Presence of their Absence

Soon we will be celebrating 80 years of India's independence. Our 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 from 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 Punjab and see a decaying, unkept old house that used to be theirs. Or when I drive to a town and see their old places of worship, long forgotten, overtaken by nature as if their existence is being erased not only by 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, every one 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.

The lack of sensitivity in social discourse is astonishing. Students are engaging in hunger strikes, farmers are holding protests, and the poor are left in despair. It appears we are without direction, as the new political elite have destroyed the elements that defined us as Indians. Now, it seems our very identity as Indians is being questioned.

There's a growing class of people who feel disconnected. The very country where they have lived for centuries is now questioning their very identity. The government will now decide whether they belong to this country or not. The level of insensitivity is what worries me. The institutions are crumbling, there's no sense of accountability, the future of the youth is in doubt and amidst all this chaos the majority of the population seems to be comatose. No spine, no guts to push back and respond to the complete ineptness of how this country is being governed. It seems they are intoxicated with religious nationalism, where everyone else who doesn't follow their brand of ideology is a "cockroach" that needs to be silenced.

Today, a large part of the population is being silenced. The youth, the farmers, the have-nots who only have the Constitution to protect their fundamental rights are all being silenced. Seems there's no way to escape from the status quo. The absence of a national movement to correct the direction of this country is shocking. This absence speaks louder than anything else.

However, there will be a reckoning, I'm sure of that. Their 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, for the youth, our indifference to the weaker segments of the society, to the women, 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. Hoping if we can undo Partition then that will somehow help us to regain our sense of morality. Our insignificance, our under-achievement as a community, our under-achievement as a nation is evident where ever I go. I'm shocked how poor the country has become, how terrible the lives of the ordinary people has become.

We have let our children down and, as a society, we have not succeeded in creating a community that cares for anyone. 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 and 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