Does Wagah Have to be This? Or Could it be...

In my recent journey to Wagah with my wife, accompanied by busloads of tourists, pedestrians from neighboring villages, families in fancy cars, people apparently from various regions and economic groups from India. The scene on the road is rather like a mela,

impromptu stalls, chai-waals and the dust in the air, reminds me of the excitement of dushera celebrations. The scene changes, once we enter through the threshold of the metal-detector gate, the BSF fortress begins here about one kilometer before the actual border, the customs’ buildings and other facilities run parallel to the historic GT road. Now I start to get a feeling of being led into something spectacular. “We will have to hurry”, I tell my wife or we’ll loose space at the stands, and we almost run to find a spot at the back of the stands, which are designed to face the performance of the BSF. In the ‘Ritual of Madness’(Kapur. M, 2001) that follows soon, we have ‘a’ role to play and conforming to the nationalist fervor is expected, the hostility of the marcher’s moves have to be corroborated with screams at the highest pitch. ‘The Pakistanis are only a couple of hundred feet away and we have to show them how we detest them and why not, when will come another chance that they will be this close…besides they are doing it too. Let us pour our heart out tonight and show them what lies beneath our hearts’; I hide myself behind my camera, pretending to not notice the passions pouring out raw, but not for long, I start getting glances, I make a move pretending I am a press reporter, it works and I slip into that zone where I distance myself from the crowd, into a no-man’s land within me. After the retreat is over, many on the Indian side rush towards the road, only to be stopped by thick metal chain fence running across. It is only the VVIP’s that can get to the ultimate chamber, from this chain fence to the actual gate. I am crushed by the crowd behind the chain, various attempts at convincing the BSF wallas to let me pass through to take some pictures does not work. After about 15 minutes of the crowd’s persistence (more than half have already left by now) that we are allowed to walk ahead. We are directed to a side walk toward the right of the gate, the people on the other side are roaming freely, the barbed wire here is not as high and I catch glimpse of humans on the other side, smiling looking at us but no words are exchanged, you keep walking, yells the BSF walla, we walk back and then I notice an insignificant black memorial with the words etched: “ dedicated to 10 lakh Punjabis who died unsung in 1947.”
-- A personal account; see more accounts of Wagah by Amitava Kumar, Mridula Kapur.


Wagah is the gateway to a pilgrimage of sorts; it has come to be the most reverential place at the new frontier of the young nations. For the lucky and daring few, Wagah is the gateway to begin a memorable journey to the other side and for the rest of the citizens of India and Pakistan, the secure gate of the nation, where many go to reclaim their nationhood, the place has become symbolic of the ultra-nationalistic claims of both the sides, the rituals that are performed there on a regular basis are totally oblivious to the trauma of partition. Wagah, just after the partition, was an impromptu site of all kind of human exchange including informal trade, meeting ground of lost relatives, friends and strangers, but over the period of few years, it has been overlaid by a more organized and institutionalized exchange. The present portrayal denies access and exchange of more spontaneous human contact. The potential of this place is immense considering the historic popularity with citizens, tourists and locals and the chord it strikes with numerous writers, poets, artists and scholars. Why then it denies and overwrites the expectations and imaginations of people with a well-synchronized ritual of hatred? How can we go beyond this? Could we change this place into another kind of a symbol, a symbol of acceptance, reconciliation and healing?

In order to rethink the place, its layout, its rituals and the associations it evokes, we have to challenge ourselves as informed citizens and claim a stewardship of the place. Out of the many routes that people traversed during (or after) the partition of 1947, GT road was one of them and it still survives in the public imagination because of Wagah being the only open border post between India and Pakistan. We have marked this important place unevenly, the celebration of nationhood and all the imagined rituals attached with it totally over shadows the emotion of many others for whom partition still is an open wound. While we have enough reasons and avenues to show our euphoria of the independent nations, let Wagah be a meeting ground and a place of healthy exchange.

It is not surprising that there is currently a petition going around on the Internet to generate support for a peace memorial at Wagah Attari border. During my last trip to Wagah, I came across a piece of sculpture [http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/j/u/jum107/memorial.gif] on the Indian side that commemorates the deaths of ten lakh (one million) people who died on both the sides of Punjab. I wonder how many people even notice this piece of sculpture and does it do justice to the commemoration of the tragic deaths? For the few people who notice, it reads like two hands shaking that are cut-off, it fails to generate any sense of introspection or calm. The petition initiated by Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed would help to get the message across to the governments. Along with the petition, we need to understand and share our ideas about commemoration and not let the governments decide the solution, otherwise it might result in another half-hearted attempt at marking the loss of nearly a million lives.

In order to successfully approach memorializing through a place like Wagah, we need to ask and face questions like: What exactly do we want to commemorate and what are the different ways we can approach it? Can beating the retreat go simultaneously as the commemoration of dead? What other rituals could replace this or accompany it? What kind of metaphors can we provide from our shared heritage? Is Wagah really the best site to do it or is it one of many, (since its geographical proximity favors the attention to Punjab)? Could it reconcile to the fact of partition, make people question their inherent biases against the other? Could it provide for personal as well as public commemoration? Should we be thinking of a memorial that works for both the sides, or is complimentary in some way to the other side? Could a memorial assume a role that breaks away from the traditional definition and becomes a symbolic and actual space for action for example could it be a forum to share/ educate people about real issues, e.g. a site for plays, exhibitions, performances, films that are connected to partition and are not one sided in their outlook? Would other precedents around the world like the International Peace Parks, Vietnam Veterans’ War Memorial, Holocaust memorials etc. provide some language that could work with Wagah? Does it have to be representational, e.g. an image or a sculpture that or it could be metaphorical, or experiential? What role does the community play in the process of design of the memorial?

As a landscape architect, I have framed the above questions and have taken upon myself to propose some visual ideas as a follow up of this write-up. I look forward to a critical exchange on the ideas in conceptualizing partition memorial(s).