{"id":57573,"date":"2023-08-15T14:00:36","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T05:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/aug\/15\/indian-independence-historic-day-atrocity"},"modified":"2023-08-15T14:00:36","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T05:00:36","slug":"millions-will-celebrate-indian-independence-today-but-ill-think-of-my-father-and-an-atrocity-roshan-doug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=57573","title":{"rendered":"Millions will celebrate Indian independence today, but I\u2019ll think of my father \u2013 and an atrocity | Roshan Doug"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Terrible things happened in the runup to the historic day and my father witnessed one of them. The two events are inseparable to me<\/p>\n<p>For many Indians, 15 August is a day of celebration but for some, it\u2019s a reminder of the atrocities that were committed during the lead-up to the \u201cstroke of midnight\u201d. I\u2019m one of them. My father was not even 12 when he saw a brutal murder in his village in the north-east district of Jalandhar.<\/p>\n<p>It was late 1946, only a few months before India was to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/aug\/15\/india-pakistan-independence-guardian-editorial-1947\">gain independence<\/a>. People \u2013 Hindus and Muslims \u2013 had got wind of Lord Mountbatten\u2019s plans to partition the country. The two-nation theory that had been a rallying call for Indian Muslims such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2007\/aug\/14\/injinnahsfootsteps\">Muhammad Ali Jinnah<\/a> was now becoming an inevitable reality.<\/p>\n<p>Roshan Doug is an academic and the former poet laureate of Birmingham<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tone\/letters\"> letters<\/a> section, please <a href=\"mailto:guardian.letters@theguardian.com?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city\/town\/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.\">click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/aug\/15\/indian-independence-historic-day-atrocity\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Terrible things happened in the runup to the historic day and my father witnessed one of them. The two events are inseparable to meFor many Indians, 15 August is a day of celebration but for some, it\u2019s a reminder of the atrocities that were committed d&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3897,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-india","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3897"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57574,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57573\/revisions\/57574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}