Butalia is only two generations removed from the Partition of South Asia in August 1947, when the British, as they ended their colonial rule in India, imposed a national boundary across northern India that created Pakistan. In so doing they split the religiously diverse province of Punjab into West, or Lehnda, Punjab, and East, or Charda, Punjab.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The border added a geographical quotient to the existing religious distinctions made between Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Jains and Christians, resulting in nearly 15 million people being divided from their religious community. Many left their homes to seek wholeness again in the largest mass migration that the region has seen; others stayed and fought for their rights as minorities. More than half a million people died in revenge killings, riots and communal violence from all sides.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Tarunjit Singh Butalia. Photo courtesy of Religions for Peace USA<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nButalia believes the kindness shown to his grandparents fostered his devotion to creating meaningful relationships and understanding between people of faith. The shared history of Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus at the time of Partition led him to his current position, as well as his work as a founding member of the Sikh Coalition for Interfaith Relations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe interfaith movement is very much who I am,\u201d said Butalia. \u201cIt has been a critical factor in my formation of Sikh identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The feuding that the Partition initiated between Indian and Pakistani Hindus and Muslims has not ceased. Increasingly it is fueled by governments on both sides that stoke religious nationalist feelings among their citizens.<\/p>\n
But in this 75th anniversary year of the Partition, stories such as Butalia\u2019s are the focus of many Indians and Pakistanis who are looking to oral history to preserve the memory of interfaith collaboration as an essential part of their two countries\u2019 histories. Butalia himself said he hopes to use the past, when Hindus, Muslims and Sikh protected each other, to look forward past what he calls a pervasive \u201cpatriotism of hate.\u201d<\/p>\n
At a recent webinar about the Partition of Punjab held by the Sikh Council for Interfaith Relations, three scholars \u2014 one Hindu, one Muslim and one Sikh \u2014 related their families\u2019 experiences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nOne speaker lived through the trauma himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Partition of Punjab was a period of marked madness, massacres and lifelong misery,\u201d said Ranbir Singh Sandhu, professor emeritus at the Ohio State University.\u00a0\u201cBut goodness eventually prevails, and it did this time too.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Ranbir Singh Sandhu. Video screen grab<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nA practicing Sikh, Sandhu was an engineering college student in east Punjab in 1947. The neighborhood where he lived at the time was declared a Muslim refugee camp after the Partition, which had rendered his Sikh family the minority religious group. But that didn\u2019t stop them from providing the refugees with halal food and temporary shelter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese were old neighbors and helpers,\u201d said Sandhu. \u201cWe knew they were friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he and his brother were forced to leave what is now Lahore, Pakistan, it was a group of Muslim men that helped them find their way. And when heavy rains in Punjab damaged houses, Sandhu\u2019s Muslim friends took charge of the rescue.<\/p>\n
Like Butalia, Sandhu continued to maintain friendships with Muslims, Hindus and Christians, whether as colleagues or as Ph.D. students he advised.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll this madness and misery was avoidable,\u201d said Sandhu. \u201cBoth nations have wasted a lot of money on fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The webinar drew floods of comments from audience members that showcased the wide array of stories that Punjabis across the world still tell. The panelists agreed that the best way to share anecdotes and tales of the Partition is through social media, or what another panelist, Akhtar Hussain Sandhu, called \u201cthe new face of Punjab nationalism.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 1947 Partition Archive, founded in 2013, is dedicated to preserving stories from the South Asian community. Panelist Munish Singh is the moderator for the Punjab Heritage Facebook group, which has over 100,000 members.<\/p>\n
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Refugees migrate in 1954. Photo courtesy of Creative Commons<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nWe must use these tools to do what the government can\u2019t provide,\u201d said Singh. \u201cCross-border, people-to-people conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the divisions to heal, Butalia said, people must separate neighbors from the actions of their governments, confront people in their own religious communities who are moving toward extremism and use compassion generously.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat worries me is the line that people have drawn in their hearts,\u201d said Butalia. \u201cThat is the border that needs to be erased.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his book, Butalia shares a story from his visit to the hometown of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, who was famously accompanied on his journeys by his Muslim friend Bhai Mardana. Butalia recalled seeing a group of Muslim schoolchildren visiting the gurdwara, as Sikh houses of worship are called.<\/p>\n
The students told him they often come by for the langar \u2014 the free meals offered by gurdwaras as a service to their community. To his surprise and delight, the children told Butalia that they exchanged Facebook and Twitter accounts with the Sikh children from the other side.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is the future,\u201d said Butalia. \u201cThis change is already happening. We just need to amplify it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n