South Asia in Motion. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022. xiii, 349 pp. (Tables, maps, B&W photos, illustrations.) US$30.00, paper. ISBN 9781503632110.
Memory is a recollection of past events and its reflections are found in the present moment; it is a subtle and comprehensive process of identity formation and transmission, which is considered a set of symbolic combinations of personal feelings about a particular place with specific emphasis on deep associations and unforgettable socio-cultural attachments. In this regard, Rotem Geva’s book is a combination of the emotional memories of left wing progressive intellectuals and writers who recall Delhi’s days and nights as they share their bitter feelings of partition and narrate the facts of the past to the present day reality. Geva’s contribution is the legacy of partition syndrome, which is still a hot topic with some contemporary intellectuals. The author presents heartfelt emotions about Delhi’s ups and downs, socio-cultural values, romanticism, and political elites’ confrontation. He describes the uniqueness of pre-partition Delhi, a home to countless nationalities and a mosaic of cultures, traditions, and values.
Geva’s study is essentially a sort of historical fiction, one which defines Delhi—from Alexander the Great to the Mughals, and then the British Empire—as an important historico-political centre and as a city that experienced new developments and changes during the colonial period that fundamentally changed the city’s traditional values. Colonial rule left its imprint on the city’s architecture, institutions, industry, and communications structure, which continues to affect the lifestyles and socio-cultural patterns of the city’s inhabitants today. Geva precisely recites the beauty of Delhi and describes it as a magical place, rich in stunning Muslim architecture and home to cultural activities that are attractive to all communities. Geva also describes Delhi as a training lab for Muslim and Hindu leadership—those who played a vital role in the fight for freedom and protection of civil liberties. However, Geva effectively narrates Delhi’s panoramic history through the memories and impressions of such figures as Intizar Hussain, Narayani Gupta, Farzana Shaikh, Shahid Ahmad Dehlvi, Ayesha Jalal, and others, who recall the time when Dehli enjoyed the glory of Muslim dynasties and their decline and then relished British political power.
Geva assesses the rise and fall of Delhi based on literary scholars who have shared their views about national partition (1947) and the emergence of the two independent states of India and Pakistan. Some Muslim and Hindu intellectuals have described partition’s severe impact on the traditional beauty of Delhi and its culture. The author opines that partition ruined Delhi and eradicated its novel values. Partition brought massive socio-political change in the form of violence, migration, religious hatred, and controversies over citizenship. For example, Hindus and Sikhs on the one hand, and Muslims on the other, were both involved in unprecedented mutual genocide. Geva builds on the idea that partition damaged peace, harmony, tolerance, and inter-faith harmony and has created a terrifying legacy of violence and distrust in both Pakistan and India that persists to the present day.
According to Geva, the communal politics born from Muslims and Hindus and both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, have close association with extremist organizations. Thus, there is no difficulty in understanding that both Muhammad Ali Jinnah (founding father of Pakistan) and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi used religion as an instrument for political ends. To some extent, both leaders also used Woodrow Wilson’s idea of self-determination to overturn the British Empire in India. Nonetheless, Ayesha Jalal and Farzana Shaikh have described Jinnah’s vision of Pakistan as vague and ambiguous because he was fighting for the rights of the minority Muslim community in the body politic of Hindu majority India. But history turned in Jinnah’s favour and he was successful in establishing the state of Pakistan. However, Jalal has called partition: “the central historical event in twentieth-century South Asia” and writes, “A defining moment that is neither beginning nor end, partition continues to influence how the peoples and states of postcolonial South Asia envisage their past, present, and future” (Ayesha Jalal, The Pity of Partition: Manto’s life, Times and Work Across the India-Pakistan Divide, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, 148, 4).
Geva tells how the history of South Asia changed due to partition, ultimately impacting the traditional intellectual culture of Delhi, which was replaced by the new wave of decolonization from the 1930s to 1950s. As Geva hints, India and Pakistan became hostages of “territorialization” in the perception and practice of Delhi values. Geva has also provided strong arguments for the strength of democratic culture within the new nation-states to complete the process of nation-building and state-building. He also applauds Jawaharlal Nehru for declaring India a secular multi-religious state, distinct from the vision of Sardar Patel, who mistrusted the Muslims.
The heart of the book consists of five chapters, excluding the epilogue, and is marked by an admirable blend of in-depth research and analysis of rich archival materials, reports, and intellectual discourses. Geva recounts memories of renowned writers and shares their tragic emotions, an amalgamation of both historical narratives and personal feelings regarding partition. These progressive writers migrated to Pakistan with great hopes, but witnessed the challenges of nation-building and state-building. After partition, Delhi’s cultural and political supremacy fell into decline, bringing to an end an era of great intellectual and creative exuberance. No one has highlighted the ideas of left-wing writers as Geva has done here on behalf of millions of victims of partition to whom they owed a debt of blood.
Delhi Reborn presents crystal-clear arguments, is well written, and helps make sense of the monstrous historical experience of territorial division. It is a most impressive work on the post-partition experience, which Geva narrates in a beautiful manner, presenting facts in a vivid literary experiment. Current and future students and scholars of South Asia will find much pleasure in reading this book. It is highly recommended to all those concerned with diaspora, particularly those whose feelings differ from those of the progressive writers that cannot be ignored.
A. Z. Hilali
University of Peshawar, Peshawar