring the Arabian Sea down south to the mountains
Speaker 1: and snow up north, but I also found out something
Speaker 1: dark and sinister. It was something that had changed the
Speaker 1: lives of every single one of my family members, including Line.
Speaker 1: The malls in Pokistan are a lot different than the
Speaker 1: malls in the United States. They kind of act as
Speaker 1: a nightlife for the cities, since many Asian countries are dry.
Speaker 1: The handful of nightclubs that do exist or mostly for
Speaker 1: the extremely wealthy or for tourists. The malls are open
Speaker 1: super late, usually until about eleven PM, with the food
Speaker 1: courts closing around one AM. So when I stumbled upon
Speaker 1: an exhibit that was being hosted at the Dolman Mall,
Speaker 1: where I was now a frequent visitor, by filmmaker Charmin
Speaker 1: obeyed Chnoi, a two time Academy Award winner, I knew
Speaker 1: I had to take a look. This is where the
Speaker 1: story really starts. I'm not really sure what I expected
Speaker 1: when I walked in, but I certainly didn't expect to
Speaker 1: be so shocked. The exhibit in question was called Home
Speaker 1: and it's about the partition of India. I had been
Speaker 1: aware that Pokistan used to be a part of India,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know the stories, or more accurately, the
Speaker 1: horrors that surrounded this event. I just remember getting more upset, agitated,
Speaker 1: and confused. As I walked from room to room, I
Speaker 1: kept looking back at my parents. They seemed immersed in
Speaker 1: what they were looking at, but I couldn't really gather
Speaker 1: much beyond that. Toni's exhibit featured oral histories, objects, and
Speaker 1: so many different stories. I was sitting next to my
Speaker 1: parents watching a video about a survivor giving their account
Speaker 1: of how they had to flee their village, and another
Speaker 1: being separated from her loved ones. Afterwards, we made our
Speaker 1: way to the food court for lunch, and I distinctly
Speaker 1: remember freaking out in every possible way. I am someone
Speaker 1: who wears their heart on their sleeve, so my emotions
Speaker 1: were very much on display. I never knew this, not
Speaker 1: even a little bit. I'm sure whenever I read this
Speaker 1: exhibit was happening and mentioned some of the awful statistics
Speaker 1: about partition, but I guess I must have really skimmed
Speaker 1: the section. We were eating our food, and it was
Speaker 1: just this insane picture of us having this intense conversation
Speaker 1: over KFC and ME repeating over and over, why didn't
Speaker 1: I know about this? Why didn't anybody tell me this?
Speaker 1: While waving a chicken strip in my hand. How could
Speaker 1: I be twenty seven years old and consider myself proud
Speaker 1: to be South Asian and not even have the slightest
Speaker 1: idea of how a major event in our history truly unfolded.
Speaker 1: I felt like a fraud. How would I even begin
Speaker 1: to come to terms with this information? We saw this
Speaker 1: exhibit towards the tail end of our trip. We obviously
Speaker 1: still had a lot of fun in our remaining days,
Speaker 1: but I did feel like there was a dark looming
Speaker 1: cloud over me until I returned back home, and to
Speaker 1: be honest, it still feels that way sometimes. After our
Speaker 1: simultaneous out of body experience and a hard dose of reality,
Speaker 1: I began to look into partition. What else didn't I know?
Speaker 1: The first thing that became abundantly clear that it was
Speaker 1: a ridiculously hasty decision. Britain was broke after the war
Speaker 1: and they could no longer afford to rule India. They
Speaker 1: exhausted all the resources they could and wanted out. In fact,
Speaker 1: India was a world's richestination from one to d But
Speaker 1: when the British left, India's GDP plommeted Lord Mountbatten, the Viceroy,
Speaker 1: a representative of the monarch was tasked to oversee the
Speaker 1: severance of India. I don't think anyone could have summed
Speaker 1: up this event quite as well as British historian Yasmin Khan.
Speaker 1: She noted in her book The Great Partition was the
Speaker 1: perfect storm of hope, disaster, leadership, and blunder. Prior to
Speaker 1: the announcement on June third, there have been numerous meetings
Speaker 1: between the Muslim League, Indian leaders and the British to
Speaker 1: come up with the plan to disillusion the British Raj.
Speaker 1: There was never going to be a perfect solution. Each
Speaker 1: party involved had their own desires and motives and were
Speaker 1: unwavering in their fight. Key players included Mohammad Ali Jinna,
Speaker 1: the founder of Pakistan, and jal Wal Herlala Route, prime
Speaker 1: Minister of India after independence. These two men, along with others,
Speaker 1: were one complicit in this decision. However, their roles I
Speaker 1: don't think can compare to the British. That being said,
Speaker 1: I'm not really here to discuss men and their soul
Speaker 1: called accomplishments or feelings. That is a story that gets
Speaker 1: touted around far too much. When I set out to
Speaker 1: do this podcast, I wanted to tell just the facts
Speaker 1: that quickly became an impossible task. How can you be
Speaker 1: impartial to a story that is your own? Those are
Speaker 1: the people I want to hear from, ordinary people, the
Speaker 1: ones who have been ignored and silenced for decades. The
Speaker 1: more I found out about partition, the more questions I had,
Speaker 1: especially in relation to my identity. It's super wild to
Speaker 1: think about how divergent my life could have been if
Speaker 1: my great grandparents didn't decide to move. Our culture and
Speaker 1: religion could be completely different. This notion is even more
Speaker 1: fueled by the fact that these two countries still have
Speaker 1: an incredibly tumultuous relationship with each other, especially in regards
Speaker 1: to their borders. I will take a deeper dive into
Speaker 1: this topic in another episode. Another big question that came
Speaker 1: to mind was where was this history when I was
Speaker 1: in school. I don't know about y'all, but the formation
Speaker 1: of a new country is a big deal and probably
Speaker 1: warrants a discussion of some sort. As far as my
Speaker 1: memory serves, we learned about Gandhi and how he was
Speaker 1: a pacifist and stood up to the crown, and that's
Speaker 1: about it. I wanted to confirm this information, but when
Speaker 1: I reached out to the higher ups from my school
Speaker 1: district in Arlington, Texas. My queries went unanswered for the
Speaker 1: most part, and when I did receive an answer, the
Speaker 1: only information I was given was where the subject could
Speaker 1: potentially pop up in a standardized test. We learned about
Speaker 1: so many outrageous injustices like the Holocaust, but for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: Partition has been continually erased from the narrative. While it
Speaker 1: is true that history holds more catastrophes and we could
Speaker 1: possibly count, Partition is unique because we have no memorials
Speaker 1: in either country recognizing this traumatic event. In A Partition
Speaker 1: museum was created, but it's in India, making it essentially
Speaker 1: impossible for any Pakistanis to visit. There is no easily
Speaker 1: accessible communal place to reflect on this grief. Partition isn't
Speaker 1: something that just happened in the past, but in actuality
Speaker 1: is more of a living, breathing thing that comes to
Speaker 1: haunt our daily lives. I am a grandchild of Partition.
Speaker 1: The hardships of those who suffered before me are always
Speaker 1: on my mind. In return, I believe it is our
Speaker 1: duty and our legacy to ensure the world knows what
Speaker 1: happened in I don't want unsavory facts swept under the rug,
Speaker 1: or to sugarcoat atrocities to make them seem not that bad.
Speaker 1: Ignorance is not bliss. Early on, I conducted a Twitter
Speaker 1: poll just to gauge where people were at. I asked,
Speaker 1: without looking it up, does anyone know what the party
Speaker 1: Shan is? One? People voted, with thirty one nine percent
Speaker 1: saying yes. Well, sixty eight point one percent, so they
Speaker 1: had never heard of it before. I want people to
Speaker 1: know this history and to learn the notion that just
Speaker 1: because it didn't happen to you or anyone you know personally,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's not important. I ask everyone to read
Speaker 1: the paper, watch the news, open an app on your phone,
Speaker 1: and look at the countless immigrant and refugee crises around us.
Speaker 1: It isn't just a matter of countries not having it together,
Speaker 1: but the years and years of colonialism and imperialism that
Speaker 1: took place to make them that way. I was in
Speaker 1: the dark for so long, and I don't want that
Speaker 1: to be the case for anyone else. My grandparents on
Speaker 1: my dad's side lived with us for a few years
Speaker 1: in Texas, and not once did I ever ask or
Speaker 1: think to ask what their lives were like back then.
Speaker 1: Now only two of my four grandparents are still alive
Speaker 1: and their memories are not what they once were. You
Speaker 1: could consider this my attempt at atonement. Earlier, you heard
Speaker 1: my grandfather tell you the state of confusion he was
Speaker 1: in when he learned about partition. He lived in Bombay,
Speaker 1: and while this area wasn't as hostile as the others,
Speaker 1: he still had his fears as a teenage boy. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the audio for this clip is a little rough, so
Speaker 1: my dad is going to read his words aloud. He
Speaker 1: says the words they many times, and he's referring to
Speaker 1: both Indians and Pakistani's. Bombay had very minor violence between
Speaker 1: the gundas. You know, they were shouting. One was shouting
Speaker 1: against Pakistan, the other one was shouting against India and
Speaker 1: the leaders and everything. When a few people get together
Speaker 1: Europe there they would start shouting. The other side also
Speaker 1: threw stones and soda water bottles. If they saw anyone
Speaker 1: alone in the Muslim or Hindu localities, they would kill them.
Speaker 1: They would step them. That happened once in a while.
Speaker 1: This one. I used to get scared going to school
Speaker 1: because a school was by the border in one of
Speaker 1: our conversations, my grandpa casually mentioned that my great aunt
Speaker 1: was born on the day of partition. I was gobsmacked.
Speaker 1: I am still finding out so much information from my
Speaker 1: family and about my family by accident. Even though my
Speaker 1: great aunt Pervine would obviously have no recollection about what happened,
Speaker 1: I did want to ask her what people told her.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of rights over there, and then
Speaker 1: many hundreds and millions of people were killed at that time,
Speaker 1: more than a million people were killed in fifteen million people.
Speaker 1: They moved from from India to Pakistan and some from
Speaker 1: Pakistan to India. The rights were so bad they killed everybody.
Speaker 1: Bussus a lot of people were killed. Everybody was trying
Speaker 1: to get on train, but maybe thousands of people they
Speaker 1: couldn't make it because they were killed between the roads.
Speaker 1: Like traveling from here to day again, try to latch
Speaker 1: onto this information. This is one of the biggest refugee
Speaker 1: catastrophes in the world. Numerous accounts were called. People waiting
Speaker 1: to travel on trains, desperate to leave, and when many
Speaker 1: of the trains pulled into the stations, they were already
Speaker 1: filled with passengers, but they weren't alive. Article from the
Speaker 1: New York Times mentions just some of the scenes people
Speaker 1: had to enter so there. Shaanna Kumari watched a mob
Speaker 1: and pale her one year old cousin on a spear,
Speaker 1: almost want His father held a can of fuel and
Speaker 1: some matches, instructing her to set herself afire if friars
Speaker 1: broke into their home, and a k and Nn saw
Speaker 1: terrified family leeing villages by foot, in ox carts and
Speaker 1: on horseback along roads littered with corpses, picked apart by
Speaker 1: dogs and bloated from the rain. Were these harsh truths
Speaker 1: detailed on screen or were they glossed over? I'll give
Speaker 1: you a taste after the break. Naturally, when researching anything,
Speaker 1: I wanted to see what film and TV depictions were
Speaker 1: out there. And it's not great, so much so that
Speaker 1: it warrants its own episode. But I will tell you
Speaker 1: all these tidbits. Barely anything I watched addressed women, children,
Speaker 1: religious minorities, or wreck fugees. Most of what I saw
Speaker 1: were men talking, or rather complaining about everything under the sun,
Speaker 1: except how partition would actually affect the people living in
Speaker 1: the places they were eager to tear apart. Partition doesn't
Speaker 1: have a Schindler's List, something that is widely available to
Speaker 1: the masses to consume. Where's our epic, our, PBS miniseries
Speaker 1: or HBO drama, whereas AMD this could be your next
Speaker 1: project and I'm completely available to write interact. Of course,
Speaker 1: there are books. Books are always great, but I'm willing
Speaker 1: to bet the majority of us aren't going to go
Speaker 1: that route when learning about something new. Our attention spans
Speaker 1: are so minuscule that new information has to be doled
Speaker 1: out and digested in tiny pieces with the hope that
Speaker 1: these stories will resonate. There are so many important facts
Speaker 1: that are either skipped or half ascidly thrown into the
Speaker 1: media depictions just to check it off a list. What
Speaker 1: if I told you that no one visited the communities
Speaker 1: that would soon be separated to see whether or not
Speaker 1: the proposed solution to divide India made any sense, or
Speaker 1: that the United Nations was deliberately left out of the
Speaker 1: conversation to avoid any delays. What if I told you
Speaker 1: that the boundary line was to be drawn out in
Speaker 1: five weeks by a lawyer who had never even been
Speaker 1: to India before. What if I told you seventy women
Speaker 1: are thought to have been raped and abducted. We never
Speaker 1: get the terror, anguish or heartache. I did witness these
Speaker 1: emotions in home, n but this was a temporary exhibit
Speaker 1: and again not something that is incredibly accessible to everyone.
Speaker 1: I can't remember if photography was allowed Either way, I
Speaker 1: don't think I would have brought myself to take any photos,
Speaker 1: but I did end up taking one of my mom.
Speaker 1: When we were leaving. By the exit, there was a
Speaker 1: question posed on a wall with hundreds of sticky notes
Speaker 1: littered with answers underneath. Some of the answers traditionally would
Speaker 1: be considered mundane, but not in as context. My dad
Speaker 1: and I were heading out and I was shocked to
Speaker 1: see my mom write something down. I didn't know if
Speaker 1: she would remember this moment, but I decided to call
Speaker 1: her and ask her about it. Hi now, h Hi Mom,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on the podcast. Um, So, do you
Speaker 1: remember when we went to Pakistan for the first time
Speaker 1: and we want to that exhibit at the mall and
Speaker 1: it was about partition and I was very shocked by
Speaker 1: everything that I saw. But it's obviously a story that
Speaker 1: you and Dad know very well. Can you tell me
Speaker 1: how you felt when you saw what you saw um.
Speaker 1: I felt really sad. Although I was not a part
Speaker 1: of that partition, but my parents and grandparents and many
Speaker 1: other families got rooted out of their homes, and unfortunately,
Speaker 1: memories of what my parents and grandparents told me hazy
Speaker 1: or they are no longer there. And although we've read
Speaker 1: about them in school and colleges about the history of seven,
Speaker 1: but looking at these brought back a lot of emotions
Speaker 1: and sadness to see that how people survived, how people
Speaker 1: moved on, and what they must have faced during that time. Uh.
Speaker 1: Usually you don't really participate in a lot of things.
Speaker 1: But when you saw a question that was posed on
Speaker 1: the wall when we were leaving, that said, what would
Speaker 1: you take with you if you had to leave your
Speaker 1: home in seven? I was really surprised that you actually
Speaker 1: wrote something down. Can you talk about that? I felt
Speaker 1: compelled to write something on that wall, and what I
Speaker 1: wrote on it was that I would take my family
Speaker 1: pictures with me because they would remind me of the
Speaker 1: times that we had spent in our that home. It
Speaker 1: would remind me what we were left off was memories.
Speaker 1: Everything else can be replaced, everything can be bought, but
Speaker 1: the memories that we've shared the memories that we have.
Speaker 1: The pictures would tell a story, and that I think
Speaker 1: is the most important thing that I would ever take
Speaker 1: if I ever were to leave a home. Thank you
Speaker 1: for talking to me, Thank you Nihah for inviting me
Speaker 1: to be a part of your podcast, and I'm anxiously
Speaker 1: waiting to listen to it. This season on Partition, I
Speaker 1: navigated a whole lot of material which really tested my
Speaker 1: limits as a person. The sheer brutality of what I heard, read,
Speaker 1: and saw was more than enough sadness to last me
Speaker 1: a lifetime. You'll hear from survivors we just escaped because
Speaker 1: you know, all those headless bodies and all the people
Speaker 1: who were massacred were there around us. We just had
Speaker 1: to hide in the train. Historians there is also really
Speaker 1: feel that these stories will get lost if their not know.
Speaker 1: I really felt that that I didn't want these wants
Speaker 1: is to be released. Filmmakers, I think as children of
Speaker 1: parents who went through partition and who won't talk about
Speaker 1: it so much, a part of our healing is to
Speaker 1: understand what happened on a micro level and a macro level.
Speaker 1: How did this affect our family in ways that we
Speaker 1: have to investigate when they won't talk about it, and
Speaker 1: many more people who are also trying to shed light
Speaker 1: on the truth about what happened in until now nex Week,
Speaker 1: I'm ness and this is Partition. Partition was developed as
Speaker 1: a part of the Next Up initiative created by Anna Hosnier,
Speaker 1: Joel Monique and Sina Median. Partition is produced by Anna Hosnier,
Speaker 1: Tricia Mukerjee and Becca Ramos. It is edited by Rory Gagan,
Speaker 1: with the original score composed by Mark Hadley.