Confronting Our History Or ‘Moving On’ Once Again…?

If there is a phrase that encapsulates bearing pain quietly and carrying the burden forever it is -Let’s move on- 

That’s what our parents and grandparents did at Partition. They picked up the pieces, they rebuilt their lives and ‘moved on’….

The unforgivable tragedy however was that they were deprived of a National Therapy, a collective conversation to reveal, speak, discover others equally wounded and above all question.

Why? 

Who decided on their behalf this displacement of 20 million human lives?

Who was accountable for the lives lost or violated?

Who could they turn to, to quell the demons that raged within?

Though social media has given us a platform to voice pain, anger, angst, to discuss and argue, some, however, still continue to repeat past errors by obfuscating the truth. 

And in obfuscating the truth they refuse to name and recognize the gangrenous nature of the problem. 

Last night listening to Vidhu Vinod Chopra on TV say

~Let Kashmiri Muslims and Pandits say sorry to each other and move on. It is like two friends who have a fallout but they love each other~

One could have been simply fatigued at the inanity of Let's Move On and switched off the idiot box...or, one could choose with the Power of One to refuse to be be a party to the same whitewashing , the same sanitising of history. The same free pass we give so easily to those who commit horrific crimes. 

How does one prettify a Girija Tikoo sawed in half while she was still alive? In which file of the brain does one tuck her away?

Which friend makes you eat rice soaked with the blood of your loved one?

As taught we never spoke out. As instructed we shut our eyes tight but it still brought us in 2020 to the viciousness of Kaafiron se Azaadi, Hinduon se Azaadi, Jinnah wali Azaadi reminding us that little had changed since 1947, 1990. 

There is no doubt that till we confront our history and break the Circle of Burden our children will inherit a legacy of being victims. 

A legacy that perpetuates crimes borne in the past and expected to be taken on the chin in the future. 

Till we keep passing on this legacy there will always be men like Vidhu Vinod Chopra ready to do business and casually suggest to our children to ‘move on’….