Presence of their Absence

Soon we will be celebrating 80 years of India's independence. The eternal August that reminds us of the tragedy of Partition and also the birth of a new nation. We have come a long way from that year. The process of how the country was divided, the individuals who were making decisions on our behalf, the circumstances and the consequences of that fateful year is still haunting us after all these years.

We debate on who said what and who did what. We debate whether we could have avoided the Partition. We debate why, after centuries of coexistence, a part of us wanted to leave. What made them think they are different than us.

As a common man, I’m still not able to understand all of this. I'm too insignificant to analyze all of this. Too insignificant to be part of any calculus.

But as insignificant as I am, however, I do feel the presence of their absence.

Their absence when I go to a village in east Punjab and see a decaying, unkept old house that used to be theirs. Or when I drive to a town and see their places of worship, long forgotten, overtaken by nature as if their existence is being erased not only by the humans but by nature itself.

We continue to exist, we carry on, not remembering the millions that were lost. Their absence still remains in the streets and the alleyways of our towns and cities. Their laughter and their celebrations are all gone, nothing is preserved, nothing is left for posterity, we go on as if their absence means nothing to us.

It also tells me about our faults, as a community we are unbothered by them. We don't care about them. They left us or were forced to leave or were killed in massacres that are indescribable, but we did get rid of them, all of them, everyone of them. We didn't think for a second that our actions would have long term repercussions. The psychology of hate has now ingrained in our minds. Now we hate everyone, we get angry when we are confronted by the others, by their differences, by their audacity to question us.

There will be a reckoning, I'm sure of that. Our actions won't go unpunished, I'm certain of that. The mindless menace of violence is destroying us. How we treat others, is manifesting in different ways. Our social apathy for the poor, our indifference to the weaker segments of the society, to women, to everyone, all stems from that event 80 years ago. Because we made violence a norm. If we can do this to them, we can do this to you.

But as an insignificant man, however, I do feel the presence of their absence. Can we bring them back, can we ask for reunification of what we once were. Is it too extraordinary of a thought to think that we can go back to the way we were. Hoping we can somehow revert to a normal self. Our insignificance, our under-achievement as a community, our under-achievement as a nation is evident everywhere I go. I'm not impressed, no I am not impressed.

We have let our children down and, as a society, we have not succeeded in creating a community that cares for everyone. Their children are not ours, the vulnerable can be exploited. The treatment of women, the poor, they are the new "others", to be subjugated, to be conquered.

This is what we have become. So yes, the 80 years of Partition has changed us. We cannot undo any of that, those who left us will never come back. We have gone into a disastrous trajectory, unwilling to mend our ways. The presence of our failures is everywhere, we have somehow relapsed into some perverse mindset of apathy, of hate.

So when I see an old decaying structure reminding us of them, I see how far we have come, how far we have fallen. The presence of their absence is undeniable. The presence of our crimes as a society is felt everywhere I go.

Chaos, is all I see.

-Ramanjit Singh