Born in 1929, Smt. Reba Kar was in her first year of college when India won independence.
On 15th August 1947, a Probhat Pheri (traditional dawn procession involving taking rounds of the neighborhood/village and usually accompanied by devotional songs. In this case it was patriotic songs like Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Vande Mataram, Dwijendralal Roy’s
Dhana Dhanya Pushpa Bhara, Nazrul Islam’s Chol Chol Chol and Atul Prasad Sen’s Uthogo Bharat Lakshmi) was organized in her neighborhood and the tricolor was hoisted. At home to celebrate this joyous moment, a number of delicacies were prepared. Kar witnessed the 1946 riots of Calcutta (now Kolkata). Subsequently, in 1947 she witnessed the arrival of refugees from East Bengal. Men and women, who had
lost everything migrated to Kolkata in search of shelter. Their suffering was immense and left Kar traumatized.
The Bengal province was partitioned on religious lines on that fateful day. The eastern province ceased to be a part of India and came to be known as East Pakistan in 1947 and later sovereign Bangladesh in 1971. An estimated 5 million refugees migrated from East Bengal and settled in West Bengal, Assam, Tripura and other States/Union Territories of India.
Kar's message to the youth is the immortal verse composed by Gurudeb Rabindranath Tagore.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
15th August 1947 dawned revealing the dual reality of Independence and Partition. But the greater truth was- that of a glorious struggle, hard fought and hard won, in which many fell martyrs and countless others made sacrifices dreaming of the day India would be free. India became free but was to be partitioned. On the eve of Independence Day Cyril Radcliffe’s maps of a partitioned India were published. 390 million Indians were subjected to arbitrary cartographic fragmentation of the Indian subcontinent. While for his services to the British Empire, Radcliffe received a life peerage as a Baron of Werneth, more than 14 million Indians were subjected to indescribable acts of violence and displaced from lands they had inhabited for millennia. Nearly 2 million people perished in the process of displacement and migration.
The year 2021-2022 will be celebrated as the 75th year of India’s independence. To mark this occasion, Gitika Trust is endeavoring to document oral history of the experiences of the generations who have witnessed this historic moment of India’s Independence. Our aim is to recognize the trauma that this generation suffered and create awareness and empathy among youth. Partition and Independence in India is studied from a macro-political level but micro level effects of partition on our citizens have remained largely unnoticed.
In the backdrop of the current Pandemic situation, collecting data through online questionnaire and focused interview was the mode adopted by us to reach out to the pre-independent generation. Our story-tellers notwithstanding adverse circumstances, recollections, handicaps and/or ill-health, have convened to spread the message of hope and harmony for the sake of India. They dream of a country, where every child has equal access to nutrition, health and education. A democratic society that is endowed with civil liberties and that has no divisions. A land where natural and cultural heritage is preserved for future generations.
The stories from the generation that witnessed India’s liberation from colonialism remind us of the ideals and aspirations this country was born with. A democratic nation that ensures freedom, justice and equality to all her citizens. We are attempting to increase our sample size so that it is representative of this generation, but one prominent theme that all our story-tellers emphasized upon was upholding the values enshrined in our Constitution. It is our social responsibility and fundamental duty as well, as per the directive of chapter IV A of the Constitution to cherish the noble ideals which inspired our national struggle for freedom.
Please visit our youtube page to hear more such stories
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB3gVP413u1L1Eow4NJ-7QjoBHc9pqqDO
Yesterday Nair's story was located in Paravur, Kerala. Today Kar's story transports us back to Kolkata.
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