She walked out of her bed room a couple of minutes after I arrived, the pallu of her sari draped, as all the time, throughout her proper shoulder, Gujarati in fashion. Shireen* smiled at me as she slowly made her technique to the sofa, her quick gray hair resting on her neck. For the following few hours, we sat within the lounge, amid remnants that every advised their very own story. An over 60-year-old grandfather clock from England, her father’s rocking chair from outdated Lahore, a desk carved by woodworkers in Bombay (now referred to as Mumbai) a number of a long time in the past. Shireen rested her fingers, etched with advantageous traces, in her lap and I observed her fingers. I may visualise a younger model of her joyfully taking part in the piano, a profession abruptly halted by the partition of British India in 1947.
“We actually belong to each locations,” she started. “We belong to the undivided subcontinent. After I was required right here, I used to be right here. After I was required there, I used to be there and I’d maintain coming and going.”
“Though it wasn’t ever simple to return and go,” Amy*, added from beside her.
“No, it has by no means been,” Shireen agreed softly.
It was November 2012 and I used to be sitting with Shireen and Amy, two sisters, of their residence nestled in an prosperous neighbourhood within the metropolis of Lahore. I used to be researching for my first e book, The Footprints of Partition. Ever since I had first heard about Shireen and Amy’s story, I had wished to be taught extra about their experiences in 1947 and the following a long time. Shireen, then in her early 80s, and Amy, 12 years youthful, had been from the Zoroastrian group, generally additionally known as the Parsi group (a title particular to South Asian Zoroastrians).
I had first met them a yr prior, as a part of an oral historical past challenge for The Residents Archive of Pakistan (CAP), a non-profit devoted to cultural and historic preservation. With a dwindling inhabitants in Lahore, Shireen and Amy had been two individuals my colleagues and I interviewed to doc the historical past and traditions of Zoroastrians. Since then, we had saved in contact. They had been heat and hospitable, introducing my colleagues and me to different members of the group, inviting us to partake in group festivities and opening their residence to us. It was throughout one in every of these interactions that I had realized that whereas Shireen was Indian, her sister, Amy, was Pakistani.
Born a long time after the partition, amid rising animosity between India and Pakistan, it was tough for me to think about two sisters divided by hostile notions of nationality. However such was the truth for households that had been separated in 1947 when the British carved the subcontinent into two, drawing traces haphazardly, slicing villages and cities in half.
Partition had led to one of many largest migrations the world had ever witnessed, with roughly 12 million individuals crossing the newly established borders of India and Pakistan: Muslims shifting west and Hindus and Sikhs east. In official historical past although, little consideration was paid to what occurred to the communities caught in between. What had been the lived implications for individuals like Shireen and Amy? What did it imply for one to turn out to be Indian and the opposite Pakistani? What did it imply to have a sisterhood partitioned?
‘Like sugar within the milk’
As is described within the e book, A White Path: A Journey into the Coronary heart of Pakistan’s Spiritual Communities, by Haroon Khalid: “It’s believed that upon the unfold of Islam to Persia within the seventh century CE, a small band of Zoroastrians – a dominant faith within the area till then – set out from Persia and located their technique to Sanjan, a metropolis in present-day Gujrat, India. Upon arriving, the chief of the group despatched a message to the ruler and requested him for permission to stay there. When the request was declined, the chief requested for a bowl of milk and a few sugar. He combined a handful of sugar into the milk and despatched it again, with a message that the Parsi group can be like sugar within the milk: invisible but current. He promised that his group would mix in, adopting native customs and tradition, whereas by no means preaching or changing others to their faith.
“The king was impressed and the group was allowed to settle. They had been ultimately given the title of “Parsi” – the individuals who got here from Persia. Upholding the promise made by their chief, the group took on the Gujarati language and tradition, together with conventional Gujarati garments, meals and songs.”
Shireen’s sari, tied in Gujarati fashion, with the pallu on the appropriate versus the left, as it’s worn in different components of India, was harking back to this promise made distant from Lahore, a very long time in the past.
Again in that room, she advised me that on the time of partition, her household was already lengthy settled in Lahore. “Our father would have by no means shifted wherever as this was the place he had lived, his forefathers had lived; this was his residence. He additionally believed that the politics of the state had nothing to do with us; that whether or not a Muslim or Hindu authorities was in place, we Parsis would stay unaffected.”
This perception was shared by others from the group too. As violence broke out between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, Parsis remained impartial, and satisfied that they might proceed to stay in Pakistan no matter who got here to energy within the area, mixing in once more as they’d as soon as finished earlier than.
However the occasions of 1947 and thereafter would quickly depart an affect on the group. Within the post-partition subcontinent, as spiritual and nationwide identities blurred – with India being perceived over time as a Hindu nation and Pakistan as a Muslim nation, spiritual minorities have confronted social, political and financial repercussions.
Over time, the Parsi group has shrunk considerably. In 2013, it was reported that there have been solely 35 Parsis left in Lahore. Throughout Pakistan, there are fewer than 1,000. Whereas some married outdoors of the group, changing to different religions, others migrated to international locations in North America or Europe. In Shireen and Amy’s case, the repercussions of partition had been felt much more personally and quite quickly after 1947.
‘We simply prayed and prayed – we knew it was a matter of destiny’
Born in 1930 in Bombay – the place her mom was initially from – and raised in Lahore, Shireen spent her early years conversant in each cities. She accomplished her schooling in Lahore, learning with Hindu, Muslim and Sikh classmates on the Cathedral Faculty. However come summer time, she and Amy would board the Frontier Mail with their mom to go to her maternal residence in Bombay. “Our mom was by no means capable of let go of her emotional ties with town…at any time when we might go there, she was a lot extra relaxed, so relaxed over there,” Shireen advised me.
After partition, nonetheless, Shireen believed that her mom felt “a wedge had been constructed between her youth in Bombay and her life right here in Lahore. After all, she ultimately reconciled with dwelling right here however emotionally she was all the time there, in Bombay, even till she died in 2004.”
Shireen, although, didn’t really feel the identical rupture as her mom, not initially. Lahore, in spite of everything, was the place her college, mates and instant household had been. She thought she’d nonetheless have an opportunity to go to Bombay, even when it now unusually lay in a foreign country, throughout the freshly carved border. As a 17-year-old scholar passionate in regards to the piano, she was extra preoccupied with gearing up for her music examinations, scheduled to happen in Lahore proper across the time of partition. However with Punjab being one of many two provinces lower in half in 1947, town of Lahore was marked with violence and unrest and the examiner from the Trinity School London, who was meant to look at Shireen, couldn’t come. She advised me she cried her eyes out till her mother and father determined that they might ship her to Bombay the place the situations had been higher and examinations had been nonetheless below method.
“These had been a number of the most horrifying hours of my life,” she advised me. Shireen recalled how the prepare shutters had been pulled down and passengers sat huddled collectively in worry of being attacked as communal violence unleashed round them. “None of us knew if we might get there alive. We simply sat there and prayed and prayed. We knew it was only a matter of destiny, whether or not our prepare can be attacked or the one after…it was all about luck.”
Although Shireen made it throughout and aced her examination, she now confronted the hurdle of getting again to Lahore, the place she wanted to look for one in every of her college examinations that had earlier been cancelled because of the political turmoil of partition. She needed to make three journeys to the airport earlier than she was capable of get a flight however, by this time it was December 1947, and solely shuttle flights had been operating to Lahore. With planes not having the ability to accommodate the overflow of visitors, seats had been faraway from the aircrafts to create space for extra passengers – individuals left sitting on prime of their baggage. When she lastly made it residence, she advised me she discovered her mom weeping. She had not recognized if her daughter would make it residence alive.
However Shireen was one of many lucky ones. She had made it throughout the border twice, and went on to not solely go her exams, however to obtain honours as properly.
By 1952, she had acquired a Fulbright scholarship to pursue her research in music in america and it felt like she had really come out on the opposite facet. However partition wasn’t a static occasion; its implications weren’t restricted to 1947 itself. For divided households particularly, the repercussions would proceed to unfold for years.
Shireen had returned to Lahore from the US in 1955 and was operating her personal music present on Radio Pakistan when the information got here in that her household’s property in Bombay is perhaps prone to being taken over by the Indian authorities; few years later, in 1968, India would go a regulation giving the federal government powers to grab property belonging to residents of a state thought of an “enemy state”. In follow, this may imply anybody holding Pakistani citizenship.
Shireen’s father had property in Bombay and, fearing that they could possibly be seized, he instructed her, because the eldest daughter, to journey throughout the border to care for the property. By this time Shireen was 27 whereas Amy was 15.
As Shireen reached this a part of the story, the ache she had skilled turned seen. “I felt completely terrible,” she advised me. “My life as a pianist was [suddenly over]. And but I used to be the one individual [who could go]; Amy was too younger, and my mother and father couldn’t depart, so there was solely me left. We grew up being obedient to our mother and father so, whether or not I preferred it or not, I used to be despatched off.” Simply as her mom had been separated from her Bombay, Shireen was pressured to surrender Lahore, the injuries of partition chopping throughout generations.
It was 1957 by the point she left and it took her three years to amass citizenship which she wanted to make sure her father’s property wouldn’t be seized. This meant relinquishing her Pakistani citizenship and he or she was left for that point with none official nationality in any respect. She was not the one one. Numerous different individuals like her had been roaming authorities places of work, pleading their circumstances. “My state of affairs was so widespread that whenever you went to the police and advised them you had been from Lahore, they wouldn’t bat an eyelid.”
The struggles with paperwork didn’t finish along with her citizenship, nonetheless. Only some years after Shireen moved to India, the 1965 Indo-Pak battle broke out. It was after this battle that visas turned even tougher to acquire, and the border, as soon as extra porous, permitting individuals to cross over much more simply, hardened.
Amy, who had sat beside Shireen in a shalwar kameez all through this story, advised me she was in actual fact in Bombay visiting her grandparents when the battle began. She recalled the curfews, the blackout. “The home windows must be lined with black paper [to avoid being targeted] and my cousins and I’d spend evenings with a recipe e book, making an attempt out new recipes as a result of there was nothing else to do.”
Regardless of being in the identical nation as her sister, Amy defined that she couldn’t meet her. Shireen was by now settled elsewhere in India and Amy solely had a allow for Bombay. Shireen, in the meantime, was unable to get depart from her job. “It was a pity that being in the identical nation as my sister, we had been nonetheless so distant from one another.”
As tensions escalated and planes had been cancelled, Amy mentioned she felt completely caught. Whereas she ultimately made it residence, she advised me: “I keep in mind continually ready to listen to of the following flight residence. I wished to get again as quickly as I may, to return to my mother and father. I couldn’t even communicate to them throughout this time. We’d need to ship messages by way of England or one other third nation.”
By 1971, Pakistan and India had been as soon as once more at battle, this time over the beginning of Bangladesh. For divided households like Shireen and Amy’s, every time tensions escalated on the border, it turned increasingly tough to take care of contact not to mention go to each other. They advised me it had been a number of years since they’d met, though they couldn’t keep in mind the precise dates.
“We had wished to see one another so badly that lastly my sister and I made a decision to fulfill in Kabul as a substitute.” It was the Seventies by this time. I appeared up from my notes and observed that it was at this second, for the very first time in our dialog, that Shireen had begun to cry, reminded of the ordeal of these years, the difficulties of being separated from her household. However as she recollected the moments they had been lastly capable of spend collectively, her expression modified. “We spent fairly some weeks there and it was beautiful. We caught up on so many issues we had missed out on over time. She advised me about her mates, about our mom and father, that we had moved [homes]. It was the primary time in all these years that I felt full, felt linked with my household,” she advised me, her eyes tender.
Within the years following, typically Shireen acquired a visa to journey to Lahore, and typically her mom and sister had been capable of come to India, however these visits, she tells me, had been all the time tough. The paperwork, the police reporting (it’s typically a requirement that guests need to report their entry and exit to every metropolis at a police workplace), the forms and crimson tape – all weighed closely on their transient interactions.
Hoping to carry on to each worlds
The approvals, or lack thereof, from safety officers typically form the lives of divided households.
Malik Siddiqui, an aged man I interviewed at his residence in Lahore, shared an analogous story. Siddiqui was born in Uttar Pradesh (in present-day India) and, at a younger age, turned an ardent supporter of the Muslim League, obsessed with combating for a separate homeland for Muslims. In 1952, on the age of 18, he set off alone for Pakistan, abandoning his household, lots of whom supported the Congress – one of many main political events in undivided and post-partition India, which stood in opposition to the Muslim League – and determined to proceed dwelling in India.
Malik defined how he had imagined he would be capable to maintain each worlds, crossing borders simply to go to his mother and father and mates again in India whereas creating a house within the newly fashioned nation that held promise for Muslims like him. And for the primary few years, he was capable of purchase the required permits to go to, however as tensions heightened between each international locations, and borders turned extra divisive, getting visas and travelling throughout was not easy. He advised me he missed each his mom’s and father’s funeral. “You must struggle a relentless wrestle day-after-day, to go to, to be one with them. I don’t remorse my resolution however I had by no means realised how a lot I must hand over for Pakistan…”
Tina Vachani, a Hindu girl I interviewed whereas she was in Delhi, had moved from Karachi, Pakistan to Delhi, India as a younger 14-year-old, abandoning her mother and father.
After I interviewed her for The Footprints of Partition, she advised me that what was initially meant to be a brief journey to go to her grandparents in 1971 had became a everlasting transfer. India and Pakistan went to battle whereas she was travelling and communication hyperlinks between each international locations broke down. Like many others with households on either side, Tina discovered herself caught within the center. She was travelling on a Pakistani passport, with an Indian visa. Unable to get an extension throughout the battle, her maternal household helped her apply for Indian citizenship. Within the course of, she needed to resign her Pakistani nationality. Whereas this was meant to unravel the bureaucratic troubles, within the years after crimson tape and paperwork would proceed to create fractures in her life.
She advised me of her determined makes an attempt to get a visa to have the ability to go to her household. It was after a number of years of making an attempt, within the late Seventies, that her father tried to drag a number of strings to at the very least be capable to meet his daughter on the Wagah Border, a land border between Lahore, Pakistan and Amritsar, India).
Tina was ecstatic. “Think about not having the ability to go residence for seven or eight years…a lot had modified [since I last met my parents] …I had a lot to inform them, a lot to ask…about residence, about our neighbourhoods, my mates…” She advised me her mother and father had been ready anxiously on the Pakistani gate; they’d travelled from Karachi to Lahore to see her and he or she had travelled from Delhi to Amritsar to fulfill them, even when for a short second. However the safety official on her facet refused to let her transfer ahead. “He saved saying I wanted particular permission from some ministry and so forth and so forth. I hadn’t met my father for thus a few years, however he simply wouldn’t enable me to go to the gate.”
She paused at this level within the story, taking a deep breath earlier than persevering with. “Sadly, I didn’t get to see [my family]. A few months later, my father had a coronary heart assault and died.”
‘The division destroyed our lives’
When Shireen and I met that morning in 2012, she was as soon as once more settled in Lahore, a metropolis she had grown up in. In 2000, when her father fell sick, she determined to retire and transfer again. However on the day we met, she advised me how a lot she longed to return to India the place she had now spent a lot of her grownup life, the place she had colleagues and mates. She mentioned she had work to wrap up too, wills to jot down, property to offer away.
As an Indian nationwide and somebody who had to surrender her Pakistani citizenship and was dwelling on a customer’s visa in Lahore, she may go however her age not allowed her to journey alone. Amy, her Pakistani sister, who meant to accompany her, couldn’t get the permissions she wanted to journey to India. She advised me she had utilized for her visa thrice not too long ago however every time the authorities requested for extra paperwork.
Earlier than I left that day, Shireen quietly held my hand and mentioned: “The division completely destroyed our lives, to be frank. Partition created turmoil in our lives…I’m emotionally tied to Lahore as my mom was to Bombay. It’s unhappy that I want permission to stay right here. That is my residence as a lot as that’s. Why should I select?”
Just a few years after our assembly, Shireen handed away, nonetheless holding onto the idea that she belonged to each locations as a lot as they belonged to her.
*The story of sisters Shireen and Amy – not their actual names – was first documented for The Footprints of Partition (2015).
