The Partition Project: Author Guest Post by Saadia Faruqi
In August of 1947, the British government hastily drew a line across the map of India, splitting it in two as part of its plan for independence. With Partition declared, Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim families who had lived peacefully as neighbors for generations were torn apart by the newly created atmosphere of hostility and suspicion. In search of safety, many Muslim families became refugees in the newly created country of Pakistan while Hindu and Sikh families traced the opposite journey towards the newly-independent nation of India. This unilateral colonial decision led to the largest migration in human history, with millions of people suddenly forced to leave their homes and large-scale loss of life.
Today, on the anniversary of the Independence of Pakistan, Author Saadia Faruqi shares the inspiration behind her middle grade novel, The Partition Project and why it is so important to continue to teach the Partition to children today.
I was born in Pakistan and lived there for the first twenty-two years of my life. Growing up, in school and at home, I heard countless stories about the Partition, a political event in 1947 that shaped the histories of three countries. The British left India, carving bloody boundaries and separating Muslims and Hindus where no boundaries and separations existed before. Millions died, many more millions were displaced, and as a nation, we talked about it like it happened yesterday.
The Partition always felt like a very real thing that happened to my family. Every elder in my life had lived through the Partition, they all had stories to tell about it, how old they’d been, how they survived, how far they traveled, what horrors they witnessed. While the stories of the American revolution and the creation of the U.S.A. are “history”, the Partition was a living, breathing thing that became a part of my psyche. My life.
Families playing a game together.
When I emigrated to the U.S. it was odd to live in a country with old history, one that people today couldn’t relate to directly. I found myself asking my new friends and co-workers how they related to the American Revolution, to George Washington, to the declaration of Independence. They looked at me as if I was weird.
I quickly learned that most young people don’t have an interest in history, especially not in its value in teaching us things relevant today. They’d rather live in the present, where new technologies and experiences are exciting. I understand that, of course, but the Partition taught me so much about myself and my family, about the environment I was living in, that I never wanted to lose that.
Author Ritu Hemnani sharing her story.
I wrote The Partition Project to invite young readers into a living, breathing historical experience that transcends boundaries. This book may be fiction, but many aspects of it are extremely real. My dadi, like Maha’s, told me stories about her life when I was a child. So did my mother-in-law later, and other elders who lived through the Partition. I learned who I was, and how I was connected to an entire nation of people.
My hope for readers of The Partition Project is that they witness the resilience of the human spirit. How we can find strength and courage in the most difficult of circumstances, and what we can do to help our friends, neighbors, even those we don’t get along with.
My wish with this book is to encourage readers to study history as a roadmap to the future. I want them to understand how decisions made by politicians can hurt us, how colonialism can ravage people’s lives, and why being involved in the political process can make a huge difference in a nation’s trajectory.
It doesn’t matter where you live, you gain a lot when you dig into the past, including a better understanding of yourself. My dream with this book is to build a new generation of global citizens who are wiser than previous generations. As Maha says, it’s nice to be a part of something bigger. Something global.
About the Author
Saadia Faruqi is a Pakistani American writer, interfaith activist, and cultural-sensitivity trainer. She is the author of the children’s early-reader series Yasmin and the middle grade novels A Thousand Questions, Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero, and The Partition Project and the coauthor of the middle grade novel A Place at the Table as well as The Wonders We Seek: Thirty Incredible Muslims Who Helped Shape the World. She was profiled in O magazine as a woman making a difference in her community and serves as editor in chief of Blue Minaret, a magazine for Muslim art, poetry, and prose. She resides in Houston, Texas, with her family.