麻豆社

Good morning.

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a wholly unexpected player has found itself at the heart of a popular streaming series. The show is Ms Marvel. And the player? The Partition of India and Pakistan. It鈥檚 75 years ago this week that the Indian Independence Act which led to Partition gained royal assent.

Partition was devastating, with 10 million people displaced and around 1 million people killed in genocidal attacks with Hindus and Sikhs on one side and Muslims on the other. The journeys made in the largest mass migration in history were dangerous and terrifying. That trauma continues to resonate generations later, with Ms Marvel being praised by historians and TV critics alike for capturing the realities of the chaos that followed independence in a way that no-one else has so far managed to portray on screen.

This week also marks the start of South Asian Heritage Month 鈥� the theme this year is Journeys of Empire, reflecting on the horrors of Partition as well as the 50th anniversary of the expulsion by Idi Amin of Ugandan Asians, many of whom settled on these shores.

The journeys of people seeking refuge elsewhere, leaving behind everything they have known for safety in a strange land repeat down the age. Today, refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine have come to our shores in the hope of stability and security, with no more than they can carry. Theirs too have been journeys of empire, impacted by their history and former connections with Russia and its post-imperial might.

In Sikh history, the 10th Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, himself had to flee Punjab. After seeing his two teenage sons killed in a battle against the Mughal Empire, he was ordered by his Sikhs to escape to the jungle. Having walked barefoot for hours in the thorny bushes, his clothes ripped to shreds, he compiled a verse to 鈥淭ell my beloved friend, the Divine, the plight of his disciples鈥�, describing how a life of luxury would be like hell if the Almighty wasn鈥檛 there and how even in this most harrowing of times, he considered himself blessed by the Divine.

Punjab eventually recovered and thrived in the late 18th century, as it did again in the 20th century, although the painful memories have lived on as a reminder of how quickly things can change, with the generations that followed, like Ms Marvel, making vows never to forget.

The trauma that people experienced during those journeys of empire are simply unimaginable to many of us, but the belief in something other than them that kept many of them going during those periods is one that many of us can share.

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