When Donald Trump emerged victorious in the presidential race, I remember a US-based green card-holding relative saying then that her school-going daughter was scared that they would be evicted from the country. I fear a similar reaction from the young ones at my home whenever the ‘insider-outsider’ debate gets sparked in the city, as it did last week, when the most recent state-wide bandh was observed. As it is, I had a tough time answering the question, ‘So what do we tell people when they ask us where we belong to’, the last time it was put to me. Unless perhaps it’s them doing the answering, teenagers for sure don’t get satisfied with foggy responses. Not even for questions that don’t have easy answers.
It is no longer of any use, telling them they should be good humans, or that they are Indians, first. I tried giving a specific answer: “Tell your friends that your mother and father are from different states.” That elicited an eye-roll. I tried an even more specific answer: “Just tell them you were born in Noida.” I got an even longer eye-roll in response, followed by, “But we don’t belong to Noida. Or to Delhi, Bhopal, Meerut, Nainital or Bengaluru.” I sighed audibly. And was met with another eye-roll.
Time to change tactics, I decided. “Why do you think the migrant issue is a hot topic all over the world? It’s a subject that strikes a chord somewhere in most of us,” I began, narrating how even I, as the child of a central government officer transferred all over the country, barely got to live in my native place, and wasn’t eligible for a domicile certificate of the state. And that Delhi,where I have spent over two decades of my life, is a cauldron of people from all over India. “While most of them would be calling themselves Delhiites, only a minuscule percentage of them can actually claim to be belonging to Delhi,” I went on.
Thankfully, instead of an eye-roll, I got a confused look this time. Encouraged, I continued about how it is difficult to answer where one’s roots lie, and how far back in time does one go to trace them. It’s a complicated subject, and can lead to even complex theories, as Rakhigarhi has shown. I have, for one, never once visited any of the ancestral towns my grandparents hailed from. “So even though I have a so-called native place, it’s not strictly true,” I said, going on about why NRIs are said to be leading a hyphenated existence.
“It’s not without reason that many people of Indian origin in Girmitiya countries (okay, the short history lesson that followed threatened to evoke bored expressions, but a quick mention of Nicki Minaj did the trick) aren’t able to give up their ethnic identity despite living in countries like Guyana and Jamaica for generations,” I said, bringing in for good effect the migrant perplexity that helped shape works of acclaimed writers and artistes like V S Naipaul and Gurinder Chadha.
So far, so good. Then I made the mistake of bringing in the CAA issue. They swiftly came back to the present. And said, “But you still haven’t answered where we belong to.” Time for another eye-roll. From me.
Pallavi Srivastava
Senior Asst Editor
spallavi@newindianexpress.com