East Indian.
I’ve heard this term many times before, and have even used it to describe myself in the past. In recent years, however, it has started to really bother me.
As far as I can figure out, the term was created to differentiate between “Indians” from India and “Indians” from North America who, as we all know, were mistakenly labelled after Columbus thought he had landed on the shores of India. As a brown kid growing up in Canada trying to fit into a place that constantly reminded me I was different, I just accepted it without a second thought. I was an “East Indian” and there was no reason to argue or question it.
I firmly believe there is an inherent desire within all of us to fully understand who we are and where we come from. Proof of this is everywhere, from ancestry websites to DNA tests that will tell people exactly what their genetic makeup is. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry that caters to this urge to understand our own personal histories. When this urge grows strong enough, we start asking questions and looking for answers.
When I reached this point, I dove down the rabbit-hole of the history of the Indian subcontinent to try to understand what it is that makes me who I am. I’ve spent countless hours with my head buried in books, trying to comprehend who and what went into me coming into existence.
Although at the personal level it’s different for each of us, I share this here because on a broader level, the histories of those who have been mistakenly identified as “East Indians” in Canada are very similar. Recent numbers released by Statistics Canada show that Punjabi is now the fourth most spoken language in Canada, up 49% since the last census. The vast majority of my fellow “East Indians” trace their roots back to Punjab like I do, therefore to a certain extent, we have a shared history and therefore, a shared identity.
On the 15th of August, India marked the 75th anniversary of becoming a nation, celebrating the gaining of independence from British rule. To prepare for their departure, the British had appointed a lawyer named Cyril Radcliffe to decide on borders to create Hindu and Muslim majority countries – India and Pakistan. Mr. Radcliffe had never visited the land he had been assigned to divide, nor did he have any knowledge of its culture, history and traditions.
It took him just five weeks to reach a decision, one that would forever change millions of lives, both at the time, as well as for generations to come. The Radcliffe Line divided Punjab between India and Pakistan, and thus the horrors of the event called “Partition” began.
Hindus and Sikhs scrambled to get to the Indian side of the Radcliffe Line, while Muslims scrambled to get to the Pakistani side. This was at the time and still remains the largest mass migration of people the world has seen, with approximately 20 million being displaced.
Communal violence broke out everywhere, but was felt with extreme intensity in Punjab, where it is estimated up to 2 million people died in the chaos that ensued.
As the realities of the Radcliffe Line began to set in, families who had lived side by side in peace and harmony for decades were suddenly out each other’s blood.
People were forced to abandon homes, lands and businesses which had been in their families for generations. In some cases, they were forced to set off on a dangerous journey with nothing but the clothing on their backs.
Trains arrived into stations full of corpses on both sides of the newly formed border.
Women were abducted and subject to unspeakable horrors. Many decided taking their own lives was a better option than what awaited them if the mobs got a hold of them, jumping into wells or stabbing themselves.
Fathers, rather than have their daughters abused in the most vicious of ways, killed them when they realized what the alternative would be.
In short, it was one of the most horrific and tragic events in modern human history, yet it receives such little attention in our schoolbooks, nor do we ourselves as a community talk about it as much as we should.
I was astonished to find out there was a Punjab in Pakistan when I was younger. I had always thought of Pakistan as a far off place that India didn’t get along with. When I made my first Pakistani-Punjabi friends, I marveled at our similarities. They spoke the same language, enjoyed the same music and ate the same food. The only thing that was different were our faiths, and that had been the one thing used to divide us and enforce upon us that we were different.
In looking deeper into the history of Punjab, I began learning about Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the ruler of Punjab who was admired, despised and feared by the British. I learned how his court had Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims in positions of power, and how he united the vast majority of Punjab into a formidable fighting force.
I could go on and on about what I learned, but instead, I’ll share what I realized instead.
I realized a great injustice was done to the people of Punjab.
I realized how many had suffered and died.
I realized how little I knew, and how little I still know.
I realized no one is going to teach me about any of this, and that it’s up to me learn my history and try preserve and pass it on to future generations.
Going back to the whole purpose of this piece, I realized I wasn’t “East Indian”.
The land of Punjab has one of the richest histories in the world. It’s the land of poets, revolutionaries, trailblazers, saints and warriors. It is also a place that has seen an abundance of violence, hate and division.
Both of these sides of Punjab go into making us who we are, as does understanding the history of Punjab before Radcliffe drew his line.
Marcus Garvey once said,
”A person without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.”
I believe it’s important for each of us to understand our pasts, because if we don’t, we will end up like the tree without roots that Marcus Garvey mentions; a few gusts of wind and our identities will be toppled over and forgotten. We will become what people tell us we are, which for me at least, is a terrifying notion.
“A generation which ignores history has no past – and no future.”
These are the words of Robert Heinlein, and there is perhaps no better sentence to describe the choice we have to make. We can continue to let ourselves be misidentified as “East Indian”, or we can take it upon ourselves to educate ourselves and those around us about who we truly are, before it’s too late.
If that happens, being mislabeled as “East Indian” won’t matter anymore, because we ourselves won’t know the truth.
Artwork: The Ghost Trains (of 1947) by Ruby C. Tut
