In 1990 President George H. W. Bush approved a joint resolution designating November 1990 “National American Indian Heritage Month.” Similar proclamations, under variants on the name (including “Native American Heritage Month” and “National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month”) have been issued each year since 1994. Read more about this.
At the same time I can’t help but notice that more detailed demographic data emerges from the ONS, in which ‘Leicester and Birmingham have become the first “super-diverse” cities in the UK, where most people are from black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, according to the 2021 census’. Read further ‘Diversity is a beautiful thing’: the view from Leicester and Birmingham. As I’m based in Leicester, I hope to explore some of the recent changes in the city in more detail.
A basic thali with palak paneer, daal and rice.
In the meantime, I indulge in the desi ‘home made’ food offered by Mr Harpreet Singh at Singh’s Dhaba. He established his business in 1990 and like many other diasporic Sikhs he came from Virk, a village near Phagwara, in the Jalandhar district.
Nankana Sahib is the Birthplace of Guru Nanak. This town was originally known as Talwandi of Rai (Rai Bhoi di Talwandi) and today it forms the core of the small Sikh community in Pakistan. Every year on Guru Nanak’s birthday (Gurpurab), Sikhs (and others) gather around Nankana Sahib to remember the founder of the Sikh faith. Over the years the Gurdwara complex has grown considerable. I first went there in 2003 when it was a small gurdwara with a largely Pathan Sikh community of about 50 families who lived there. The last time I went there was on Gurpurab in 2016, and the small town was transformed into a mela of 20-30,000 people from around Pakistan, including the Nanak Panthis (mostly from Sindh) and Sikhs from around the globe (including India). The area now has district status and attracts the Sikh diaspora, who come here in huge numbers on pilgrim visas. The growth in the pilgrims and tourism is one of the main reasons for the growing investment in places like this and hence the transformation of this area.
I leave you with the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan – born in Lyallpur (Pakistan) with ancestral roots in Jalandhar (India) – who is performing/reciting Koi Bole Ram Ram Koi Khuda (Some call the Lord ‘Ram, Ram’, and some ‘Khuda’) at the Ramgarhia Sabha Gurdwara (Slough, UK) for the Sikh Diaspora in 1989 – many of whom appear to be from East Africa. But the words of the Guru and music know no borders.
Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Live in Slough Gurdawara, 1989 by Oriental Star Agency
If you are interested more in the shabad, the translation and the meaning, please click here.
August is the time when anyone who has any interest in the history, politics, and society of South Asia will be talking, tweeting, and sharing about the time of Partition/Independence. Here in the UK, I have noticed how much discussion about Partition has entered the public discourse, whether it is TV, radio, newspapers etc. In this essay, recently published in The Oral History Review, I have attempted to show how the historiography of Partition has developed, especially over the past twenty-five years. It is an attempt to contextualise and understand how this field of Partition Studies has evolved and what role technology, new forms of social media and the South Asian diaspora, have played in taking this field into new directions. I was keen to highlight the disparities, and structural inequalities that have been produced and strengthened in this process, despite appearances to the contrary.
As a side-note and not completely unrelated to the article, access to information/knowledge must not be taken for granted as there are institutional and economic barriers, which prevent a level-playing field. This article is NOT open access because 1) my post-92 university in the UK does not subscribe to the costly Gold Open Access scheme, and 2) the article was not written with the support of any UKRI research grant. It means that my article will remain behind a paywall, unless an institution subscribes to the journal. Again, many institutions are now cutting back to save money (esp. post-92 universities) and so subscriptions to costly academic journals are often subject to scrutiny of disciplinary demands and budgetary considerations. It is likely that this article will only reach a limited number of people compared with any open access article, thus the readership, citations and engagement will remain confined.
If you have institutional access that’s great, if you don’t and you are interested in reading the full article, please feel free to contact me.
In 2001, I crossed the Wagah-Attari border for the first time. Since then, I have used this official land crossing between India and Pakistan numerous times, in the process seeing the border undergo multiple changes. It used to be the Grand Trunk Road split in half, with a few meters of “no man’s land” to separate them. I could literally walk from one side to the other, while remaining on the GT Road. Then, the authorities decided to uplift, gentrify, and replace the colonial bungalows. Gone was the quaint and informal space with scattered flower beds and plants and in came the flashy buildings, followed by the airport style security, customs, and immigration; culminating eventually in the hideous and expensive battle for who can hoist the largest flag and keep it flying high!
To be fair, the development of the check post at Wagah-Attari was probably a response to the expectation that relations between the two countries would improve, and with that the foot traffic would increase. The bungalows were not equipped to deal with high volumes of people. Hence, they first established the goods/transit depot on one side of the border, so as to divert the trucks carrying the items of import/export. This separated the trade traffic from the people traffic. Whilst the establishment of a goods depot offered signs of improved trade between the two countries, even this was subject to cordial relations.
With numerous crossings since then, I have seen the border change, not just physically but also its ambience and vibes that the place gives. Indeed, the new buildings and transit buses which take passengers from one side to other have functioned to create further distance between the lines of control. These were not there previously, and the cool formality evokes the illusion of being remote and separate. Borders do not have to be harsh and austere.
These moments and emotions are difficult to capture on camera, but they can be felt when encountering the staff and officials. When I first crossed the border, I had the compact Canon Sure Shot AF-7, which was a popular model in the 1990s and gifted to me. I enjoyed taking photographs, but cameras were not cheap then, and the 35mm film was expensive too, both to buy and to develop, so photos were taken sparingly. When I embarked on my doctoral research, taking my camera was essential for my trips to India and Pakistan, as it was an instrument to visually document my journey. I would normally pack 1-3 rolls of ISO 200 (sometimes also ISO 400) speed film, usually 36 EXP, good for general photographs. But one was never entirely sure until the film was taken back home, handed in for developing, which then produced the joy of physically going through the photographs a week later! Time had passed between undergoing the actual trip and now feeling those photographs in my hands, and the images allowed me to recreate and relive those moments again.
Today everything is instant. In a moment I can be taking a photograph at the border, and then share it with the wider public around the world via social media. The only caveat here is that, generally the phone signals are non-existent within 1-2 kilometres of the border area, so you would probably need to wait until you were able to pick up the phone signal. More importantly, this also disrupted any arrangements one had made to meet people on the other side. If I was crossing the border, I might contact my friends/family beforehand and say, I’m crossing at X time (keeping in mind the 30 minutes times difference between the two countries), so I estimate that I will be out at Y time (usually 60 minutes from one side to the other). But if things didn’t go to plan, there is no way of contacting the person to alert them of the delays. And when you did finally make it to the other side, there were always a small number of people anxiously waiting and looking to see when their friends/family will pass through those doors.
There are many other stories of this rather strange and intriguing no man’s land but to end with a more positive story, I share a picture of a dhaba at Attari, Mittra da dhaba (literal translation – friends’ roadside restaurant) is located close to the entrance to check post, catering to travellers and tourists who come for the daily lowering of the flag ceremony. I have gone there many times, but on one occasion in 2017, I asked the owner to pack some food for me, food which I planned to take across the border and share with my friends in Lahore. He took great care to make it extra special and pack the food tightly, so that it wouldn’t spill. I could see that it also brought him great joy to know that his food would travel to the other side. As we parted, he said come back and tell me if they enjoyed it!
Alas, these stories are in the past tense, and with Covid the border faced further restrictions and closures. I have no idea if my friend is still there, I hope so. We need more friends in these otherwise hostile spaces.
Recently I noticed in several social media forums that people have been sharing details of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain and her short story, Sultana’s Dream (1905). This story was originally published in The Indian Ladies’ Magazine, Madras, 1905, in English and translated by the author into Bengali. The story takes the form of a dream, set in a futuristic feministic world, in which women through education, opportunity and their innovative ability to use technology have been able to flourish. The science and technology featured in the story is not far off the realities of today and shows immense foresight by the imagination of the author.
The story also highlights how unjust it was, and still is, to deny women education and freedoms, which men have. The imagined place is a generous, green, and friendly environment, in which feminist science has created a space for everyone to thrive and reap the benefits. Although the story was published over a hundred years ago, we are still far from this utopian land.
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was born circ. 1880 to an orthodox Bengali Muslim upper-class family in the small village of Pairaband (district Rangpur in Bengal Presidency and present-day Bangladesh). Her father insisted that she learn only Arabic and remain in strict purdah. But with the assistance of her siblings, she learned to read and write Bangla and English. In 1896 her older brother Ibrahim Saber sought to arrange her marriage to a widower in his late 30s. Syed Sakhawat Hossain was the district magistrate in the Bihar region of Bengal Presidency and Ibrahim thought Rokeya would do well under Syed’s open-minded attitude, who had received education in both Bengal and London.
“Rokeya and her husband settled in Bhagalpur, Bihar. None of her children lived. Syed, who was convinced that the education of women was the best way to cure the ills of his society, encouraged his willing wife to write, and set aside 10,000 rupees to start a school for Muslim women.”
After 11 years of marriage, Syed passed away in 1909, leaving Rokeya alone. Soon thereafter she opened a school in Bhagalpur. Later, she moved to Calcutta where she re-opened the Sakhawat Memorial Girls’ School on March 16, 1911. The number of students went from 8 in 1911 to 84 in 1915.
The pioneering concept behind Sultana’s Dream has inevitably inspired other writers and artists to take their cue from a world in which women have the power and men are the submissive other. Aurat Raj, a 1979 Pakistani film, which on the surface appears to be inspired by Rokeya’s work, is also a commentary on the military (and masculine) regime that had come into power, under General Zia. Aurat Raj, is a strange and kitsch interpretation, at whose heart is a social message, centred on exposing the oppression of women. But when the roles are reversed, the women behave in a similar fashion too, unlike Hossain’s short story.
Source: Cinema and Society edited by Ali Khan & Ali Nobil Ahmad (OUP, 2016)
The poster for the film Aurat Raj is equally intriguing as the film itself. It “depicts a woman dressed in a tight-fitting suit and long boots with a crown on her head and a whip in hand, all the more intriguing. She has a commanding, imperious expression on her face. To her right another woman in men’s clothes brandishes a gun. A third woman confidently smokes a cigarette. At the feet of the ‘Empress’ a series of men, including Sultan Rahi, are dressed in women’s clothes. Rahi demurely wears a dupatta on his head, his expression one of effeminate alarm. A subversive and experimental drag movie directed by Rangeela, who had appeared in scores of films in side-comic roles usually playing to the front benchers, Aurat Raj is perhaps Pakistan’s only satire to date and it lampoons not only the naked chauvinism that prevails in Pakistani society but also pokes fun at the way that this attitude pervades the industry. The film targets the machismo of Pakistani men and revels in inverting the gender and power roles, making the women literally wear the pants and leaving the men, including Sultan Rahi and Waheed Murad, wearing frilly frocks and helpless expressions.” Ali Khan, “Film Poster: Reflections of Change in the Pakistani Film Industry” in Cinema and Society: Film and Social Change in Pakistan, edited by Ali Khan & Ali Nobil Ahmad (OUP, 2016), P251.
Despite its well-known star cast of Waheed Murad, Rani, Rangeela and Sultan Rahi, the film was a commercial flop. However, it is certainly worth revisiting, if only as a reminder of the subversive message of the film, which dreams of a more equal society.
