Two Lives; A Memoir by Vikram Seth.

I just finished the Memoir about Two Lives. It is written simply and spans almost all of last century in the story of the two it is about, and the span covered is amazing in scope; but it is far too simple for the century and the globe it flies around and over.

The subjects it touches, if one is not well aware of them one wishes to go on and read more about them. If one does know about them it leaves one feeling as if one were flying over lands one would like to see more of by descending and walking or even driving through.

It is worth reading yes, perfect it is not. But the taste it leaves might be deliberate, which is more like a very dry red wine or a strong tea with nothing added to soften the taste. It gives much to think over but is very spartan in the writer elaborating over any of it. That might have been the intention.

After all it is about two lives, not what those people lived through. Along the way one gets to see another life partly, that of the writer, intimately too. In terms of his growth as a person and as a writer, that is.
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Seth's aunt was a German by birth, and by all historical and testimonial records, Jewish people of Germany identified themselves as German and were ever more certain of their integration. That was one of the reasons they did not leave for greener shores where they might have been safe, even when they were increasingly threatened. Few fled while there was time and she, the aunt, was one such fortunate person - although it seems a bit heartless to say so since she lost her mother and her sister to the death camps, and forever later had good reason to be uncertain of her friends back in Germany, of the truth of their friendship, of their sincerity.

Seth mentions his aunt's reaction to Israel and her disapproval of "the terrible things happening there"; later he expresses his opnion, his disapproval of the whole principle, of formation of a state in the name of a religion and of displacing of the existing people living there in order to establish people coming from elsewhere to settle.

The aunt's feeling shows a good soul, one who did not wish on other people what was done to her own, especially if even a fraction of the perpetration was done by her own people for sake of the homeland. This is the sign of a noble soul.

Seth's thoughts must be understood in a larger context, of the history of his own nation during those years. While Jews in Germany were being massacred in name of one religion another one in India was out to carve a separate nation in the name of a separate identity in its own name, of another religion.

Soon after the end of wwII when the horrors of the German regime were discovered, even as the perpetrators were being judged, the horrors were perpetrated in India with escalating ferocity until the demand of another separate nation in the name of a separate religion was granted.

The granting of another nation, however, did not stop the horrors. One estimate is of a half a million people killed and several million displaced as the "new" nation carved out in name of religion went on a killing, raping and looting spree to expel those of other religions, and much distress that took place in those years was swept under the rug in the urgency of forming the newly independant India and of immediate needs of fighting a border war with the other part for territory they saw as free for taking while India had it signed over by the ruler.

Another mirror image of the happenings took place in Israel immediately after its formation, when as soon as British military left the neighbours all attacked, convinced they would drive Israel into the ocean and announcing it so.

While Seth presumably did not have relatives that went through the horrors of fleeing the homeland in west and arriving in the partitioned India destitute, or worse, India saw the distress of those that were its own and forever disapproved of any formation of a nation on principle of a religion, especially of driving out people of other religions.

Usually though this was left unexpressed in all other cases except of Israel, and indeed India did not recognise Israel until the advent of the new millenium due to this reason, although there was much in common and much to be gained by a diplomatic relationship of the two.

Seth, being brought up in that era, understandably had those thoughts and reactions that he penned in the book.
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One might think along the lines logically, though, and see if such a principle has been applied to any other nations that were formed on basis of a religion and displaced people living there for settling others from faraway lands.

Not only India and Israel live in a part of the world where few, less than one can count on fingers of one hand, nations are formed on any other basis - indeed much of the world from Indonesia and Malaysia to west Asia and much of central Asia all the way to Turkey is Islamic - but tales of what is perpetrated on people of other religions in those nations is rarely publicised or recognised, much less protested, by any agency in the world. Even the bible thumping crusades find other, "softer", regions easier to target and publicise and make propaganda in or about or against.

But that does not mean to say that this part of the world is what it is about. Indeed one may take a look at almost any part and open one's eyes about what really did or does go on there.

In much of Europe, holidays are all of one religion, and no recognition is given to the fact of any of other religions living there for more than a few decades. In much of Europe shops must close on Sunday and may not on other days, in Germany one may not dare to do any work on Sunday (at any rate what can be seen by anyone) unless one works in a restaurant or a bar where people are normally out in afternoons onwards. Not even a lawnmower or a carwash might be performed at home.

In France much trouble visits one if one happens to even transit through the country in an airport with any sign of any other religion displayed on one's person, whether in form of a piece of jewellery or a Tilaka or a turban, or head covered by a scarf that cannot be recognised as haute coutoure of the approvable - read European - origins.

UK is more open since its cosmopolitan society and its own character of ability of growth of awareness, but it has not always been a happy place for others. Still, growing towards light is a positive sign. And they do not force the shop closing rules to conform to one religion either.
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What about the "new world", the continents to the west?

The nations were formed there by European migrants by using the indigenous people and all their help even as they were killed, massacred, infected deliberately, and pushed back on and on, until they are either the poorest and almost bonded labour in some nations or segragated and corralled into a few territories instead of the free ranging life and rule of the continents that were theirs. They were pushed back, and migrants of other lands and culture and religion - specifically of one religion from Europe - were welcomed and encouraged to settle in the new continent.

And while there were others, to beging with of African and Chinese roots, they were brought by force as slaves or lured as cheap bonded labour that was unwanted as soon as the purpose was over.
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Does any of that say that such practices are legitimate? Only if one decides that whatever ruling powers do must be approved of.

What is certain is that the driving out and dispossession of homelands of Palestinians is on par with those of natives of what is called "American" continents (with Europe wiping out the original identity of the continents by imposing a name of a person of European origin on them), of natives of the parts of India that separated as other nations and had the people of other religions forced to flee as refugees, and so on.
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As for the settlers brought from elsewhere, what is the legend of the statue of liberty is to some extent true of the lands that give refuge to fleeing terrorised populations and allow them to make a home, whether it is Jewish of any other lands taking refuge in Israel due to persecution in the lands that were not a home ever, or populations of various parts of the world finding refuge in India either on a personal or a larger scale.