The Legacy of Exile - Linda Stormes

Partition displaced fifteen million people and killed more than a million
CREDIT PHOTOGRAPH BY MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE / LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION / GETTY

What does it mean to be in exile from your home with no home to go to? And to have your mother and your father and your sons and daughters and your wife and other family members traveling there beside you? What if you are separated from them, or even lose them on the journey? On our screens at home and in our newspapers we are bearing witness to one of the largest exiles since World War II. I am attuned now to stories of exile and I am learning more and more that exile is not only the experience of a nation or group sharing a common religion or ideology; it is also the experience of individuals, one by one.

I have just returned from a wedding in Venice. My niece married a Hindu man and I had the opportunity to learn some Indian history after talking with the groom’s mother. She spoke of how her family and other Hindus were affected by the Partition that was decreed by the departing British in 1947. Partition was a hasty attempt to deal with the power vacuum and chaos expected to follow the British departure. The “solution” (which has been widely condemned in retrospect) was to divide the British Indian Empire into two separate countries, the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India. One country was given to Muslim rule and one was given to Hindu rule, according to their respective ethnic dominance (as perceived by the British). Pakistan (which was mapped in Partition to include two unconnected geographic regions, East Pakistan and West Pakistan, separated by nearly a thousand miles) was given over to Muslim Rule. The Union of India (now called the Republic of India) was given over to Hindu rule. Because Muslims and Hindus had lived interspersed throughout the Indian subcontinent before Partition, and because the two Muslin areas were located on either side of India, the sudden double “regime change” sparked violence and mass migrations that moved in both directions. The groom’s mother’s family and many other Hindus fled from the newly created West Pakistan to Bombay, in the Hindu-ruled Union of India. The same forced migration affected millions of Muslims whose family homes had been in the Hindu-ruled portion, and their flight was to the newly created West Pakistan (today, Pakistan) or East Pakistan (which is today Bangladesh).

Partition displaced over 15 million people and the ensuing violence led to the deaths of more than a million, often in an unspeakably brutal fashion. It is remembered as one of the worst blood baths in history. How did this happen? According to some commentators, Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs had shared customs and food while maintaining separate (but sometimes almost overlapping) religions and had lived in relative harmony for many years before this happened. The striking photograph by Margaret Bourke-White shows the desperation and suffering on the young boy’s face. The photographer, who had also witnessed the last days of Nazi Germany a year earlier, wrote that Calcutta’s streets after Partition “looked like Buchenwald.” William Dalrymple has written extensively on this subject in an article called The Great Divide. It appeared in the June 29, 2015 issue of The New Yorker.

Today, we see on tv a very different image of exile: thousands of Syrian refugees being welcomed into Frankfurt, Germany. We have seen exiles greeted with cheers of welcome, applause, gifts of food and water, and high fives! There is a spring in their step. Someone is greeting them and welcoming them with open arms. They are in exile, but for a moment their smiles are big and they are walking as if they are at “home.” They will start again in a new land. It is hard not to rejoice over this. Even if we know the road ahead is hard and the cultures are different and the countries are miles apart — to be welcomed is a profound experience. Radical hospitality is everywhere. But underneath this story lies fear that these new people and their children and customs may not fit in the German way of life and that pressure for employment and resources will keep their struggle alive.

Turning back the hands of time we find the image at the bottom of this blog: it is the Jewish people’s exile in Babylonia in 597 – 538 B.C. When I see the long line of people in the picture carrying their belongings on their backs and on their heads, it reminds me that exile is as old as civilization. Jewish history is characterized by exile. The Jews prospered in Babylonia even though they were in captivity. They were allowed to live together in communities by the river and work. They farmed and grew their own food. Many were successful and some became quite wealthy. It was their great hope to return to Jerusalem and, eventually, they did. Psalm 137:1 recalls that time of exile: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.” Like the Jews in Babylonia, may the Syrians find themselves planted by a river, able to form communities, with abundant food and successful in their new lives.