Today, 15th August 2017, marks a historic date – 70 years since India and Pakistan became independent nations. On social media, friends with origins on both sides of the border are celebrating the birth of their countries, their beauty, their diversity, their achievements so far. As a Jew looking forward to next year’s festivities in honour of 70 years of the State of Israel, I can certainly relate to the pride and happiness felt by my Indian and Pakistani friends. What’s more, as the granddaughter of a Calcutta (now Kolkata) native, India especially has held a special place in my heart for as long as I can remember. I dream of the day when I will be able to visit, to soak in the sights and sounds, to see where my grandmother spent the first 20 or so years of her life. Yet it’s precisely this connection that makes me hesitate to ‘like’ my friends’ celebratory statuses, that makes me question whether I should view the commemoration of India’s birth as a cause for rejoicing.
Let me explain. My grandmother is a member of India’s ‘Baghdadi’ Jewish community, composed of Jews of Middle Eastern origin who came to India to trade and ended up establishing a culture that lasted for centuries. The Baghdadis flourished in India, establishing schools and synagogues. They developed a cuisine that was a unique mixture of Indian and Iraqi flavours, spoke both Hindi and Judeo-Arabic. My grandmother relates how she grew up in a multi-ethnic neighbourhood, where Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians lived in harmony, visiting each other’s homes and celebrating each other’s festivals. In other words, Baghdadis played an integral role in the society around them, forming one of the many diverse strands of Indian culture.
Yet at the same time, this didn’t necessarily mean that all members of the community identified as Indian. Not only did my grandmother and her siblings technically grow up as British subjects under the Empire, but they also viewed themselves as British. They spoke English as their first language, had a British-style education, wore Western clothes. And, after Partition in 1947, they chose to become British, not Indian, citizens. However, in some ways, even prior to independence, the Baghdadis found themselves caught in the middle when it came to identity, not quite viewed as either British or Indian. It was from this ‘in-between’ position that my then teenage grandmother witnessed the horrors of the religious violence that preceded Partition. She remembers members of Hindu and Muslim groups shouting religious and nationalistic slogans before slaughtering one another, after which she would come out of her house to see bodies lying in dustbins. The situation became dangerous for her family too, as anyone perceived as ‘white’ or associated with the British found themselves under threat. My great-aunt once told me about how, as a young medical student, her Indian friends would help to dress her in a sari before she left university at the end of each day so that she would pass as Indian and thus escape harassment. Her brother grew his beard and would come to meet her dressed in traditional Muslim attire. Indeed, it was because of this increasingly hostile climate that my grandmother would eventually leave India. All of which is to say that when I hear the phrases ‘jai Hind’ (‘Long live India’/’victory to India’) or ‘Pakistan zindabad’ (‘Long live Pakistan’), what immediately comes to mind is the violence of Partition rather than the national rebirth that followed.
Yet I’m also unsure as to how I should feel about my family’s feelings of closeness to India’s colonial occupiers. From primary school onward, I learned (albeit in a rather idealised way) about Gandhi’s noble struggle, how he fought against hatred and helped found a free India. Growing up British two generations after the fall of the Empire, the unequivocal message from my teachers was that colonialism was wrong and based on racism, something I still believe today. But I’m also aware that, however indefensible its original premise, the British Empire helped to create an environment where my family could flourish. My great-grandfather, who had come to India to escape anti-Semitism in Iraq and who had fought for Britain during World War One, worked as an accountant for British Rail. One influential cousin, Sir David Ezra, even earned a knighthood. The British authorities certainly helped to keep the Baghdadi community safe and prosperous, even if they did not consider them to be fully ‘one of us’. My feelings about the British Raj are thus a strange mixture of appreciation for the fact that it no longer exists and a strong conviction that some of its achievements can serve as a source of pride rather than shame. Both elements are potential sources of guilt for me, just as they are both potential causes for celebration.
The British administration was not the only thing that disappeared from India following independence. Following Partition, the Baghdadi community started to leave, for England, the United States, Canada, Australia, and, eventually, Israel. While some did decide to stay and participate actively in their new country, for many, the newly independent India was not somewhere they felt they could continue to live in peace and prosperity. Today, out of a community of thousands, only a handful of Baghdadi Jews remain in India. The synagogues lie empty and silent, kept from falling into disrepair by devoted Muslim caretakers. I have met people who were born in Kolkata who had no idea that there was ever an Iraqi-Jewish community in India. Independence thus marked the dawn of a national narrative in which Baghdadis would play little, if any, part. The Calcutta that my grandmother knew still exists in memories, in quirky turns of phrase, nursery rhymes and lullabies, bites of sweet-sour food, old photos, the pages of history books. But in modern-day India, it is nearly extinct.
Indian independence day is a day when I both think about my family’s connections to a country that has fascinated me for as long as I can remember and, conversely, realise my distance from it, both physically and culturally. I hope that the day will come when I will be able to see India for myself and explore this seemingly contradictory connection further. In the meantime, I wish both India and Pakistan a happy Independence Day. May your futures be happy, peaceful, and as rich as your past.
The Desert 