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Growing up, Gunita Singh Bala heard her grandmother describe how she crossed over from Pakistan to newly independent India in 1947 with her young children, witnessing scenes of horrific carnage and violence that haunted her for the rest of her life.
Those stories weren’t in Singh Bhalla’s school textbooks, so she decided to create an online history — the 1947 Partition Archive, about 10,500 oral stories, the largest collection of class memories in South Asia.
“I didn’t want my grandfather’s story to be forgotten or other people’s stories to be forgotten,” said Singh Bala, who moved to the United States from India when she was 10 years old.
“For all its faults, Facebook is an incredibly powerful tool: the archive was built by people finding us on Facebook and sharing our posts, which brought more awareness,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
At the end of British rule, the partition of colonial India into two states, Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan, led to the largest mass migration in history.
About 15 million Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs have switched countries in the political unrest that has resulted in violence and bloodshed that has claimed nearly two million lives.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since then, and their relationship remains strained. Each other’s citizens rarely issue visas, making visits impossible – but social media has helped people on both sides of the border connect.
There are dozens of groups on Facebook and Instagram, as well as YouTube channels that tell the stories of partition survivors and their occasional visit to the ancestral home, garnering millions of shares and views and emotional comments.
Ayesha Jalal, a professor of South Asian history at Tufts University in the United States, said: “Initiatives like this, which help to document the experiences of partition, serve as a defense against the political narratives that accuse the two states.”
“They open the way to ease the tension between the two sides and to have a much-needed people-to-people dialogue.”
virtual reality
As the number of people displaced from their homes increases around the world, the technology can help document human rights abuses by remotely monitoring abandoned homes; Digital archives also preserve cultural heritage.
Project Dastan – which means story in Urdu – uses virtual reality (VR) to record accounts of class survivors and enable them to revisit their birthplaces.
“VR is not like film – there is a level of immersion and empathy that creates empathy and has a powerful impact,” says founder Sparsh Ahuja, whose grandfather emigrated to India as a seven-year-old during the Partition.
“People really feel like they’ve been transported to the place.”
Using volunteers in India and Pakistan to find and film locations – often dramatically changed over the decades – Project Dastan aimed to reunite 75 Partition survivors with their ancestral homes on this year’s 75th anniversary.
But the bans of the epidemic in 2018 After starting filming in 2019, they will complete only 30 interviews, Ahuja said.
“When visa policies became more friendly, people could go and see places and people in person,” he said. “Now these interactions wouldn’t happen without technology, and VR has brought a whole new audience to the classroom experience.”
Among the most popular YouTube channels on the segment, Punjabi Le Har – or Punjabi Wave – has nearly 600,000 subscribers.
Founder Lovely Singh, 30, who is part of Pakistan’s minority Sikh community, estimates the channel has helped 200 to 300 individuals connect with family and friends.
Earlier this year, Punjabi Le Har’s video of an emotional reunion between two elderly brothers who were separated during a rift went viral.
“If we can connect more people, maybe the tension between the two countries will decrease,” he said.
“This is how my kids learn about division.”
Stress in the digital world
According to research firms Global Media Insight and Statista, India and Pakistan are among the largest social media markets in the world with more than 500 million YouTube and nearly 300 million Facebook users.
History professor Jalal added a note of caution about the scope of social media projects, pointing out that these online spaces can harbor misinformation.
“While very important, these initiatives around the division should not be seen as a substitute for historical understanding of the reasons for division,” she said.
Political tensions between India and Pakistan frequently surface on social media.
When an Indian state celebrated Pakistan’s victory over India on social media last year at a cricket match, they could be charged with sedition, which carries a penalty of up to life in prison.
Indians – especially Muslims – who criticize the government online are often told to “go to Pakistan”.
But for 90-year-old Reena Varma, social media has done more than create a virtual connection — it has allowed her to visit her former home in Rawalpindi, 75 years after she left.
When his Pakistani visa application was rejected earlier this year, the news spread on Facebook. Pakistani authorities intervened to grant a visa to Varma, who fled to India as a teenager weeks before partition.
When Varma visited Pakistan last month, Imran William, founder of the Indian Pakistan Heritage Facebook group, was there to welcome her.
As she danced in the street, residents beat drums and showered her with flowers, looking at her old house.
“It was very emotional but I am very happy to be able to fulfill my dream of visiting my home,” said Varma.
“People have very painful memories of the partition, but thanks to Facebook and other social media, people can meet and communicate with each other. It brings the people of both countries closer together.”
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