In the second stanza ASR highlights fallouts from any large-scale geographic partition: the large scale fragmentation immediately leads to further fragmentations in terms of regional districts and counties, farmlands and holdings; of course, homes and even the shanties of the poor are not spared from the resulting carnage. It is fragmentation and displacement of the highest order, from the largest to the smallest scales (much like turbulence eddies studied in science).
ASR then goes on to apply the connective thread of
jute mills and grain silos to this disruptive listing. It remains an absolute fact that even in
post-independence India, the previously thriving and prosperous jute and cotton
mills of Bengal (which accounted for much of the prosperity of Bengal among
Indian provinces through the entire Mughal period and even through much of the
British occupation) went into sharp decline, and in most instances simply
evaporated. And perhaps most ironically
a great many industrialized cotton mills ended up in Gandhi's backyard, Gujarat
(where the latter's biggest platform during the entire freedom campaign had
been
In stanza 3, ASR extends partition's disruptive outreach to more common areas of human activities. Herein, we find broken up coal mines (whereby the mining sources and the processing facilities could well get separated and disconnected by the political fragmentation) and tea estates (once again creating severance of the symbiosis between neighboring plantations and harvesting areas), classrooms with reduced diversity and intercultural stimulation, office spaces with much more homogeneity and much less watercooler talk. ASR takes this consequential picture down to spiteful divvying up of personal holdings even in an office setting, including office furniture, clocks and bookcases. Such, in ASR's description, is the divisive pettiness of the adult world. Special mention is also made of those in the workforce who by the very nature of their work have an integrative effect on the community- the peon (mailman), the policeman, and also the professor in the classroom- all habitually in contact with a cross-section of the population. Clearly, partition adversely affects these integrative elements within a community.
The final stanza sums up the divisiveness and intolerance which drive the psychology of partition; ASR portrays here the outright aggressive stance of divided communities (political, geographic, religious, ethnic). Mistrust, xenophobia, and zealotry lead to the accumulation of more instruments of warfare- fighter planes, warships, battle tanks, armored battle tanks (add to this lethal list the far more deadly nuclear and chemical weapons which have proliferated by since ASR's time). Sage advice and words of warning from a visionary who spoke to the partition-wielders giving voice to the multitudes shocked into silence by the carnage which followed August 15, 1947.
Related Bibliography:
1. "Politics and Melodrama: The Partition Cinema of Ritwik Ghatak," Harvard Film Archive, 2008. URL: http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2008janfeb/ghatak.html.
2. Partitioned Lives: Narratives of Home, Displacement, and Resettlement. Edited by Anjali Gera Roy and Nandi Bhatia, Pearson (2007).
3. Basu Roy, Iraban, "Deshbhaag O Ritwik Ghataker Cinema," Nillohit, pp.177-184 (2005).
4. Chakrabarti, Dipendu, "Desh-Bibhaag O Bangla Cholochchitre Neo-Realism," in Somdatta Mandal and Sukla Hazra (eds.), Banga-Bibhaag: Samajik, Sanskritik O Rajnaitik Pratiphalan, Madhyamgram: Vivekananda College (2002).
5. Partition-related Bengali films (cited in text).
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