![]() She'd tell us stories about how her family was forced to leave India when she was an 8-year-old child for a new home in this newly created country of Pakistan. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: I'm from Pakistan.Ī KHALID: That's my grandma. ![]() And all my life, I remember hearing bits and pieces about partition. We were one of the only South Asian families in our town. And so I wanted to go back and better understand what happened with Partition and - was it essentially unavoidable?ĪBDELFATAH: Where did you first start to hear about Partition?Ī KHALID: OK. ![]() You know, people have told me that they prefer living in zip codes where pretty much everybody is like them.Īnd I guess I get very nervous, having been told stories of what Partition was like for my own family members growing up about the dangers of when people decide they can no longer live by people who perhaps, you know, in the case of America, have different religions or different political beliefs or different races. And, you know, one of the things I've done as a political reporter is - I don't just cover the candidate who's running for office, but I spend a lot of time crisscrossing the country, talking to voters. These last few election cycles in particular have been really politically polarizing. politics reporter be interested in something that happened 75 years ago halfway across the world?Ī KHALID: You know, I think it's been really tough to cover American politics over the last decade and not see that there are throughlines to what's happened in other places around the world. Like, what is home?ĪBDELFATAH: What is home? Now, you might be wondering - why would a U.S. In this poem, this very prominent Pakistani poet, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, touches on this really universal feeling of longingness that I think so many of the survivors of Partition speak to, whether they were leaving towns and villages in what was Pakistan or India, but also this concept of home. It was the largest mass migration in modern history, leaving a trail of chaos and violence in its wake.ĪBDELFATAH: Memories of that rupture are recorded in the 1947 Partition Archive, the largest collection of Partition oral histories in the world, and in poems like the one Asma recited at the top.Ī KHALID: (Reading) It has been decreed again that you and I be exiled. A somewhat arbitrary line was used to separate villages and communities, neighbors and families, displacing around 15 million people. I covered President Biden's campaign.ĪBDELFATAH: A few months ago, Asma came to us with an idea for an episode about Partition, an event in 1947 that tore British-ruled India in two, forming an independent India and Pakistan. I covered the rise of former President Donald Trump. I cover politics, and I've been covering politics for - it feels like a lot of election cycles at this point. She co-hosts NPR's Politics Podcast, and.Ī KHALID: I'm one of NPR's White House correspondents. I am in the basement of the White House.ĪBDELFATAH: This is Asma Khalid. I think that you are currently recording from the basement of the White House.Ī KHALID: Yes, that's right. If it were to come but once.ĪBDELFATAH: Hi. VOHRA: I saw some dead bodies in the water.Ī KHALID: (Reading) I would gladly welcome death.Ī KHALID: (Reading). The way back to our home.Ī KHALID: (Reading) How can I convey to you, my friend.Ī KHALID: (Reading). To ask every stranger.Ī KHALID: (Reading). VOHRA: They set the whole thing on fire, and nobody could get out.Ī KHALID: (Reading). To search for a clue of a messenger from our beloved. ![]() And they were crying.Ī KHALID: (Reading). UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: They came running from the inside.Ī KHALID: (Reading). UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: People left with the clothes on their back.Ī KHALID: (Reading) Go calling out in every street. SALIMA HASHMI: Neither side envisaged what they were unleashing, which was a terrible carnage which was totally unnecessary.ĪSMA KHALID, BYLINE: (Reading) My heart, my fellow traveler, it has been decreed again that you and I be exiled. UNIDENTIFIED INTERVIEWER #5: What do you think Partition had - the effect on people or overall Indian subcontinent? UNIDENTIFIED INTERVIEWER #2: (Speaking Bangla)? UNIDENTIFIED INTERVIEWER #1: And what is your date of birth? HUSSAN ZIA KHAN: I was born in Jalandhar. UNIDENTIFIED INTERVIEWER #4: Acha, sir - where were you born, and how did you get the name Khan Hussan Zia? KAZI SHAMSUZZAMAN: (Speaking Bangla) Kazi Shamsuzzaman. UNIDENTIFIED INTERVIEWER #3: (Speaking Urdu). UNIDENTIFIED INTERVIEWER #2: (Speaking Bangla). UNIDENTIFIED INTERVIEWER #1: What is your full name?
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