Dear George Orwell, This is to Signal My Inability to Visit Your Birthplace…
Dear George Orwell, Wish you a very happy birthday. Although June is the hardest month for me, it being your birthday month also gives me a little happiness. I honestly feel so proud of the fact that you were born in my home country of India. When I first heard the news about your childhood house in Motihari, Bihar, being turned into a museum, I became super excited and have been dreaming to travel there one day.
However, circumstances do not allow me I am not able to visit your house and pay my respects to you. And I must forget about seeing my mother and my brother’s family and friends who still live there.
So, I have been trying to content myself by reading your novels and essays, besides other material about you. The nearest I could do to being somewhere you had left your footprints was to visit Barcelona in 2023. It was so good to see a plaza named after you with a plaque bearing your name and the name of the town of your birth. It gave me immense satisfaction to be there, but of course it’s not the same as visiting your birthplace.
Orwell impacted by Jallianwala Bagh massacre
Maybe when my situation changes, I won’t have to live in exile anymore. It’s all because the country of your birth has proved you right, first by declaring an Emergency exactly 50 years ago in 1975 on what would have been your birthday. And lately by imposing an undeclared emergency under the current prime minister, who is no less than your imaginary Big Brother.
The many bloody episodes under the garb of democracy since independence actually put him to shame. Whereas the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919 deeply impacted you and turned you into an anti-colonial writer, we never expected any mercy from the British who were outsiders and ruling our country by force.
Rather, it was much more painful to suffer state violence by our own elected governments in the years following freedom. By perpetuating the horrors of your novel 1984 in the very year that you chose as its title, the Indian ruling class had shown its true colours. During your birthday month, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs, Darbar Sahib, right near the Jallianwala Bagh, was invaded by the army.
As a result of that, the then prime minister was assassinated by her bodyguards. It is believed that she wanted to teach the two percent Sikh minority a lesson for vehemently opposing the emergency and flooding jails in numbers disproportionate to their population.
Sikhs feel alienated from homeland
Her high-profile murder was followed by a Sikh genocide across the nation, including in Bihar. I was 14 years old back then and lived in Amritsar where both the Jallianwala Bagh and Darbar Sahib are located. Seeing signs of destruction inside the shrine was very traumatising for our family. Like any other ordinary Sikhs, we felt alienated. The entire state of Punjab was cut off from the rest of India, even as the telephones stopped working and most common communication channels such as newspapers were under heavy censorship.
Meanwhile, government-run TV and radio service only gave a one-sided version of events. People were being detained on suspicion. This set in motion a demand for separate Sikh homeland, which has continued to simmer in spite of large-scale repression of Sikhs in Punjab, forcing many to migrate to Canada. A year after the ugly developments of 1984, Air India Flight 182 was bombed above the Irish Sea, leaving 329 people dead. The government blamed it on Canada-based Sikh separatists, while the latter believe that this was the handiwork of Indian spies who were active on Canadian soil to discredit their cause.
This brought more pain to the community as most victims, including Sikhs, were Canadian citizens of Indian heritage. A few years ago one of the prominent suspects who was acquitted due to lack of evidence was actually given a visa by Indian officials. They let him meet the head of its intelligence agency, R&AW, only to give credence to theories. If penetration of moles in the Sikh movement wasn’t enough, extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances had become an order of the day, bringing many political refugees to the doorsteps of western democracies.
Nijjar paid ultimate price
Among them was Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an activist who was allegedly killed in Surrey in June 2023 at the behest of agents of the Indian government. This added fuel to the fire as Sikhs reflected on the wounds inflicted by the military assault years ago. Incidentally, Nijjar was shot to death on Father’s Day. That brings back memories of my late father every June. He had turned religious and little more cautious about his Sikh identity because of what happened in 1984. He was saddened when I had by hair cut, and did not speak to me for many days. He passed away in 2017, the last year I visited India.
That Nijjar was being followed and a GPS tracker was found on his vehicle only shows the rebirth of Big Brother and his growing tentacles. The ongoing arrests and illegal executions of political dissidents within the boundaries of the world’s so-called largest democracy is another story. At least three personal friends, who were more like mentors to me, were arrested and thrown behind bars on trumped-up charges. Two of them are columnists while one was a lecturer who died due to medical complications partly created by inhuman conditions in jail.
Their only crime was that they stood up for poor and marginalised and had dared to question the power of the state. Since they were knowledgeable and wise enough to see through the designs of the establishment, they were locked up at different times. The happenings in the diaspora are only the reflection of what Indians are facing internally. After all, those who challenge the status quo in New Delhi by sitting outside are also being denied visas. The government has a dossier on me for constantly shining a light on its high-handedness and growing attacks on religious minorities.
It’s because of that I am unable to go to Motihari. That remains out of bounds for now. Until then please accept my best wishes from Turtle Island. And rest assured that your words continue to inspire us even after you have gone physically.
This article was originally published in Pancouver and can be read here.
