Partition hangs heavy over our collective psyches in myriad ways and yet,for the lay reader,there are few resources to try and make sense of this event,especially in the world of non-fiction. To this sparse body comes a welcome addition In Freedoms Shade,Anis Kidwais account of her time as an activist in a newly independent India grappling with the idea of being a nation. Propelled by the murder of her husband,Kidwai turned to Mahatma Gandhi who suggested that she involve herself in the efforts needed to bring peace to Delhi. Gandhis words,revered as the Mahatmas,were sacrosanct for Kidwai,but she also brought to the task her own politics and desire to be engaged in the larger world outside the home. Anis Kidwais candid and detailed account of post-Partition violence in Delhi reveals the tensions as structures were put in place to hold an idea of India. Already there was a rupture within her idea of an independent India. She writes of the August 15 celebrations in Government House: On that day,India took its first steps into the past. Foreheads were being anointed with tilaks? Why were Brahmins from Banaras being summoned? Why were there frenetic searches for karis to enunciate the Quran? Why were those long beards being carefully groomed? What could Buddhist bhikshus possibly have to do in Government House? As the question of Hindu-Muslim relations overwhelmed the project of nation-building,religion was never really separated from the state. This was problematic for Kidwai and she struggled with what she was hearing and seeing around her,including Sardar Patels speech in which he said,Let the Muslims who are here,remain here. Why do you bother to kill them? The heat from the ground will eventually become unbearable and they will choose to leave on their own accord. It is in this context that she chooses to work on the ground,to bring order to the Humayuns Tomb and Purana Qila camps,to rescue and rehabilitate abducted women,to undo forced conversions,to try and resettle those who were internally displaced and wanted to return to their homes rather than go to Pakistan and to maintain peace via the Shanti Dal. This was a landscape rich with stories and Kidwai serves well the role of an eyewitness,preserving a narrative of those times. She is an active participant in most of those stories and her role is invariably one of trying to find a way to enable the idea of an India in which all people can live together in harmony. But her eye does not miss stories that bring to this narrative other layers. Like the qawwal who follows her around incessantly,waiting to burst into song,because he could not bear to be surrounded by the tearful countenances,tear-filled tales,the weeping and wailing. Or the uncle-nephew duo who fall in love with the idea of marrying a pair of burkha-clad,seemingly unattached women. But the women seem uncharacteristically disinterested in marriage and run away from the camp,despite ardent wooing. Kidwai later discovered that the pair were prostitutes using the burkha as a disguise. Translated from Urdu by Kidwais granddaughter,Ayesha Kidwai,the book has a valuable addition in the form of a biographical essay that sets out for us the position of relative privilege that she came from and the political ideas that she imbibed. Today,this may be seen as an elite secular liberal perspective on the narrative of nation-building. But Kidwais account is significant,not just because there are so few accounts like this,but also because she is striving for autonomy in her voice autonomy from her familys political legacy and autonomy from Congress politics that had already become muddied.
