To many, the secession of the British Raj was a weight lifted off the shoulders of the residents of a newly independent subcontinent. The subjugation under English authority had long been considered entirely exhausted without the mutiny of its laborers laid out to dry under the same sun which baked the clay of their buildings. But the simmering warmth which once scorched the surface of the skin of India was beginning to emanate from underneath. Growing pressure surrounding the emergence of the Muslim bloc of Pakistan had already been faced with debates over its legitimacy, fueling the migration of 15 million across borders drawn by their former settlers. In a final attempt to secure authority in the Global North, the wardens of the Empire handed over their keys to what would soon become the new ruler of the South Asian psyche: separatism. As the dynamic between Pakistan and India continues to be barraged with statements of ‘conflict,’ ‘tensions,’ and ‘violence’ for the 77th year since their independence, the notion of peace has become increasingly difficult to conscribe, often by virtue of the difficulty of ascribing an antecedent dilemma. Responses from impassioned citizens will often give the impression that the archetypal Pandora’s box which has erupted into the social fabric of the diaspora today may very well be just that- an artifice constructed from the traumas of the Partition for those profiting and in charge.
