Our daughters

At one point, there was only India. In late 1930s and 40s, during world War II, before the British empire left the region, they sowed seeds of distrust between Hindus and Muslims. In 1947, India was eventually divided into India and Pakistan on the basis of religious majorities in different regions. As I write today, brothers are fighting brothers. Both India and Pakistan are blaming each other of “terrorism”. There is escalating violence threatening one of the most populous parts of the world. I feel this deep love for people and beings who are suffering. How do you expect peace to be born out of seeds of trauma?

What trauma? One of my great maternal uncles used to cry when telling the story of partition of India. Millions of hindus migrated from Pakistan to India and millions of muslims left India to settle in Pakistan because they hoped there was going to the relative safety of being a religious majority when they moved. During this great migration of about 14 million people and the resulting refugee crisis in the two newly born countries with fragile safety and security, starvation, sexual and other kinds of violence erupted on both sides of the border. My great uncle would say, “The extremist Hindu leaders made us (Hindus) kill muslim refugees and told us that if we didn’t kill muslims, they would kill us”.

When I was a little girl my mother taught me to enact a dialogue between Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian leader who led the nonviolent movement against British Empire. Mahatma Gandhi was against partition of India and Pakistan. When partition was baked in, he did his very best to calm down the violence erupting during migration.

One day a hindu leader came to Gandhi and said, “ I will kill and rape daughters of muslims. They are harming our hindu daughters and sisters. Then the next day a muslim leader came to Gandhi and said, “We will take revenge. Hindus are harming our muslim daughters. Gandhi turned to a friend sitting by his side and said tearfully, “Hindus are worried about their daughters and sisters? Muslims are worried about their daughters and sisters. What do I do when both Hindu and Muslim daughters are my daughters .”

There is no “other”. There is no “other”.

Where are you creating an “other” out of person you don’t like?