(taqsim) Separate
Presented for Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices, Arch Colloquium I Instructor: Felicity Scott Najia Fatima Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation
Table of Conents
Introduction 1 Border Making 5 Nationalism and Citizenship 7 Nationalism and Displacement 11 Mass Migration in the Subcontinent 14 Language and Displacement 15 Examining Urdu 17
Introduction This work examines the relationship between citizen and refugee in European context and in the Indian subcontinent. It delves into the concepts of border formation in the European bourjois model which employs language to define boundaries and create this division of land. Language plays a crucial role in defining ethnicities and differentiating between people and their histories. This land division results in the birth of a nation-state, concepts of nationalism and the creation of the figure of the ‘citizen’. Early citizens of Europe were land-owning men who had access to vote on land policies. Land ownership becomes a social status directly associated with rights and privileges. It creates a sense of belonging and the idea of home. The state opposite of being a landowner is that of being ‘landless’ and the various manifestations of it: exiles, émigrés or refugees. The definition of a refugee was presented by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the convention of 1951. UNHCR was created in 1950, during the aftermath of the Second World War, to help millions of Europeans who had fled or lost their homes. Similar to the citizen, the figure of the refugee is created out of Europe in the wake of the war and initially only encompassed Europeans. During this time
the Subcontinent was experiencing one of its largest resettlement of people displaced by the Partition. The Partition was announced on the night of 15 August 1947 as celebratory shouts and cries for freedom filled the air. Close to two hundred years of British Raj and the East India Company’s rule had finally come to an end. This moment of freedom and the end of British rule was immediately followed by violence and bloodshed. Two million people lost their lives as the provinces of the Punjab and Bengal were split in half displacing fourteen million people. The hastily drawn borders were created by a British lawyer, Sir Cyril Radcliffe who lacked adequate knowledge of the Subcontinent and only had a few weeks to establish all the borders of South Asia. An act that permanently altered the landscape of the subcontinent and birthed Hindu and Muslim nationalisms that enabled further hostility within the landscape. The European model of social organization when exported to the subcontinent becomes fractured as the very concept of nationhood intertwined with arbitrary mapping of religion sets the foundations for displacement.
The exclusion of people without land becomes a production of the European social system. To further understand this relationship of land with people I revert to the idea of language explored in Edward Said’s text ‘Reflections on Exile’. In his text, Said explores various terminologies used to describe displaced populations in English highlighting Eurocentric conepts of movement. I then revert to Urdu to examine this dynamic within a language from the subcontinent. I employ Urdu dictionary to examine these categories. Throughout the work I also draw inspiration from scenes of the films of Ritwik Ghatak to explore the trauma of border formation, migration and displacement.
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On that side lies my home...but I can never go there again because it’s now...a foreign land. My home lies no where but the other side of the river. The railway line was where we would take the steamer to go home. I always knew my mother would be waiting for me. The railway line always represented a sign of home. Now it represents subtraction A place where our country was severed into two. -Komal Ghandar
Border Making
The film Komal Ghandar directed by Ritwik Ghattak is a part of the trilogy series that explores the trauma of border making, division, lament and tragedy. The partition of the Indian subcontinent cast a shadow over all of Ghatak’s work. These borders are further examined in Arindam Dutta’s talk at the Mataf centre in 2010. He compares the borders of Europe to the ones in the Middle East and South Asia that were etched out by the colonizers following World War II. Within the European bourjois model of land division, borders are founded on the basis of language. This language further informs ethnicities, nation-states and nationalism. When the same principles of border making are implemented in the subcontinent they become foundations of displacement. These borders divide people from the same ethnicities and tribes. This results in territorial estrangement experienced by the people separated in violent ways. The idea of ethnos, which has historically been the predicator of state formation is defined by colonialism and neo-colonialism in the subcontinent. The arbitrary land division also becomes the founding principle for the fragile idea of nationhood .
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Nationalism and Citizenship Nationhood becomes a basis for Nationalism; which is ‘an assertion of belonging in and to a place, a people, a heritage. It affirms the home created by a community of language, culture, and customs‌ All nationalisms in their early stages develop from a condition of estrangement.’ which ultimately creates the category of citizen. The citizen belongs to the land and the land belongs to the citizen. The stronger the nationalism of country the more rigid the category of citizen becomes.
The European concept of citizenship initially only encompassed landowning men. From the very beginning citizenship excluded more people than it included. This further intertwined with early democracy since only the citizens were allowed to vote and make decisions with the land. This peculiar relationship between land ownership and citizen becomes a foundation of another category of people: those without land. These include exiles, ĂŠmigrĂŠs or refugees.
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Father: Why should I leave? Explain! Why should I leave a country so tender and green? Why must I leave River Padma? Why? Son: Because you must survive. It’s time for you to become a refugee!
Father: Refugee? Son: It’s a name given by journalists
Nationalism and Displacement
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was created in 1950, during the aftermath of the Second World War, to help millions of Europeans who had fled or lost their homes. Similar to the citizens, the figure of the refugee is created out of Europe in the wake of the war and initially only encompassed Europeans. The figure of the refugee is birthed following the convention in 1951, the same year in which UNHCR was created. The 1951 UN Refugee Convention defined a refugee as a person who is outside the country of his or her nationality due to a “well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a group or political opinion. . . .or owing to such fear is unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country.� A further analysis of the convention breaks down the definition of a refugee to seven basic elements: Alienage
Failure of State Protection
Well Founded Fear
Nexus to Civil and Political Status
Serious Harm
Deserving Protection
Through the phrase “a person who is outside the country of his or her nationality” we are able to understand that the refugee status of an individual leans on the relationship of nationality. This takes us back to the idea of the citizen as someone who owns land and is able to enjoy rights and privileges due to the relationship with land. Citizen and Refugee become two european concepts situated on opposite sides of a coin; both rely on the relationship between people and land. This european model of social organization when exported to the subcontinent becomes a fractured reality between nation formation and the displaced populations. The very concept of nationhood in this case sets the foundations for displacement.
“our age—with its modern warfare, imperialism, and the quasi-theological ambitions of totalitarian rulers—is indeed the age of the refugee, the displaced person, mass immigration.” (Edward Said)
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Rawalpindi Lahore Delhi Karachi Dhaka
Calcutta
Mass Migration in the Subcontinet This mass displacement was witnessed in the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent into independent countries of Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. As the clock stuck midnight on 15 August 1947 celebratory shouts filled the air.. The subcontinent finally achieved its freedom This moment was immediately marred by violence and bloodshed. Following the partition, the world witnessed one of the largest mass migrations in history accompanied with large scale violence. The provinces of the Punjab and Bengal were split in half displacing seven million Hindus and Sikhs and seven million Muslims. The belief of returning ‘home’ once the turmoil has ended prevails in most stories of displacement as many families left their valuable items and assets behind - almost nobody returned. The hastily drawn borders were created by a British lawyer, Sir Cyril Radcliffe who lacked adequate knowledge of the Indian subcontinent and only had a few weeks to establish all the borders of South Asia. An act that permanently altered the landscape of the subcontinent and birthed Hindu and Muslim nationalisms that enabled hostility towards the other groups. “In time, successful nationalisms consign truth exclusively to themselves and relegate falsehood and inferiority to outsiders … just beyond the frontier between “us” and the “outsiders” is the perilous territory of not-belonging: this is to where in a primitive time peoples were banished, and where in the modern era immense aggregates of humanity loiter as refugees and displaced persons.” 14
Language and Displacement: The territory of not belonging permeates into language as this expression was the basis for the European model of border formation. Language becomes a site of primary violence, the foundation of ethnicity, nationalism and nation-state. Said explores the terminologies used to describe different types of displacement in his text: “Although it is true that anyone prevented from returning home is an exile, some distinctions can be made among exiles, refugees, expatriates, and ĂŠmigrĂŠs. Exile originated in the age-old practice of banishment. Once banished, the exile lives an anomalous and miserable life, with the stigma of being an outsider. Refugees, on the other hand, are a creation of the twentieth-century state.
The word “refugee” has become a political one, suggesting large herds of innocent and bewildered people requiring urgent international assistance, whereas “exile” carries with it, I think, a touch of solitude and spirituality. Expatriates voluntarily live in an alien country, usually for personal or social reasons…Expatriates may share in the solitude and estrangement of exile, but they do not suffer under its rigid proscriptions. Émigrés enjoy an ambiguous status. Technically, an émigré is anyone who emigrates to a new country. Choice in the matter is certainly a possibility.” English becomes heavily based on various categories of landlessness with each category situated in a different class-based system of movement. I now revert to Urdu to examine this dynamic within a language from the subcontinent.
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Examining Urdu Urdu categorizes the terms emigres, refugees and expats under one word:
Muhajir Muhajir initially carried religious connotations since it signified the move of early Muslims from Mecca to Medina. However, in its everyday use it acts as an all encompassing term embodying various aspects of displacement. While the term has since the partition been integrated into various political movements, no new words have emerged for the classification of refugees seperately from immigrants.
Naming Land
Panah-gah
Apart from it’s hesitation to classify immigrants, Urdu employs panah-gah as a place to house refugees or displaced populations. Consisting of two seperate words panah - meaning safety and gah which stands for place. The two come together to form ‘a place of refuge’ which functions similar to the way ‘refugee camp’ does in English. However, this nomenclature inverts the relationship between land and people that the former is no longer named after its inhabitants but the value it carries, that of refuge.
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Mapping Oral Journeys While these two terms play a significant role in the Urdu Literature of displacement, the other element of language becomes the oral mapping of stories of survivors of the partition. Those who experienced a loss of home, displacement and migration employ the language of action. Leaning towards the act of moving to describe a journey rather than a state of being displaced. Instead of saying I became a refugee like the film by Ghatak, its alternative ‘we left’ becomes frequent. Through an action that implies decision making they are in conversation with the politics integrated into the term refugee which ultimately becomes a disenfranchising term. Language is manipulated to enable the narratives of displacement despite the loss of power that the partition brought.
[insert Taj Begum’s story]
Language lays the foundations for nation-state and border making. It creates social categories when situated in the global context. Thus enveloping the trauma of history, land division and classification ultimately leading to seperation and violence. However, in the smallest of gestures our language asks us to keep exploring our relationship with land. When Panahgah became a place of refuge, Panah became synonymous with safety. Meanwhile, in an obscure corner of the same Urdu dictionary, written in a much smaller text, Panah also means hope.
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Bibliography Page 1 - 2: Introduction “Discussion Led by Dr. Arindam Dutta, Mathaf - AMCA Academic Conference (Part 21 of 23) - YouTube.” www.youtube. com, March 16, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ycBT-7I39E&ab_channel=Mathaf%3AArabMuseumofModernArt. Said, Edward W. Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000. UN General Assembly, Draft Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 14 December 1950, A/RES/429, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3b00f08a27.html [accessed 22 December 2020] Page 2 - 3: Scene from Komal Ghandar Komal Ghandar. Film. India: Echo Entertainment, 1961. Page 5 - 6: Border Making “Discussion Led by Dr. Arindam Dutta, Mathaf - AMCA Academic Conference (Part 21 of 23) - YouTube.” www.youtube. com, March 16, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ycBT-7I39E&ab_channel=Mathaf%3AArabMuseumofModernArt. Page 7 - 8: Nationalism and Citizenship “Discussion Led by Dr. Arindam Dutta, Mathaf - AMCA Academic Conference (Part 21 of 23) - YouTube.” www.youtube. com, March 16, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ycBT-7I39E&ab_channel=Mathaf%3AArabMuseumofModernArt. Page 11 - 12: Nationalism and Displacement UN General Assembly, Draft Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 14 December 1950, A/RES/429, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3b00f08a27.html [accessed 22 December 2020]
Maluwa, Tiyanjana, and Anton Katz. “Who Is a Refugee?: Twenty-Five Years of Domestic Implementation and Judicial Interpretation of the 1969 OAU and 1951 UN Refugee Conventions in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 27, no. 2 (2020): 129–205. https://doi.org/10.2979/ indjglolegstu.27.2.0129. Said, Edward W. Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000. Page 14: Mass Migration in the Subcontinent Perkins, C. Ryan. “1947 Partition of India & Pakistan.” The 1947 Partition Archive - Spotlight at Stanford, June 12, 2017. https://exhibits.stanford.edu/1947-partition/about/1947-partition-of-india-pakistan. Said, Edward W. Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000. Page 15 - 16: Language and Displacement’ Said, Edward W. Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000. Page 17 - 18: Examining Urdu Ferozudin, Maulvi. “Muhajir.” In Feroz Ul Lughat Jame. Lahore, Pakistan: Ferozsons (Pvt.) Ltd., 2005. ———. “Panah Gah.” In Feroz Ul Lughat Jame. Lahore, Pakistan: Ferozsons (Pvt.) Ltd., 2005. © Najia Fatima. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the copyright holders.