Azaadi

“At the stroke of midnight, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.”

                                                        --Jawaharlal Nehru, August 15, 1947

This August 15th, India celebrates 75 years of independence. 75 years ago, Jawaharlal Nehru, the nation's first Prime Minister, addressed crowds gathered in front of Lal Qila in Old Delhi with the "Tricolour" of independent India flying high above the 17th-century Mughal fortress for the first time. The occasion marked the end of generations of European imperial presence in South Asia, the final 90 years of which saw the British Raj consolidate political, economic, and military control over the vast territories of British India. Decades of nationalist organizing and two world wars precipitated British withdrawal in 1947, but the haste with which they ultimately departed spawned one of the largest humanitarian crises in the history of humankind.

For all the jubilation and flag waving today, August 15th also marks the date of Partition, the cleaving of India and Pakistan--two independent "secular" nations demarcated along religious lines, and the forced migration of some 20 million souls across a haphazard border cut by the colonizers on their way out the door. Of these migrants, some two million lost their lives before ever settling in a new home. Families and communities were torn apart. The wounds, while hardly fresh, have never fully healed.

75 years is a long time when measured against a single human life, but merely a blip in the civilizational history of the subcontinent. As India and Pakistan turn 75 this year, there are still survivors who can tell their own stories of Partition--tales of loss, hope, and lives rebuilt amidst unimaginable suffering and trauma. By the time these antagonistic South Asian neighbors turn 100, such stories will only be found in history books or retold by descendants who never knew the worlds left behind.

I am not an Indian, and thus will never feel the pride of waving the Tricolour and chanting "Hindustan Zindabaad" or "Jai Hind" like the school children marching around our neighborhood this morning. Wary as I am of nationalism in its varied forms, I have never even felt such attachment to the flag or patriotic slogans of my own nation. As an American, however, I can relate to a certain pride in Independence--a pride in having successfully thrown off the shackles of (the same) imperial power. 

But these victories and celebrations always have a dark side. American Independence is forever blemished by the nation's own history of imperialism and an inability to fight sincerely and consistently for its simple founding principle that "all men (and women) are created equal." By contrast, Indian Independence is haunted by the specter of Partition and ongoing communal violence between Hindus and Muslims--violence that is ignored, if not encouraged, by current political leaders. In the spirit of anti-imperialism, it is worth taking time to celebrate August 15th. In the spirit of humanitarianism, it is also worth taking time to mourn.