Generations of Memory: Remembering Partition in India/Pakistan and Israel/Palestine

Jonathan D. Greenberg

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Volume 25, Number 1, 2005, pp. 89-110 (Article)

Published by Duke University Press

For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/185343

Access provided by University of South Dakota (6 Sep 2018 15:21 GMT) O nIdaPksa n Israel/Palestine and India/Pakistan in Partition Remembering Memory: of Generations ag 99,1,ctdi a abt Ltrtr n h Human in the Partition,” and 1947 “Literature the Talbot, (1) of Ian eds., Drama in sources: cited Bakht, following 16, S. 1989), the and Jang, from Mirza come M. epigraphs M. two The 1. article. this of writing generosity the during their counsel Green- for and Sommer Natsuko Matt Friedland, and Saunders, Roger Rebecca thank berg, to wishes author The Greenberg D. Jonathan fethnicity. of mn o atto’ enn n eoyhv encntttd n eosiue,in reconstituted, and constituted, been to have ex- effort community. I memory an national ethnography, and each In and meaning remembered. historiography partition’s are partition how comparative they amine for which agenda in research ways a the suggest or processes nation-building and society respective legacy. each regional within and debate national political partition’s charged concerning highly a produced, of is context ethnography the or in historiography received, Each of and East. consequences Middle and the origins and the Asia on South in literature partition of sets enormous two produced have pologists) nesl oaie,itral retddiscourse. contested, oriented bitterly internally community’s otherwise polarized, each might of intensely than boundaries reflection separate for familiar, space the within larger legacy permitted a unresolved be assessed: the be which can in events framework cataclysmic expanded these an of suggest to hope I distances, regional oee,vr iteshlrhphscmae hs itrclysmlaeu partition simultaneous historically these compared has scholarship little very However, Ia ebwt,IreiKestmme,July member, Knesset Israeli holier Leibowitz, not —Ilan is land that understand lives? we people’s until than spilled be to has blood much How Punjab East in hnIswtePksa a yn ttePksa odri tl iigi vr elo ybody. my of cell every her in remembering living decades, still four is than border more Pakistan found after the I Bibi, at happiness —Hurmat flying the flag but Pakistan martyred, the were saw family I our when of people forty everything, lost had I e nec rts ertr a rsle”b h atto fteln ntebasis the on land the of partition the by “resolved” was territory British or- social each and in governance der postcolonial of problem contested bitterly Palestine—the n 14 1 ic hn nieosadfrinhsoin ad oalse xet anthro- extent, lesser a to (and, historians foreign and indigenous then, Since – 15 August einadPriin Bengal, Partition: and Region zd eMujahyd ke Azadi 1947 2 ycnieigpriinsmmr cosntoa odr and borders national across memory partition’s considering By nIdaadaan iemnh ae,on later, months nine again, India—and in (Lahore: 2004 sArayaogUs,’” among Already Is atto nteIda ucniet aetn,Cia n Ko- and China, Palestine, rea,” Subcontinent, Indian Limbs: the Phantom in Lands, Partition “Divided Greenberg, D. Jonathan See 2. 1999), Press, (2) University and 252; Oxford 246, (Oxford: Singh Gurharpal and ujb n h atto fteSubcontinent the of Partition the and Punjab, ora fItrainlAffairs International of Journal Ha’aretz 1947 Ha’aretz tf,“aeb an:‘h Assassin ‘The Warns: “Hanegbi staff, ih rmNikodar from flight uy2004. July 7 , 7(04:7–27. (2004): 57 14 May d a Talbot Ian ed. , 1948 in 89 Vol. 25, No. 1, 2005A the Middle EastSouth Asia, AfricaComparative and Studies of

Duke University Press

MOURNING AND MEMORY 90 The first part of this article reflects on Jerusalem. To one family (or part of a family) the meaning of “partition” in each population’s the association confirms a homeland secured, collective memory.3 The second part examines to another a home lost forever. Still, it is useful how the state-building project in India, Pak- to create a rough map of partition’s domain in istan, and Israel, and the emerging Palestinian each regional context, in order to suggest an ap- national-liberation project, shaped dominant proximate baseline for comparisons within and versions of respective “first generation” parti- across the cases, and to understand how this Be- tion narratives. The third part analyzes how setzung operates in similar and different ways in these dominant historical narratives have been each context. Comparative reenvisioned by scholars within the second, “hinge generation” of Indians and Pakistanis,4 Evoking “1947” and “1948” Studies of and Israelis and Palestinians.5 To Indians and Pakistanis, the term “partition” (often rendered with a capital “P” and effec- South Asia, What Does “Remembering Partition” Mean? tively synonymous with the term “1947”) trig- Africa and the Partition, the political division of formerly in- gers associations to a highly charged, intensely tegrated territory, in these cases refers to a contradictory set of images, memories, and Middle East set of interrelated historical events that remain meanings intimately related to core issues of fraught with intense emotional significance for personal and national identity. millions who lived through them, and their chil- Above all, one is struck by the almost un- dren and grandchildren. In this context, it is bearable tension of opposites these associations useful to understand “partition” as a code word contain. On the one hand, “partition” corre- evoking layers of psychologically heightened, sponds to collective memories of overwhelming politically resonant meaning. In psychoanalytic trauma: 12 million refugees fleeing their homes terms, “partition” can be seen as a set of associa- under circumstances of terror, panic, and eth- tions to which an individual has invested a high nic cleansing; between several hundred thou- degree of psychic energy and identification; to sand and 2 million people slaughtered; tens use Freud’s analogy, it is as if such “cathected” of thousands of women raped and abducted; associations are infused with an electric current. countless individual acts of atrocity; hundreds (“Cathexis” is James Strachey’s pseudoscientific of thousands more killed by malnutrition and translation of Freud’s original, more resonant disease.6 On the other hand, associations to term: Besetzung, or “occupying,” i.e., libidinal “partition” or “1947” correspond to core nar- energy occupying, or attaching itself to, an ob- ratives of national liberation and triumph: the ject.) final victory of historic anticolonial struggles in At the outset, then, it is essential to rec- which millions had participated and sacrificed ognize that “partition” has no consistent mean- over decades; the birth of new independent ing for populations across these cases and states; the transformation of national identity can only be understood in the context of de- and agency for the subcontinent’s vast popula- tailed, specific memories, images, and stories tions, who suddenly released themselves from remembered and transmitted by individuals. dependency as subjects of the British Raj to be- “Partition” means Lahore, Delhi, or Bombay; come citizens in new sovereign republics. Kashmir, Punjab, or Bengal; Jaffa, Haifa, or

3. Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, ed. 5. Eva Hoffman, After Such Knowledge: Memory, His- 6. See Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence: Lewis A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, tory, and the Legacy of the Holocaust (New York: Voices from the Partition of India (Durham, NC: Duke 1992); see also Nancy Wood, Vectors of Memory: Public Affairs, 2004), 103. My reference to “Israelis and University Press, 2000), 3; see also Gyanendra Pandey, Legacies of Trauma in Postwar Europe (Oxford: Berg, Palestinians” is a shorthand, as it does not acknowl- Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism, and 1999), 1. edge the fact that a significant percentage of Pales- History in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University tinian Arabs are Israeli citizens, and a significant per- Press, 2001), 88–91. 4. Because I focus on the 1947 partition of the sub- centage of Israeli citizens are Palestinian Arabs. continent, this article does not specifically address the 1971 Pakistani civil war, the transformation of East Pakistan into an independent Bangladesh, or the memory of either partition among Bangladeshis. rde A avr nvriyPes 02,125. 2002), Press, University Harvard MA: bridge, .AihiMargalit, Avishai 7. fbetween dispersal of mass and uprooting refugees—the of Pales- For own. “ their tinians of state independent achieved no Arabs Palestinian alone cases, But these identity. among national Palestinian narra- of foundational tive a evokes “partition” cases, Independence. of War victorious invaders a Arab in of in defeat state stunning Jewish the Palestine; a establish to efforts movement State on the Israel of of proclamation Ben- dramatic Gurion’s achievement: historical the unprecedented by redeemed, this and overshadowed, accounts is Israeli trauma in But population. Jewish about six lives, approximately thousand of loss Palestinian the to and fighters; addition Arab in Iraq, Syria, and Transjordan, Lebanon, Egypt, from armies by sion on on villagers Etzion Kfar Scopus and April Hospital/Mount Hadassah road the to on patients and Jew- personnel of medical murder ish the inci- (including leaders; atrocity Pales- of League dents by Arab and threats Muslim Holocaust; tinian Nazi of memories recent by the fueled extermination of fears wars. Arab-Israeli of fteIreisae n h omneetof commencement “ the the and state, establishment Israeli the the of Mandate, British the of end “ a is has it Palestini- ans, “partition” and Israelis extent between meaning the shared to But imple- never mented. and states, Arab neighboring and Arabs Palestinian the by rejected As- the Agency, Jewish and General Ben-Gurion UN David the by accepted by sembly, endorsed plan a the Plan, to refers also Jew- 29 “Partition” to became settlement). closed River ish (and Jordan man- Transjordan the the to of allocated when east year, land following dated the in by place in Britain Nations of to League the granted territory, Pales- Mandate the of tine partition first The Israelis? and ans November 1948 si h sal,Ida,adPakistani and Indian, Israeli, the in As the Israelis, For htde priin ent Palestini- to mean “partition” does What 1948 1948 a”a h rti eurn cycle recurring a in first the as war” 600 14 en,aoeal h generation the all, above means, ” h tiso Memory of Ethics The 1947 ”atr htecmassthe encompasses that term a ,” , a;tevniaino Zionist of vindication the May; 000 and ntdNtosPartition Nations United 1 1948 760 ecn fteentire the of percent 1920 , 000 ruaincludes trauma fetvl took effectively , (Cam- 13 e,women, men, a) inva- May); 15 onsadScars and Wounds atcpns aeytt come. to yet have its participants, by visions) imag- different radically as several (in ined conclusion successful re- the and demption, victory which for national movement a Palestinians, liberation of origins For evis- the represents Palestine. the “partition” Arab homeland; and of home ceration of humil- loss traumatic, the iating camps; refugee exis- in wretched tence a to consignment dispersal; and displacement, defeat, atrocity, cleansing, ethnic for synonym rough on Yassin on Deir al-Dawayima at at and units April Gang Stern Ir- and by villagers gun of organiza- massacre paramilitary the (including other tions and Irgun the of on Ramle 1948 and were Lydda examples of villages largest the (the of expulsion campaigns forced specific ma- centers, against population offensives jor Haganah caused successful fear by and panic But remember defeat. Jewish Palestinians after return prompt expecta- a the of tion and commanders, evacuation Arab the by leaders, orders Arab specifically local and of pleas forces, Jew- the Arab between invading war and surrounding ish the by fear and caused panic all—emphasize at causes flight, the their of explain or refugees, remember Palestinian they that the extent the decades state—to the initial of the in especially accounts, raeli legacy. its remains that humiliation suffer- and national ing ongoing the and children, and mse-eahr o h feto painful damage. of emotional effect and experience the calls for Margalit “master-metaphor” what Avishai a and philosopher injury, Israeli medi- bodily the a to once referring at term, is cal “Trauma” burn. to continues or “wound”) plague, for itself Greek or wound is over the (“trauma” Covered way, time. around—either in twisted fixed or denied, or distorted re- profoundly is what past remember The happened. cannot disfigure ally often and we lives, smash our events traumatic When ,adat farct eptae yunits by perpetrated atrocity of acts and ), hsfrPlsiinAas“ Arabs Palestinian for Thus htcue hseou?Dmnn Is- Dominant exodus? this caused What al-Nakba 29 h Catastrophe: the , October). 7 1948 12 hsdual This – 13 ”isa July 9

Jonathan D. Greenberg 91 Generations of Memory 92 meaning is built into the English-language def- section of India is like the vivisection of my inition of “wound.” The Oxford English Dictio- own body.”9 Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who cam- nary defines “wound” as “a hurt caused by the paigned with no less passion in favor of parti- laceration or separation of the tissues of the tion, likened it to “a surgical operation.”10 (In body by a hard or sharp instrument” and a “psy- response, Lord Mountbatten told Jinnah, “An chic injury, esp. one caused by emotional shock anesthetic is required before the operation.”)11 the memory of which is repressed and remains Even Jawaharlal Nehru came to believe that unhealed.”8 “[by] cutting off the head we will get rid of the This OED definition is particularly rele- headache.”12 Comparative vant to investigating what it means to “remem- Tragically for the people of the subcon- ber partition” in comparative regional context. tinent, Gandhi’s version of the body politic Studies of First, it asserts the relationship between phys- metaphor was far closer to the truth. The pur- ical injury and psychological response in ad- pose of surgery is to heal, not to tear asunder. South Asia, dressing the legacy of historical calamity and It is unlikely that Mountbatten’s “anesthetic” Africa and the the utility of medical analogies in understand- would have helped; in all events, it was not ing processes of collective memory. Second, it provided. In a terrible irony, Gandhi’s assas- Middle East highlights the relationship between emotional sin, a Hindu religious militant named Nathu- hurt, the repression of memory, and the psy- ram Godse, active in the Rashtriya Swayam- chic costs of that repression. It emphasizes the sevak Sangh (National Volunteers Association, tendency to deny or bury one’s traumatic past or RSS), justified the murder by blaming (“the memory of which is repressed”) and sug- Gandhi for the “vivisection of the country, our gests that such efforts, however psychologically motherland.”13 understandable, are doomed to fail. The origi- The partition/dismemberment analogy nal injury, even if sustained long ago, thus “re- has not been as prominent, and relentless, in mains unhealed.” the Palestine discourse. Still, it has been a long- Third, and perhaps most illuminating for standing, consistent theme. Rejecting Theodor our purposes, the OED definition identifies the Herzl’s 1896 proposal to grant Palestine to the specific locus of trauma in “the laceration or Jews, the Ottoman Sultan Abd al-Hamid II de- separation of the tissues of the body.” Here clared: “I will not agree to vivisection.”14 A half the analogy between medical diagnosis and psy- century later, in his 29 September 1947 testi- chological process is usefully extended to an mony before the UN Ad Hoc Committee on the analogy between an individual’s physical wound Palestinian Question (two months before the (partition of the body) and a community’s UN General Assembly’s partition resolution), wound sustained by a partition of a nation’s the Arab Palestinian leader Jamal al-Husayni de- homeland. clared that “the Arabs of Palestine were solidly Moreover, correspondence between the determined to oppose with all the means at amputation of the physical body and a nation’s their command any scheme which provided for partition, and in particular the partition of the dissection, segregation, or partition of their the subcontinent and Palestine, is highlighted country” and that they “would lawfully defend throughout the primary sources in each case. with their life-blood every inch of the soil of Mahatma Gandhi, who campaigned passion- their beloved country.”15 ately against partition, declared that “the vivi-

8. See dictionary.oed.com/. 11. Chatterji, “Making of a Borderline,” 194. 14. Desmond Stewart, Theodore Herzl: Artist and Politician (New York: Quartet Books, 1974), 9. E. M. S. Namboodiripad, “The Opposition and 12. Cited in Stanley Wolpert, ANewHistoryofIndia, cited in www.salaam.co.uk/knowledge/biography/ the Left,” in Frontline, 9–22 August 1997 (from the 6th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), viewentry.php?id=39; see also www.geocities.com/ publishers of The Hindu), www.frontlineonnet.com/ 347. hvf win/insight.htm. fl1416/14160180.htm. 13. Pankaj Mishra, “The Other Face of Fanati- 15. Jamal Al-Husayni, “Testimony on Palestinian Arab 10. Cited in Joya Chatterji, “The Making of a Border- cism,” New York Times Magazine,2February Reaction to the UNSCOP Proposals,” in Palestine and line: The Radcliffe Award for Bengal,” in Talbot and 2003, sacw.insaf.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History with Documents, Singh, Region and Partition, 194n1. ArticlesArchive/pmishraFeb2003. 4th ed., ed. Charles D. Smith (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001), 217. 8 bd,130. Ibid., 18. Margalit, 17. Dia- www.miftah.org/ Global (MIFTAH), display.cfm?DocId=1994&CategoryId=5. of Democracy Promotion and the logue for Pales- Initiative 2003, May tinian 1 Wall,” “Apartheid Levi, Gideon 16. Limbs Phantom uyfo h at ri ipae htwhich that in- displaces the it of Or past. strength the the from on jury trigger present the a to makes disproportionately “It react person past”: traumatized the reliving of man- ifestations pathological “two suggests Margalit they? scar.” huge infrastructure—a path concrete security a a and and road patrol A ma- a operation. after jor as Bank, West northern the entire of the length through scarred, slashing wound and broad cracked a like is ground the and Qalqilyah Jenin Karm, Tul “Between analogies: same the inspire to continues Bantustans) pop- in Arab ulations encircle and land Palestinian wall” grab “apartheid to an Palestinians, to terror bombings; against security populations civilian vide pro- to fence” “separation a government, the Israeli (to Bank West Is- the in barrier constructing holy now the is rael Jewish Meanwhile, Israel. the Eretz from of land Samaria and carving Judea from out government Labor Rabin’s vent on Rabin Yitzhak Minister Yigal Prime named Israeli assassinated Aviv) Amir Tel in student University law Bar-Ilan at third-year (and militant religious Temmr fhmlaini h bleeding the it.” is reliving of humiliation scar of Margalit: Again, memory ago. “The century half a than loss more experienced of failure, and reminder humiliation pain, ongoing and contested an as partition’s serve So borders by wound. caused original suffering the the experience to some to extent, least at is, past traumatic the remember lk oee ti,silhsiseffects.” its has still stain, covered a “like Margalit, writes “Trauma,” children. their children’s and children their of wit- refugees, and survivors, nesses, psyche—of the on scars land; onthe Scars which geography. sacred become on attached, scars to permanent remain side each territories on groups scars. dividing their retain Borderlines, ago long inflicted Wounds ruasilhsisefcs u htare what But effects. its has still Trauma Jewish a deed, and word in Godse Echoing tiso Memory of Ethics 4 November 18 ,126. 1995 na fott pre- to effort an in .dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?date=1%2F4%2F2004. 0 ‘nltrl esg fBab-e-Pakistan,” of Message “‘Unilateral’ 20. Ibid. 19. Times 17 16 To Lhr,Pksa) aur 04 www 2004, January 4 Pakistan), (Lahore, osrcigPriinsMemory Partition’s Constructing Imperatives: Nationalist e bu h eoyo Palestine’s of memory the about writ- ten be could statement similar Jammu A Kashmir. in and anew, remem- created are constantly wounds and the bered, cases, both Pakistan In and last. word accu- the first as the as just India written, with rately, be could sentence same itn an oeta v eae fe the after place. decades took five amputation than more pain, excru- most ciating the with often feel, still can pop- ulations whole limb across a fled: nation, they which each to border, the of leaders and citizens the inhabitants—and the former in of limb” memory “phantom collective a remains refugees, of exodus the by abandoned landscape, each truncated conclusion, logical its to analogy berment and (Judea Bank West the Samaria). and Gaza terri- of still-occupied tories the and in day, remembered, every wounds re-created the war: and tition etta ssmhwascae ihteob- the with past.” associated the of somehow ject is ob- different that a ject with about trauma the brought ulmnl‘iso ttmn’o ekn re- seeking of vengefrom‘theother’whichisIndia.” statement’ ‘mission subliminal 1947 Times 2004 rvoscnetoso efwt e na- new a with identity. self tional of replace conceptions and previous project, fully nation-building them the into engage into nation, populations multicultural diverse each assimilate states to postcolonial strove of institutions leadership the nascent which urgent and in the anthropologist process to pervasive the attention and States,” drew Geertz New Clifford the Pol- in Civil itics and Sentiments Primordial olution: seminal a In oe n cin n omiti ii re in order civil maintain to and action, state and of power legitimacy the enhance to divisions, nal Pksa eiso h eoyo the of memory the on relies “Pakistan , hs oetn h partition/dismem- the extend to Thus, atto n t toiist aho its fashion to atrocities its and partition dtra nteLhr,Pakistan, Lahore, the in editorial 1963 21 19 ordc h het finter- of threats the reduce To hs codn oaJanuary a to according Thus, sa,“h nertv Rev- Integrative “The essay, Daily ai,17) 255–310. 1973), Basic, oda etmnsadCvlPltc nteNew the in Politics in Civil States,” and Pri- Sentiments Revolution: Integrative mordial “The Geertz, Clifford 21. h nepeaino Cultures of Interpretation The 1948 20 Daily The par- NwYork: (New

Jonathan D. Greenberg 93 Generations of Memory 94 periods of turbulence, new postcolonial states is, to put the harsh memories of 1947–48 “be- sought to replace traditional affiliations based hind us” and, in effect, “start over” as a new na- on kinship, regional, linguistic, religious, cus- tional community. Second, we find a collective tomary, and other “primordial” attachments endeavor to reconstruct the past; that is, to lo- with loyalties to emerging national political in- cate within a people’s history new myths to in- stitutions, identities, and values.22 spire the arduous work and sacrifice of nation In this context, the events of 1947–48 building. Together, these related processes sug- profoundly undermined communal identities gest efforts of nascent states to forge a “useable” previously held in each respective population history for ideological cohesion going forward Comparative for generations. On the subcontinent, millions and, through the new nation, redeem a collec- who identified themselves primarily through re- tive past replete with suffering.24 Studies of ligious, caste-bound, regional, and linguistic as- sociations suddenly became “Indian” or “Pak- Starting Over South Asia, istani.” In the new State of Israel, the Yishuv Revolutionary historical events and leaders cast Africa and the ended as such: Jews of various Zionist and new citizens in pioneering roles in the forg- non-Zionist, religious and secular, affiliations ing of a nation. Nationalist feelings and iden- Middle East suddenly defined themselves as “Israelis.” Dis- tifications become paramount, enabling parti- persed Arab communities, who might have pre- tion survivors, even those who endured horrific viously defined themselves primarily by local or suffering, to turn away from the traumatic past family affiliations (e.g., residents of neighbor- toward a brighter future and patriotic identity. hoods in Jaffa or Haifa; rural villages; or promi- Thus the nation-building project requires a cer- nent Jerusalem families), developed in exile, tain amount of collective amnesia. Memories largely after a “hiatus” from 1948 until the mid- of victimization (in recent experience, such as 1960s, a politically reinvigorated Palestinian na- during the partition itself, as well as in prior tional consciousness.23 history), and past emotional bonds to persons Forging new collective identities, Indians and communities now on the other side of new and Pakistanis, Israelis and Palestinians each borders, might inhibit the mobilization of the constructed narratives of partition, and new ver- effort required to accomplish the tremendous sions of each community’s “past,” to address work at hand. the exigencies of national development. Each Here the political needs of national lead- nation privileged certain versions of its par- ership to promote a triumphant meaning of tition story over other versions, heightening partition match the psychological needs of some memories and suppressing others, to fur- those who had suffered the most. A national ther domestic political requirements and mobi- ideology of “unity in diversity,” and a desper- lize communities toward the “integrative revo- ate need to prevent acts of retribution and to lution” necessary to build a viable state. preempt efforts by minority communities to se- In tracing how nationalist imperatives cede from the new state, demanded a historical shaped and distorted partition’s collective narrative of partition in which a full and accu- memory, two complementary processes can be rate accounting of recent events would not be usefully identified in each case. Each process accomplished.25 informs the construction of an “official” histo- Gyanendra Pandey analyzes how this pro- riography of the partition period, in historical cess operates in the context of Indian histori- scholarship and children’s textbooks, as well as ography. “Historian’s history works . . . to pro- the generation of memory in families and cul- duce the ‘truth’ of the traumatic, genocidal tural institutions. First, we find the effort to violence of Partition and to elide it at the suppress if not erase traumatic memories; that same time.” Pandey identifies several different

22. Ibid., 278. 24.L.P.Zamora,The Useable Past: The Imagination of History in Recent Fiction of the Americas (Cam- 23. Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construc- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). tion of Modern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 186–209. 25. Pandey, Remembering Partition,47–48. h iiso sal osiuns, in Consciousness,” Israeli and of Textbooks Limits the “History Raz-Krakotzkin, Amnon 27. 26.Ibid.,45–46. est rs,20) 12–36. 2001), Press, Uni- versity Cambridge (Cambridge: Shlaim Avi and Rogan L. in Failure,” 1948: of and Causes Palestinians Underlying “The The Khalidi, Rashid See 29. 105. 2002), Garvey, and Podeh, Elie 28. 161. 2003), Case, (London: Penslar J. Derek and hs h eandi salwr taught were Israel in remained to who used Those of textbooks history in the teach distorted similarly was h usino h eueswsaltogether was refugees the and ignored.” of discussed, question not was the of entity destruction Palestinian “the the students, Israeli of ations Israel’s of teach to up” used textbooks In “cleaning memories. unwanted Israel pervasive of equally State an new suggest the of establishment the of process. India’s state-building of achievement em- immense the while phasizing suffering partition’s function marginalizing narrative social nationalist-infused a paramount disseminating of the serves nique pc,a hrceitchpeigi some society.” the in of happening part characteristic unassimilated a in as or happen’); space, histori- things no (‘these explanation requires like cal which occurrence, calamity, freak a natural “as a to time is in it device and localize historiographical causation of third issues A on origins. entirely focus to is used have historians technique distancing other An- inexplicable.” and violence “‘unhistorical’ therefore such and history,” declare of case’ to ‘limit the is “non-narratable: One effect. this employed to have historians Indian “techniques” ept sal tepst esaete to them persuade . to . stay.” . attempts country the Israeli fled despite simply had Israel Eretz of the Arabs the On narrative, problem.” this to the “according contrary, creating in Israel part that no historiography had Zionist by held tion the until in Independence used 1990 from textbooks schools Podeh, Israeli Elie to according aetn:RwiigteHsoyo 1948 of History the Rewriting Palestine: 1948–2000 Textbooks, History Right to Left From Revisionism: cal 28 uulypeetdtetaiinlposi- traditional the presented “usually s rncly aetna eoyof memory Palestinian Ironically, nteIreicnet oiataccounts dominant context, Israeli the In 1948 27 h rbIreiCniti Israeli in Conflict Arab-Israeli The eadn h rbeou itself, exodus Arab the Regarding a fIdpnec ogener- to Independence of War 1948 Wspr,C:Bergin CT: (Westport, d nt Shapira Anita ed. , oPlsiinArabs. Palestinian to sal Histori- Israeli h a for War The d Eugene ed. , 26 ahtech- Each al-Nakba a abt Ltrtr n h ua rm fthe of Drama Human the See and Manto. “Literature Hassan Talbot, Saadat Ian of stories espe- Urdu and the Sidhwa, cially Bapsi Husain, Intizar Hameed, Ahmad, A. Shahid by Pak- works fictional In include Singh. these istan Kirpal Sahni, Bhisham Pritam, Amrita Nahal, Charman Duggal, Kr- Singh Bedi, Kartar Chander, con- Singh ishan Rajinder Indian by the fiction In include these writers. text, Asian South works by haunting fiction by of suggested si- is collective describes the Das to lence exception important An Ibid. 31. 61. 2000), Routledge, (London: Cohen 0 en a,“ilneadteWr fTime,” of Work the and in “Violence Das, Veena 30. nBudre n otse Values Contested and Boundaries on infigIette:AtrplgclPerspectives Anthropological Identities: Signifying el“ utrlyacpe oeo censorship of code accepted These culturally did. “a who veal re- those expression, Das’s as in narratives,” well “crystallized returned as never kinsmen, who to of those thousands women: largely of abducted tens India to and reference Pakistan eliminated both in partition fteAa ttsadtePlsiinlead- Arab Palestine’s Palestinian defend communities. the and and protect to failure states ership Arab enormous the the of generally of historiography discussion Arab Jor- omitted versions story. learn nations’ their to other of but or choice Egyptian, neighboring no danian, had in states refugees Arab became textbooks; who state-approved those in accounts Israeli uigPriinwsntalwdt ufc”in experience. their surface” about to accounts allowed not was Partition suffered during or witnessed ref- done, spontaneous atrocities to struck “any erence context, is this In language dumb.” way, gives human “as understanding that is riots” these during perienced ex- people that terror and violence annihilating oet n ypol ntecneto the of context the in people Partition.” by was and that to violence done the on silence partition, “a subcontinent’s emphasizes the fami- by Punjabi displaced of lies studies Veena ethnographic forgetting. in Das, and perva- silence more communal a sive history” mirrored textbooks “historian’s school of and memory selective the erased. further causes of appraisal ef- self-critical a any toward and forts marginalized, further Palestinian was of memory experience national unique the dispersed, were refugees Palestinian re- where gion the throughout countries neighboring Iraq, and Baathist Egypt, Nasser’s dominated alism oiatacut ftesubcontinent’s the of accounts Dominant nSuhAi swl steMdl East, Middle the as well as Asia South In 30 o a,“nesniltuho the of truth essential “an Das, For 29 d nhn P. Anthony ed. , oevr spnAa nation- pan-Arab as Moreover, eh:Pnun 1997). Penguin, Delhi: 97Priin”i abtadSingh, and Talbot in Partition,” 1947 an it kthsadSoiso Partition of Stories and Sketches Fifty Dawn: tion 2–2 e loSaa asnManto, Hassan Saadat also See 228–52. , 31 al-Nakba ’s einadParti- and Region Mottled

(New Jonathan D. Greenberg 95 Generations of Memory 96 in which women who ‘betray’ the ideologies nities, crimes committed more than a half cen- of purity and honour are simply obliterated tury ago remain unavenged. from memory.”32 Moreover, these narratives re- After Israel’s “War of Liberation,” the inforce a community’s need to protect sur- term Mishpachat Ha’shcol (“the family of mourn- vivors, and particularly women who were ab- ing”) was coined “to emphasize that the entire ducted and eventually returned to husbands nation was one family grieving its dead.”36 In who accepted them back. Remembering and re- the initial years of the Israeli state, more than counting are too dangerous for these women, 1,300 individual and collective memorials were or for their families, whose “honour” had been constructed.37 During the same period, of 475 Comparative violated by repeated incidents of rape and the Arab villages that fell within its 1948 borders, Is- failure of husbands and brothers to prevent rael razed approximately 385.38 In the new He- Studies of such violence.33 brew map of the land, Qa’at el Qireiq became On the subcontinent, hundreds of thou- HaMeishar; Ras al-Zuwwayra, Rosh Zohar; Naqb South Asia, sands of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and others al-Ama’z, Ma’ale Amiaz; Ein Murra, Ein Mor; 39 Africa and the were participants, as perpetrators or victims, Wadi Hiyyani, Hiyon; and so on. In this pro- in horrific crimes of murder, mayhem, torture, cess, writes Meron Benvenisti, “an entire world” Middle East and rape. But neither India nor Pakistan es- of Arab Palestinian society and memory “van- tablished tribunals where the guilty were tried; ished, along with the human beings” who inhab- “nor were there any court cases in which a the- ited that world.40 atrical space could have been created for the acknowledgment of the suffering imposed.”34 Frozen Slides Nor do any memorial sites commemorate those Das suggests a contrast between the suppres- killed in massacres and suicides accompany- sion of memories and accounts of women’s ex- ing the subcontinent’s partition. “The suffer- periences of suffering and resistance, and the ing and grief of Partition,” writes Urvashi Bu- repetition of stories valorizing “women who talia, “are not memorialized at the border, nor, ‘sacrificed’ themselves by drowning in wells, publicly, anywhere else in India, Pakistan and poisoning themselves, and submitting to death Bangladesh. A million people may have died at the hands of their own kinsmen.”41 Das em- but they have no monuments.”35 phasizes the “frozen-slide quality of the nar- Atrocities committed by Arabs and Jews in rations, or rather the ‘non-narrations’, of the the context of the 1948 war, on a much smaller violence of the Partition.” For example, “such scale, nevertheless had a staggering impact on stories plotted the incidents within a heroic nar- each respective community. But no Israeli court rative in which ordinary women behaved like prosecuted any of the Jews responsible for mas- the famous mythological figures of Padmavati sacres at Deir Yassin, al-Dawayima, or any other or Krishnadevi, for they chose heroic death over Palestinian village; and no Arab court prose- dishonour.”42 cuted any of the Palestinians responsible for Das’s image of “frozen slides” suggests a massacres on the road to Mount Scopus or in way of remembering that is rigid, if not ossified Kfar Etzion. In the Middle East as well as South —stuck in a sentimentalized, glorified past that Asia, in the minds of those who remember only no longer exists, if it ever indeed existed, acts of terror committed against their commu- and wrapped in a nostalgic mood. “Nostalgia

32. Veena Das, Critical Events: An Anthropological 36. Bregman, Israel’s Wars, 1947–93 (London: Rout- 39. Meron Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape: The Buried Perspective on Contemporary India (Oxford: Oxford ledge, 2000), 25. History of the Holy Land since 1948 (Berkeley: Uni- University Press, 1995), 188. versity of California Press, 2000), 21–22. 37. Ibid. 33. Das, “Violence and the Work of Time,” 61. 40. Ibid., 19. 38. George E. Bisharat, “Exile to Compatriot: Transfor- 34. Das, Critical Events, 192. mations in the Social Identity of Palestinian Refugees 41. Das, Critical Events, 188. in the West Bank,” in Culture, Power, Place: Explo- 35. Butalia, Other Side of Silence,40. 42. Das, “Violence and the Work of Time,” 67. rations in Critical Anthropology, ed. Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 219. e loMhma Tarbush, Mohammad also see Said, W. Edward 46. 3. 2002), Shehadeh, Raja 45. 61. Time,” of Work the and “Violence Das, 44. Margalit, 43. at eenvrwloe rasmltdinto assimilated or welcomed never were East, Middle the throughout camps refugee teeming in fleeing Ra- Jaffa upon resettled in family hearing his where up mallah, grew Shehadeh Raja writer Palestinian the “home” of descriptions the nostalgic echoes loss, the permanent and its of residents, taste still-bitter Hindu former of minds the “frozen” behind: left homes idealized ancestral of an memory suggesting accounts to interviews listened repeatedly Das her survivors, partition In with refugees. displaced par- of tition’s memory collective the in than beautiful, and innocent and pure more world prepartition 1947 ataepeetda fedwdwt pure with endowed if the as innocence.” from presented objects are and re- past Margalit events, it,” “People, idealizing flects. by past the distorts ehee htwswpdoto xsec by existence in of bulldozers out Israeli wiped was that near village Bethlehem a Natif, Edward Beit of beauties later, the on “expatiates nobly years Tarbush Mohammed fifty friend than Said’s more Paris In Lives Palestine Occupied in Age of NwYr:Clmi nvriyPes 99,38; 1999), Press, University Columbia York: (New – otPlsiinrfge,gtee in gathered refugees, Palestinian Most in Lahore of sweetness sealed-away The of narratives the are nowhere Perhaps gis h shore. the against rippling gently sea winter the warm of waves in the with sand evenings golden the sil- on the twilight par- in ver strolled Abdo my and the where sandwiches water, with ordered the ents sea by the right was stand a Jaffa falafel . . . . . from . sea water. rising the the lantern of bride diamond-studded the a was pearl, told, was I Jaffa, Bazaar. Kali Anai in shopping the intellectual life; to College Government Lahore the of contributions the vegetables; the of freshness the hore, and the bread) to (fried frequently refer that would Lahore generation left the conversation, everyday In 48 1948 tiso Memory of Ethics oemtooie n rzn the frozen, and mythologized more 43 . tagr nteHue Coming House: the in Strangers fe h atSy Palestinian Sky: Last the After zari mriey h wens and sweetness the embroidery; 1948 45 ,62. eetoso Pales- a of Reflections NwYr:Penguin, York: (New lassi .” 46 ygutdik fLa- of drink) (yoghurt 44 9 bd,224–25. Ibid., 49. 214. Compatriot,” to “Exile Bisharat, 48. 7 ai aai Nraie fEie”in Exile,” of “Narratives Tamari, Salim 47. 1986). cil, salJunlo oiis cnmc,adCulture: and Economics, 1948 of Narratives Politics, of Journal Israel tinian puris Wsigo,D:Aeia-rbAfisCoun- Affairs American-Arab DC: (Washington, rOtmnTrihdomination.” Turkish Ottoman conflict, or class hardship, material of together—with hint a dancing never happy with and nature, singing of peasants state original an something to as akin depicted “was experience mid- tinian the of the Bank in West audiences Palestinian with popular play In Bank. al-Ward West Wadi occupied col- the in Palestinian memory inform lective to continue Palestine n on rmwihtersdnso propri- or hailed.” residents etors the which villages from the towns for and named “were Bisharat, notes camps,” George the in sprouted that markets shops, and alleys, Jaffa-Muslim “Streets, Ramallah. the in Club Nablus, Sports in re- itself Association Cultural constituted Haifa prewar quar- same the the ters; in settled neighbors old camps: eainhp n irrhe hteitdbe- existed the fore that hierarchies and relationships et o foe lds fpre- of slides” “frozen how ments hlrnwl eunt hi we homes.” “the sweet day, their to that return On will children Palestine.” to return will ple peo- Palestinian ongoing the “and their Jews, the in against battle victorious” be will continues, Arabs story “the the Soon, Zion- Palestine.” Arabs. stole the ism attacked Zionists The Ramle. has Lod, Jaffa, It cities: beautiful beautiful. and lemons, is oranges, Arabs Palestine “The Palestine. Bank: in West Pales- lived the by in used teachers grammar, tinian school and elementary reading teaching Arabic Jorda- for a manual to fu- nian of According certainty triumph. the national by ture mitigated is loss The of return. pain for aspirations and longing, of ject adit rmso atrlidylls.” pastoral of home- frames the ‘freeze’ into to land “there tendency Tamari, dominant Salim a gen- is writes this exiles, For of nations. host eration their of society the ,n.4(02:103. (2002): 4 no. 9, ihrtsehorpi eerhdocu- research ethnographic Bisharat’s nielzd rznps eoe h ob- the becomes past frozen idealized, An 1948 48 ( alyo h Rose the of Valley a eerpoue nrefugee in reproduced were war Palestine- 1980 ,peMnaePales- pre-Mandate s, ie ok,18) 202–3. Shipler, 1986), Books, Times K. David by Cited 50. one prt naPoie Land Promised a in Spirits Wounded ,freape a example, for ), 49 Nakba 47 Social 50 Arab rb n Jews: and Arabs NwYork: (New

Jonathan D. Greenberg 97 Generations of Memory 98 National Myths, Days, and Heroes as “the very opposite of the galut [diaspora] In the project of nationalism’s “integrative rev- Jew.”54 olution,” each community in each partitioned In the shadow of the Holocaust, Israeli land reached back into the past, immediate and narratives framed the War of Independence ancient, to identify new national heroes, myths, in the context of the population ratio be- and “memory days.” tween Jews and Arabs in the region represented Locating a vision of national revival within by invading armies (approximately 1 to 46) Antiquity’s imaginary domain, Zionist leaders and not the comparative strength and com- and institutions at the helm of the new State of mand and control of competing forces (ac- Comparative Israel cultivated the memory of heroes who ex- cording to which the Israelis, ultimately, had emplified Israeli haluziyut: “pioneering” values dominance).55 The 1948 war therefore emerges Studies of of physical strength, political determination, re- in Israeli collective memory as a miraculous sistance to oppression, and national achieve- “David and Goliath”–like victory against an South Asia, ment. This pantheon included biblical figures overwhelming, multinational Arab enemy that, Africa and the such as Samson, Gideon, Saul, and David, and only three years after the end of the Nazi Shoah, especially heroic fighters in “Judea’s wars of lib- had sought Jewish annihilation. Middle East eration against various imperial forces”; that is, Rashid Khalidi suggests a Palestinian ver- the Maccabee revolt against the Syrians and the sion of the Israeli heroic 1948 narrative, with Jewish revolts against the Romans during the the roles reversed. Lamenting the weaknesses of period of the Second Temple.51 Palestinian leadership, organization, finances, In this context, Zerubavel maps “the Zion- and institutions that “enabled the nascent Is- ist reconstruction of the past” with attention to raeli state to triumph over the poorly led, poorly the birth of three national myths: the fall of an- armed, and mainly rural, mainly illiterate Pales- cient Masada (“a myth of fighting to the bit- tinian population of 1.4 million . . . the Pales- ter end”); the Bar Kokhba revolt against the tinians have incorporated this and other fail- Roman Empire (demonstrating the necessity ures into their national narrative as a case of for “armed struggle for national liberation”); heroic perseverance against impossible odds.”56 and the 1920 “battle of Tel Hai” (evoking a Thus, ironically, even in a context in which “par- “myth of new beginnings,” Zionist pioneers led tition” means defeat, unmitigated catastrophe, by Yosef Trumpeldor perished in defense of and lament, Palestinian collective memory of a small settlement in the Galilee).52 Numer- the 1948 war retains a heroic theme. “In the ous monuments and streets in Israel (as well Palestinian case,” concludes Khalidi, “repeated, as a forest, a kibbutz, and a flower) are ded- crushing failure has been surmounted and sur- icated to the memory of Hannah Senesh—a vived, and in some sense has been incorporated Zionist who had emigrated from Hungary to into the narrative of identity as triumph.”57 Palestine only to return to Europe as a vol- This emphasis on the purity and heroism unteer fighter, parachute behind enemy lines of one’s people “against impossible odds” (and in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia to organize parti- the existential threat represented by the other san resistance, and die a martyr at the hands nation) reflects a common trope in Indian and of the Gestapo.53 Ancient heroes like Judah Pakistani, as well as Israeli and Palestinian, par- Maccabee and Bar Kokhba, and modern ones tition narratives. In the Middle East, this theme like Trumpeldor and Senesh, brave resistance is reinforced in parallel annual holidays, in fighters all, were treated in Israeli narratives each respective national community, dedicated

51. Eviatar Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective National Military Cemetery on Mount Herzl, the 55. Hemda Ben-Yehuda and Shmuel Sandler, The Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition most prominent national site of commemoration and Arab-Israeli Conflict Transformed: Fifty Years of In- (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 23. memorial. terstate and Ethnic Crises (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 99. 52.Ibid.,13,43,54,68. 54. Michael Walzer, “History and National Liberation,” in Shapira and Penslar, Israeli Historical Revisionism, 56. Khalidi, “Palestinians and 1948,” 30. 53. Senesh’s remains, buried in the “martyrs” sec- 3. tion of the Jewish cemetery in Budapest, were dis- 57. Khalidi, Palestinian Identity,194–95. interred and brought to Israel for burial in the 9 e www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/mfaarchive/2000 See 59. Independence%20Day%20–%20Selected%20Readin. www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern%20 History/Israel%20at%2050/Remembrance%20Day- See 58. Independence%20Day%20–%20Selected%20Readin. www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern%20History/Israel%20at%2050/Remembrance%20Day- See 60. 2004/4/Israel%20Independence%20Day%202004. h salsmn fteSaeo saladin and Israel of defense.” its State the of for struggle establishment the the in fell who those of memory the ( Day brance Remem- following day the calendar, Hebrew the r:tebte irriaeo Israel’s of image mem- mirror and Ha’atzmaut bitter mourning the of ory: anger, and lament, ntoa oia”i a frmmeigpar- remembering of day a is holiday” “national huadyaserir a restored.” was earlier, years of thousand State the in of the Israel establishment of the founding “With the state. celebrating to fallen the remembering of h onr’ needneadiscontinued existence.” its and of independence achievement country’s the the for lives their daugh- gave and who ters sons its ex- to and gratitude debt eternal presses its remembers nation site, Web entire Affairs “the Foreign of Ministry Israeli the onig sclbae vr eron year every celebrated is founding, maut 1948 on Israel of State independent an of tion declara- partition Ben-Gurion’s Palestine’s David particular, in of and, remembrance the to epedrn the during Palestinian people the of mass dispossession the and “marks expulsion Day Nakba year, one-time Each fixed, event.” of a not start catastrophe, “the on-going an as Independence of Declaration Israel’s remembers commemoration” Palestinian day of “Palestine’s for Rights, Refugee Center and Residency Resource to According BADIL action. of the day political national and a mourning Day,” “Nakba honor tinians Palestine.” ,hnrn h niesr ftenation’s the of anniversary the honoring ), . hsec omnt’ otimportant most community’s each Thus on Meanwhile, salsIdpnec a ( Day Independence Israel’s 1948 61 59 . 62 58 o Hazikaron Yom wnyfu or ae,teritual the later, hours Twenty-four ab a sadyo sorrow, of day a is Day Nakba eihidpnec,ls two lost independence, Jewish , On 1948 o Hazikaron Yom 1948 14 vle rmmourning from evolves and oflc n a in war and conflict ,“ a eoe to devoted day “a ), 15 codn to according , 2009/ o Ha’atz- Yom a,Pales- May, 60 5 rm[u]hmln,ad[ee luhee nexile, in expelled slaughtered [were] were and homeland, [our] people from Our Palestine. homeland of our of ruins means the cursed on by conspiracy, imperialistic established that and was weapons On Israel 1948. of State 15, the May day on peak accursed reached Arab Palestine its homeland our our against against and nation great conspiracy “The Zionist address: Day imperialistic Nakba 2003 Arafat’s Yasir Chairman Authority Palestinian example, for See, 62. www.badil.org/Publications/Bulletins/ Bulletin-17.htm. 2004, May 1 AI eoreCenter, Resource BADIL 61. iun Catastrophe tinuing 14 Iyar 1948 May Yom in eiins Historiography Revisionist a tt nteohrsd fSrCrlRadcliffe’s Cyril Sir border. of side ri- other the the on state by val threatened remains existence remark- na- tional whose and people special leaders a of achievements heroic able the salutes Each moment. partition speeches the remembering public rallies and with filled is day. anniversary following Each the is Day Independence Indian on year Indepen- each celebrated is Pakistani Day dence other. days— the independence mirroring two each myths, national sets of two nations, two generated partition nent’s forget. never will and either, re- the bitter that a time, minder same the at is, holiday each But solidarity. political of spirit a in moment, tition’s rsuefrrtiuinadfrhrviolence. further and retribution for pressure of source im- unconscious perhaps an be though contrary, mediate the may on or, past resolved troubled and distant the whom for gen- subsequent erations, and scale, massive a experienced on trauma directly who witnesses, and vivors sur- remaining the between link, bridge, a a perhaps or represents generation this that suggests itr,o nomyth.” into into or transmuted history, is trans- events received, of knowledge which ferred in generation as seen “hinge usefully a be can cataclysm Hoff- historical ing Eva follow- generation past. second the traumatic that suggests man deeply a expe- of and riences memories parents’ chil- their by adult affected powerfully is perpetrators the and survivors in of dren construction identity vio- how documents mass War World Second of the during legacy lence the concerning Research cainlBlei o 17, No. Bulletin Occasional , si h aeo aetn,tesubconti- the Palestine, of case the in As lNka h Con- The Al-Nakba: other ainhsntforgotten not has nation 63 y“ig”Hoffman “hinge” By Jadida pin”PlsieMdaCne,1 a 2003, May 17 Center, Media in Palestine Peace Strategic Option,” Palestinian Return, of www.memri Right Stresses 2003, “Arafat May 28 .org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=sd&ID=SP50703; 507, Dispatch Special ( camps” refugee the and dispersion, 3 Hoffman, 63. 20Option.htm). %20Return,%20Palestinian%20Strategic%20Peace% 20News/18%20n/Arafat%20Stresses%20Right%20of archives/2003%20News%20archives/May%202003% Al-Jazeerah.info PlsiinAtoiy,1 a 03 MEMRI 2003; May 16 Authority], [Palestinian 14 fe uhKnowledge Such After August; www.aljazeerah.info/News%20 , 103. , lHytAl- Al-Hayat

Jonathan D. Greenberg 99

Generations of Memory 100 Sebastian Conrad describes Germany and communalism, against the perceived militant Japan as places where “the past and the present secularism of the founding national leadership are severed through historical ruptures and and institutions); neoliberal individualism (i.e., ‘zero hours’ which, it is held, need to be bridged rebellion, through entrepreneurial self-help, in order to come to terms with a traumatic expe- privatization reform, or emigration to the West, rience that haunts both societies.”64 The parti- against the hegemonic dominance of social- tions of 1947–48 represent comparable “histor- ist institutions, collectivist ideologies, economic ical ruptures” for the Indian, Pakistani, Israeli, protectionism, and centralized planning of the and Palestinian nations.65 For each people, an Indian and Israeli states’ initial years); and Comparative important measure of national identity remains “postmemory” (i.e., rebellion, through deeply linked to partition’s “zero hour.” This is true for personal creative expression, against the repres- Studies of the “hinge generation” among these communi- sive silences that pervaded survivors’ homes).66 ties as much as it is true for the generation who The following section addresses the South Asia, lived through those historical events. “hinge generation” rebellion in South Asia and Africa and the the Middle East most linked to the transfor- Forms of Rebellion mation of partition’s collective memory: his- Middle East Palestinians, Israelis, Pakistanis, and Indians of torical revisionism (i.e., rebellion, by critical this generation have responded to historical scholars often but not necessarily affiliated with narratives they inherited from their parents, an emerging postnational Left, against the dis- and from the institutions of collective mem- tortions, hagiography, and hypocrisy of previ- ory in which national identities were formed, in ously accepted, nationalist-infused historical ac- various ways. On the one hand, the dominant counts). I focus on the challenges presented by accounts of the 1947 and 1948 generations second-generation revisionist historiography to remain extremely influential, if not still perva- dominant narratives of 1947–48 in each society. sive, in each respective society. On the other hand, one can identify powerful streams of re- Global Trends sistance to inherited ideology. Radically differ- Historiography suggests the domain of Pandey’s ent conceptions of partition’s history and mean- “historian’s history” and its evolution over time ing emerged for the second generation in each as reflected by new approaches to research case, as a result of changes and pressures in do- methodology, access to new sources (includ- mestic, regional, and international society. ing records in previously closed state-controlled Intense generational conflict within each archives), and, above all, the contested terrain national community, and second-generation re- of historical interpretation. “Revisionism” sug- bellion against the founding narratives and gests the more or less radical revision of dom- “new identities” of the 1947–48 generation, inant and officially sanctioned historical ac- found expression in radically different forms. counts. These include religious revivalism (i.e., rebel- Revisionist historiography represents an lion, through an amalgam of orthodox obser- important window into the generational trans- vance, religious nationalism, and reactionary formation of partition’s memory in Israel/

64. Sebastian Conrad, “Entangled Memories: Ver- Israelis (and propagandists among their respective 66. Marianne Hirsch, Family Frames: Photography, sions of the Past in Germany and Japan,” Journal of supporters) have accused the other community of Narrative, and Postmemory (Cambridge, MA: Har- Contemporary History 38 (2003): 85. “Nazi” or “Nazi-like” terror and atrocity; these accu- vard University Press, 1997). “In my reading, post- sations often suggest anti-Semitic or anti-Arab racist memory is distinguished from memory by genera- 65. This is not to argue that the mass violence and provocations. For example, the terms Zionist, Nazi tional distance and from history by deep personal dislocation of partition in either setting compares, Zionist, Zionist enemy,andNazi enemy are used connection. Postmemory is a powerful and very par- in scale or comprehensiveness, industrialization of interchangeably in the Hamas Charter of the Is- ticular form of memory precisely because its connec- killing, or totality of evil, to the Nazi genocide. V. lamic Resistance Movement (in conjunction with ref- tion to its object or source is mediated not through S. Naipaul’s statement (in an otherwise compelling erences to the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”) to re- recollection but through an imaginative investment book) that the killings and expulsions of 1947 In- fer to “the Jews.” See Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, and creation” (22). I first learned of Hirsch’s book dia/Pakistan represents “as great a holocaust as that The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, and Coex- from Carol Bardenstein’s review of Raja Shehadeh’s caused by Nazi Germany” strikes me as unhelpful (V. istence (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occu- S. Naipaul, India: A Wounded Civilization [1976; repr., 175–99. pied Palestine, Journal of Palestine Studies 32, no. 2 New York: Vintage, 2003], 143). Some Palestinians and (2003): 106–8. 67.E.P.Thompson, o:Rulde 03.Jnisrfr oteFrench the to refers Jenkins 2003). Routledge, don: Jenkins, Keith Adro a nAeia swl sBiihback- British Hobsbawm, as Eric education); well and ground as American an has (Anderson son, Jenkins’s na- Keith and of construction); ideological reevaluation tionalism’s critical the for frameworks Reality Myth, Programme, 1780: since fahsoia canon). historical notions a of of utility the on and truth objec- historical tive of conceptions on attack postmodernist Nationalism of Hobsbawm’s Spread Eric and Origin the on tions Benedict narratives); Anderson’s elite in included pre- viously not populations subordinated of histories Class Working English the of Making itrdbt rgee yrvsoitaccounts revisionist by triggered debate bitter h nuneo .P Thompson’s P. E. of influence recognizes the one East, the Middle of and historiography subcontinent recent In past. nation’s of ideas a constructing in classes powerful and of institutions role the on different attention in focused ways, whom, of of each works revisionists, key British finds in one impact context greatest respective the each with texts scholarly among the that history, partition respective each of in role context fundamental the and a legacy, in colonial in fitting Britain’s nation is own it Perhaps their vacuum. of histories produc- critical not ing were Israel, diaspora Palestinian subcontinent, the revi- the and that in clear historians it sionist makes his- fields of range toriographical wide enormously an on historians past. recent nation’s held the about widely myths and nation’s beliefs challenged each and spirit, leaders of founding antinationalist images sacrosanct an attacked with infused often interpre- revisionist of each promote tations in to generation came second nation the impact, social of of historians levels de- varying varying with and In grees, India/Pakistan. and Palestine n Class ing ainls ic 70 rgam,Mt,Real- Myth, ity Programme, 1780: since Nationalism i n pedo Nationalism of Spread and gin Cmrde abig nvriyPes 1990); Press, University Cambridge (Cambridge: mgndCmuiis eetoso h Ori- the on Reflections Communities: Imagined utemr,teitnerato and reaction intense the Furthermore, h mato aia n postmodern and radical of impact The NwYr:Vnae 93;Bndc Ander- Benedict 1963); Vintage, York: (New 1991 etikn History Re-thinking 1947 1983 h aigo h nls Work- English the of Making The etikn History Re-thinking – 48 1990 mgndCmuiis Reflec- Communities: Imagined artvs e accounts, New narratives. 67 Lno:Vro 1983) Verso, (London: ain n Nationalism and Nations 19;rp. Lon- repr., (1991; ain and Nations (emphasizing peetn a (presenting (proposing 1963 onaisdsrbdb ekn s“on history ( world” “doing post-modern as the in Jenkins situ- by national across usefully described context scholarly can boundaries a one in work Thus in their 1990s. ate region and each 1980s of the historians by revi- scholarship in sionist repeatedly encountered metanar- toward cen- ratives’”—themes ‘incredulity displaying of of ‘death and the tres’ “witnessing as postmodernism Jean-Franc philosopher etikn History Re-thinking and The er’ Betrayal Nehru’s h aercn eid sa“ii a of war “civil a as period) memory.” recent during same historiography the phe- Japanese comparable in a describe nomenon to suggested Jun phrase San a Kan by use (to understood be can ildsoreo susof responsibility”). issues on discourse cial so- promote to historians Japanese efforts revisionist by or Germany, postwar in past”) the tering of process as the such century, twentieth troubled a of with to terms variety come to a struggled which have in populations national context global a in historiog- raphy Eastern Middle and Asian South cent of cie h mrec of emergence de- the Sarkar Sumit scribes represents. in it Delhi movement tual New in Press 1982 University Oxford by the of historiogra- story Studies the revisionist tern with of intertwined is story phy the India In oin eoae nitkbyi h otx of context the in unmistakably resonates his- affiliated torians its and journal con- the colonial of work British the text, a in resistance essays and power the of most in published While classes. its elite and Raj Indian British the the by of structures silenced hegemonic “sub- and of oppressed perspective groups altern” the from resis- struggles Indian tance remembered Sarkar) Pandey, Sumit Gyanendra and Das, Veena Das, N. Chatterjee, Arvind Partha Chakrabarty, Dipesh Guha, ino ra oils n axa hori- Marxian and Gramsci, Antonio of work socialist the by influenced broad Heavily zon.” reten- a the with of combined tion practice still was Marxist theory orthodox and of where criticism milieu, sharp dissident-Left a “in toriography 1947 srte rnclydsrbdby described ironically rather is dtdb aai ua n h intellec- the and Guha) Ranajit by edited , osLoadscneto of conception Lyotard’s ¸ois – 48 etikn History Re-thinking 68 uatr Studies Subaltern ora isiiilvlm published volume initial (its journal eeaani sueu ostaere- situate to useful is it again Here ihnec ainlcommunity national each within uatr Studies Subaltern Vergangenheitsbewaltigung 69 ,71). uatr Studies Subaltern coas(including scholars es sekinin senso 9 ord EtnldMmre, 86. Memories,” “Entangled Conrad, 69. 98. Memories,” “Entangled Jun, San Kan 68. to (Mun- preface slow, text” classic a officially “now as Munslow Alun drs susof issues address (“mas- etikn History Re-thinking Subal- (“war Sekai his- 19) 8,ctdi Conrad, in cited 188, (1997), ,xiv).

Jonathan D. Greenberg 101

Generations of Memory 102 hegemonic national institutions, elites, and ide- is seen as the severance of ‘the diseased limb’, ologies in the postpartition Indian state.70 as Patel put it in 1946 while recommending the Ironically, in articulating their attack on bloody surgery.”71 elitist institutions and conceptions of history, members of the Subaltern Studies group consti- tuted a highly specialized intellectual elite. In- As Chatterji suggests in a 1998 essay on the cluded among their most important works are Radcliffe Award, “the deployment of medical essays that are difficult to read by Western- phraseology has lent weight to the impression educated scholars without a background in that partition was a necessary part of a process Comparative Gramsci, postmodern French philosophy, and of healing: that it was a surgical solution to the British Marxist historiography. One would communal disease.”72 Studies of imagine that this scholarship would be largely Like Ahmad, Chatterji rejects this ac- inaccessible, if not impenetrable, by less priv- South Asia, count: “Fifty years on, however, it is clear ileged “subaltern” groups they have champi- that partition has not cured the subcontinent Africa and the oned. of communalism and the idea that partition Still, these historians, as well as other re- was a remedy has been widely challenged.”73 Middle East visionist scholars not necessarily affiliated with Both scholars identify culpability for partition’s the Subaltern Studies movement, had an enor- disastrous results with India’s leaders, includ- mous impact on the historiography of the sub- ing Nehru and colleagues within the Indian continent’s partition, and on the reevaluation National Congress. In contrast to previously of the role of Nehru and the Congress in the accepted narratives that place blame on the events of 1947 and the establishment of the shoulders of Jinnah’s Muslim League, Ahmad Indian state. Here two themes are key: the concludes: “The indecent haste to become Congress’s betrayal of its supposed multiethnic rulers of some sort of country—no matter how values in facilitating India’s partition; and the truncated or bloodied or ‘moth-eaten’—was by Indian state’s betrayal of its supposed “Nehru- no means limited to Jinnah alone.”74 Similarly, vian socialism” in failing to protect India’s op- In Legacy of a Divided Nation, Hasan decries the pressed groups. failure of the Indian state to live up to its liberal Among a wide variety of contemporary In- values and, in particular, to protect its Muslim dian intellectuals, Aijaz Ahmad, Joya Chatterji, minority against communalist threats.75 In turn, Veena Das, Mushirul Hasan, Shashi Tharoor, Tharoor’s 2003 biography Nehru: The Invention and Gyanendra Pandey have been influential of India presents a liberal revisionist critique of in revising the historiography of the sub- the “national dogma” of Nehru’s socialism, and continent’s partition and nation building. In the economically disastrous “Five-Year Plan” ap- “‘Tryst with Destiny’: Free and Divided,” Ahmad proach to Indian development it engendered. criticizes the “self-congratulatory narrative pre- To Tharoor, these founding ideologies of pared by Congress-inspired scholars in which Nehruvian state power “shackled India to what the Indian National Congress is represented became derisively known in economic circles as being synonymous with the Independence as ‘the Hindu rate of growth’ (a fitful 3 per- Movement as such”: “This triumphalist account cent when the rest of the developing countries of a nationalism that failed to protect a fifth of of Asia were racing along at 10 or 12 percent the territorial nation that it claimed to repre- or better).”76 In contrast to Hasan’s analysis, sent is credible only if the creation of Pakistan

70. See David Ludden, “A Brief History of Subalter- 71. Aijaz Ahmad, “‘Tryst with Destiny’: Free and Di- 75. Mushirul Hasan, Legacy of a Divided Nation: In- nality,” in Reading Subaltern Studies: Critical History, vided,” in Lineages of the Present: Ideology and Pol- dia’s Muslims since Independence (London: Hurst, Contested Meaning, and the Globalization of South itics in Contemporary South Asia (London: Verso, 1997); see also Mushirul Hasan, ed., India’s Partition: Asia, ed. David Ludden (London: Anthem, 2002), 1–39. 2000), 3. Process, Strategy, and Mobilization (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993). 72.Chatterji,“MakingofaBorderline,”168. 76. Shashi Tharoor, Nehru: The Invention of India 73. Ibid. (New York: Arcade, 2003), 176. 74. Ahmad, “Tryst with Destiny,” 16. 2;adPandey, and 221; 188– 1994), Press, University Oxford (Delhi: Hardiman in Otherness,” of Prose “The Pandey, Gyanendra 78. 236. Ibid., 77. Failure Jinnah’s aie fPksa’ it.I h otx of context the In birth. nar- Pakistan’s accepted widely of of ratives view, of a point from critique, Muslim its by distinguished is research ilne n t eayo rua hnfirst- previously allowed. than had trauma, narratives “official” of generation legacy its and mass violence, partition’s more of far accounting a include comprehensive to come eventually scholar- has ship Indian mainstream that suggests work ramn ftesubject. the of revisionist treatment accessible and comprehensive History most and Nationalism, Violence, his into developed historiography, partition subcontinent’s the of 1994 1970 the of the state. the in of reaction years early and discontent ethnic of seeds planting for blame avoid cannot Party the Congress and Nehru that Both suggest Tharoor wake. and its Hasan in followed that Hindu- conflict of Muslim resurgence the and generation the next na- in dramatically Hindu itself of asserted that project tionalism “Hindutva” the oppo- of outspoken nents both are Tharoor and Hasan eae mn ot sa historians. Asian South among debates bitter extremely initiated for and accounts Demand previous the and League, Pakistan Muslim the Jinnah, Jalal’s Ayesha of publication n atclrmnrt,teMuslims).” meant the minority, always particular almost is one this by the (and of minorities self-assertion them the rein perpetuating and while control in, to instrument an as Hin- con- many dus by state seen be to Indian came Nehru by “the structed that suggests Tharoor nwegd‘ahro Pakistan.’” of ‘Father knowledged ex- the into by brought istence state the of legitimacy questions very Pakistan Jin- the of creation on the in “Revisionism role Roy, nah’s Asim to According uatr tde VIII Studies Subaltern .Pne’ TePoeo tens, a Otherness,” of Prose “The Pandey’s s. adywsoeo h onigmembers founding the of one was Pandey uatr tde VIII Studies Subaltern uatr Studies Subaltern nrdcdardcldpruefrom departure radical a introduced eebrn Partition Remembering Quaid-i-Azam d ai rodadDavid and Arnold David ed. , 2001 ru tteedo the of end the at group eebrn Partition: Remembering 78 steuieslyac- universally the as sa ihycritical highly essay . adyspowerful Pandey’s h oeSpokesman: Sole The ,perhapsthe 79 The 80 h eiins esetv, nHasan, Partition: India’s in Perspective,” of Revisionist Politics The High “The Roy, Asim 79. 0 ysaJalal, Ayesha 80. rde abig nvriyPes 1985). Press, University Cambridge bridge: tion ulmLau,adteDmn o Pakistan for Demand the and League, Muslim 77 Jalal’s 1985 Still, ,131. a,Pksa,adIlmcIett:TeSac for Search The Identity: Islamic and Pakistan, nah, bu hc te h neet fMsisso Muslims of interests poorly?” the fitted which come powerfully Pakistan about a a did on “How question: centers subversive work Jalal’s savior, role the as in cast himself Jinnah with theory, tion” na- the “two Jinnah’s for under salvation Muslims subcontinent’s represents Pakistan partition, which on in historiography nationalist prior n gi nMay in in again hand and Pakistan of out eaten’ rejected had moth Jinnah would which and it ‘mutilated but state, “the separate be Jin- his itself. get India would with nah along would up, Bengal carved and be Punjab each The religion. ba- of the on sis each of partitions would in that result inevitably province each fol- in but plebiscites created, lowing be would Pakistan bluff: nah’s India. united achieve a within could Muslims he for failed, terms he better if that, so tactic ing bargain- a as demands na- self-determination maximalist tional made had Jinnah popu- Jalal’s Hindu lations. large among lived, Muslims most the where provinces over Bengali control and Punjab in undivided sepa- result a would for Pakistan demand rate the that gambled had nah Jin- interpretation, Jalal’s In had, backfired. effect, Mountbatten in with negotiating in Jinnah’s strategy that argues Jalal correspondence, vate sa,weeJna ean eee stena- Ahmed’s the Akbar father. as founding Pak- tion’s revered in remains Jinnah ridicule where and istan, dismissal to has subject scholarship Jalal’s been that wonder population. no is Muslim it Thus subcontinent’s the of protec- tor as statehood Pakistani by of mythology “redeemed” Sikhs the or and justified be Hindus, cannot Muslims, perished of thousands hundreds of which in suffering and violence dous pawns. subconti- the been the had of nent population Muslim the in which Mountbatten, with played he brinkmanship of game high-stakes the in outmaneuvered been h oeSoemn inh the Jinnah, Spokesman: Sole The u onbte nesnecle Jin- called essence in Mountbatten But pri- and papers official Jinnah’s Reviewing nJllshr-itn con,tehorren- the account, hard-hitting Jalal’s In 81 ni’ Parti- India’s 1946 (Cam- .” 82 o aa,Jna had Jinnah Jalal, For 82.Ibid.,246. 4. Ibid., 81. 1997 1944 Jin-

Jonathan D. Greenberg 103

Generations of Memory 104 Saladin reviews Pakistani historiography on Jin- the war: “Above all, let me reiterate, the refugee nah, and the birth of Pakistan, emphasizing the problem was caused by attacks by Jewish forces persistence of Jinnah hagiography in the face on Arab villages and towns and by the inhabi- of criticism by Jalal, Tariq Ali, and others while tants’ fear of such attacks, compounded by ex- providing its own revisionist reading of official pulsions, atrocities, and rumors of atrocities— history.83 Yunas Samad, in a 1999 essay “Re- and by the crucial Israeli cabinet decision in flections on Partition: Pakistan Perspective,” June 1948 to bar a refugee return.”88 highlights the failure of Jinnah’s “integrative Morris soon became identified with an revolution” as resurgent primordial identifica- emerging, increasingly prominent group of Comparative tions—religious, linguistic, and ethnic—under- like-minded “hinge generation” colleagues in- mined the hegemony of Pakistan’s nationalist cluding Boas Evron, Baruch Kimmerling, Ilan Studies of ideology. In particular, Bengali, Balochi, Sindhi, Pappe, Gabi Piterberg, Tom Segev, Avi Shlaim, Pashto, and Sirakai linguistic communities fos- and Ze’ev Sternhell. This group became well South Asia, tered a “counter-hegemonic discourse” of iden- known in Israeli academic and public discussion Africa and the tity politics by groups “previously aligned with as self-identified “New Historians,” a loosely Pakistani nationalism.”84 affiliated group of scholars for whom previous Middle East historical narratives were so closely linked to Israel’s “New Historians” Zionist ideological imperatives that they did not In recent years Israeli society has witnessed an represent objective historical scholarship. “explosion of memory” about the causes and ef- Morris, and a number of the revisionist fects of the 1948 war.85 More than ever before, historians with whom he has associated, iden- Israeli colleges and universities offer history, so- tify themselves as self-critical agents within the ciology, and political science courses on related Labor Zionist tradition. After all, Ben-Gurion’s issues in historical interpretation and collective Histadrut was itself a movement of the social- memory.86 Of greatest controversy in Israeli re- ist Left, and indeed a revolutionary movement visionist historiography is the subject that had in the context of traditional Eastern European been least discussed in prior official narratives communities from which it came. For these of Israel’s “War of Independence”: the mass dis- scholars, Zionism represents a national libera- placement of Arab Palestinians. tion movement with a moral legitimacy at least The opening salvo in what soon became equal to the national liberation movement of a ferocious battle within Israeli academia and the displaced Palestinian Arab people. In recent society was fired by Benny Morris in the 1987 years, Morris has been the subject of intense publication of The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee criticism from both the Right (for his persistent Problem, 1947–1949.87 After extensive research attention to atrocities and expulsions commit- in recently opened Israeli government and Is- ted by Haganah and Jewish paramilitary forces rael Defense Forces (IDF) archives, Morris con- during the 1948 war) and the Left (particularly cluded that the Palestinian exodus represented, for his recent statements, outside his role as a in large measure, an effort to escape attack by historian, suggesting that past ethnic cleansing Haganah and Jewish paramilitary forces during was inevitable or justified).89

83. Akbar S. Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan, and Islamic 87. Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee 89. See, for example, Benny Morris, “For the Record,” Identity: The Search for Saladin (London: Routledge, Problem, 1947–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- Guardian, 14 January 2004, www.guardian.co.uk/g2/ 1997). versity Press, 1987). It was first published in Hebrew story/0,3604,1122425,00.html. Compare Efraim Karsh, and Arabic in 1991. In 2004 Cambridge University “Benny Morris and the Reign of Error,” Middle East 84. Yunas Samad, “Reflections on Partition: Pakistan Press published a revised and substantially updated Quarterly 6 (1999), www.meforum.org/article/466, Perspective,” in Talbot and Singh, Region and Parti- version, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem and Daniel Polisar, “Making History,” Azure: Ideas tion, 375, 379–80. Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, for the Jewish Nation (Jerusalem: Shalem Center, 85. I borrow this phrase from Conrad, “Entangled 2004). Spring 5760/2000), www.shalem.org.il/azure/ Memories,” 95. 9–editor.html; with Baruch Kimmerling, “Benny 88. Benny Morris, “Revisiting the Palestinian exodus Morris’s Shocking Interview,” History News Network, 86. See Yoav Gelber, “The Status of Zionist and Israeli of 1948,” in Rogan and Shlaim, War for Palestine,38. 26 January 2004, hnn.us/articles/3166.html, and History in Israeli Universities,” in Shapira and Penslar, Joel Beinin, “No More Tears: Benny Morris and the Israeli Historical Revisionism,127. Road Back from Liberal Zionism,” Middle East Report 230 (spring 2004), www.merip.org/mer/mer230/ 230 beinin.html. odn ae 00;seas oa aoy “The Hazony, Zionism?” Yoram of also End see 2000); Case, London: 90.See,forexample,EfraimKarsh, o sflitouto ocneprr debates contemporary to introduction useful a For utwi ooti cest relevant historians to access Arab obtain and to wait state, must Arab any in oc- has curred government openness such official No archives. its military and open to confi- and enough democratic, dent stable, was state the because Israeli precisely Israel in possible became historiography revisionist measure, bet- large Jordan, In somewhat ter. in fared have Palestinians citizenship, Lebanon; granted or Syria Egypt in or living refugees enjoy of Palestinian not do rule Nor do and law. Gaza institutions society and civil Bank equivalent West the in ing liv- Palestinians Authority, the National of remains Palestinian what of democracy nominal notwithstanding the Unfortunately, discourse. lic pub- Israeli in participation ex- citizen and political pression support institutions that protections democratic legal rooted and deeply of text inter- the revisionist of about pretations debates Israeli of sides resur- right. the neo-Zionist of gent intellectuals from came critique) post-Zionist radical more scholars Pappe’s alone with affiliated (let revisionists Zionist at- on tacks virulent occasionally and imag- state. bitter they Israeli Meanwhile, the course, for future its “post-Zionist” run a ined effect, in had, and function state-building its fulfilled had ideology Achshav movement, those Now Peace including the with Left, affiliated Israeli in- Zionist the from on also tellectuals but Zionists, Labor ment establish- and not nationalists, right-wing themselves from only disassociate publicly to began journalists and professors, scholars, generation second- many vi- Thus world. morally postcolonial a in longer able no and populations, World Third colonize to to efforts European-based effect other destructive and eth- motivation in comparable nocentric enterprise, primar- colonialist re- as a Palestine ily to in project came Zionist the Pappe) gard Ilan prominently (most al itr:Te“e Historians” “New The History: raeli tion Jrslm hlmCne,Sme 5756/1996). Summer Center, Shalem (Jerusalem: h asoae ocflplmc nall on polemics forceful passionate, The scholars revisionist the among Others ocuigta ins sanational a as Zionism that Concluding . zr:IesfrteJws Na- Jewish the for Ideas Azure: 1948 90 a ors nacon- a in flourish war arctn Is- Fabricating 19;repr., (1997; 1948 cokn 03,xx. 2003), Schocken, Laqueur, Walter 92. 1. Liberation,” National and “History Walzer, 91. Penslar, and Shapira see historiography, Israeli in Israel of Americanization the and Post-Zionism Jerusalem: Revisionism Historical raeli Shalom war NwYr:Mtooia,2001). Metropolitan, York: (New lNkasCue n Consequences and Causes Al-Nakba’s l hs ainsaei,s osek already speak, to so achieved.” is, nation-state peo- whose for ple burden a this is In itself “nationalism time.” context, different very a of the sentimentality to sentiments to appropriate the obliged with respond feel an to such to standard—or up extraordinary measure to generations burden later on “the seem recognizes to Walzer begins exaggerated.” predecessors, of and legendary founders, es- their the been of has heroism state the the tablished, once won, been libera- has “Once tion found- vision: the political generation’s of ing success the by conflict ironically, generational fueled, of context the in revi- sionism Israeli situates Walzer Michael thinker ical archives. and Lebanese Syrian, Jordanian, Egyptian, in documents aei stecuhn udno hi parents’ their their of in burden but crushing the generations, is it prior on case placed the weight by the by them burdened less no are and passion a duty. remains sacred it fled Rather, had ago. grandparents decades or parents their to occupation which camps refugee foreign impoverished under in displaced live or commu- to national a forced for nity “burden” a not is alism nation- formulation, Walzer’s to corollary sug- a To gest rebel. to which construct against institutions to state or liberation national Palestinian of triumph a achieve to failed generations” ents’ the grandpar- and of “parents’ Their Pakistanis) generation. a same and Indians in matter, (and, themselves that Israelis for find from position thus different time, radically the at dren after born Palestinians ns generations.” grandpar-ents’ and parents’ their against as rebellion understandable a psychologically . . . Israel) of also frequently (and Zionism of finds rejection “their Laqueur Walter revisionists, post-Zionist itr fZionism of History A nti otx,telbrlAeia polit- American liberal the context, this In aetnasi h eeain after generations the in Palestinians ;andTomSegev, 91 eetn ncneprr Israeli contemporary on Reflecting 92 NwYork: (New li in Elvis 1948 Is- rwowr chil- were who or , 1948

Jonathan D. Greenberg 105

Generations of Memory 106 and grandparents’ failure. Unable to throw off gle for the “right of return” suggests risks that the Nakba’s burden, they rebelled first against Palestinian public intellectuals with strong ties Israel. But this ongoing resistance struggle to refugee communities presumably cannot af- has also reflected intergenerational struggles ford to permit. But important “hinge genera- within Palestinian communities. In the initial tion” Palestinian scholars have produced revi- years after 1948, this was expressed as an in- sionist interpretations of 1948, notwithstanding terfamilial rebellion against the older genera- this extraordinarily difficult political context.96 tion’s weakness and the manifold betrayals of Representative examples of revisionist their leadership. scholarship have appeared in several impor- Comparative According to Rashid Khalidi, Rosemary tant publications. These include journals pub- Sayigh’s ethnographic research among Pales- lished by the Beirut-based Institute of Palestine Studies of tinians displaced by the Nakba describes “how Studies (IPS): the Journal of Palestine Studies, the deference to age which is a normal fea- published quarterly since 1971 by IPS and the South Asia, ture of traditional Arab society dissolved in the University of California, and currently edited Africa and the refugee camps in Lebanon in the wake of the by Rashid Khalidi; and the Jerusalem Quarterly 1948 war, as the younger generation saw their File, published by the IPS-affiliated Institute for Middle East elders as ineffective, and held them respon- Jerusalem Studies since 1988, and edited by sible for the disasters that had befallen the Salim Tamari.97 They also include the Palestine- Palestinians.”93 Khalidi concludes: “The process Israel Journal of Politics, Economics, and Culture Sayigh describes in the camps in Lebanon was (founded in 1993, in the hopeful moment at work within Palestinian society at large.”94 A following the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian parallel can be drawn between this initial gen- Oslo agreement, and published quarterly ever erational rebellion, in the first decades after Is- since).98 In addition, among a number of re- raeli statehood and Palestinian dispersal, and cently published books relevant to this discus- a second generational rebellion, motivated by sion, The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History similar rage, following what Palestinians expe- of 1948, a volume of essays edited by Eugene L. rienced as the “second conquest” of the 1967 Rogan and Avi Shlaim and published by Cam- war.95 bridge University Press in 2001, merits special In a context in which al-Nakba has been attention.99 Each publication includes essays by unending, one would not expect that a self- second-generation Palestinian scholars, well re- critical Palestinian revisionist historiography spected and highly recognized within the Pales- would emerge. Historical revisionism that could tinian academy and intelligentsia, offering in- be used to weaken the sustained political strug- terpretations of 1948 events, and analyses of

93. Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, 261n11, citing Rose- 97. See www.palestine-studies.org/final/en/index objective of Palestinian scholarship and historiogra- mary Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolu- .html; www.palestine-studies.org/final/en/journals/ phy should be to “promote dialogue” between the tionaries (London: Zed, 1979), 168–79. jour item.php?id=1. IPS also publishes additional, opposing national communities; and that it is accept- equally noteworthy journals of Palestinian studies able, and meaningful, to talk about “Palestine-Israel” 94. Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, 261n11. and historiography in Arabic (Majallat al-Dirasat (suggesting a connection and link between the peo- 95. Tamari, “Narratives of Exile,” 102. al-Filastiniyah)andFrench(Revue d’etudes´ pales- ple of each nation, and a conception of a Palestine- tiniennes). Israel as a single “joint venture” or, in the dominant 96. Much of this work comes from Western- interpretation within the journal’s pages, as a shar- assimilated academics, including faculty in presti- 98. Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics, ing of land originally under the British Mandate: an gious U.S. universities, and research affiliated with and Culture, www.pij.org/index.php. The journal independent, democratic Arab Palestinian state coex- the Institute for Palestine Studies (based in Beirut, describes itself as “the only independent, non-profit isting, side by side, with the Israeli Jewish state). Paris, and Washington). But Palestinian historiogra- quarterly publication co-published and produced by phy, at least to some extent challenging received nar- Israelis and Palestinians, as an explicitly joint venture 99. Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim, The War for ratives of the Nakba and its meaning, also has been promoting dialogue.” Of course, to the extent that Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (Cambridge: authored by second- and third-generation Palestinian Palestinian scholars participate in a “co-publication” Cambridge University Press, 2001). The publication of scholars based in the West Bank (including Birzeit and “joint venture” with Israeli counterparts, they are this volume represents an effort by a second gen- University, Bethlehem University, and the Institute from the outset making a number of assumptions eration of mature Israeli and Palestinian to present for Jerusalem Studies in Ramallah) and Israel itself that implicitly criticize, if not reject, the absolutist a collaborative re-visioning of the history of Pales- (including the Haifa-based Arab Center for Applied narratives and “frozen slides” of the previous tine’s partition from multiple national perspectives— Social Research, and Hebrew University). generation: that Israelis “exist” as “Israelis”; that an enterprise that could not have been imagined in Palestinians and Israelis can participate in collabora- earlier decades. tive intellectual discourse; that at least one explicit fotta ol o aeeitdi h immediate the the in following existed decades have not could that collaborative effort a in colleagues, Palestinian side with side published by is work whose scholars, Israeli sionist 100.Thesameistrueforthesecond-generationrevi- 94:7.I hsatce(rte nahpflmoment, hopeful a in (written article this In 74. 1994): Re- Approach,” of Realistic Right A Palestinian turn: “The Abu-Zayyad, Ziad 101. society). Palestinian in changes also prior events reflect those turn, in in (although, strategy, 1988 solution” November “two-state a of- of Council’s adoption National ficial Palestinian the and Algiers speech in independence” both of chairman “declaration PLO least, Arafat’s by at motion Yasir in extent, put were some changes To of sets state. Israeli the of aetna eiltv oni)cls“ realis- approach.” “a tic calls Council) Legislative Palestinian Journal Israel (the memory Abu-Zayyad its Ziad what that but justice evokes, and right is- moral the of on the sues compromise for a or represent nation, to Palestinian continues it calamity the about the thinking Palestinian in transformation a ino rbPlsiea such; as Palestine Arab of tion destruc- the and of centers, cleansing population Palestinian ethnic and dislocation to ac- led tions and ideologies, strategies, decisions, how Israeli deter- understand requires and document It to effort catastrophe. fac- mined to the led of that accounting tors honest hardheaded, a omte,a ela h edr fArab of leaders (in- period the Mandate the as throughout Palestine well Higher as Arab the Committee, criticizes severely that the causes of history a presents Khalidi Rashid 1948 Palestine for ography. histori- revisionist Pakistani and Indian, Israeli, second-generation with consistent is, that approaches lies; and betrayals their and leadership, Arab Palestinian of weak- failures mistakes, of and nesses assessment the investigation: critical “New own self- requires Israel’s it simultaneously, But, of Historians.” work the with consistent rvosgnrto n mlctyatc prior understandings. attack implicitly and generation previous the of historiography Palestinian in found been have not could that relations, Palestinian-Israeli fPltc,Eoois n Culture and Economics, Politics, of Nakba h neligCue fFailure”), of Causes Underlying The : hssiti hnigaotIre reflects Israel about thinking in shift This stetteo i hpe in chapter his of title the As ntalseigo eonto of recognition of lessening a —not sceio n ebro the of member a and coeditor ’s ugss(TePlsiin and Palestinians (“The suggests 101 Nakba 100 uha prahincludes approach an Such aetn-salJournal Palestine-Israel n h establishment the and ,no.2(spring 102 nti tis it this in Palestine- h War The Nakba eues rasmoi ubro hm rthrough or them, of of number number symbolic acceptable a the mutually or through refugees, a either of satisfied return be ta- actual negotiating can but the claim to Return, This it of ble. bring Right to the prepared are to they claim their to are they other entitled that In believe return. to literal continue Palestinians a words, as necessarily not and dig- return and nity, independence their national view of to acquisition the them as of endur- many still forced are have suf- and ing, the endured have and they 1948, which since fering lived have Pales- refugees the tinian which under initial circumstances “The the eration: of intellectual Palestinian by presented, a alone could let imagined, that been have refugees scarcely Palestinian funda- the of to problem ac- approach mental Oslo an the suggests Zayyad of cords), signing the following immediately ’s h ttr n rdblt ftePalestinian the of credibility leadership.” and stature “weakened the that institutions” representative of t rtcs fteAa ainls eso of version nationalist Arab the the of criticism its of sequences h aetnasfrayrsosblt o their fate.” for own responsibility any for absolves Palestinians conveniently the foes their of nature insuper- the able with starts that history of generation: version “A first the of accounts nationalist the iia ate ieteItqa,adindepen- religious and organizations”). and union, Istiqlal, scouting, grass-roots the po- dent like national of parties growth al-Husayni, litical the Amin stifle Hajj helped Mufti, “who Grand the al- and Nashashibi; Fakhri Bey Raghib al-’Alami, Husayn Musa Khalidi, al-Husayni, Jamal cluding h et u needn iddpol too people minded independent but left, the on mostly from dissenters, against force campaign wasteful imponderably by minded, “bloody extracted the midst”; be our to had com- munities ‘alien’ designated other and these decree- that ing officially enthusiasm “xenophobic ones”; Jewish the the exclusively not pre- but eminently communities, of persecution the armies; “wholescale and arsenals of develop- building the social to ment and education from economic resources limited extremely Arab shift that to used Israel” states by caused emergency of state “perpetual the democracy”; economic polit- and social, ical, in diminution an opposite brought and idea equal military the which in in advance world” “every Arab the in almost exception society without every overtook [that] tarization Nakba dadW adscnrbto “h Con- (“The contribution Said’s W. Edward 105 nisimdaewk:“ atmili- vast “A wake: immediate its in 104 1948 sarsl,h xlctyrejects explicitly he result, a As 103 Nakba )i vnmr ctigin scathing more even is ”) hld ere telack “the decries Khalidi gen- 0.Ii. 29–31. Ibid., 105. 29. Ibid., 104. Shlaim, and Rogan in Failure,” The of 1948: Causes and Underlying Palestinians “The Khalidi, Rashid 103. 2001). Pluto, (London: in Question,” Historical Refugee Palestinian “The the Masalha, of Roots Nur example, for See, 102. changed. have issue core this on know views not Zayyad’s do if I communities, both in bloodshed the after great later, to years Ten ne- settlement (77). conflict” the comprehensive Palestinian-Israeli through a upon on agreed gotiations option other any of implementation the through even or compensation, a o Palestine for War Return of Right The Refugees: tinian ,31. d aerAruri Naseer ed. , 107 Pales- Jonathan D. Greenberg

Generations of Memory 108 whose vocation as critics and skilled men and occupied West Bank and Israel itself. Among women was brutally exterminated in prisons, by these scholars are those, such as the Birzeit Uni- fatal torture and summary executions.”106 versity sociologist Salim Tamari, who chose to Said’s critique of the “Arab security state,” return to the West Bank following graduate ed- “a nasty or sorry thing in its aggregate, repres- ucation abroad. sive, and monopolistic in its notions of state The Institute for Jerusalem Studies, di- power, coercive when it comes to issues of rected by Tamari, provides a useful exam- collective well being,”107 is extended to Yasir ple. Founded in 1994 in East Jerusalem and Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, “a corrupt, inef- subsequently relocated to Ramallah, it sup- Comparative ficient and stupid dictatorship, which cannot ports a wide range of research activities, pub- even deliver the essential services for daily civil lications, and conferences reexamining Pales- Studies of life.”108 tinian and Israeli narratives of 1948 and its “As one looks back at these things in the legacy. Its Jerusalem Quarterly File regularly pub- South Asia, context of 1948,” Said concludes, “it is the lishes critical research on these themes by Africa and the immense panorama of waste and cruelty that East Jerusalem– and West Bank–based scholars stands out as the immediate result of the war such as Musa Budeiri, Rema Hammami, Muna Middle East itself,” along with “a scandalously poor treat- Hamzeh-Muhaisen, Issam Nassar, Haleem Abu ment of the refugees themselves” in which hun- Shamseyeh, as well as Tamari himself.111 dreds of thousands “have remained in hideous In a 2003 issue of Comparative Studies of quarantine for almost two generations.”109 As a South Asia, Africa and the Middle East address- result, “the modern history of the struggle for ing new directions in Palestinian historiogra- Palestinian self-determination can be regarded phy, Tamari suggests that “this critical approach as an attempt to set right the distortions in life by several post-Nakba generation intellectuals and language inscribed so traumatically as a aims at a deconstruction of the nostalgic dis- consequence of 1948.”110 course of ante-bellum Palestinian history, and To some extent, Khalidi’s and Said’s crit- focus[es] on countervailing tendencies that are ical historiography reflects a particular and ar- inherent in a new reading of that past.” Criti- guably unrepresentative “hinge generation” ex- cizing the Nakba generation’s “bourgeois nos- perience of Palestinian intellectuals in elite talgia” for a pre-1948 “paradise lost” (a roman- American universities: a politics of exile in- ticized Jaffa and pastoral Palestine that never fused with powerful insight, alienation, and bit- existed as such), Tamari and colleagues con- terness; promoted by international scholarly struct a “de-mystified” narrative of Palestine’s renown; burdened by political marginality in partition that more accurately, and powerfully, the camps and cities of the Palestinian Middle identifies the root causes and consequences of East. But it would be wrong to discount Pales- the Palestinian disaster.112 tinian revisionism as a phenomenon limited to second-generation academics living in exile. Conclusion: Generations of Memory On the contrary, one finds important revision- This is a story of memory’s generation, ist scholarship by Palestinian historians and so- and its regeneration and transformation over cial scientists living and teaching in the Israeli- time, following cataclysmic historical events

106. Edward W. Said, “Afterword: The Consequences 110. Ibid., 214. Said praises “the emergence of new and Arab nationalism generally. Like the Zionist of 1948,” in Rogan and Shlaim, War for Palestine, 208. critical voices, here and there, in the Israeli and conception of the new revitalized Israeli Jew, Arab Arab worlds (including diasporas),” including “the Is- nationalist states promoted ideas of “revival, the 107. Ibid., 216. raeli ‘new historians,’ their Arab counterparts and, new Arab individual, the emergence and birth of 108. Edward W. Said, “Introduction: The Right of Re- among many of the younger area studies special- the new polity, etc.”; “even in the emphasis on Arab turn at Last,” in Aruri, Palestinian Refugees,1,5. ists in the West, those whose work is openly re- unity in Nasserism one feels that a core of human visionist and politically engaged” (217). Referring to individualism and agency is missing” (216). 109. Said, “Afterword,” 209. the Israeli historian Ze’ev Sternhell’s critique of the 111. See www.palestine-studies.org/final/en/jour- formative nationalist “pioneering ideology” of Ben- nals/jour item.php?id=4. Gurion’s Israeli state, Said attacks “the mirror im- age of Zionist corporatism” in Baathism, Nasserism, 112. Salim Tamari, “Bourgeois Nostalgia and the Abandoned City,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 23 (2003): 173, 178. s, nSaiaadPenslar, and Shapira in in Revision- ism,” Historical cited of 306, Strategies “The 1931), Shapira, Aviv, (From Anita (Tel le-am Peoplehood)” to “Mi-Maamad Class Ben-Gurion, David 113. eelosdrce gis hthdbeen societies. own their had elements within reactionary or what backward as time, against perceived same the directed at rebellions and, perceived repression been colonial resistance had as led what Arafat) against Yasir movements later, even, Jinnah (and Muhammad and Nehru Jawaharlal way, trlt fdcaaieZionism.” declarative of sterility the and socialism, Jewish of the nullity in the existence Diaspora, of wretchedness pio- Jewish the the of life, of of revolt way misery the the against of youth fruit neering its the “In was past. movement “our declared, the Ben-Gurion against David beginnings,” rebellion change on social of based ideas second and promoted first generations the both past, nation’s each meaning of and memory the over divide erational events. formative partition’s of memory collective each and historiography into nation’s integrated and identi- nationalist- acknowledged, past—became fied, the in of distorted accounts or infused buried that suffering been and had trauma of experiences and n oa alrso the of failures moral political and The dedicated. been which had to ostensibly he principles and betrayed values proclaimed had the father” “founding identi- each and the how heroes fied of national corruption generation’s first and weakness, hypocrisy, the case, exposed each historiography In generation” “hinge wanting. scruti- found and were afresh revolution,” nized “integrative and they iden- tity national people’s ideologies a with identify to and sought institutions controlled postcolonial era. immediate their of national- imperatives with ist accordance in intellectuals leaders and first-generation by orig- been promulgated had inally that narratives fundamental reinterpretations of critical In- find way. we and own societies Pakistani, dian its Israeli, Palestinian, in in story tell Thus national to struggled formative has this tri- generation and Each dislocation, umph. rupture, as experienced sionism ,73,76. rncly owtsadn h itrgen- bitter the notwithstanding Ironically, nec ae ainllaes n party- and leaders, national case, each In sal itrclRevi- Historical Israeli 1947 – 48 113 leadership— nasimilar a In omdo h ai fthe of states basis new the of on formed study Comparative ide- goals. generation’s founding alized the that of short society far falls postrevolutionary a moment into revolutionary dissolves the point some at tion, consolida- witnessed national have of that achievements Israel impressive and in India Even like New “after.” cases an the have in revolutions Nationalism all States,” of Fate The olution: empha- follow-up a Geertz in as sized But, In- Revolution.” “The in tegrative powerfully so identified had Geertz achieved) be to soon (or state. new people’s his of military and institutions governing the over con- trol hegemonic with party vanguard a of in consolidation power the required rev- goals of olutionary achievement the leaders well), as these Arafat for of (and each national For people’s self-determination. their for struggle necessary resistance inevitable, an represented partition Ben-Gurion, and Jinnah For peo- life. collective the pro- ple’s of expense and the conflict at individualism class moted fueled that property ideologies private entrenched and economic organization of models capitalist against rebelled Nehru old Ben-Gurion, Like the and nationalism. of communalism religious people ethnic of his “poison” rid familiar to the and of system oppressions caste the against rebellion spire ogrhv hi oe obigsceyalong society bring to power their have longer no organizations and The ideologies goals. nationalist old patriotic be for longer repressed no successfully can estab- consolidation nation’s and the lishment of components The traumatic corrosive. and liberating, stifling become socially largely have and unifying their politically to be to constructed originally inspiring forms generation, and age, parent’s useful of nationalism come of generation” “hinge the gener- ation. one only across process this of the unfolding highlights East Middle the and Asia South in hswstehsoia oetClifford moment historical the was This in- to sought Nehru Gandhi, Following nec otx,we h hlrnof children the when context, each In 1971 sa,“fe h Rev- the “After essay, 1947 – 48 partitions

Jonathan D. Greenberg 109

Generations of Memory 110 on the good march toward progress and devel- and educators in both India and Pakistan, for opment. Instead, there is a feeling of great dis- example, have recently documented and pub- appointment and betrayal. In turn, this feeling licly condemned the communalism and eth- fuels a second rebellion: a need to question, if nic sectarianism that have come to permeate not smash, the “frozen slides” the second gener- state-sponsored primary and secondary school ation had inherited as sacred images and myths, textbooks in each nation.115 Thus battles over and to disinter its parents’ buried memories of national historiography continue to fuel un- partition’s terrible, and still unresolved, pain. resolved “memory wars” in each divided so- The work of revisionist historians largely ciety. Meanwhile, for 1.3 million Palestinians Comparative represents the rebellion of an educated, urban, in fifty-nine UNWRA refugee camps in Gaza, academic elite. It is not clear, in each respective the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, Studies of case, how deeply its reformulated narratives res- and for stateless and exiled Palestinians gener- onate, if at all, among those social groups strug- ally, the Nakba never ends.116 As Said reflects South Asia, gling with partition’s harshest legacies: in com- on the continuity of trauma, and its transmis- Africa and the munities that remain displaced and dislocated, sion from generation to generation albeit in impoverished and angry; among militants in on- new forms, “a vast collective feeling of injus- Middle East going battles over still-contested territory; or in tice continues to hang over our lives with undi- the temples, mosques, and synagogues of re- minished weight.”117 This feeling is shared by juvenated faith. Simultaneous with the rise of Kashmiri Hindus still languishing in makeshift critical historiography from Left-nationalist and refugee camps in Jammu; by Muslims in Kash- postnationalist scholars of the secular intelli- mir, Balochistan, Bahawalpur, and the North- gentsia, the primordial sentiments and uncivil West Frontier Province; by Israeli Jews facing politics the founding leaders originally sought Palestinian suicide bombers—by each commu- to contain have reemerged, no longer success- nity still suffering from partition’s unhealed fully repressed by an increasingly postrevolu- wounds. tionary state. Here we find a parallel “hinge genera- tion” religious counterrevolution. Also fueled by feelings of bitter betrayal, this rebellion at- tacks the founding generation’s vision of sec- ular modernity imposed on society, including religious nationalist elements, through the en- gines and instruments of state power.114 In response, secular intellectuals and activists in each nation have struggled to diminish the ris- ing power of religious fundamentalism and re- lated militant organizations. Liberal scholars

114. In the Palestinian case, the theme of intergener- orthodoxy, fundamentalism, and nationalism in Is- 115.A.H.NayyarandAhmadSalim,eds.,The Subtle ational rebellion infuses the leadership and politics raeli society, including the rise of the Mizrahi reli- Subversion: The State of Curricula and Textbooks in of the 1987–93 intifada, as well as the still-unfolding gious party Shas, the messianic Gush Emunim (the Pakistan (Urdu, English, Social Studies, and Civics) (Is- “second intifada” that began after Ariel Sharon’s visit Bloc of the Faithful), and the religious-Zionist settler lamabad: Sustainable Development Policy Institute, to the Haram al-Sharif in September 2000. This re- movement during the same period. In the Palestinian 2002–3), www.sdpi.org/what%27s new/reporton/ bellion is intensified by a rise in support for Hamas, and Israeli cases, these religious revivalist/nationalist State%20of%20Curr&TextBooks.pdf; Delhi Histori- Islamic Jihad, and other Islamist groups, represent- movements expressed pent-up resentment against ans Group, Communalisation of Education, 2001, ing perhaps the most potent and explosive form of perceived discrimination against religious communi- cyber bangla0.tripod.com/Delhi Historian.html; B. generational rebellion in Palestinian society: rebel- ties by dominant nationalist “partition generation” G. Verghese, “Myth and Hate as History,” Hindu,23 lion against the secular socialist framework of na- ideologies and institutions of each society. Similar June 2004, www.hindu.com/2004/06/23/stories/ tional liberation, as defined by Arafat’s PLO, in fa- processes can be identified in the rise of the Hindutva 2004062301721000.htm. vor of more militant forms of Muslim identity, jihad movement, resurgence of the RSS and Bharatiya 116. See www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/wheredo (Islamic struggle, or holy war), and shahadat (mar- Janata Party in India, as well as the religious nation- .html. tyrdom). Ironically, the powerful renaissance of re- alism of the Muhajir Qaumi movement, the Islamiza- ligious nationalism within Palestinian society mir- tion campaigns of Zia ul-Haq, and the proliferation of 117. Said, “Afterword,” 207; and Said, “Right of Return rors the dramatically increased convergence of Jewish Kashmir jihadi groups in Pakistan. at Last,” 1.